Are people free agents? Don't they be responsible for their own deeds? If they were not thought to be responsible for their actions should they be produced before trail? Do we need to study 'Ethics' as a distinct branch of philosophical studies where it only justify the voluntary action of human being? There is a lot of reaction among the people which is rather mixed. Some people say that men are not free at all. Their every action is directed by the force outside of the world. Without the consent of the ultimate force nothing happens here. Therefore man is not free at any rate. Another group of people believe that man is completely free in his decision as he can do everything whatever he likes. Nothing can impede him on he way to his decision. Human will can never be determined because it is rather indeterminable. Rest of the people holds that they are partially free. In a limited scale although man is given some freedom but at a large scale there freedom has been snatch away. It is not an easy task to define free will since it involves in many things. It is thought that free will is the ability of persons to exercise control over their conduct in the fullest manner necessary for moral responsibility'. So to determine the human will they must need at least some freedom. What then the situation?
The purpose of this paper is to examine and explore varies kind of formula of determinism and indeterminism of human actions which are usually thought to be free and unfree will of man.
What is determinism?
Determinism is roughly synonymous with causation. Everything in the world is caused. All we do is caused and determined by the force where there is no scope to ignore. Nothing happens here fortuitously or by chance.' determinism is the doctrine of universal causation: it says only that every event has a cause. It does not say whether the cause is mental or physical, whether it is inorganic nature or organism or people or God. As far as determinism is concerned, the cause can be anything. It is not even necessary that we ever know what the cause of events are--determinism only says that every event has a cause of some kind, whether we ever find out what is or not. It is an important philosophical concept which has a long effect both in philosophy and science especially in physics and biology. In our everyday life we observe that what is being happened around us has got somehow a causal connection. We are reading books for knowledge or pleasure, going market for shopping, giving lecture for salary, however the action is, is of purpose for itself. Even in every facet of nature we don't see any disposition of breaking the law. Therefore we are being governed by the nature which does never act capriciously. Although there is much diversity in nature but in the large scale there has been a great unity. Scientists are really happy that nature behaves the same and their laws do work well. It is a matter of great complacence that they can predict accurately since the nature does not act whimsically. The causal theory or the theory of causation is an explication of determinism since it is the main operational object of science especially of physics. Rousseau, a renowned social scientist of France although meant something different by saying 'man is born free but he is chained everywhere.' but its essence is nothing new than the social determinism of man around him.
Presently the nature is much closer to the people than ever. Man can predict eclipses even ahead of hundred or thousand years with more accurately. He can calculate the path of a projectile and its target with great precision. There is no wrong with their hypothesis. Nature's behavior is gradually becoming very comprehensible to the man. Once it was rather incomprehensible and abstruse. But the law of nature is so uniform that it never acts otherwise. It seems that the nature is made by an intelligent designer who has composed it with his perfect calculation so that now even he has nothing to do away with the law once imposed.
What is Indeterminism?
Indeterminism is just opposite to determinism. It says, nothing can be determined previously or there can never be foreknowledge about the universe. Determinism is neither applicable to any human behavior nor on the nature at any rate. Human being is free and the nature is spontaneous. There is a great uncertainty in the very minuscule portion of particle though we can not observe this uncertainty at a very large scale. As the universe is very stupendous we cannot apparently observe these uncertainties. Human's desire and the nature where they abode are rather incalculable in every respect. If they don't have any free will there would have been no progress in human realm. Because if the human being comprehends that whatever they are doing is of worthless, they would get no inspiration from their deeds. They would lose their inspiration as they think their action is pre-determined. Therefore it is unwise to think any kind of determinism at all. We discuss about two kinds of human actions in Ethics-- voluntary and involuntary. Ethics is a moral justification of voluntary activities of human beings. It doesn't discuss about the animal behavior whose actions are thought to be involuntary. This is thought that they are not entitled to justify as they have got no free will. This is sometimes thought that ' if bank robbery is written in my lot, and if this is occurred by me, then why should am I asked to be responsible for this misshapen?' If man is not free and he is bestowed upon by something else this will never be justified to bring him before any trail. Where there is trail or moral justification there must be given independence of his will.
In classical physics there was a deterministic world. The law of causation played the supreme role in every tire of human thought. Possibly there was nothing in the world which had no cause. We could assume the motion of every projectile very accurately by applying the theory of causation. The idea of indeterminism comes following the introduction of the principle of uncertainty in physics by Heisenberg at the first quarter of the last century. The uncertainty principle was the key factor of Quantum physics where it speaks that the very nature of an electron is indeterminable. It is so much capricious that we can not determine its velocity and position at the same moment. If we want to determine its position its velocity becomes indeterminate. On the other hand, while the velocity is to be measured its position becomes volatile. Therefore it can never be something which is to be computed precisely. So there is an immense uncertainty in the very small area of the particle. If there is an uncertainty in this area so there must be great uncertainty at the large scale of the universe. But we can not notice it because we are really so small to observe it. As we are not able to determine the large portion of uncertainty, it does never imply that we are living in a very gentle universe. The universe is supposed to be homogenous. But the reality is not so much as easy as it is thought to be. The uncertainty principle really smashes the classical notion of 'cause-effect' relationship in physics.
