by Zara Russell and Grace Gair

DETERMINING IF FREE WILL IS AN ILLUSION

Zara Russell and Grace Gair Image: Ellie Wood

The definition of free will is ‘the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one’s own discretion’. This definition raises a plethora of questions: Do we really have free will? Are our thoughts and behaviours influenced by forces beyond our control? Is what we do and think just a matter of choice and within our conscious control? What would happen if we have a world with no free will or cease to believe that we do?

Some believe that free will is an illusion created by the brain or society to make us feel like we have control over our lives and the choices we make, when, in reality, our genetics, our decisions, even our parents and education restrict our free will. We could even track this restriction from conception: gender is determined due to the egg cell either receiving a Y or X chromosome from the sperm cell, meaning that neither the parents nor the zygote has any control in this. Then as the zygote begins to develop in the first trimester, a number of hormonal changes occur in the mother: levels of oestrogen increasing causing nausea and vomiting and her heart working faster to pump more blood to the uterus. The mother has no control over these changes to her body. The foetus begins to develop and the parents’ genetics determine the changes in the baby: eye colour, hair colour, height and many other factors that the foetus has no control over. Even the act of birth is tethered by an umbilical cord which is cut to release us – an act that may symbolise freedom, but are we ever really ‘free’? Yet, the idea of free will does not need to deny that there are biological and environmental forces that act upon us. The fact that humans make their own choices (such as, nowadays, to have a baby) shows that we have free will. This is the humanistic view, as advocated by psychologists such as Abraham Maslow, who studied how people are driven to self-actualization (a state of fulfilment) through their decisions and personalities and argued that free will was an important part of this. Meanwhile, the psychologist Roy Baumeister posited that free will is the foundation of morality, as when you resist temptation and do what is in your long term interest, your free will shines. For example, you have the desire to have another bag of salt and vinegar crisps over ready salted crisps. However, after some internal struggle you decide that you are not going to eat either because you realise that it is unhealthy. It now seems that you have won an internal battle against yourself. These internal battles, when applied to moral situations, indicate humans’ capacity for decision making and inherently indicate our free will.

However, the crisp scenario is also nonsense as both options to eat or not to eat are motives within our psychological system. The latter motive is grounded in fear (gaining weight), whereas eating them would sate desire; you simply reveal which will is stronger. Thus, the argument for free will is easily flawed. Determinism is where the psychologists believe that free will has no place in explaining behaviour, which is instead shaped by external and internal forces to which humans are exposed in everyday life from the moment we were conceived. There are lots of different types of determinists; hard, soft, biological, environment and psychic. Hard determinists believe that all behaviour has a definitive cause and we should be able to identify that cause. This is compatible with the aims of science which therefore can make the research more reliable. However, soft determinists still believe that there is a cause but people have conscious control over their decisions. For example, someone could be predisposed to being aggressive but it is their choice if they use the aggression to start a fight. Biological determinism suggest that neurological processes are not under conscious control, such as the fight or flight response. Environmental determinists believe that free will is an illusion and behaviour is a result of conditioning and reinforcement, for example, learning a phobia. Finally, psychic determinism believes that behaviour comes from the unconscious mind which is constantly suppressing bad experiences, past trauma and unwanted desires from our conscious mind. They also believe that there is no such thing as an accident. If we really had free will we would be able to do whatever we want but factors like money, health and careers get in our way, for example, if you want to go travelling but do not have the finances then you cannot live out that dream. There are also bigger factors that constrict us, such as laws, suggesting that throughout our lives our free will is limited as we are continuously reminded that everything we do will have consequences. Moreover, under Article 10 of the Human Rights Act we are told that ‘everyone has the right to freedom of expression’ in the UK but the law also declares that this freedom ‘may be subject to formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society’. While this is mainly for national security and to ensure that crime is prevented, it still limits people’s freedom of speech and therefore free will, showing that we have neither of these.

But free will is beneficial to humans as correlational research has shown that people who strongly believe in free will, perform better in work and academic situations. Furthermore, experiments have shown that when you weaken people’s belief in free will, antisocial behaviour is shown, such as racial prejudice and aggression. The consequences of widespread disillusionment with free will would be that crime rates would ultimately increase as crime defendants would argue and even believe that without free will they cannot be held accountable as they never chose to do the crime. In the last decade, court cases claiming that the defendants’ “brain made them do it” have doubled. Another example would be that if a pupil fails an exam they cannot be held responsible because it would not be their fault, undermining our systems of education and employment. Failure – and indeed, success – become meaningless. Therefore, if we see free will as an illusion, what will happen to all the institutions based upon it and the society we have built around it? We might hope that psychologists will find another explanation as technology improves but in the meantime, surely it is far better to accept that free will is limited but necessary – a decision that is an act of free will itself. Perhaps.