Ethical Conduct and Freedom: Determinism vs. Free Will
Ethics and Moral Conduct
Ethics is a philosophical discipline that analyzes and seeks to provide a moral foundation, thus generating rational morality. Moral conduct is free conduct guided by standards and moral values. Understanding these standards and moral values is emphasized to those who are conscious, and they function as the ultimate decision criteria for the individual and are assumed.
Understanding Freedom
Freedom as the absence of obstacles: Something is conducted freely, in the first place, when nothing prevents it from following its natural course, like a brook without dams impeding its circulation.
Freedom as chance or indeterminacy: We say that a random event is indeterminate or unpredictable when there is no law or rule based on which that event could have been predicted in advance.
Freedom as the ability to choose: This is the most common way of understanding freedom. We use freedom when we choose what clothes to wear in the morning, etc. Free will is the ability to choose, and freedom is when we choose correctly when we choose the good.
Freedom as the ability to create: This is the ability to bring forth something new, something that previously did not exist in the world, and we have consciously decided to bring it into existence.
Determinism and Its Critics
Determinism is a thesis that argues that everything that happens is already predetermined.
Destiny is an irrational and incomprehensible force that governs the lives of gods and men.
Mythical notions of destiny are criticized for their irrational approaches, which are, therefore, without foundation.
Criticism of Predestination from Outside Religion
Those who deny the existence of God logically deny divine predestination.
Feuerbach’s Perspective
Feuerbach believed that the essence of man is constituted by reason, will, and feeling. Since both reason and will or feelings are not certain to think, want, or love a particular entity, we can say that these perfections and capacities of human nature are unlimited.
Marx’s Perspective
For Marx, the idea of God and the Christian heaven emerges as a consequence of human beings being alienated due to the class system of production.
Nietzsche’s Perspective
For Nietzsche, God arises from the morality of weaklings who cannot withstand real life on earth, marked by change, transformation, and conflict. This is why they invent a reality—a world that is eternal and immutable, where there is no suffering or conflict.
Criticism from Inside Religious Thought
Even though God knows from eternity who will be saved or condemned, men do not lose, in any case, the freedom to choose. Simply by virtue of his omniscience, God knows beforehand what they will choose.
Types of Determinism
Physical Determinism
Given a particular cause, an effect will be produced that could, if we had sufficient information, be calculated in advance. The future is, as it were, written in the present. Nothing can go wrong, and nothing is inherently unpredictable.
Critique of Physical Determinism from Quantum Mechanics
- Some components actually behave like waves or particles, depending on the observation instrument used.
- You cannot simultaneously know the momentum and position of a particle, as the instruments of measurement amend the state of the particle. This is known as the uncertainty principle.
- It is impossible to know when a particular particle will be radiated from a radioactive body. This inability is due to the behavior of certain subatomic particles following statistical laws.
Biological Determinism
Evolution occurs spontaneously. Biological determinism conditions us, and its forms are manifested by mutations. Since it is random, it is not affected by any law. For example, eye color, hair type, etc., and all our behavior is genetically predetermined.
Critique of Genetic Determinism
- Some personality traits seem to be determined exclusively by genes.
- There are constituent personality traits that are due exclusively to social learning or environmental conditions in general.
- There are behavioral traits influenced by both genes and environmental circumstances together.
Chance and determinism are not opposed: Even though it is impossible to determine the behavior of a single particle in the subatomic world, the probabilistic laws governing the behavior of large quantities of particles produce, in the visible world for us, perfectly predictable behavior.
Psychological Determinism
Psychological determinism holds that our conscious behavior is determined by reasons that we cannot control and often do not even know.