Some important aspects of Determinism
Determinism has roughly three versions namely logical, epistemological and causal although it has many dimensions for various social phenomena. Each of the versions poses serious threat to the exercise of free will of human being. In addition to these three kinds of determinism, it has got theological import which is possibly very important to the people. Palmistry became very zealous subject for man as it is said to be fore spoken of human's lot. In the world cup football 2010, an octopus of Germany became hero during the tournament for her prophecy about the world championship. Many world leaders use to go to the palmist to know their lot. Sometimes it is believed that everything of human being is written on the palm. Different lines on the palm have different meaning for it selves so if we are able to make out the lines clearly we can fore-say the lot of human being. Obviously man is curious about his future. From death line to the marriage line-- all are equally important to them. Different types of determinism are now being discussed here as follows.
Logical determinism
Here logical means truth for itself. The truth value of a proposition is timeless. It means that those propositions which are thought to be true are always true and those propositions which are thought to be false are always false. Here proposition refers to the meaning of a sentences.
'If a proposition about some future action you undertake (let's say tomorrow) is true then it is true now. But if it is true now, then tomorrow you must undertake that action, that action must occur, you are powerless to prevent yourself from undertaking that action'.
Epistemic determinism
It is almost same to that of previous formula. It only formulates about the proposition which are known prior to the time of occurrences. The argument thus should be as follows.
'If a proposition about some future action you undertake is known (in advance) then (when the time comes) you must undertake that action , that action must occur, you are powerless to prevent yourself from undertaking that action' .
Causal determinism
It says that all the events in the world are happening are nothing but the law of nature. The nature is homogenous, so the occurrences which are now being taken place are fixed by its antecedent condition.
'If whatever one does is the result of Law of Nature and of one's physical and genetic makeup and one's personal history, then--since all the 'factors' are 'set' (or in that place)at the moment of one's acting you must undertake the action you perform, that action must occur , you are powerless to prevent yourself from undertaking that action'.
Casual determinism has the wide range of impact in our world. This determinism is causally connected with concept of the nature's behavior. The big nature is supposed to be uniform and homogenous. It never acts something different and unpredictable. When the apple falls from the tree, it never goes upwards. The law of Gravitational force act everywhere within the purview of globe. As the nature behaves the same so it paves the way to the scientists to invent the law. This was absolutely impossible for them if the scenario would have been different. Depending on the uniform character of nature scientists invented many devices successfully. The rocket engineering and launching of projectile are the latest successful operation of deterministic calculation. Copernicus' heliocentric theory, Newton's law of motion, Einstein's theory of Relativity among many others scientific inventions concerning the character of nature are the superb explication of deterministic world. The theory of induction which is considered as the main operational tools of scientific hypothesis is based upon two important concepts of nature---the theory of causation and the theory of uniformity of nature. The theory is constructed in a view to think that tomorrow the nature will not miss the behavior as it was in the past. Actually if the condition prevails tomorrow as it was in yesterday nothing will make deter on the way to its happenings. Although there is no guarantee to take place or to repeat itself for future time but human mind become accustomed to see the same occurrences as it was in the past. Bertrand Russell(1872-1970) says about skepticism in his famous book Human Knowledge; Its Scope and Limits 'Skepticism, while logically impeccable, is psychologically impossible'. Nobody can go for a long time in his daily life having being a skeptic. It does mean that people do rely on the nature especially for her uniform character.
In addition to the aforesaid division of determinism there are many kinds of determinism work around us (scientific, social, Genetic, cultural, theological etc.).All of this determinism repulses free thinking and freedom of human being.
Scientific determinism
Modern physics is trying to map out a unified theory in the nature so that they can be able to unravel the mystery of the universe. And it might be possible to invent a comprehensive theory by uniting four different fields of nature (Gravity, Electro-magnetic field, Strong and Week force of nature). Einstein was seeking something like that of a theory during the later part of his life time. But he did not succeed finally. His hope was that since the universe is homogenous and an explication of a beauty so the universe might be comprehensible all together. In the present time Stephen Hawking, prominent British astrophysicist, is also hopping that a theory may be invented soon by which they can be able to have the foreknowledge of the universe. He has named it Grand Unification Theory (GUT) s.
Laplaces, a France mathematician, did strongly believe in scientific determinism. Hawking writes about him, '... as civilization developed, and particularly in the last 300 years, more and more regularities and laws were discovered. The success of these laws led Laplace at the beginning of the nineteenth century to postulate scientific determinism, that is, he suggested that there would be a set of laws that would determine the evolution of the universe precisely, given its configuration at one time.' Hawking, however, apprehended about the success of the theory like that because of the indeterminist principle of Quantum physics which we will discuss later.
Social determinism
Every society in the world is responsible for making people where they usually bring up. Man is actually nothing than what his societies compel to make them of. Very interestingly Russell writes in his Human Society in Ethics and Politics 'I once befriended two little girls from Estonian, who had narrowly escaped death from starvation in a famine. They lived in my family, and of course had plenty to eat. But they spent all their leisure visiting neighboring farms and stealing potatoes, which they hoarded.' Different social variables act simultaneously to the man on the way to his socialization. Accordingly, the society is responsible for making his character and his culture he usually hold on.
