Free Will, Study Of

Definition

Free will is a concept inherited from philosophy and even theology, so it is not one that scientists have been [Page 363]table to define as they wish. That definitional problem has contributed to the controversies about it, because different people use the term to refer to different things.

The core idea behind free will is that people can choose to act in different ways. The opposite belief is determinism, which holds that every action is fully caused (determined) by prior events.

Think of something you did recently, even perhaps picking up this entry to read. Is it possible that you could have done something differently? Or was it an inevitable result of forces and pressures operating on you, including both the current situation and past experiences and lessons? You may have felt as though you made a decision to read this, but then again that feeling might be an illusion. Strict determinists think that it was inevitable that you read this and that you really could not have done anything else. In contrast, if you have free will, then you might well have done something different.

The “will” part of free will presents additional problems for some philosophers and psychologists. It implies that there is such a thing as a will, as a part of the human mind, possibly located somewhere in the brain. Many experts believe that the will is just a metaphor or a convenient way of talking about human mental processes, rather than being something real. Those experts hence reject the term free will and prefer to talk about freedom of action. Some of them think that freedom is real and the will is not real. For most, however, the issue is whether freedom really exists, and the “will” part is not the controversial part.

Opposition to Free Will

Social psychologists who reject the idea of free have several main reasons for doing so. One is a simple act of faith. Many psychologists believe that, as scientists, they must believe that there is a cause for everything and that determinism is the only suitable assumption for scientific research. Most agree that determinism cannot be proven true, but they believe that it is necessary for scientists to assume that it is true. Some regard free will as an obsolete religious idea. B. F. Skinner, the famous behaviorist, wrote a book called Beyond Freedom and Dignity, in which he called upon people to abandon their silly (as he saw it) belief in freedom of choice and accept that everything everyone does is a product of reinforcement history (i.e., previous rewards and punishments for similar behaviors) and learning, plus a few innate biological patterns. Skinner studied the behavior of rats and found that a few general principles could explain rat behavior. He thought human behavior followed the same principles, perhaps in a slightly more complicated way but in no less determined a fashion.

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