philosophy

Philosophy 101, Summer Semester 2021

Handout #5

A. J. Ayer, Freedom and Necessity

The Puzzle

1. Free Will

· An action is voluntary if the agent could have done otherwise

· This is presupposed in debates about moral responsibility

2. Determinism

· Human behaviour as governed by causal laws

· In this case: how could one ever have done otherwise?

3. Possible (Rejected) Solutions

· Maybe determinism is false

· Maybe only general laws of human behaviour (and not every detail of each individual action) are pre-determined

· Maybe freedom should be understood in terms of the ‘consciousness of necessity’

Solution

1. Constraint

· A distinction needs to be drawn between ‘causal determination’ and ‘constraint’

· Freedom is not the absence of causal determination, but the absence of constraint

· THESIS: causal determination does not entail constraint

· Thus, actions can be causally determined and still free: ‘compatibilism’

· Genuine cases of an agent’s acting not freely: threat, compulsion

· An agent’s causal determination is not of this kind

· Fact that his actions have cause is (in this respect) irrelevant

2. Possible Objection

· Both (natural) cause and (external or internal) constraints are kinds of causes

· And why should we distinguish between different kinds of cause?

· Answer: precisely because natural causes do not constrain

· (They don’t force the agent to do something against his will)

3. Conditions of Freedom

· (1) I should have acted otherwise had I so chosen

· (2) Action was voluntary

· (3) Nobody compelled me to do as I did

· These conditions are compatible with determinism

4. Explanation of perceived problem

· Imaginative picture

· But simple fact: occurrence of one event is necessary and sufficient condition of occurrence of other event

5. Consequence

· Future already decided?

· Yes: but this doesn’t mean I am the ‘prisoner of fate’

· For actions are causes as well as events

· And principled determinacy of future does not show lack of freedom of will