Genetic determinism
Every living being is composed of innumerable cells that contain nucleus and cytoplasm. This nucleus contains huge number of chromosomes which are further composed of 'gene'--the thinnest object that is responsible for animal's character. Every character of the animal is encoded in gene. It is actually made by DNA where four different types of nucleotide are found. The structure of DNA was discovered by James Watson and Francis Crick. Following the discovery of the structure many people did try to understand the encoding proteins. And this is rather good news for the scientists as well as all people concerning the area that the researchers are very close to unravel the secrecies of the code. It is now thought that if this is done successfully, all the information could be foreknown. Therefore there would have been nothing secret in human character which would be unknown to the people.
Teleological determinism
This is probably the most influential belief of human being by which their activities are said to be controlled by the most powerful deterministic factor --the omnipotent God. He is the grand designer of the universe who has a complete idea of the universe and every thing within and outside of it was predetermined. So there is nothing in the nature which is unknown to Him. It is supported by almost every religious scripture of the world. Fatalism another form of determinism says whatever happens is unavoidable. Fatalist believes that ' it is not up to him what will happen a thousand years hence, next year, tomorrow, or the very next moment.' Fatalists do not believe in human freedom. They usually hold that man is only the puppet of God whose existence and activities are completely directed by the Ultimate being. So free will is an illusion.
Free or Unfree---which one is logical?
Moral philosophy deals with human's action. It just advocates the voluntary will of man. Involuntary actions are never counted. Because if a man does something against his will or out of his cognition he should never be thought to be responsible for his deeds. Demented or lunatic person are not thought to be accountable for his activities since they don't have alternative to choose. Ethics or moral philosophy thus discusses only the "ought statement" where there is an option for man to do otherwise. Tibor Machan writes, '... as the philosopher Immanuel Kant pointed out, " ought implies can" That means, in part, that only if it is possible to choose to do something can it be the case that it ought to be done. So the very meaningfulness of the advocacy of political ideals implies that free will exists (The other meaning of " ought implies can" is that some objective standard of human conduct must be identifiable; otherwise one can could never do what one ought to do). Machan underscored the need of free will. He says,' Individual rights need to be respected because we must have an area of personal responsibility within which to make our choices about our lives or wherein to initiate our own actions.' Tibor defended free will by placing a good number of arguments in his nice article. He argues that ' ...if we are fully determined in what we think, believe, and do, then of course the belief that determinism is true is also a result of determinism. But the same holds for the belief that determinism is false. There is nothing you can do about whatever you believe--you had to believe it. There is no way to take an independence stance...'. I think that this is a good argument for freewill. If we say that determinism is false, does not it imply that it is really determined to compel me to believe in indeterminism or freewill?
Every determinist wants us to believe in determinism. He believes that all men should come to be determinist rather than believe in freewill. What does it mean? It actually means that man has the free choice to be determinist or indeterminist. He can either be determinist or indeterminist. Does not he concede then the action of free choice of man?
My view: between free and unfreewill
There are a good number of arguments for either of the side. But I do believe that man is both free and unfree at the same moment. This big universe, at a large scale, is homogenous while it is very much indeterministic in the microscopic level. The law of physics indicates that the world runs through the right way as it is expected. The law of motion of Newton or the theory of relativity of Einstein, for example, works well within their respective field without any hindrance. This is meant that even the nature is not free at all. It is really helpless because it does not act otherwise even if it wants to do something different. 'We have to recognize that free will may not be incompatible with universal determinism as one may be free only if his actions follow the laws of his own nature. Thus God may be free yet determined by his laws of beauty and goodness'. But the case is quietly different for the small area of an atom. The principle of uncertainty is the basis of quantum physics which shows that many things happen there beyond of our calculation. These two realities are true at the same time that can not be ignored at all. Einstein and Neils Bohr have had a furious debate over the character of an electron where Einstein never believed in any capricious properties however Bohr held the opposite view. Although Einstein was the founder of quantum physics but he could not trust on the consequences of the modern idea of physics for the later period. I think that these two different realities have the equal importance for physics.
Man is the part of the nature. He is governed by the same law which is responsible for the nature all together. I hold that man is an unpredictable being. Nothing can subsume its actual character previously. Even he does not know for himself what is waiting for him. His every action is unpredictable. 'Determinism in psycho-physical nature does not necessarily imply predeterminism, there may be fresh determinants added every moment by human freewill without violating determinism.'
We can predicate the eclipse ahead of hundred years but can not for myself what is going to be happened within an hour. The nature is comprehensible grossly but not man. Man's future is incomprehensible and unpredictable. We may chalk out plan for our future; we may thus predict that we will be rich within ten to fifteen years or we may write a book on philosophy next year but an accident may snatch our valuable life that can smash our all aspirations. Therefore life is very much uncertain and unthinkable like the curious character of an electron of the very depth of atom. We really are living in such an universe that is between certain and uncertain.
Siddhartha Shankar Joarder,
Assistant Professor, Philosophy Department, Jagannath University
