Are We Really Free If We Can Be Determined?
A deterministic view is that for every single event, there are prior conditions that will bring about that event. So for every human action, we can produce a small simple outline to figure out how each action is brought about. Our heredity and environment creates our character, which produces a desire, and thus that desire leads to an action. I will call this the Gordon chart (named after the creator of the chart, Dr. R. Gordon). Now if every act is in fact determined by our past, then in fact anyone will come to the conclusion that we are not really free. But in fact, we are free. The problem does not lie completely in the definition of freedom (although it is very important) but the fact that can causes determine when we will make a free action? My argument is that for gaps in one’s life where you have no desires, all your actions may be free until desires come back into your life, thus determinism and freedom are compatible.
Firstly, I will define free actions or freedom so that when I say free actions or freedom, we are all on the same page. Freedom or free actions are actions in which there is little to no reason or explanation behind them. In other words, actions that are not driven by any causes are free actions or acts of freedom.
Now, with the definition of freedom in mind, the problem comes that if everything can be determined, then how can we be free? Well, the simple answer is that we can be determined at a certain time to make a free act. The free action cannot be determined but determining that one will make a free action at a certain time in their lives is possible. How can this be determined you might ask. Well, in the Gordon chart, each desire leads to an action in their lives. Now if we stack these charts together filled with many desires, you can make a simple timeline of someone's life. Now if there was a gap in the timeline with no desire to do anything, then freedom comes into play. When an agent does not have a desire to do anything but does in fact do something in that period of time then we have a free action. The free action is a determined action because the lack of desires in that period of time determines that there would be a free action. The free action it self cannot be predicted or determined because it lacked any desire, thus making it a free action. The free action is also terminated once desires are reinstated in our lives. Now with this, there arises many problems and loop holes.
The first objection would be that if in fact freedom and determinism are compatible, then shouldn't the free action be determined? If it is determined, how can you call the action free then? Well, firstly, the free action is in fact determined but not to anymore detail than the fact that there will be at time X in the agent's life an act of free will. The act of a free action is determined but not the free action itself. Since it is determined but there is no cause to the free action itself, it is a free action. What we should say in a situation with a free action that is determined would be something like this: "We have determined that there will be a free action in this time of the agent's life but we cannot determine what that free action really is."
The second objection would be if there were no causes then the free action must be a random event and that determinism is false. It seems that a free action would be a random event if there were no causes. To this object, there is a simple cause that really isn't a cause. The cause of the free action is the lack of causes. Since in the agent's life, there were no causes or desires to drive the agent anywhere, freedom takes over and allows the agent to do whatever he or she pleases. This allows an action to be free, determined and not random.
A rebuttal to my answer is that if the cause of the free action is the lack of causes, isn't that a cause? Yes and no. The lack of causes can be considered a cause, as the cause of the free action is "the lack of causes". But if you think about the English used here, it is very hard to get around the concept that the lack of causes is a cause. That is if you are lacking X, then how can lack of X be an X? This itself is a paradox with my previous answer and thus I will leave this topic alone.
Others may say: wouldn't this happen so very rarely that some people many never be free in their whole lives? And if they never experience freedom, how are they free? It is true that in fact, this happens rarely and maybe very few people actually experience freedom but the matter is that it does in fact happen when you have done something for no reason or from no cause, you have experienced freedom. Everyone does not have to experience freedom for there to be freedom.
The hard determinists and libertarians are wrong because they fail to see that every broad event can be determined while the details may not be allows for freedom to slip in. This only leads to one conclusion: freedom and determinism are in fact compatible.
(first year university philosophy essay, flame away)