Chapter dzǷ: Free Will and Ethics ȁȈȄit”? Would your friend be insulted by your thinking that his behavior is
predictable? (Compare HobartȀȈȂȃ/ȀȈȇȃ, p.ȇȀ).
Far from being vitiated by elements of stable relations—of causality—
among events and circumstances, including character traits and actions,
the very concepts of free choice and responsibility presuppose such ele-
ments. Often these elements make confident predictions possible, all with-
out undercutting notions of free choice and responsibility.
Sheer chance, in short, not only does not establish the case for human
freedom and responsibility but even poses difficulties of its own. Its role in
my argument is different and slighter: it undermines one particular argu-
ment against freedom of the will.
Once chance has shaken the notion of total causal determination, the
path remains open for considering whether something besides chance
might also contribute to the evident openness or indeterminacy of the
universe. Everyday evidence, considered next, testifies to some sort of free
will. Ļat evidence can be questioned, but the questions rely precisely on
the determinist doctrine that is itself open to question.
ŠŔő őŤŜőŞŕőŚŏő śŒ ŒŞőő ţŕŘŘ
Everyone’s experience suggests that people’s decisions, talk, writings, and
thoughts do influence the course of events. Ļe thoroughgoing determin-
ist or fatalist would not deny this personal experience, but he would ques-
tion its significance. Our decisions and thoughts, influential though they
are, are mere links in unbroken causal chains. Each decision, utterance,
and thought is caused by other events and circumstances, including phys-
ical conditions, the previous thoughts and utterances of oneself and other
people, and one’s own and other people’s character traits, genetic makeups,
and current and past environments—according to the determinist. Each
of these causal links traces to contemporaneous and earlier links—and so
on, presumably, back to the Big Bang.
A hardened habitual criminal could have avoided committing each of
his crimesifhe had willed not to commit it. But could he have so willed?
Well, yes,if his character had been different. Furthermore, it would have
been differentif his earlier actions and decisions and circumstances had
been different. But could they have been different? Ļese earlier character-
influencing events and circumstances, perhaps especially including his
childhood environment and his genetic makeup, were themselves links
in an unbroken causal chain.