Hard determinism
Encyclopedia
Hard determinism, or Metaphysical determinism, defends the strongest version of Determinism
: the world is a mechanism, and all events and choices have been determined by earlier conditions. Particularly, they accept Causal Determinism and Logical Determinism. Faced with the Standard argument against free will
, hard determinists reject free will
. This makes hard determinism an Incompatibilistic
view (whereas Compatibilism
attempts to accept both free will and Determinism).
Unlike “law fundamentalists”, some philosophers are “law pluralists”: they question what it means to have a law of physics. One example is the “Best Standards Analysis”, which says that the laws are only useful ways to summarize all past events, rather than there being metaphysically “pushy’’ entities (this route still brings one into conflict with the idea of free will). Some law pluralists further believe there are simply no laws of physics. The mathematical universe hypothesis suggests that there are other universes in which the laws of physics and fundamental constants are different. Andreas Albrecht of Imperial College in London called it a "provocative" solution to one of the central problems facing physics. Although he "wouldn't dare" go so far as to say he believes it, he noted that "it's actually quite difficult to construct a theory where everything we see is all there is".
The feasibility of testing determinism is always challenged by what we know, or think we can know, about the idea of a final, all encompassing, Theory of everything
. Some physicists challenge the likelihood of determinism
on the grounds that certain Interpretations of quantum mechanics stipulate that the universe is fundamentally indeterministic
, such as the Copenhagen interpretation
, whereas other interpretations are deterministic, for example, the De Broglie-Bohm Theory and the Many-worlds interpretation
.
Chaos theory
describes how a deterministic system can nonetheless exhibit behavior that is impossible to predict. Like the idea of the butterfly effect
, minor variations between the starting conditions of two systems can result in major differences.
Hard Determinists reject free will. Critics often suggest that, in so doing, the Hard Determinist also rejects ethics
. The key to this argument rests on the idea that holding a person morally responsible requires for them to make a choice between two, or more, truly possible alternatives. If choice is indeed impossible, then it would be incorrect to hold anyone morally responsible for his or her actions. If this argument holds, Hard Determinists are restricted to Moral nihilism
.
Those hard determinists who defend ethical realism would object to the premise that contra-causal free will is necessary for ethics. Those who are also ethically naturalistic
may also point out that there are good reasons to punish criminals: it is a chance to modify their behaviour, or their punishment can act as a deterrent for others who would otherwise act in the same manner. The hard determinist could even argue that this understanding of the true
and various causes
of a psychopath's behaviour, for instance, allow them to respond even more reasonably or compassionately.
Hard determinists acknowledge that humans do, in some sense, 'choose', or deliberate - although in a way that obeys natural laws. For example, a hard determinist might see humans as a sort of thinking machines
, but believe it is inaccurate to say they 'came to a decision' or 'chose'.
is an American
pragmatist
philosopher who coined the term "soft determinist" in an influential essay titled The Dilemma of Determinism. He argued against determinism, holding that the important issue is not personal responsibility, but hope. He believed that thorough-going determinism leads either to a bleak pessimism
or to a degenerate subjectivism
in moral judgment. He proposed the way to escape the dilemma is to allow a role for chance
. James was careful to explain that he would rather "debate about objects than words", however. He did not insist in saying that replacing determinism with a model including chance had to mean we had 'free will'.
The determinist would counter-argue that there is still reason for hope. Whether or not the universe is determined does not change the fact that the future is unknown, and might very well always be. From the point of view of Naturalism
, a person's actions still play a role in the shape of that future. Thomas W. Clark, founder and director of the Center for Naturalism, explains that humans are not merely the playthings of patterned, natural forces in the universe - but rather we are ourselves examples of those forces.
In fact, it is even conceivable that it is a lack of belief or understanding of determinism that is likely to cause 'bleak pessimism', or else fatalism
(one could suffer from feelings of helplessness
). An individual might therefore be enlightened by hard determinism in some sense. By understanding the many factors of a situation that influence their behavior as natural beings, they may obtain greater objectivity in their decision making.
Research on the "free will" belief itself, has yet support the idea that belief in determinism has negative consequences.
Determinism
Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...
