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Students will learn
Are you free?
or are you determined?
Are you programmed to repeat the same actions
Is your volition nothing more than an electrochemical event in your
brain, mechanically caused, like any other physical process?
Might you be a hybrid, a little bit of both?
What does determinism
mean?
Determinism means that for every effect, there is a cause.
Everything has been predetermined to happen just the way it did.
You are not free.
You are at the effect of the cause.
For example, if you are moved to rape an individual by
the sight of someone 5'6" tall with blond hair and a well
proportioned body, it is not your fault that you raped this
individual when she walked by.
It was out of your hands.
In a sense, you are not morally responsible, but determined.
Arguments for Determinism:
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Religious Determinism (predestination)
Some contend that God being omniscient, knows the past, present
& future, and your future acts are therefore foreknown or
"predestined." This was advanced by Protestant John Calvin
(1509- 1564)
- Thiroux critiques Calvin's predestination
- Source of evil - if God created a, did he create evil?
Genesis says, "And he saw that it was good" - so evil may be
a privation of good - like a hole in a doughnut.
- Does God really predetermine who will be bad and good
just because he knows the future?
Scientific Determination
In the scientific world each effect has a cause. There is
universal causation
- Physical Determinism
Isaac Newton (1642 - 1727) believed that the universe is
governed by natural laws (motion, gravity)
Man is made of matter . We are physical & therefore subject to
physical causes. We are thereby governed by natural laws too.
Therefore we are not free. freedom is an illusion.
- Criticism:
The soul/mind/spirit are reduced to brain activity, a mix of
electro-chemical energy.
We are also mental beings
Heisenberg's quantum theory of physics
- Biological and Genetic Determinism:
Charles Darwin (1809 - 1822) The Origin of Species - The theory
of natural selection - the fittest survive
Do we have any say in our genetic makeup? We inherit genes
Are we biologically determined
- He was convinced that morality was
an evolutionary artifact and that the mind was matter
- DeMarco writes that Darwin "assumed that human beings were
naturally asocial and amoral, and only became social and moral
historically. To be more exact, for Darwin we first had to
become social before we could become moral....Darwin described
it [conscience] as a 'feeling of dissatisfaction which
invariably results...from any unsatisfied instinct' Since
evolution continues, many new variations of conscience
shall continue to occur"
- DeMarco notes the following regarding Darwin's eugenics
bent:
Darwin claimed "According to the laws of natural selection, the
European race will emerge as the distinct species homo
sapiens, and all the transitional forms - the gorilla, the
chimpanzee, the Negro, and the Australian Aborigine - will be
extinguished in the struggle" (82)
- DeMarco also writes that Darwin did not think highly of
vaccines as these interrupted the flow of natural
selection/evolution. He quotes Darwin: The unfortunate
result is that "the weak members of civilized societies
propagate their kind...This must be highly injurious to the race
of man." (Darwin himself had 10 children, seven of whom survived
and all were sickly.)
- Darwin also believe that we have outgrown monogamy and
should strive to breed a better human race:" There should be
open competition for all men; and the most able should not be
prevented by laws or customs from succeeding best and
rearing the largest number of offspring." (The Descent of
Man - chapter 21)
- Social-Cultural Determinism
- Historical or Cultural Determinism:
Hegel (1770-1831) claims history is a manifestation of the
divine mind.
The physical is a manifestation of the divine mind.
We are a manifestation of the divine mind
Ultimate reality is unfolding according to it own
inner laws of necessity (thesis antithesis synthesis)
We are determined by our history, by history, by culture.
- Criticism
We can't prove there is such a mind & such a mind
without a body to sustain it.
There is a difference between being influenced by and
determined by a culture or a history
- Economic or Social Determinism
Karl Marx (1818 - 1883) believed we are more
economically and socially determined than he are
historically determined
"Dialectical Materialism" Determinism according to an
evolutionary economic class struggle
There is a force in nature - and this force contributes to
our evolution - to a classless society.
- Criticism:
Some economic theories are not based on determinism
The difference of being influenced by and determined by
Economics is just a small part of the mystery of our
being
- My personal comments on Marx
(1818-1883)
Marx claims religion is the "opium of the
people" and "the sigh of the oppressed creature."
Marx believed man need to free himself of the illusion
of God to develop himself.
This freedom is the next step of our evolution.
Man also needed to free himself from the oppression of
the workplace which alienates man from himself.
