Determinism, Responsibility, and Free Will

See Also: http://www.determinism.com/quotes.shtml

I'll be talking about a very basic principle of logic here, -- perhaps the most basic and primary. It is so obvious, it is overlooked by nearly everyone. Schopenhauer explores it admirably in his "The Four-Fold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason". As one philosopher articulates it: "Everything that happens has a reason for being such as it is, and a lack of reasons for being other than it is."

The arguments to support this are endless, because it is the very foundation of all argumentation. Logic itself assumes connective links between what has been and what is now, and between what is now and what will be. Every cause is also an effect, as every effect is also a cause. When we seek to locate a cause within the individual we are denying this fact; imagining that the individual, his choice, or his will, somehow exists within a vacuum, as a causeless cause; something godly. It's a form of hubris, and it's a denial of our dependence on the natural order.

What is remarkable is that we admit the power of our internal and external environments only in extreme cases: We see that a madman is not responsible for his choices, but we fail to see what is more subtle; that all men are mad; all operating from various levels of unconsciousness, and basing their decisions on whatever material arises from the unconscious.

We say that one man is innocent of murder by reason of insanity, while another is guilty, but we overlook the flaw in our logic, which essentially tallies as: "murder is sane". We say that we do not expect everyone to be a saint, effectively confessing that there is a difference between the "free will" of saints and that of average men, but we still have expectations for the man; more or less arbitrary, based as they are on observations of others (whom we expect the man to resemble), on idealized fantasies of how people in general "should" be, and not on the subject under consideration; the man himself.

Determinism, the philosophy most firmly rooted in observation of the law of cause and effect, proposes that we cease to hold people responsible only in the sense that we do not hold a hurricane responsible for devastating a town. We do what we can to prevent hurricanes, and to protect the town, but we do not add insult to injury by blaming, and holding a personal grudge against the hurricane.

We can see this principle everywhere in nature, as it relates to our use of language.. We say that the leaves rustle, but the leaves dont really do anything; they are moved by the wind. We say that the wind blows, but the wind is moved by atmospheric pressures, which have their origin in still more distant causes. All things, including human beings, obey the same laws of dynamics.

Nietzsche gives attention to this tendency of our language to confuse matters when he writes of our tendency to say "lightning strikes". He argues that the strike is a part of what we call lightning, and not a function of it. The same, he says, is true of the choices and actions of men. They cannot be separated from us (that would be to separate the cause from the effect), just as we cannot be separated from our environments and upbringings. The strike is the lightning, and our choices are an extension of us. If we are imbalanced, our choices will be too. If we are balanced, so with they be. A sick man coughs, while a healthy man breathes freely.

More examples of how we neglect to observe causality:

We say that something could have been different, but, if we take just an instant to reflect upon this statement, we will be shocked by its absurdity and superficiality. In order for things to have gone differently, some factor, some cause, would have to have been different, -- but, in order for the cause to have been different, it would have to have been proceeded by another different cause, and so on, ad infinitum. In fact, what we're really saying is that the entire universe could have been, and could be, different. Very simply, determinism is about seeing and accepting what is; without imagining that what is could have been otherwise; or that it suggests what might have been, rather than what has been.

While this way of seeing admittedly turns our assumptions about people and the world on their heads, it is, nevertheless, factual; founded on pure logical observation, and not any personal desire to escape from responsibility. Whether or not the Determinist's motive in promoting this view is personal, and less than noble, is secondary and debatable. The fact remains that the logic is sound. And you will find that, if you are, by nature, a healthy-minded, responsible person, then this philosophy will not deter you from fulfilling what you see as your obligations. History is full of socially-conscious determinists.

Only someone who prides him/herself on being a hard-headed pragmatist, but who is really just impatient with subtlety, would object that the root of selfish action may be reduced to plain selfishness. There is nothing plain about the root of things. Concluding that selfish action arises from selfishness is giving may be called "an operational definition". It is really to say nothing at all. Its like saying the sky is blue because of the color blue. Selfishness is the very thing you wish to understand, but you abort the process of understanding selfishness as a behavior when you are satisfied to arrive at selfishness as an orientation. The question still remains, "what is the cause, or root, of the selfishness?"

The great diagnosticians of the soul of man have placed the causes for these things deep within the constitution of the individual; in psychological or physiological imbalances, inherited from nature and largely encouraged by culture/environment. But we must have an eye for detail, or we will refuse to admit these causes.

For instance, we will see that one man attributes his deplorable condition to an unloving mother, while another man is able to rise above far greater adversities, and, without taking their differences into account, we will interpret the success of the latter as a refutation of the "excuses" of the former. In fact, the two men are different.

Likewise, we will have sympathy for a child, but not a man, under similar circumstances, without regard to the real differences between that man and that child; because we judge according to assumptions and probabilities, and without observing the unique factors of each particular situation. External appearances notwithstanding, the most important determinants of behavior are internal. Internally, it may be that the man is more of a child than the child.

Forced by frustration to admit the reality of this, many people will agree that the man is indeed a child, but not without a feeling of superiority, scorn, and revulsion; and not without judging the man somehow more responsible for his childishness than a child would be. Rare is the person who sees this reality in its depths, and who is moved to compassion for the man, and to consider him much as he would consider a child; as innocent.

Could we force him to "grow up" by making him answerable to grueling circumstances? Perhaps. But we can do the same thing to a little child, and it would be, perhaps, no less of a tragedy, or a hastening of natural processes for the sake of unnatural ends.

For all these reasons, we are encouraged to love the sinner, while despising the sin, and to see sinfulness as an affliction, rather than a choice. Crucified, Jesus cries out, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do!" He is giving evidence of the rarest objectivity, by recognizing the subjectivity of his torturers.

It's something to which we should all aspire.