Presumably, from the time we are born, most of us are inclined to believe that we are, in some sense, free. That is to say, we believe that we control our thoughts and decisions from start to finish. We believe we have the power to create new thoughts, dwell on old thoughts, or act on our thoughts.
Because of this belief, we hold people responsible for their behavior. No one else is to blame for the decisions people make or the mental process that leads up to them. Each of us have the power to choose whether to think or to act on something.
Common Sense?
To the surprise of many, plenty of people in the world have come to reject this instinctive belief in some form. They do not believe people have this power. Rather, they believe people are either partially and entirely programmed by things beyond their immediate control. These "programming influences" or deterministic factors are believed to include things like culture, psychology, spirituality, personal experiences, economics, history, and, ultimately, the laws of nature.
Because of this belief, some people come to the conclusion that we are either only partially responsible for our decisions or that we are not responsible for them at all. However, others still believe that, despite being programmed, people can rightfully be held responsible for their decisions. (Spoiler Alert: I'm one of those people.)
Three Views of the World
More formally, these notions of human freedom (or lack of freedom) are subsumed within three distinct views of the world:
1. Hard Determinism
All events in reality are caused. True randomness does not exist. All events can, in theory, be predicted by some fundamental rule or law. (This implies that our decisions are caused by rules or laws beyond our control.)
2. Soft Determinism
This view holds that, while virtually all events in reality are caused, the human mind is capable of producing at least some decisions on its own, without any prior causes to explain them.
3. Indeterminism
This view holds that not everything in reality is causal. There is a certain amount of fundamental randomness in reality that can't be predicted or determined by any rule or law. (This implies that our decisions, among other things, may be fundamentally random.)
My View
As indicated previously, I'm inclined to embrace the view of hard determinism. That is to say, I think every event in reality, including our decisions, can be explained by a cause. In other words, I think there is a reason for everything that happens in the most literal sense possible. Nothing is truly random. Nor do our minds create or initiate decisions out of nothing. They are caused just like everything else.
I won't get into the heady details of why I think this. However, I'll offer some analogies which might resonate with you and show where I'm coming from.
Example 1
If I receive a phone call from a friend who tells me that they've arrived at the airport, I have the good sense to assume my friend has departed from somewhere else to get there. If my friend insists that they have arrived but that they never actually departed from anywhere, I no longer know what they are talking about. Their words are, to me, meaningless.
Similarly, I don't know what it means to say that our thoughts and intentions arrive in our mind without something bringing them there. (If we say "we bring them there", we must then ask where we brought them from and how we got them there. Thus, we find ourselves explaining the causal events leading up to our thoughts and decisions whether we like it or not.)
Example 2
One other example theists might appreciate concerns how theists commonly (and mistakenly) view atheism:
Similarly, to believe that our mind can generate new thoughts and decisions out of nothing and for no specific casual reason is, to me, tantamount to believing that the universe can pop into existence out of nothing and for no specific causal reason.
In What Sense Are We Responsible?
The question then remains for hard determinists like me: "But if we are programmed to think and act the way we do, in what sense are we responsible for our decisions?"
Great question! It does seem troubling, doesn't it? I agree that, if hard determinism is true, people cannot be held responsible for their decisions, in the sense that they are not the creators of their decisions. However, I think people can be held responsible for their decisions, in the sense that they are the agents of their decisions.
Confused?
In other words, I don't hold a serial killer responsible for all the things that systematically made them a serial killer. However, I do hold them responsible for being a serial killer. They are the ones with malicious intentions and they are the ones taking enjoyment in murder, regardless of whether or not they ultimately caused their condition. It is this state of having malicious intentions and taking enjoyment in the needless suffering of others which I consider evil and potentially deserving of punishment. It is not the decisions leading up to this state which matter.
(Please note that this is my view on how determinism relates with human responsibility. It is not necessarily held by every hard determinist.)
The implications of hard determinism and how it relates with the proper distribution of punishment and reward is a whole different topic of discussion. Maybe I'll give my take on that in the future.
Concluding Remarks
Needless to say, this whole subject can seem pretty complicated at first. In some ways, it is complicated, and in some ways, it isn't. Like anything else, once we familiarize ourselves with the concepts and terms, things become clearer and simpler over time as they work away in the back of our mind.
The question of human freedom is an important one to face if we want to properly understand what we can hold humans responsible for and what we can expect from them morally. Sometimes conclusions on this subject have deep implications for other areas of our thinking. Sometimes they impact our views on theology, ethics, or politics. They may even impact how we view our justice system.
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