Paradoxes
of Free Will – Gunther S. Stent (2002)
One of the biggest difficulties I have
in reading works of philosophy is the nearly universal occurrence that philosophers
critically analyze and explore an idea as far as they can, but seemingly fail
to analyze and explore the assumptions they personally hold to be Truth. Many philosophical works are actually
re-phrasing and analysis of previous works, with what amounts to essentially a
pamphlets-worth of data placed at the end of the book, detailing the writer’s
tiny contribution. I am not fond of
reading those. The glorious thing about
Mr. Gunther Stent’s bad-ass book, Paradoxes of Free Will, is that it seeks to
explore just one topic, and does so following the chronological history of
human philosophical development.
The topic at hand is one that each
of us should have an opinion on, regardless of our educational level. This topic is Free Will. Going back thousands and thousands of years,
Mr. Stent finds that the central issue to much religious/theological thought is
the attempt to understand what humans perceive as Free Will. Very ancient human civilizations did not have
a concept of an individual free will.
Even until the time of Confucius, Lao Tze and the Buddha, the world
these genius thinkers came from did not place any value on the individual or
the individual’s right to decide the path of their life. Confucius created a means by which society
can guarantee good upstanding members, to the exclusion of actual individual
desires. Lao Tze tried to do the same,
but with the goal of showing the people how to guarantee a good moral life, as
opposed to a social life. The idea of
human Free Will really began to take shape after humanity crafted monotheistic
religions. Polytheistic religions
posited that we humans were just parts of a much greater, eternal whole. Monotheistic religions had to create some
sort of special reason why humans are so “awesome,” so they began to perceive
the entire material world as being created solely for humans (stupid, but what
can you do?)
The main argument between
theologians, philosophers, and other thinkers goes like this. If the Universe is created by an all-knowing,
all-powerful, infallible creator being, and that creator being knows all that
has come and will come, then why do humans feel like they are freely choosing
their own paths in life? If it is all
pre-ordained, then to blame a human for a wrong action or an immoral choice is
to blame the designs of an almighty god.
On the other hand, if humans have the ability to choose their actions
for themselves, does that not deny the existence of an omnipotent creator? This argument is further inflamed by the claim
that some sort of pre-existing morality exists in humans, by which we are
tested. If we do good actions (god’s
will) then we are good moral beings. If
we choose to do bad actions, we do so in spite of the morality we all know is
in us. At least that is one argument,
and I have severely simplified it here.
The book shows the early development
of human thought on these matters. From
the idea of a Free Will comes the idea of a Soul. From the idea of a Soul comes the battle to
determine whether the soul is a part of our material existence (a result purely
of biomechanical processes) or whether we have a duality in us, base matter
being our physical self, and a divine, ever-lasting Soul which guides our true
self. This is called the Mind-Body
Problem. Does the mind/soul exist
independently from the body/brain? Is it
all just the end-result of pure physical properties? Many wars and terrors and traumas have been
shoved down people’s throats by those who wish to force their ideas about this
on the people at large.
The existence (as most of us see it)
of Free Will invites many other philosophical paradoxes that are explored in
this great book. One of the oldest is
the Paradox of Moral Responsibility.
This can be explained in the following manner:
1)
Some
of the world’s events are governed by determinism (the web of causation that we
feel directly effects outcomes, such as a drought causing a forest fire). All other events are random chance.
2)
People
are only morally responsible for the action they will autonomously (many will
say a person who is under orders to do an immoral act is NOT morally
responsible, for instance. A murder is
an autonomous killing. A soldier firing
at an enemy is just following an order.)
3)
To
the extent that a being performs an action is governed by determinism, it is
predetermined. Therefore people could
not have chosen to exercise their free will in any other way from how they did
do it. The problem is that item one
shows that if the action was not caused directly by another force, then it
happened purely by chance, meaning no Free Will was involved at all.
4)
The
conclusion of this argument is that a being is never morally responsible for
their actions. This for many is an obvious paradox. How can an evil person not be morally responsible for their actions?
Now,
while that may sound nice and pat, it has been shot down countless times by
other philosophers, who can all find ways that actions are morally valid or
invalid, regardless of determinism or random chance. For instance, some would argue that a soldier
ordered to shoot someone does not have to actually shoot them. They could reject the order or shoot in
another direction, and in doing so could choose the moral path. It is very complex.
This book goes on to discuss
scientific and religious developments that have shaped the various paradoxes that
arise from the very idea of Free Will, with the quantum indeterminacy of the
nano world being one of the latest to shock the status quo of philosophy as it
relates to mind/body and free will. I am
glad I ran into this book at the Library.
It is a great exploration of a very specific and very central topic in
the world of philosophy.
(This book can be read here: PARADOXES OF FREE WILL )
(This book can be read here: PARADOXES OF FREE WILL )
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