In Marx's revolution millions of peoples lost their
lives instead of their chains of bondage. Freedom of
oppression from the proletariat was the illusion
What kind of person was Marx?
- He was a spendthrift who was
repeatedly sued for nonpayment
- His children were lacking:
Four of his six children predeceased him. His two
surviving daughters committed suicide.
- Marx's housekeeper bore him a
son only three months after his wife gave birth to
their fourth child
- Marx was concerned about his
"reputation," so he asked his friend Engel to claim he
was the father. Marx wanted to appear as an innocent &
oppressed member of the working class. He was neither.
The baby was sent out for adoption. (Marx info from
Architects of the Culture of Death)
- Eleven people attended Marx's
funeral
- Psychological Determinism
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
We are determined - from unconscious forces
We have natural drives that our culture makes us repress
Parents who give too much or too little cause kids to be
neurotic or psychotic
This has been used in courts
- Critique:
Based his theories on disturbed individuals
- Maritain writes, "The whole of Freudian philosophy
rests upon the prejudice of a radical denial of
spiritual freedom" ("Freudianism and Psychoanalysis")
- Demarco writes, "Freud's method of dealing with
anything spiritual is reductive; that is, he reduces it
to the plane of the material.
- Karl Stern writes that with Freud, "Religion is
nothing but an obsessive-compulsive neurosis ("The Third
Revolution" - cosmological biological &
psychological)
- Freud wrote "If men are taught that there is no
almighty and all-just God, no divine world-order and no
future life, they would feel exempt from all obligation
to obey the precepts of civilization. Everyone will,
without inhibition of fear, follow his asocial, egoistic
instincts and seek to exercise his power. (Civilization
and Its Discontents)
- B.F. Skinner (1904 to 1990) based his work on Ivan
Pavlov (1849-136) conditioned reflex
Skinner claims humans are completely physical beings, the
result of conditioning
Skinner says freedom is an illusion
- Criticism:
There is no mind, soul, or ego. The mind is reduced to a
physical brain.
Behavior control is virtually impossible to apply to a
total population to create a utopia
Question: To what extent & when should one try to
control behavior via behavior control techniques?
- What is hard determinism?
It is a view with little more give than fatalism. Although
we may be caused beings, we can still affect:
"The way humans affect things is caused by their personal makeup
and environment And that these, in turn, are caused by factors
over which human beings have no control" (109 Thiroux)
Certain causes that are out of our control have affected
the way we are.
Example:
If you and your brother was born in poverty & you are a saintly
philanthropist & your brother is a crook - we can still claim
determinism: unnoticed causes (teachers, friends, ministers)
influenced you & caused you to be what you are. They are
not responsible.
In short, with hard determinism, we are programmed to choose and
act in certain ways because of causes.
- What is soft determinism?
It is a modification of hard determinism.
Although we may inherit our genetics and not choose the time and
culture we are born into, we have freedom in our minds and will. Our
minds and wills can cause. Therefore there is freedom within
universal causation.
- Hospers:
Hospers agrees people often do what they don't want to because
of determinism, but while we may be determined, it is
possible to desire - and once we desire , we can make
limited progress - like overcoming an addiction.
Hospers agrees with hard determinists that we don't have
complete freedom to make our bodies, but we have immaterial
freedom.
- Freedom and the Hierarchy of Being
The higher up we go - from inanimate, plant, animal to human,
the greater the freedom & ability to self-create - because of
the greater powers (intellect and will in particular)
- Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980)
"Il n'y a pas de nature humaine"
We cannot choose our physical makeup, but we can choose how to
live with what we have.
Supports Husserl's intentionality - the intentional use of
consciousness - that consciousness focuses & intends, rather
than being passive. It self-directs.
- Sartre wrote, "Life is absurd...Man is a useless passion...I
was intoxicated with death because I did not like life." (Words)
- What is indeterminism?
According to Thiroux, not everything is caused; there is chance
& freedom
William James (1842-1910) "Our first act of freedom, if we are
free, ought in all inward propriety to be to affirm that we are
free." There is spontaneity and there is choice and the
accompanying feeling of regret
- Criticism:
James is wishful thinking
Little evidence
Wanting doesn't make a thing real
Is it possible that an act not be caused? isn't this illogical
-
- What is fatalism?
A view that all events are fixed , pre-determined, out of our
control
If I am meant to die by a bullet or airplane crash,... that will
be.
- If people were really fatalists, would they be careful
crossing a street?
- END OF LECTURE
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