We explain what free will is and its relationship with freedom. Also, its philosophical, theological and scientific approach.
What is free will?
Free will or free choice is the ability of human beings to make autonomous decisionsthat is, choosing between several alternatives. This means taking responsibility for one's own actions. The term comes from Latin voices bast (“free”) and arbitrium (“judgment”).
The existence of free will has been one of the central debates in philosophy, science and theology. This debate can be summarized between those who deny it, considering that every event in the universe is causally inevitable, and those who affirm it, on the basis that at least some events occur by chance. The adoption of either position has ethical, psychological and legal implications.
See also: Will
Free will and freedom
The notions of free will and freedom are closely related. So much so that they are often used as synonyms. However, there are differences between them.
- freedomin a basic sense, is the ability to act without being forced to do so and without obstacles that prevent it. Free will is the ability to decide or choose and, eventually, put the decision made into practice.
- The exercise of free will It requires bringing into play certain faculties, such as representing possibilities and arguing the pros and cons of each possibility. This makes free will an exclusive capacity of the human being, while freedom can also be attributed to animals (thus, we speak of be free like a bird or of the liberation of an animal that has been in captivity).
Free will in philosophy
The question of free will has been addressed many times throughout the history of philosophy. In this regard, there are three main positions:
Determinism
Part of the idea that Every event in the physical universe has an identifiable causeso that if sufficient information is handled it is possible to determine in advance what will happen in each situation. Applied to human behavior, this idea implies that there are no truly free actions, but, in any case, an erroneous or insufficient understanding of the causes of actions.
Extreme determinism, known as hard determinism, considers free will to be incompatible with the idea of a deterministic universe. Therefore, this position is called incompatibilism.
Indeterminism
It supports the idea that events do not necessarily occurbut are the result of chance (understood as a system of non-linear or non-coordinated causes). From this it follows that human actions can be the result of will (that is, free will).
The most radical version of indeterminism is libertarianism, which posits that free will is incompatible with determinism. Like hard determinism, libertarianism is a form of incompatibilism.
Compatibilism
Also known as soft determinism, considers that determinism and free will are compatible. Although events are causally determined, human beings can act freely, to the extent that they do so driven by their own desires, and not by coercion. From this perspective, free will is the ability to identify with one's own desires.
Free will in theology
In theology, the question of free will occupies an important place. The central problem has been to reconcile the free will of the human being with the omnipotence and omniscience of God.
Free will in Catholicism
In Catholicism, one of the main contributions to the subject was made by Saint Augustine, who differentiated freedom itself from free will. The latter is the ability of the human being to make decisions, while freedom is the ability to correctly use free will and choose the good.
Since the human being, as a consequence of original sin, cannot orient himself towards good – Saint Augustine argues – God grants him his grace. Divine grace does not suppress free will, but rather cooperates so that human beings can achieve freedom. If free will did not exist, human beings would not be responsible before God for their actions.
Later, the doctrine of free will was taken up by other Christian theologians of the Middle Ages and officially consecrated by the Catholic Church at the Council of Trent (15445-1563).
Free will in Protestantism
In contrast to Catholicism, several branches of Protestantism reject the existence of free will or, at least, deny that human beings can correctly use their free will. Both Martin Luther and John Calvin considered that human nature has been totally corrupted as a consequence of original sin. (Catholicism, on the other hand, affirms that original sin weakened human nature, but did not corrupt it absolutely).
Free will in Judaism
Outside of Christianity, the existence of free will is an evident truth for Judaism, closely linked to divine justice, which rewards and punishes for its actions. The relationship between divine omniscience and free will is explained in terms of a paradox: God exists outside of time, so that he knows both the past and the future, and just as divine knowledge of the past does not affect human free will , neither does God's knowledge of the future.
Free will in Islam
For its part, for Islam, free will constitutes the basis on which the responsibility of human beings for their actions is based. The actions that people take through the exercise of their free will are counted towards the Day of Judgment, since only these actions are truly their own. This does not prevent free will from occurring with God's permission.