: the world is a mechanism, and all events and choices have been determined by earlier conditions. Particularly, they accept Causal Determinism and Logical Determinism. Faced with the Standard argument against free will
Standard argument against free will
The dilemma of determinism is the claim that if determinism is true, our actions are controlled by preceding events and thus we are not free; and that if indeterminism is true, our actions are random and we are likewise not free; and that as determinism and indeterminism exhaust the logical...
, hard determinists reject free will
Free will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
. This makes hard determinism an Incompatibilistic
Incompatibilism
Incompatibilism is the view that a deterministic universe is completely at odds with the notion that people have a free will. Strictly speaking, there is a dichotomy between determinism and free will where philosophers must choose one or the other...
view (whereas Compatibilism
Compatibilism
Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are compatible ideas, and that it is possible to believe both without being logically inconsistent. It may, however, be more accurate to say that compatibilists define 'free will' in a way that allows it to co-exist with determinism...
attempts to accept both free will and Determinism).
Overview
Hard determinism is not taken to refer merely to a determinism on earth, but in all of reality (e.g. involving the effects of light from other galaxies, etc.). Not just during a certain deterministic period of time, but for all time. This also means that the relation of necessity will be bi-directional. Just as the initial conditions of the universe presumably determine all future states, so too does the present necessitate the past. In other words, one could not change any one fact (i.e. "counterfactuals") without affecting the one, entire timeline. Because hard determinists often support this Eternalist view of time, they do not believe that there are genuine chances or possibilities, only the idea that events are 100% likely.Unlike “law fundamentalists”, some philosophers are “law pluralists”: they question what it means to have a law of physics. One example is the “Best Standards Analysis”, which says that the laws are only useful ways to summarize all past events, rather than there being metaphysically “pushy’’ entities (this route still brings one into conflict with the idea of free will). Some law pluralists further believe there are simply no laws of physics. The mathematical universe hypothesis suggests that there are other universes in which the laws of physics and fundamental constants are different. Andreas Albrecht of Imperial College in London called it a "provocative" solution to one of the central problems facing physics. Although he "wouldn't dare" go so far as to say he believes it, he noted that "it's actually quite difficult to construct a theory where everything we see is all there is".
The feasibility of testing determinism is always challenged by what we know, or think we can know, about the idea of a final, all encompassing, Theory of everything
Theory of everything
A theory of everything is a putative theory of theoretical physics that fully explains and links together all known physical phenomena, and predicts the outcome of any experiment that could be carried out in principle....
. Some physicists challenge the likelihood of determinism
Determinism
Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...
on the grounds that certain Interpretations of quantum mechanics stipulate that the universe is fundamentally indeterministic
Indeterminism
Indeterminism is the concept that events are not caused, or not caused deterministically by prior events. It is the opposite of determinism and related to chance...
, such as the Copenhagen interpretation
Copenhagen interpretation
The Copenhagen interpretation is one of the earliest and most commonly taught interpretations of quantum mechanics. It holds that quantum mechanics does not yield a description of an objective reality but deals only with probabilities of observing, or measuring, various aspects of energy quanta,...
, whereas other interpretations are deterministic, for example, the De Broglie-Bohm Theory and the Many-worlds interpretation
Many-worlds interpretation
The many-worlds interpretation is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that asserts the objective reality of the universal wavefunction, but denies the actuality of wavefunction collapse. Many-worlds implies that all possible alternative histories and futures are real, each representing an...
.
Chaos theory
Chaos theory
Chaos theory is a field of study in mathematics, with applications in several disciplines including physics, economics, biology, and philosophy. Chaos theory studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, an effect which is popularly referred to as the...
describes how a deterministic system can nonetheless exhibit behavior that is impossible to predict. Like the idea of the butterfly effect
Butterfly effect
In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions; where a small change at one place in a nonlinear system can result in large differences to a later state...
, minor variations between the starting conditions of two systems can result in major differences.
Implications for ethics
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
. The key to this argument rests on the idea that holding a person morally responsible requires for them to make a choice between two, or more, truly possible alternatives. If choice is indeed impossible, then it would be incorrect to hold anyone morally responsible for his or her actions. If this argument holds, Hard Determinists are restricted to Moral nihilism
Moral nihilism
Moral nihilism is the meta-ethical view that nothing is moral or immoral. For example, a moral nihilist would say that killing someone, for whatever reason, is neither inherently right nor inherently wrong...
