Determinism or Free Will: A Contemporary Update

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The familiar expression “hindsight is always 20/20” affirms that looking back on a behavior enables you to understand what previously you weren't cognizant of. And that regardless of whether you could foresee it, it was yet predictable.

Let’s say you were in the market for a house, and your realtor showed you 20, more or less fulfilling your requirements. After anguishing for a full week, you finally determined which one to bid on. The question—in this ongoing free will debate—would then be: "Was all that time pondering your choices really necessary?"

And, too, did your deliberations indicate that you were truly exercising self-determination and agency, or was your decision, in fact, already predetermined by your genetics and environmental history?

Certainly, at the time, it must have felt like you were choosing freely. But might this only have been illusory—an illusion, admittedly, that all of us share?

Put somewhat differently, if your alleged choice was controlled by inner programming, was it you who did the choosing, or was it controlled by forces outside your conscious control?

To help you better grasp these issues, the rest of this post will trace what various thinkers in the modern era have conjectured about this ever-controversial—and ever-evolving—subject.

What Is “Hard Determinism"? The Powerful Influence of Freud and Skinner

In order to recast simplistic beliefs about the human psyche into a more respectable scientific paradigm, Sigmund Freud postulated the “science” of psychoanalysis. Wanting to demystify the vagaries of human behavior by discovering the immutable laws driving it, he arrived at what’s presently known as psychological determinism.

His all-inclusive theory of the mind delved below human consciousness to bring to the surface what, unperceived by the individual, influenced—or, in fact, dictated—both their verbal and non-verbal conduct. As M. J. Gerson describes it: “The ‘logic’ of [illogical] symptoms soon led [Freud] to an appreciation for the logic of dreams, mistakes, jokes, and slips of the tongue.” In short, virtually everything human could be inferred by examining a person’s history.

B. F. Skinner, the most renowned (or frowned-upon) figure of behaviorism, is another highly influential psychological theorist and also a firm believer in strict, or “hard,” determinism. His conclusions about the nature of human nature, however, stemmed from a much more inductive approach.

His comparative research on operant conditioning—first with rats, then with pigeons (Pavlov’s classical conditioning work was with dogs)—led him to attend to human behavior as also regulated by cause and effect.

So, like Freud’s earlier obsession with the unconscious, Skinner’s focus on rewards and reinforcement left him little choice but to see free will similarly: as nothing more than an illusion.

But if all behavior is under stimulus control, how then can we hold anyone responsible for their actions?

As S.A. McLeod summarizes this dilemma: “[One] problem with determinism is that it is inconsistent with society’s ideas of responsibility and self-control that form the basis of our moral and legal obligations.”

And that’s why psychologists, sociologists, cultural critics, and ethical philosophers (not to mention prosecutors and judges) have found such absolutism unsophisticatedly simplistic (if not arbitrarily autocratic).

Are we to swing open the doors of our prisons and let even the most malevolent convicts go free because, after all, they couldn’t help but commit heinous crimes?

Enter “Soft” Determinism

To some, it might appear a matter of verbal acrobatics. But soft determinists regard free will and personal responsibility, and the opposing causality of determinism, as not really incompatible—which is why one commonly applied synonym for soft determinism is (no surprise) indeterminism. That discriminating term is viewed as coming closer to depicting our historically shared reality than the mechanization characterizing hard determinism.

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Here the perspective is that many elements fundamental to life are best seen as random or accidental rather than inevitable or predictable. Moreover, by their very nature, they will forever remain so.

Plus, whatever predictions we might make about a person's future behavior can't but be tentative and too general or vague to warrant being judged as definitive.

Roy Baumeister advances a curious viewpoint on the subject, advocating for soft determinism not because it's simply more scientifically valid than its hard-core counterpart but because it's frankly a lot more prudent and practical. To this highly respected psychological researcher, people face choices daily among multiple possibilities, and to see these choices as purely illusory is to twist the whole phenomenon "into an unrealistic straitjacket."

Elaborating on this viewpoint, Baumeister contends:

To believe in [hard] determinism is thus to go far beyond the observed and known facts. It could be true, I suppose. But it requires a huge leap of faith, as well as a tortuous effort to deny that what we constantly observe and experience is real.

...There is no proof that any result is 100 percent inevitable, though in practice some things seem to be very highly reliable.

McLeod's own carefully qualified deterministic position is complementary in predicating that:

Soft determinism represents a middle ground, people do have a choice, but that choice is constrained by external or internal factors. [So] being poor doesn't make you steal but it may make you more likely to take that route through desperation.

Soft determinism suggests that some behaviors are more constrained than others and that there is an element of free will in all behavior... Psychologists cannot predict a person’s behavior with 100 percent accuracy due to the complex interaction of variables which can influence behavior.

In a sense, both these formulations can be seen as humanistic since they attempt to stay true to the scientific principles of causation without reducing humanity to beings utterly lacking in self-determination. It's a reasonable position to take, for if we can't affect such a compromise, we'll unquestionably be obligated to surrender to moral nihilism.

It's also a more compassionate approach because if we "go hard" on determinism, how could we ever feel anything but pity (and maybe even contempt) for humans as weak, ineffectual, and without any authentic motivation, autonomy, or will.

It’s Wise to Depend More on Facts Than Theories

Vladimir Putin's ruthless invasion of Ukraine is a case in point. The despot has warned the U.S. that if it equips Ukraine with Patriot missiles, it could lead to "unpredictable consequences." And given all the variables at play, can Putin himself be sure how he would ultimately react to this Western threat? He might feel desperate enough, or justified enough, to consider a vengeful nuclear retaliation. Despite the self-destructive irrationality of such an act, it's still a possibility.

Paradoxically, this wary psychological assessment lends more credence to the notion of free will than determinism. Putin's history, going all the way back to his childhood of abuse, neglect, and violence, allows us to deduce a great deal about his predilections and propensities and, less directly, his biological heritage and temperament.

These factors and potentially "knowable" others enable us to predict his future behavior—or at least its viable alternatives—approximately. But because so many variables exist, and none can be definitively weighted against all the others, neither Putin's (nor anyone else's) actions can incontestably be forecast in advance. So, for better or worse, taking a measured soft deterministic viewpoint toward human behavior is, finally, the most advantageous—and ethical—perspective possible.

© 2023 Leon F. Seltzer, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved.