The second argument from reason is not aimed at atheism per se. Rather, it is aimed at an idea that is embraced by many theists and atheists alike: determinism. Thus, this second argument from reason is an argument for free will. It is an important part of my rejection of atheism because most atheist philosophers affirm determinism on the grounds that free will (or at least, the non-determinist version of free will) is very hard to make sense of on an atheistic view of reality, and I happen to think that they are right. So if determinism is false, that poses a significant challenge to atheism.
In what follows, I will do my best to briefly explain the issues involved in the debate over free will and determinism. Then, I will offer a couple of initial reasons for thinking that humans have free will. Once that is done, I will present and defend another argument from reason.
Free Will and Determinism
If you are reading this, it means that you made a choice to read this. You could have easily chosen to do something else (or so it seems), but you did not. Notice that making a choice implies having some reason to prefer one course of action to another. You chose to read this post in order to accomplish some goal of yours, whether it was to learn something new, to see if I made any weird typos, or to satisfy some other mild curiosity. Or perhaps there was nothing else to do and you needed to fight off your boredom, and this was the first activity that suggested itself. The point is, you chose to read this for a reason, and it is quite possible that you made this choice without putting much thought into it.
If you have the ability to choose a course of action, then you have free will. But don’t think that the words “course of action” necessarily refer to some outward physical activity, like going for a walk, taking a sip of coffee, or scrolling down this blog. It could also just refer to what you decide to think about. This doesn’t mean that we always have control over what we think about. There are such things as intrusive thoughts. Also, if I tell you not to think about pancakes, your next thought will almost certainly be about pancakes. But at some point during this discussion, you may choose to stop reading and instead just think about something for a while.
To use a different illustration, I don’t typically sit down in my free time and think about how to write complex DAX formulas for Power BI dashboards, nor is it a subject that my mind gravitates toward naturally. But if I’m stuck on a project at work, I may choose to think about DAX formulas in my free time, even though I am not necessarily “doing” any noticeable physical activity. Of course, thinking about anything involves neural activity in our brains. That technically counts as physical activity. But my point is that free will extends to all of our choices, regardless of whether those choices result in external, physical actions. To make a choice is to will one way or another, and if your will is not forced by anything, then it is free.
So the question is, do we really have free will? It seems that way, but lots of people would say that we don’t. They accept a view called determinism which holds that every single event that occurs is the result of prior conditions or causes. This includes mental events, like your having a thought about pancakes a few moments ago. A determined event is like a chemical reaction: if the right conditions are in place, the outcome is inevitable. Determinists believe that all of our choices are like that. Given the prior conditions, our actions are inevitable.
Without a doubt, lots of events are determined. This actually plays a big role in our lives. For instance, when we go bowling, we understand that in order to knock all the bowling pins down, we have to get the bowling ball to strike some of the pins in a specific way. It has to do with physical laws about mass, energy, and motion. We may not know exactly what these laws are, but we understand their relevance. Granted that the bowling ball hits the pins in a certain way, it is inevitable that all of the pins will fall down. If this weren’t true, then there would be no connection between a person’s control of the bowling ball and their final score in the game. It would be completely random, and suddenly the game would be less fun (if that’s even possible).
It’s important to be absolutely clear on this. If we accidentally roll the bowling ball into the gutter, missing all the pins entirely, we may feel angry or embarrassed, but we don’t feel confused about why none of the pins fell down. And when all but the seventh and tenth pins are knocked down on the first turn, we realize that, unless we hit one of the pins in a very precise way, there is little chance of knocking them both down in the second turn.
In other words, we recognize that the effect on the bowling pins is determined by the velocity, angle, weight, etc., of the bowling ball. Granted all the physical facts about the bowling ball, the effect on the pins is inevitable, unless someone or something interferes. Thus, if all events whatsoever are determined by prior conditions (as determinists believe), then the physical history of the universe and the unfolding drama of human life all happen exactly as they do because of causal influences that humans cannot prevent. It’s like a nonstop sequence of dominos.
