DETERMINISM AND FREEDOM CHINMOY ROY

Introduction
Determinism and freedom is the central idea of philosophy. They are very important to understand causality of events. Their relation is ambiguous in itself. Many phiosphers like the Epicureans, Stoics, and Skeptics have tried to find the relation between them and have given various theories to prove it. Compatibilists like Hobbes, Immanuel Kant and Hume have done extensive research in this topic. It is likely that all events are caused. But the words events and cause can be interpreted variously.But the interpretation has been given variously by the determinists and indeterminists. The determinist interpretation is that an event is so related to a preceding event that the occurrence of one event cannot take place without the occurrence of the preceding event or cause. The indeterminists deny that everything which happens has a cause. If determinism is true than it is believed that their is no room for human freedom. Humans are then a mere temporary means of nature to make the events occur. In this paper I will try to find the relation between the events and how they are related to the causes.

Causality
It can be defined as the relationship between cause and effect. It understates the principle that nothing can happen without being caused. In common understanding, an event or state of affairs A is a cause of an event B if A is a reason that brings about the effect B. For instance, one might say "my pushing the accelerator caused the car to go faster." In a strict reading, if A causes B, then A must always be followed by B. In this sense, sex does not cause pregnancy, nor does smoking cause cancer. In everyday usage, we therefore often take "A causes B" to mean "A causes an increase in the probability of B". It has been expressed by the widely accepted statement"correlation does not imply causation". For instance, the observation that smokers have a dramatically increased lung cancer rate does not establish that smoking must be a cause of that increased cancer rate: maybe there exists a certain genetic defect which both causes cancer and a yearning for nicotine.

A student of B. A.(Hons.) L.L.B.(Hons.) at National University of Study and Research in Law, Ranchi, India.

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According to law and jurisprudence, legal cause must be demonstrated in order to hold a defendant liable for a crime. It must be proven that causality relates the defendant's actions to the criminal event in question.

Determinism
It is the philosophical doctrine that every state of affairs, including every human event, act, and decision is the inevitable consequence of antecedent states of affairs. It is also called necessitarianism. Charles Darwin said "Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws." Albert Einstein said "Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect as well as the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper." Stephen Hawking says "The initial configuration of the universe may have been chosen by God, or it may itself have been determined by the laws of science. In either case, it would seem that everything in the universe would then be determined by evolution according to the laws of science, so it is difficult to see how we can be masters of our fate."

This is a concept that deals with one of the most fundamental questions of human nature; namely, whether or not man's behaviour, thinking, and feeling are driven by something called free will. This issue, basic to all religions and psychologies, is settled by many thoughtful people by the assumption that all of man's behaviour, thoughts and feelings, are forced by various stimuli impinging upon him. This is the assumption of determinism. Those of us who believe in 100% determinism note that the concept of free will is difficult or impossible to define meaningfully. For the most part the world agrees that all objects and events are determined except that, for some reason, the human mind is exempted. It seems to us that free will, to the extent that it means that objects and events occur without cause (determinants) is a statement or concept of chaos.1 Humans are physical and human actions are physical events. All events have their causes in prior events and the laws that govern the physical universe. Human actions are behaviours. Human behaviours are the result of their inherited genetic pattern, their chromosomes, and their basic physical drives and their prior experiences (conditioning, learned behaviours). All humans are animals and as such they have a drive for food, drink, sex, and rest. All humans have learned other behaviours from their interactions with their physical and social environments (other people). Humans have been conditioned by deliberate and accidental patterns of stimulus response reinforcements. Humans have been rewarded or punished for their behaviours. Humans repeat those behaviours they are rewarded for and avoid those behaviours they have been conditioned to associate with punishment. The conditioning may have been deliberate with hugs and kisses and food from parents for good behaviour and
1

Bibliography on Free Will and Determinism, David Chalmers, U. Arizona; available at http://consc.net/online/8.4

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frowns and scolding and denial of food or other experiences for behaviour that was not to be repeated. Teachers in school act in a similar pattern offering rewards and punishments and so they condition our behaviour as well. Siblings and friends act likewise towards us. So humans are the products of physical factors. All human actions are caused by those prior factors. Each of us knows that humans have behaviours that are predictable. The determinists believe that when they have greater knowledge of the laws of human behaviour they will be able to: 1. 2. predict exactly what a human will do under any set of circumstances manipulate a human into any behaviour.

