In defence of free will

“Indeed, there is no act that cannot ultimately be excused by determinism. The idea of free will (and therefore personal responsibility) is the only safeguard against a deterministic apologism for any sort of tyranny.”

This article features in Bournbrook's latest print issue.

When presented with a confusing dispute, it is rarely unwise to turn to Dr. Thomas Sowell for illumination. One of his classics, A Conflict of Visions (1987), seeks to explain why numerous specific issues, although seemingly unrelated, tend to split people across the same political divides. He argues that there is a dichotomy of general 'visions', each bringing along implicit assumptions that inform specific opinions on a wide range of topics.

The 'constrained vision' assumes that humans are by nature self-interested and unchangeable. Those who maintain such a vision tend not to believe in utopian solutions, but rather in compromise, trade- offs, and the limitation and separation of powers. The alternative 'unconstrained' vision assumes that humans are essentially good, limited only by the institutions that surround them; that society can be perfected if power is centralised among the benevolent and wise. He quotes Rousseau from The Social Contract (1762) as a summary of this latter vision: 'Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains'.

This simple binary explains so many common divides in our modern political discourse, and Dr. Sowell provides a myriad of examples, from affirmative action to social housing to the judiciary. Note also, that while one vision is deeply Christian, the other is not.

The constrained vision describes the fallen nature of man: one need not read further than Genesis 3 to understand the Biblical origins of this belief. Indeed, C. S. Lewis reiterates this in defending democracy and universal suffrage: 'Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters' (Present Concerns, 1986).

The unconstrained vision, however, relies on the malleability of Man and perfectibility of society, assumptions expounded by the French and Russian revolutionaries, and now highly prevalent among the British and American secular elite.

When recently reflecting on a particularly curious dispute, another broad conflict of religious visions came to mind. Peter Hitchens, a well-known British writer and broadcaster, was invited onto the BBC to discuss the matter of addiction. He describes the event here in his characteristically humorous and insightful manner. In short, Mr. Hitchens contends that there is no objective measure to detect 'addiction' in the human body. Moreover, the definition of addiction is constantly shifting often in the same breath, mostly by those who call it an illness, and those who advocate for drug legalisation. His view engendered confusion (and disgust) in his interlocutors, among them the actor Matthew Perry, who had multiple times been in rehab.

Although I had read a couple of Mr. Hitchens's books and plenty of his newspaper columns, being therefore no stranger to his style and disposition, I at first shared Mr. Perry's dismay at what appeared to be a cruelly simplified characterisation of addiction. It contradicted lectures I had attended as a student several years prior, in which the neurological underpinnings of addiction had been established in cellular and molecular detail.

But with further reflection, I realised my understanding of 'addiction' was confused. It could not be a neurological state of total, uncontrollable compulsion, because some addicted people achieve abstinence through will power. Addiction therefore characterised a strong but controllable desire; but what distinguished it from other such desires, of which there are many in life? And why, as I had been routinely told, was it said to be uncontrollable?

Whilst it had contradicted lectures I had attended as a student, I realised my understanding of ‘addiction' was confused.

In another video, Mr. Hitchens demands 'objective diagnosis of its (addiction's) presence in the human body'. A psychologist (Dr. Aric Sigman) produces a brain scan of a patient suffering from a weakening of neurological structures, induced from only one night of binge drinking. Although he admits that addiction is preceded by a lack of willpower, the 'neurochemical change…take on a life of their own, and then it does become a physical process'. Damage to certain brain structures, as Dr. Sigman suggests, can therefore precipitate a loss of control.

This idea makes intuitive sense to us: we can discern between 'abnormal' and 'normal' cerebral states, just as we discern between sickness and health. Doubtless, many neuroscientists could provide Mr. Hitchens with a list of relevant transcription factors, neurotransmitters and neurological pathways. But even the most jargonistic biological processes (even those impressively named with Greek letters) evade his point. He believes in free will.

And so, in a typically painful example of modern discourse, we see in action this second conflict of visions: free will vs determinism.

Both visions assume that the universe is governed by physical laws, omnipresent and eternal. According to Christianity, free will describes our uniquely human ability to choose how we interact with the world. Advocates of determinism argue that human thought and behaviour (ultimately reducible to atomic processes) are not exempt from physical laws: our brains (and therefore our minds) are equally as enslaved by quantum mechanics as the comet burning through the sky.

Personal responsibiliy, as a virtue, has never been so unfashionable.

Dr. Sigman applies the vision of determinism to the topic at hand. The neurological state of addiction, as he sees it, describes an individual who is no longer 'in control', but entirely at the whims of brain chemistry. This vision however, although now extremely pervasive, embraces several contradictions, unanswered yet terribly urgent. (For a fuller exploration of the incontrovertible philosophical problems in determinism (or naturalism), see Chapters Three to Five, Miracles, by C. S. Lewis; or Can Science Explain Everything? by John Lennox.)

For instance, when is an individual in control? Are we not always coerced by the laws of physics? Surely, according to a materialist reduction of the brain, we are in fact never in control, regardless of our drug consumption. Why should a specific wiring of the brain characterising a strong desire to smoke contain any less agency than one characterising a strong desire to abstain, or to cook, or to sing? Why do we reduce only certain passions and behaviours to brain chemistry, while elevating others to the ‘essence of the person'?

Every particular psychological state is (probably) married to a particular neurochemical state. The advancement of neuroscience may completely elucidate this relationship and, if it does, we are still none the wiser as to what constitutes true compulsion or 'addiction'. Addiction is therefore not a question of neurochemical detail but of philosophy, within which a broader conflict rages, informing this specific issue alongside countless others.

The prevailing vision in the medical community has resulted in a deterministic understanding of addiction which, despite containing much ambiguity and contradiction, enjoys very little questioning.

Some may be content to live with this. But if we further indulge this vision, the door flies open to expand more (indeed all) human endeavours as being 'out of one's control'.

Such slippage has already begun: 'addiction' now includes compulsions for gambling, sex, video games, and coffee enemas. Terrible behaviours are excused for reasons of poverty, bad childhood, cultural relativism, or intoxication. Personal responsibility, as a virtue, has never been so unfashionable. Is there any indication where this will end?

Indeed, there is no act that cannot ultimately be excused by determinism. The idea of free will (and therefore personal responsibility) is the only safeguard against a deterministic apologism for any sort of tyranny.

Of course, there can be profound external (and internal) factors which derange our desires; sometimes they overwhelm us. Human weakness exists, as Mr. Hitchens puts it. But we must remember that we do have agency, the gift that makes us human, to make the right choice despite our worst desires. If society continues to reject the vision of free will, its substitute must be comprehensively examined.

The consequences of determinism in the spheres of social policy, law, and justice are incalculable, and yet, its unstable philosophical grounding receives too little attention.

In the dispute over addiction, Mr. Hitchens clashed with this vision, implicitly held by Dr. Sigman and Mr. Perry, and by countless politicians, academics and activists. Perhaps, as he suggests, we could do away with the word 'addiction'. But we must remember that this small, linguistic quarrel disguises the deeper conflict of visions underneath our present political discourse.

Determinism, taken to its logical conclusion, denudes us of all agency, reducing us to slaves. We must always defend free will, no matter how unfashionable it becomes, lest we forget that which makes us human