So, are human choices determined? A lot of people think that they are. There are theists who believe that God determines everything that we do, and there are atheists who say that your choice to read this blog was the inevitable outcome of a series of events stretching all the way back to the Big Bang. Either way, you may feel as though you could have easily chosen to do something else, but this feeling is just an illusion. The truth is that you couldn’t possibly have done other than what you did.
Why do so many atheists embrace determinism? Because they think that the universe is a closed system of physical causes and effects. To say that your reading this blog was not the inevitable outcome of prior physical events would imply that the system is not actually closed, and that there are some causes which, mysteriously, act of their own accord and interfere with the system. You might think that, if persons exist, then obviously they must be capable of acting of their own accord. But some people are so committed to the causal closure of the universe that (as we have seen) they go so far as to deny that persons even exist! If persons exist, then, on a typical atheistic view of reality, they have to be part of the physical system. There is no room for mysterious causes outside of that system. If the system is closed, then it would seem that all of our behavior must be determined by prior physical causes.
Those who reject determinism and believe in free will are adopting a view of freedom that is (unfortunately) called libertarian freedom. It has nothing to do with the Libertarian Party or with political freedom. In this context, a libertarian is someone who believes that determinism is refuted by the existence of free will. A libertarian would say that you could have done something else instead of reading this blog, but you didn’t, and it’s not because of prior causes acting on you, but simply because of a choice you made. Nothing else caused you to make that choice; it was just something that you wanted to do.
To be clear, libertarians do not deny that there are determined events. Obviously, lots of physical events must be determined by prior conditions (think again of bowling). This is why we have to deal with diseases and natural disasters, which are determined by prior physical conditions. But this does not mean that all events are determined, as determinists claim. At the very least, our free choices are not determined by anything.
Now, there are a lot of people who believe that free will and determinism are compatible, and for that reason they are called compatibilists. They accept the claim that every event is the inevitable outcome of prior conditions, so they really are determinists. But they say that you still get to choose what course of action you take. For instance, when you started reading this blog post, you were doing exactly what you wanted to do. Your action was in accordance with your desire. Thus, you must have free will.
Even though libertarians and compatibilists both believe that humans have free will, they have two completely different understandings of what that means. On a libertarian view, a free choice cannot be explained in terms of prior conditions, nor is it the necessary result of those conditions. Instead, it is a pure act of will, and nothing forces a person to will one way or the other.
By contrast, on a compatibilist view of freedom, free choices are determined by our internal psychological states. For example, my choice to eat ice cream is caused by my desire for ice cream and my belief that now is a good time to have it. Compatibilists don’t believe that people are forced to act against their will; rather, people do exactly what they want to do. If they had wanted to make different choices, they would have. This sounds like libertarian freedom, but here’s the key difference: on a compatibilist view of freedom, I could not possibly have chosen differently. The originating cause of my choice was not me, but the prior conditions that shaped my psychology. All of my psychological states—my beliefs and desires, as well as my thoughts, fears, and other states—are the inevitable result of external causes that I have no control over. Even though people are “free” to act in accord with their own beliefs and desires, their beliefs and desires are determined by prior conditions, meaning that they couldn't possibly have believed or desired differently. But libertarians deny that my psychological states are fully determined by external causes.
Evidence for Determinism
Many atheists who affirm determinism will cite certain experiments that, in their view, prove demonstrably that we do not actually have control over our choices. The most famous of these experiments were performed by Benjamin Libet in the 1970s. These experiments are often taken as proving that unconscious activity in the brain is connected to the choices that we make, and that this activity always precedes our conscious awareness of making a choice. This would seem to indicate that our choices are determined by our brains, and they are not actually voluntary, nor are they made for any reason that we consciously ascribe to them. In short, these experiments are often taken as proving that we don't have free will.
I hope to eventually write more about Libet-type experiments because the subject is very interesting, but here I will just limit myself to a few quick comments. First, it should be noted that Libet himself did not take his experiments as disproving free will. This point frequently goes unmentioned by determinists who appeal to these experiments. Second, if the argument from reason for free will is successful (and I think it is), then this all becomes a moot point anyway, because it will follow that these types of experiments can't possibly prove that we don't have free will.
