Freedom, Determinism and Free Will: Key Philosophical Debates

La Freedom: Rational Condition

Freedom, a rational condition that should be understood as a power inherent to human beings, has been a central concern of philosophy for centuries.

Approach to the Notion of Liberty

There are two distinctions:

• External liberty: Also called freedom of action, it consists in the absence of things that hinder the action.
• Internal liberty: Also called free will, it consists in the capacity to decide the possibility of acting in one way or another. This decision is indeterminate, not caused.

These two types are not something distinct from each other; there exists between them a relation. External liberty is political, since it concerns the favors and factors of social life. Internal liberty raises the problematic question of its existence.

Liberty and the Doctrine of Determinism or Absence of Freedom

The absence of freedom is a notion of common sense, and for that reason it is considered unquestionable. We possess a conviction of having freedom, a belief shared by almost everyone.

Determinism affirms that everything determined is inevitably caused. It is known as physical determinism, which holds that everything is determined and may be explained by natural laws. Reality must be understood as one great mechanism.

• Genetic determinism: Usually invoked in explaining the behavior of organic beings, animals especially and humans. According to this determinism, behavior is determined by the genetic code.
• Environmental or educational determinism: According to this position, genes do not determine behavior; rather, environmental factors do. It is possible to modify behavior by changing environmental conditions through learning.
• Economic determinism: Those who maintain that economic factors, not other factors, determine behavior. One of the most influential defenders of this view is Marxist economics.
• Theological determinism: Defends the existence of something beyond humans that determines their actions: fate or destiny, or the superior or divine will.

Indeterminism or the Existence of Freedom

• Determining factors: The causes equivalent to human action. Inevitable behavior is considered a consequence of factors that the person does not control.
• Conditioning factors: The motives equivalent to the action. Behavior is influenced by human factors, but these are not considered the result of determinism.

The defense of freedom entails a defense of indeterminism in our sense: our actions and decisions are not determined but conditioned.

• Evidence of freedom: The problem is how to demonstrate its existence. Descartes defended that the belief that we act voluntarily is a free and true evidence, if it is maintained.
• Theological indeterminism: Unlike the Reformed tradition, Catholic theology accepts divine omniscience. Thus, for Catholics, God and free will are compatible.
• Freedom and morality: Defending the existence of freedom leads to resistance against the notion that responsibility or morality is not possible to speak of.
• Quantum indeterminism: Indeterminism has been argued from quantum mechanics. One form of this theory holds that explanations are used in its statistics.