C H A P T E R 2 2 ■ P h i l o s o p h i c a l R e a s o n i n g
4 6 6philosophy. This chapter explores one such conflict between our traditional
sense of personal responsibility and recent advances in physics, psychology,
sociology, and neuroscience.
Modern sciences have attempted to understand human behavior by look-
ing for causes of what we do. First came physics. Our bodies are made of
atoms, and physicists discovered laws that govern the movements of those
atoms, so our bodily movements seem to be determined by laws of phys-
ics. Then psychologists discovered that our actions often result from un-
conscious influences, and sociologists found many ways in which we are
affected by social environments. Most recently, neuroscientists have traced
our actions to chemical and electrical mechanisms in our brains. Together, all
of this science might seem to suggest a picture of people as puppets control-
led by outside influences.
The problem is that we often see ourselves as free to choose among avail-
able options and free to act as we choose. We also hold most people respon-
sible for choosing and acting as they do. What is not clear is how we can be
free and responsible if we really are just puppets controlled by outside influ-
ences. Thus, science seems to conflict with common sense in this area.
These issues matter deeply because they influence our self-perception as
well as our practice. Without free will, are we really any different from lower
animals, like dogs? If we are puppets of our circumstances, do our lives have
any more meaning than the lives of dogs? And if we are not free or responsi-
ble, can it really be fair to punish rapists and murderers? Can it make sense
to love our friends, feel guilty when we misbehave, or get angry at people
who hurt us? Our lives and institutions seem unjustified or even incoherent
if we cannot resolve this conflict between science and common sense.
In order to figure out how to solve these problems, we need to clarify
exactly where the problems lie. There are at least three distinct conflicts in
this general area. The first problem involves determinism, which is the claim
that all of our choices and actions are fully caused and determined by laws
of nature in conjunction with the initial conditions before we were born (say,
in 1900). Determinism seems to imply that we cannot act in any way other
than the way we actually do act. This lack of alternative possibility seems to
suggest that we are neither free nor responsible.
Philosophers have proposed several solutions to this problem. The sim-
plest is to reject the commonsense assumptions that we are free and respon-
sible. That view follows from the premises that we are determined and that
determinism is incompatible with freedom and responsibility. This solution
is called hard determinism. Philosophers who want to hold on to freedom
and responsibility need to reject hard determinism, and they have several
options.
Some philosophers try to save freedom and responsibility by denying de-
terminism. Quantum mechanics famously rejects determinism in physics.
However, quantum mechanics replaces determinism with randomness, and
that kind of indeterminism does not seem adequate to secure freedom or97364_ch22_ptg01_465-494.indd 466 15/11/13 12:14 3M
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