The last thing I'll say here is that a philosopher named Mark Balaguer, who is certainly no theist, has written a little book that is very easy to read called Free Will in which he does an excellent job of explaining why Libet-type experiments do not succeed in proving that we don't have free will. I would highly recommend the book for anyone seeking to learn more about that topic.
Initial Reasons for Rejecting Determinism
Determinism and libertarian freedom cannot both be correct, since libertarian freedom requires a rejection of determinism, and vice versa. It looks like we will have to decide between the two. But which shall we choose? (Or are we even capable of making a choice?)
Before getting to the argument from reason for free will, I want to quickly discuss two initial reasons for thinking that we really do have free will in the libertarian sense, both of which seem like perfectly good reasons to me.
First, we know that we have free will simply through introspection. We experience ourselves as beings with libertarian free will, in that we can recognize the difference between an action of ours that is voluntary and an action that is not. When we have a muscle spasm, or when our body acts reflexively, we perceive the action as involuntary. It happens without our permission, so to speak. By contrast, a voluntary action is one that we can control. It results from a choice made freely, and we do not sense that someone or something else is forcing us to will one way or the other. Even if someone forced us to do something by physically overpowering us, or by activating electrodes on our brain, we would recognize that our body was being made to do something that we did not choose to do.
In the last post I talked about why so many atheists do not find introspection to be a reliable source of knowledge. But the first argument from reason decisively shows that introspection really can be a good source of knowledge about some things. That doesn't mean that it is an infallible source of knowledge, but since our awareness of having control over our choices is so vivid and obvious, it seems that we are justified in believing that we actually do have agency over our choices unless or until we are provided with compelling evidence to the contrary.
Second, there seems to be an essential relationship between libertarian freedom and morality. Our whole sense of justice is based on the assumption that people can be held personally accountable for their choices. The exception proves the rule: when people commit horrible acts due to mental conditions that they can’t control, we don’t say that the person ought to be punished, although we still think that they need to be kept out of situations where their condition puts themselves or others in danger. However, if a person does not have such a mental condition, and they commit a horrible act, we see this as grounds for punishment. Yet this attitude is extremely hard to justify if people do not have free will in the libertarian sense. On a deterministic account of human behavior, we cannot possibly act differently in our circumstances than we actually do. But if this is true—if our choices are the inevitable result of prior conditions which we ourselves cannot control—then how can we possibly be held accountable for our actions? How can we be praised for doing good things, or blamed for doing bad things? It would be utterly meaningless, like thanking a wooden puppet for putting on a good puppet show.
This is why many philosophers are fond of quoting an old saying from Immanuel Kant: “Ought implies can.” It makes sense to recognize that people who are capable of weighing their options and choosing their actions have certain ethical responsibilities. “You ought not murder” implies that you possess the ability to refrain from murder. Determinism takes away our personal responsibility, because we are literally incapable of acting differently than we do. We might as well say, “You ought not drown when your lungs get filled with water.” Determinism reduces our fundamental intuitions about morality to mere illusions. But why accept a theory that would require us to distrust our deepest moral convictions?
The Argument from Reason
A really stubborn determinist could resist the first two pieces of evidence for free will if they really wanted to. That is, they could remain skeptical of what we think we know through introspection, and they could deny that we have real moral obligations. In fact, many atheists who embrace determinism do indeed argue against the validity of retributive justice on these grounds. And even though I think their position is wildly implausible with respect to both introspection and morality, it seems that it is at least possible to be a consistent determinist in these two respects.
However, the argument from reason shows that determinism really does suffer from a fatal lack of consistency. This is because libertarian freedom plays a fundamental role in our ability to think reasonably. We engage in rational reflection only because we believe that we have the ability to consider various pieces of information and draw reliable conclusions. We also believe that if we are not careful enough in our thinking, we might make a mistake and draw the wrong conclusion. But what if these processes are determined by forces outside of our control? In that case, our beliefs are simply the results of prior conditions.
