Are our choices pre-determined?
Understanding determinism
As I write these words, could I be writing something else? It seems intuitive to think I could. If I wanted to I could delete these words and start again, as I have done several times already. But even then one might ask if it could have been any other way?
Those who believe in free will would say it could have been, that as John Searle argued, “each thing we do carries the conviction... that we could be doing something else right here and now, that is, all other conditions remaining the same” — what Robert Kane referred to as ‘dual power’ in his 1985 book Free Will and Values.
A hard determinist, on the other hand, would say it couldn’t have been any other way, that if my actions could be rewound they would play out again exactly the same way. According to hard determinists, our actions are not free, but determined by factors such as the environment, genetics and unconscious impulses; factors which, if not external per se, are at least beyond one’s own control.
An obvious problem arises: if hard determinism is correct, and people do not freely make decisions, how can we justify holding people responsible for their actions?
Soft determinism (also called compatibilism) offers a middle ground and a solution to this problem by positing all events…
