Is Determinism Compatible With Free Will?

According to A.J. Ayer, in his essay “Freedom and Necessity,” freedom consists of the ability to do otherwise. Ayer gives examples of a kleptomaniac, a person with a gun to their head, and a person with a habit of strong obedience to illustrate not having the ability to do otherwise. In each of these situations, some other “force” is influencing the person to choose what they choose.

Therefore, it can be said that the people in the illustration don’t have free will, because they are acting not out of their own will, but out of the influence of some other “force.” This is a key concept, because if these people are not acting out of free will, then it can be argued that they cannot be held morally responsible for their actions.

Ayer’s Theories on Freedom and Free Will

In short, according to Ayer, having freedom means having the ability to choose to do other than what you chose to do. In this context, it is clear how the kleptomaniac can’t choose not to steal, how an addicted person isn’t free to resist the addiction, and how a person with a gun to their head isn’t free to do other than what the gunman wants.

As Ayer explains it, freedom is compatible with determinism because the tension between causality and freedom is based on the misunderstanding that the universe causes events to occur (and therefore people aren’t acting freely), rather than acknowledging that there is a correlation between past, present and future events which can but doesn’t always interfere with free will.

What is Determinism?

Determinism suggests that if one were to pick any point in time, the future state (from that point in time) is determined by the current state, which in turn was determined by the previous state. This means that based on the laws of nature, there’s only one possible future given a specific time.

Essentially, current events are determined by previous events, and future events will be determined by current events.

The Problem Free Will Poses for Determinism

This poses a problem for free will because if determinism holds true (all events are determined previous events), we could not have chosen to do anything other than what we did (the single possible future event given a specific time/circumstances). Therefore, we couldn’t have free will, and thus be morally accountable for our actions) if we didn’t have the option to do otherwise, and if we didn’t make the choice that led to the action since the action was predetermines by past events.

Sources:

A.J. Ayers. “Freedom and Necessity”

Stanford University Encyclopedia of Philosophy. “Free Will.”