To see why this is a problem, consider the following illustration: When we punch numbers into a calculator and hit the button to see the result, it’s not as if the calculator is deliberating between possibilities and making a choice to show us what it thinks the correct answer is. Instead, it is simply functioning according to its design. Given the input entered and the structure of its design, it cannot possibly produce a different answer. When it tells us the correct answer, we do not praise it for being rational (unless we are joking). And if the calculator gives us an incorrect answer, then assuming that we have noticed the error, we would not say that it is behaving irrationally; instead, we would say that it is malfunctioning.
Now, if human choices are determined, then we are no more responsible for our beliefs than a calculator is for its outputs. We have no control over the things that ultimately determine our beliefs. We might believe that we have control, but on a deterministic view, even this belief is the result of causes which, ultimately, are determined by other factors. And if that is the case, then our beliefs are not rational. They may well be true, and they may be accompanied by other beliefs which strike us as providing good reasons for believing as we do; but all of these other beliefs are determined as well. We may feel as if we are weighing the options and making valid logical inferences, but in reality, we are simply doing what we have been determined to do.
If we don’t actually possess the ability to affect our beliefs—that is, if our beliefs and desires are determined by factors outside of our control—then I am not sure how we could possibly assess the rationality of different beliefs in any meaningful sense. Even if God determines that I should always discern the correct answer to every problem I encounter, I would merely be the human equivalent of a properly functioning calculator. If my answers are correct, that is only because God has programmed me to be correct. If my answers are incorrect, then either God is a bad programmer, or God has decided, for whatever reason, that my thinking should function incorrectly.
On such a view, it makes no sense to say that I am either rational or irrational. The category of “rationality” could not apply to me at all, because I am not the originator of my thoughts. And this is if God is the one who determines my beliefs! If my beliefs are determined by blind, physical processes, as many (I think most) atheists believe, then the situation seems to be even worse. It is hard to see how ideas produced by physical processes could possibly commend themselves as reliable assessments of the way the world really is.
Those who think that we are determined by physical processes also believe that our brains (and thus our mental lives) are the result of a blind, evolutionary process. So at this point in the discussion, many people mistakenly assume that, in order to defend the rationality of our beliefs in a determinist framework, we just need to understand exactly how evolution shapes our thinking and how it allows us to form rational judgments. But in regard to determinism, this is all just a red herring. The argument here is not against evolution, or even against unguided evolution, but against determinism. Let me explain.
If determinism is true, then the process by which our thoughts are determined is not really relevant to assessing whether our beliefs are rational. Again, if our thoughts are just the inevitable, inescapable outcome of prior conditions, and if these conditions are created by blind, natural forces, then we have no reason whatsoever to think that our thoughts can be rational.
Thus, if we have grounds for thinking that evolutionary processes somehow produced creatures which are capable of thinking rationally, then we also have grounds for rejecting determinism. Why? Because rational thinking requires us to have the ability to make valid inferences, and if nature determines the conclusions we will draw, then regardless of whether the conclusion is actually valid, we no longer have any reason to trust our judgments. Our thoughts may seem rational to us, but since we couldn’t possibly have reasoned otherwise, and since non-rational forces are responsible for our opinions, we have no reason to regard ourselves as rational. Even our conclusion that we have reasoned correctly would be determined.
It is impossible, then, to affirm determinism as a rational concept, because of what determinism itself entails. We may think that it is rational, but if so, it is only because (on a deterministic view) we are determined to think that way. Determinism is not necessarily self-refuting, because it could still be true even if we have no good reason to believe it. But if determinism really is true, then it is impossible to say that a person has rationally come to believe in determinism. In that case, determinism is self-defeating. (To clarify a bit: a self-refuting idea is an idea that implies its own falsehood, whereas a self-defeating idea is one that implies that it can't be rationally affirmed.)
You might object by insisting that we are, after all, capable of thinking rationally. We really do weigh different ideas and make inferences, and we ourselves are responsible for these intellectual decisions. I would agree. In fact, I would say that this is an obvious truth. But that is precisely why we must reject determinism, because determinism results in a world where it makes no sense to say that I have carefully reasoned to the correct belief.
We can represent the argument from reason for free will as follows:
- If determinism is true, then we cannot trust any of our logical inferences.
- But we can trust at least some of our logical inferences.
- Therefore, determinism is false.