Chapter dzǷ: Free Will and Ethics ȁȇȈNothing would be uncertain for a sufficiently vast intelligence; the future
and the past alike would be present to its eyes. A true act of free will is
impossible. Without a determinative motive, not even the nearest thing
to a free will could originate even actions considered indifferent. Ļe con-
trary opinion is an illusion of the mind (MeyersonȀȈȁȀ/ȀȈȈȀ, pp.ȄȅȂ–Ȅȅȃ,
citing Laplace’sĻéorie analytique des probabilités). (Boyle et al.ȀȈȆȅ, pp.ȄȆ,
ȇȅ, give apt quotations from Laplace; further discussion of Laplacean
determinism occurs in PopperȀȈȇȁ, pp. xx–xxi,ȀȁȂ–Ȁȁȃ, and passim; and
Georgescu-RoegenȀȈȆȀ, p.ȀȆǿand passim.)
Clarence Darrow used to defend his clients with such an argument.
Ļe accused criminal is a mere link in the chain. Even his character and his
ability or inability to reshape it trace ultimately to causes outside himself,
and he is therefore not responsible and not properly punishable for his
crimes (HospersȀȈȅȀ/ȀȈȅȅ, p.ȃȀ).
Can anyone really believe in such tight universal causation? If only
Queen Victoria had been a man, the Salic Law would not have sepa-
rated the hitherto linked crowns of Great Britain and Hanover upon
her—his—accession inȀȇȂȆ; and the subsequent history of Germany,
Europe, and the world would probably have unfolded much differently
from how it actually did. (Reflection on the events ofȀȇȅȅ,ȀȇȆǿ–ȀȇȆȀ,ȀȈȀȃ,
andȀȈȀȆhelps explain why.) Much depended, then, on which particular
sperm happened to fertilize her mother’s ovum at Victoria’s conception in
ȀȇȀȇ.ȂYet this micro event and all its momentous consequences were bound
to occur exactly as they did. Ļus must strict determinism maintain.
No one, to my knowledge, espouses this position consistently. It is just
too preposterous—though I may be mistaken in saying so.
ŕŚŏŞőōşŕŚœ ŏśřŜŘőŤŕŠť
One reason for calling full determinism preposterous is that the world
seems to be getting more complicated over time. It is hard to imagine
how the less complicated past might contain all the information necessary
ȂĻis particular example is my own, to the best of my recollection; yet it is in the
spirit of essays collected in SquireȀȈȂȀ. Ļere, for example, Winston Churchill speculates
on what would have happened if Lee had not [sic] won the battle of Gettysburg, Hilaire
Belloc on what would have happened if the cart that in fact blocked LouisXVI’s escape at
Varennes in JuneȀȆȈȀhad gotten stuck before reaching the crucial place, and Emil Ludwig
on what would have happened if German Emperor FrederickIIIhad lived to reign until
ȀȈȀȃand not just for his actualȈȈdays inȀȇȇȇ.
Such examples mesh nicely with currently popular theories of “chaos” or “complexity.”