Introduction
Ethics is the study of morality, specifically the rules and norms governing human behavior and the obligations of individuals towards one another. Nowadays, there are numerous ethical dilemmas, one of which is the problem of free will. Scientists’ views on what willpower is and its validity are quite contradictory. Indeterminists admit its presence by obeying the incarnations in practical life.
Determinists consider it fiction because they believe everything in the world is subject to rigid laws that exclude this strange quality of human nature. Physical causes cannot fully explain the physical events resulting from human activity; they are part of the causal chain but do not exhaust it, thereby proving the existence of free will.
Indeterminism and Human Agency
Not all phenomena and events arise solely from any causes without human intervention. From the perspective of the indeterminist theory, the universal connection of all sensations with events has not been established conclusively and therefore is not proven. Physical conditioning cannot fully explain many physical phenomena resulting from human activity (Del Santo & Gisin, 2019).
For example, suppose a person gets up and closes a southern window. In that case, the behavior can be described solely in terms of physics; however, describing the nature of the decision itself poses difficulties. It is undoubtedly possible to regard the physical sensation of cold the body experiences as the irritation of nerve endings, leading to corresponding irritation in the brain’s neurons.
However, indeterminists insist that this explanation cannot amount to the same process as, for example, boiling water in a kettle at one hundred degrees (Mitchell, 2018). It means the solution can differ for the same physical reactions. Thus, a human has a right to decide, and not all events can be predetermined.
Determinism, Consciousness, and Moral Responsibility
Determinists, on the other hand, hold a distinct view. Some believe that individuals live according to universal, global laws (Mitchell, 2018). Each moment of the present, in which the world is, flows entirely from the previous one. In this way, it is possible to uncover the accordance of history and the future: the former is no fairer than the latter. Having all the information about the world, it would be possible to precisely calculate which events will occur at any given moment. Nevertheless, applying such a system to a person leads to absurdity.
An example is the simple decision of an individual to move a finger, which involves the preceding excitation of parts of the brain. It can be stated that the decision to move was formed not even at the moment of cortical activity but when the subject learned that (Del Santo & Gisin, 2019). Thus, conscious reasons can generate unconscious reasons, not the other way around. Moreover, as Jean-Paul Sartre rightly observed, complete human determinism is impossible: consciousness motivated from outside would become pure appearances, and thus consciousness would cease to be.
Another problem with the determinism theory is assessing the morality of human actions. Murder committed by the mentally ill is perceived to be milder than intentional murder. However, the responsibility criterion loses its meaning if all actions are conditioned (Del Santo & Gisin, 2019). The mentally ill person’s brain somehow compelled him to commit murder, but the brain of a healthy person has also done the preliminary work of conditioning the crime.
Conclusion
Thus, both approaches considered assume that certain events are inherently uncertain. However, the second solution does not distinguish the specific ontology of man within the general ontology. The first one, on the contrary, assigns to man a rather important mission — to set the ontological contour of the world as indeterminant.
In such manipulations, although not transcending the world, a man deservedly gets a special place in it, namely, the right to give it a certain kind, one in which freedom in the world becomes real. At the same time, a third position exists that combines determinism and indeterminism, but the rationality of this possibility remains unresolved.
References
Del Santo, F., & Gisin, N. (2019). Physics without determinism: Alternative interpretations of classical physics. Physical Review A, 100(6), 100-107.
Mitchell, H. B. (2018). Roots of wisdom: A tapestry of philosophical traditions. Cengage Learning.