Free will in religion
In religious thought, the topic of free will usually occupies an important place. First of all, because the existence of an all-powerful, omniscient and omnipresent God, as proposed by the great monotheistic religions, means that the divine will is the determining reason for absolutely everything in the universe.
According to this logic, if God knows what will happen and has the power to prevent it, but he does not do it, it means that he allows it, and therefore is responsible for everything.
The problem with such a view is that It can be interpreted as exonerating human beings from moral responsibility for their actions.and therefore could not then be judged by God based on his life decisions or his fidelity to the moral code that religion itself proposes. After all, why didn't God make us the way we should be?
To resolve this contradiction, the idea arose in the Western religious tradition that God gave human beings free will so that they could act freely and make their own decisions.
This notion, according to different traditions, would have to do with the very existence of the soul, and in the tradition of Jewish thought it is vital so that there can be a divine reward or punishment. Thus, according to rabbinic literature, everything would be foreseen by God, but at the same time free will is guaranteed.
Other theologians, such as the Catholic friar Saint Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274), considered human beings as entities preprogrammed by God to pursue certain goals, but endowed with sufficient inner freedom to choose the path towards them.
However, at the Council of Trent in the 16th century, It was decided that human beings possessed free will completed and animated by God.with which it can cooperate with the divine will or can, on the contrary, oppose it.
Free will in the Bible
in the bible the expression free will is not explicitly mentioned. However, both Jewish tradition and Catholicism and other Christian currents consider that numerous biblical passages allude to the concept of free will, that is, the ability of the human being to choose between two or more possibilities of action.
First of all, the fall into sin of Adam and Eve (told in chapter 3 of the book of Genesis) is often considered the biblical foundation of free will. This fall is a consequence of having voluntarily chosen to disobey God.
The idea that human beings are free to comply with divine precepts is also present in the book of Deuteronomy. In chapter 30, God, through Moses, tells the Israelites: “Today I take heaven and earth as witnesses against you; I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life, and you will live, you and your descendants.» (Dt 30, 19)
In the same way, It can be stated that Jesus recognizes that human beings are free to follow Him or not.: “Whoever wants to come after me, let him renounce himself, take up his cross and follow me.” (Mk 8, 34).
Free will in science
The question of free will has been the subject of debate and research in science. The main contributions have come from physics, genetics, neuroscience and psychology.
- Free will and physics. Unlike classical physics, which is deterministic in nature, current physics admits that it is not possible to establish whether determinism really exists in the universe, that is, if for each cause there is an effect that necessarily occurs. Quantum mechanics predicts phenomena solely in terms of probabilities, which calls determinism into question. This would support the thesis of the existence of free will.
- free will and genetics. In the field of genetics, one of the main debates is about the influence of genetic and evolutionary factors on the development of human behavior. According to the opinion of various researchers, many human behaviors can be explained in genetic terms. This could lead to arguing that free will is just an illusion. However, some biologists maintain that genetic determination does not equate to a lack of responsibility. Furthermore, they consider that the environment may be equally or more decisive than genetics.
- Free will and neuroscience. Some experiments have shown that people become aware of executing an action several milliseconds after the brain has made the decision to execute it. For some scientists this would suggest that free will does not intervene in the decision and that it is therefore an illusion.
- free will and psychology. In the field of experimental psychology, experiments have been carried out to study the inferences that people make regarding their behavior based on the information provided to them. In this way, it has been observed that people can believe that they have voluntarily carried out certain behaviors, without this being the case. These and other experiments have led some researchers to argue that the idea that there is always conscious control of voluntary actions is an illusion. Therefore, it is not possible to affirm the existence of free will.
Continue with: Autonomy
References
- “Free will”, in Wikipedia.
- “Free will”, in Wikipedia.
- “Free Will”, in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- “Does free will exist or is it an illusion?”, in La Vanguardia.
- “Free will”, in the Spanish Society of Analytical Philosophy.
- “Freewill. The cause of voluntary acts”, by Luis Alonso, in Research and Science.