.
Those hard determinists who defend ethical realism would object to the premise that contra-causal free will is necessary for ethics. Those who are also ethically naturalistic
Ethical naturalism
Ethical naturalism is the meta-ethical view which claims that:# Ethical sentences express propositions.# Some such propositions are true....
may also point out that there are good reasons to punish criminals: it is a chance to modify their behaviour, or their punishment can act as a deterrent for others who would otherwise act in the same manner. The hard determinist could even argue that this understanding of the true
True
True may refer to:* Truth, the state of being in accord with fact or reality-Music:* True , 1996* True , 2002* True , 1983** "True"...
and various causes
Fallacy of the single cause
The fallacy of the single cause, also known as causal oversimplification, is a fallacy of questionable cause that occurs when it is assumed that there is a single, simple cause of an outcome when in reality it may have been caused by a number of only jointly sufficient causes.Often after a tragedy...
of a psychopath's behaviour, for instance, allow them to respond even more reasonably or compassionately.
Hard determinists acknowledge that humans do, in some sense, 'choose', or deliberate - although in a way that obeys natural laws. For example, a hard determinist might see humans as a sort of thinking machines
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
, but believe it is inaccurate to say they 'came to a decision' or 'chose'.
Psychological effects of belief in hard determinism
William JamesWilliam James
William James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism...
is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
pragmatist
Pragmatism
Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition centered on the linking of practice and theory. It describes a process where theory is extracted from practice, and applied back to practice to form what is called intelligent practice...
philosopher who coined the term "soft determinist" in an influential essay titled The Dilemma of Determinism. He argued against determinism, holding that the important issue is not personal responsibility, but hope. He believed that thorough-going determinism leads either to a bleak pessimism
Pessimism
Pessimism, from the Latin word pessimus , is a state of mind in which one perceives life negatively. Value judgments may vary dramatically between individuals, even when judgments of fact are undisputed. The most common example of this phenomenon is the "Is the glass half empty or half full?"...
or to a degenerate subjectivism
Subjectivism
Subjectivism is a philosophical tenet that accords primacy to subjective experience as fundamental of all measure and law. In extreme forms like Solipsism, it may hold that the nature and existence of every object depends solely on someone's subjective awareness of it...
in moral judgment. He proposed the way to escape the dilemma is to allow a role for chance
Chance
- Philosophy, logic and theology :* Chance * Contingency * Indeterminism* Luck* Probability* Randomness- Places :* Chancé, a commune in Brittany, France* Chance, Kentucky, U.S.* Chance, Maryland, U.S.* Chance, Virginia, U.S....
. James was careful to explain that he would rather "debate about objects than words", however. He did not insist in saying that replacing determinism with a model including chance had to mean we had 'free will'.
The determinist would counter-argue that there is still reason for hope. Whether or not the universe is determined does not change the fact that the future is unknown, and might very well always be. From the point of view of Naturalism
Naturalism (philosophy)
Naturalism commonly refers to the philosophical viewpoint that the natural universe and its natural laws and forces operate in the universe, and that nothing exists beyond the natural universe or, if it does, it does not affect the natural universe that we know...
, a person's actions still play a role in the shape of that future. Thomas W. Clark, founder and director of the Center for Naturalism, explains that humans are not merely the playthings of patterned, natural forces in the universe - but rather we are ourselves examples of those forces.
In fact, it is even conceivable that it is a lack of belief or understanding of determinism that is likely to cause 'bleak pessimism', or else fatalism
Fatalism
Fatalism is a philosophical doctrine emphasizing the subjugation of all events or actions to fate.Fatalism generally refers to several of the following ideas:...
(one could suffer from feelings of helplessness
Learned helplessness
Learned helplessness, as a technical term in animal psychology and related human psychology, means a condition of a human person or an animal in which it has learned to behave helplessly, even when the opportunity is restored for it to help itself by avoiding an unpleasant or harmful circumstance...
). An individual might therefore be enlightened by hard determinism in some sense. By understanding the many factors of a situation that influence their behavior as natural beings, they may obtain greater objectivity in their decision making.
Research on the "free will" belief itself, has yet support the idea that belief in determinism has negative consequences.