free will and determinism

• the debate


  the free will/determinism debate revolves around the extent to which our behaviour is governed by external or internal forces which we have no control or whether people are able to decide for themselves whether to act or behave in a certain way
• free will


  the notion of free will suggests humans are free to make choices. There are biological and environmental influences on our behaviour - but free will implies we can reject them. This is the view of the humanistic approach
• determinism


  hard determinism - suggests that all human action has a cause, and it should be possible to identify these causes

  soft determinism - suggests that all human action has a cause but people have freedom to make choices within a restricted range of options
• biological determinism


  the biological approach describes many causes of behaviour e.g. the influence of the autonomic nervous system on stress or the influence of genes of mental health

  - modern biological psychologists would recognise the mediating influence of the environment on our biological structures
• environmental determinism


  Skinner described free will as 'an illusion' and all behaviour as the result of conditioning

  - our experience of 'choice' is the sum total of reinforcement contingencies that have acted upon us throughout our lives
• psychic determinism


  Freud emphasised the influence of biological drives and unconscious conflicts repressed in childhood

  - even something as seemingly random as a 'slip of the tongue' can be explained by the unconscious
• strength


  P - free will has practical value

  E - Roberts et al (2000) looked at adolescents who had a strong belief in fatalism - that their lives were 'decided' by events outside of their control

  E - they were at greater risk of developing depression. People who exhibit an internal, rather then external, locus of control are more likely to be optimistic

  L - this suggests that, even if we do not have free will, the fact that we believe we do may have a positive impact on mind and behaviour
• limitation


  P - evidence doesn't support free will, it supports determinism

  E - Libet et al (1983) asked participants to randomly flick their wrist and say when they felt the will to move. Brain activity was also measured

  E - the unconscious brain activity leading up to the conscious decision to move came half a second before the participant's conscious decision to move

  L - this may be interpreted as meaning that even our most basic experience of free will are actually determined by our brain before we are aware of them

  COUNTERPOINT

  - the fact that people consciously become aware of decisions milliseconds after they had begun to enact the decision still means they may have made the decision to act

  - our consciousness of the decision is a 'read-out' of our sometimes unconscious decision-making

  - this suggests this evidence is not appropriate as a challenge to free will
• limitation


  P - determinism and its responsibility in law

  E - the hard determinist stance is not consistent with the way in which our legal system operates. In court, offenders are held responsible for their actions

  - indeed, the main principle of our legal system is that the defendant exercised their free will in committing the crime

  L - this suggests that, in the real world, determinist arguments do not work
• strength/limitation


  P - determinism places psychology on equal footing with other more established sciences and has led to valuable real-world applications such as therapies

  E - however free will has intuitive appeal. Most of us see ourselves as making our own choices rather than being 'pushed' by forces we cannot control. Some people e.g. child of a criminal parent prefer to think that they are free to self-determine

  L - this suggests that if psychology wants to position itself alongside the natural sciences, determinist accounts are likely to be preferred. However, common sense experience may be better understood by analysis of free will