All that would be needed would be : 1. 2. knowledge of all the laws of human behaviour knowledge of all the prior conditioning any human has had

But determinists are criticised that if things happen for no reason, no cause, no determinants, then events and people become totally unpredictable and chaos reigns. This is clearly not the case. We see no rational, scientific basis for that exception. Free will, if it has any significant meaning other than chaos, rests on the assumption that all objects and events are either good or bad. This premise leads us into a whole thicket of reward and punishment, heavens and hells, condemnation or adulation, guilt, shame, contempt, pride - a host of mean destructive attitudes and behaviours among humans. In short, belief in free will promotes man's viciousness to man.

Fatalism
It is a philosophical doctrine emphasizing the subjugation of all events or actions to fate.2 Fatalism generally refers to several of the following ideas: 1. Though the word fatalism is commonly used to refer to an attitude of resignation in the face of some future event or events which are thought to be inevitable, philosophers usually use the word to refer to the view that we are powerless to do anything other than what we actually do.Included in this is that man has no power to influence the future, or indeed, his own actions. This belief is very similar to predeterminism. 2. That actions are free, but nevertheless work toward an inevitable end. This belief is very similar to compatibilist predestination. 3. That acceptance is appropriate, rather than resistance against inevitability. This belief is very similar to defeatism.
2

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Indeterminism
It is the philosophical doctrine that says that there are some events, particularly some human actions or decisions, which have no cause. It says that behaviour is not entirely determined by motives. It does not deny the influence of behavioural patterns and certain extrinsic forces on human actions, but they insists on the reality of free choice.3 Logical philosophers describe indeterminism as simply the contrary of determinism. If a single event is undetermined, then indeterminism would be "true", they say, determinism is false, and this would undermine the very possibility of certain knowledge. The core idea of indeterminism is closely related to the idea of causality. Indeterminism for some philosophers is an event without a cause. But we can have an adequate causality without strict determinism, the "hard" determinism which implies complete predictability of events and only one possible future. An example of an event that is not strictly caused is one that depends on chance, like the flip of a coin. If the outcome is only probable, not certain, then the event can be said to have been caused by the coin flip, but the head or tails result was not predictable. So this causality, which recognizes prior events as causes, is undetermined. Indeterminism is also closely related to the ideas of uncertainty and indeterminacy. Uncertainty is best known from Werner Heisenberg's principle in quantum mechanics. It states that the exact position and momentum of an atomic particle can only be known within certain (sic) limits. The product of the position error and the momentum error is equal to a multiple of Planck's constant. Indeterminism is important for the question of free will because strict determinism implies just one possible future. Indeterminism means that the future is unpredictable. Indeterminism allows alternative futures and the question becomes how the one actual present is realized from these potential alternatives. The departure from strict causality is very slight compared to the miraculous ideas associated with the "causa sui" (self-caused cause) of the ancients. Despite David Hume's critical attack on the necessity of causes, many philosophers embrace causality strongly. Some even connect it to the very possibility of logic and reason. Even in a world that contains quantum uncertainty, macroscopic objects are determined to an extraordinary degree. Newton's laws of motion are deterministic enough to send men to the moon and back. Our neural system is robust enough to insure that mental decisions are reliably transmitted to our limbs. There is no problem imagining that the three traditional mental faculties of reason - perception, conception, and comprehension - are all carried on deterministically in a physical brain where quantum events do not interfere with normal operations.

Determinism/Indeterminism at the PhilSci Archive/University of Pittsburgh, available at http://philsciarchive.pitt.edu/view/subjects/determinism-indeterminism.html

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The Concept of Freedom

Determinist view
According to the determinists every event has a cause. Determinism does not say whether the cause is mental or physical, whether it is inorganic nature or organisms or people or God. As far as determinism is considered the cause can be anything. It is not even necessary that we know the cause of events. But determinism says that the events can be controlled if we know its cause before the occurrence of the event by human actions. But if every event is determined than the objection arises that then freedom of an individual is impossible. Everything that happens is caused by previously occurring conditions and these in turn are caused by conditions prior to them, so every event is related to causes indefinitely back in time. Therefore if every event is predetermined than how can freedom persist? Hard Determinism: Since everything (including human action) has a cause or causes that determine it to be what it is, there is no real freedom, only the illusion of freedom. People are not morally responsible for their actions (as if they could have done otherwise). Besides, we assume that training people to act in certain ways will influence (determine) future behavior.

Scientific determinism: since every event in nature has a cause or causes that account for its occurrence, and since human beings exist in nature, human acts and choices are as determined as anything else in the world. Behavior may be determined by many things (e.g., heredity, environment), but it certainly can be explained in terms of such causal factors. Objections:
o

Though deterministic behaviorism can make predictions about unreflective (un-thoughtout) responses to stimuli, it cannot predict how people will choose or act when they have had a chance to think through their decision. Furthermore, it cannot account for our ability to challenge and change the attitudes and desires that we have learned.4 Though many things we do are explainable in terms of causes, some things we do can be explained only by appealing to reasons: that is, our decisions are often intelligible only by knowing what purposes or goals we had in mind when acting. Determinism assumes that there is only one way to explain behavior (viz., causes), when in fact there is another way of explaining behavior (viz., reasons) which is just as good.

Soft Determinism (also called Compatibilism): determinism is compatible with freedom and responsibility. Also called Self-Determinism: When we ourselves are the causes of actions, our actions are free. Two versions:

Passive self-determinism: freedom means being able to do what we want. What we want (as expressed by personality or character) is determined by external events (e.g., genetics, culture, upbringing), but as long as we are able to act consistent with our choices, we are free. This position is called compatibilism or soft determinism because it acknowledges

Determinism and Freedom in the age of modern science ,By Sidney Hook.

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that all events, including human actions, have causes, but it allows for free actions when the actions are caused by one's choices rather than external forces.

Fatalist view
Whereas the doctrine of Fatalism is very similar to determinism. But it only denies that human beings have the power to change the course of events. It says that whatever is going to happen is going to happen. Fatalists mean to say that the future will be of a certain nature regardless of everything. Fatalists argued that if you are going to be killed ,you will be killed whatever precautions you take.Therefore there is no point in our trying to do anything about it. The fallacy of the fatalists is quite clear. It is a plain empirical fact that those who neglect to take precautions stand a higher chance of getting killed and those who take precautions stand a higher chance of staying alive. To live at all involves risks. Still the fatalistic conclusion that human beings are impotent to change the course of events is simply a false empirical preposition. In daily life,everyone is perfectly aware of this. People may be fatalistic about far off events, or things they believe cannot be controlled in any way, but they cannot be consistently fatalistic about every event in their lives. When people get hungry they cannot be fatalists any more. They will try their level best to find food. By the fatalist approach it can also be argued that a person should not be punished by law for any crime. They cannot be held responsible for any crime since the crime committed was not in their control.

Indeterminist viewThey had view just opposite of determinists. They deny that every thing that happens has a cause. The indeterminist is not likely of the view in the area of inorganic nature. The motion of a planet is caused(determined) by a set of prior conditions. So is the path of every projectile and the history of every molecule of oxygen. It is only in the human realm that they wish to present their case. The only area that the universal causality does not hold good is the realm of actions, the things we do. The sole reason why the indeterminists deny the Causal Principle is that they want to make roo m for freedom. They are convinced that human freedom is not possible if they dont deny the Causal Principle. Indeterminism is important for the question of free will because strict determinism implies just one possible future. Indeterminism means that the future is unpredictable. Indeterminism allows alternative futures and the question becomes how the one actual present is realized from these potential alternatives. Despite David Hume's critical attack on the necessity of causes, many philosophers embrace causality strongly. Some even connect it to the very possibility of logic and reason. Even in a world that contains quantum uncertainty, macroscopic objects are determined to an extraordinary degree. Newton's laws of motion are deterministic enough to send men to the moon and 6|Page

back. Our Cogito model of the Macro Mind is large enough to ignore quantum uncertainty for the purpose of the reasoning will. The neural system is robust enough to insure that mental decisions are reliably transmitted to our limbs.

Objections:
o

Indeterminism reduces the whole scientific effort to explain nature and human beings to mere probability, and it makes such an effort a waste of time insofar as it does not guarantee that understanding human behavior will allow us to improve it. If choices and actions are not determined even by one's personality or character, then a so-called "free" act would be one that occurs spontaneously and unpredictably (even to the person doing it)5; thus no one could justifiably be held responsible for doing an action which not even he/she could have predicted would occur. Pure chance is thus not freedom in any sense that we would ordinarily recognize.

Conclusion
The thesis of Freedom is of metaphysical interest.we really need to know the truth about this in order to know what kind of beings we are but it is also of interest in ethics and the theory of value. Firstly, many philosophers have argued that unless we are free we are not morally responsible for what we do. One can sensibly hold someone morally responsible only if what they do is under their control. You are not responsible for that which is not up to you. Thus one is morally responsible only if one is a free agent. Secondly, we think of freedom itself as something valuable. We tend to think that the ability to choose options of differing value is itself a valuable thing. We determine that it develops in one way rather than another. That seems pretty exciting. And it would seem rather unexciting if it turns out that our apparent freedom is just an illusion. The determinist and the indeterminist view give different extent of human freedom. I personally have the opinion that the freedom according to the determinism is right to a large extent.

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