Is there a psychological explanation to account for free will? Do you believe it exists? If so, what is it?

Question

This isn't about the religious interpretation of "free will" but about what science/psychology says about it, so please don't cite biblical scripture. Thanks.

I see free will as the ability we sometimes have to step back from a situation & evaluate it logically, rather than emotionally or instinctively. It's like an on/off switch that we "throw" in one direction or another in order to gain intellectual control over a problem we might otherwise react to emotionally. I don't think it's 100% in our control, however. The "free will" switch appears to be harder for certain people to throw in certain situations.

For example, in societies like the USA where people are constantly tempted by fattening food, there are more fat people. Apparently those who have a harder time losing weight have a "heavier" eating switch than thin people. In societies with healthier foods, people are thinner because they don't have to use their "eating" switch as often.

What does science have to say about this?

To Tamesbadger: You raise a very good point. We often need an emotional trigger to help us decide to throw that switch, but I do think that we have to step back from our programmed emotional or intuitive response first. I know I certainly find it easier to lose weight if I have a strong desire to look good for an important event, such as a high school reunion. Acquiring that emotional trigger is a little more difficult without some clearly envisioned reward in the near future, however, isn't it? I guess that's the real trick!

To Proud Liberal: That makes sense, and it correlates well with my own proposed model as well as with Tamesbadger's comments concerning a desire for some perceived future reward. So in short, to get people to act more responsibly, we need to offer at least as many carrots as sticks, don't we?

Answer 1

Alllow me to give you the less pedantic, and truncated version of what the previous individuals attempted to say. Humans are organisms that are naturally attracted to pleasure, and repulsed by pain. To put it in layman's terms; we will ultimately do whatever gives us the most payback.

Answer 2

Thanks for the interesting question.

On the one had there are those who believe free will is an illusion. These experts imply that our brains are comprised of systems which function and interact and generate our thoughts, consciousness, choices and behaviour. They assert that the vast majority of all the processing our brain does is subconscious; we ultimately have no idea why we prefer particular actions over other. Some psychologists go so far as to claim that all psychological activities (including social behaviour) are governed by processes of which we are unaware. Emotions can occur with rapid onset, through automatic appraisal, with little awareness and with involuntary changes in expression and physiology; indeed, we often experience emotions as happening to us rather than chosen by us.Apart from Freud probably the most outspoken person advocate of the view that the person is not free is Skinner. In Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971) he argues that behavioural freedom is an illusion. Just as Freud believed that freedom is an illusion to the extent that we are unaware of the unconscious causes of our feelings and behaviours, so Skinner claimed that it is only because the causes of human behaviour are often hidden from us in the environment that the myth or illusion of free will survives.The chemicals that make up our bodies and minds have no free will.

In the field of sociology (and sociological research) it was assumed that our attitudes are what determine our behaviour.However, researchers found that changing peoples' expressed attitudes frequently did not change their behaviour. Researchers then tested the unlikely possibility that our behaviour causes our attitude. Since then,many studies have concluded that our attitudes are caused by our behaviour.

A person is free to act if they can choose between options. If this choice exists, they have freedom to choose. Once a person makes that choice, they will suffer the good, bad or neutral consequences of their choice. Law and society chooses to impose rules, so when its members choose certain actions they are punished for the collective good.

Dr. Daniel C. Dennett, a philosopher and cognitive scientist at Tufts University who has written extensively about free will, said that “when we consider whether free will is an illusion or reality, we are looking into an abyss. What seems to confront us is a plunge into nihilism and despair.”

Mark Hallett, a researcher with the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, said, “Free will does exist, but it’s a perception, not a power or a driving force. People experience free will. They have the sense they are free.
“The more you scrutinize it, the more you realize you don’t have it,” he said.

That is hardly a new thought. The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said, as Einstein paraphrased it, that “a human can very well do what he wants, but cannot will what he wants.”

In the 1970s, Benjamin Libet, a physiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, wired up the brains of volunteers to an electroencephalogram and told the volunteers to make random motions, like pressing a button or flicking a finger, while he noted the time on a clock.

Dr. Libet found that brain signals associated with these actions occurred half a second before the subject was conscious of deciding to make them.The order of brain activities seemed to be perception of motion, and then decision, rather than the other way around.n short, the conscious brain was only playing catch-up to what the unconscious brain was already doing. The decision to act was an illusion. Dr. Libet’s results have been reproduced again and again over the years, along with other experiments that suggest that people can be easily fooled when it comes to assuming ownership of their actions. Patients with tics or certain diseases, like chorea, cannot say whether their movements are voluntary or involuntary, Dr. Hallett said.

But most of the action is going on beneath the surface. Indeed, the conscious mind is often a drag on many activities. Too much thinking can give anyone doing an activity such as golf, problems.. Drivers perform better on automatic pilot. Fiction writers report writing in a kind of trance in which they simply take dictation from the voices and characters in their head, a grace that is, alas, rarely if ever granted nonfiction writers.

Dr. Dennett, is one of many who have tried to redefine free will in a way that involves no escape from the materialist world while still offering enough autonomy for moral responsibility, which seems to be what everyone cares about.

The belief that the traditional intuitive notion of a free will divorced from causality is inflated, metaphysical nonsense, Dr. Dennett says reflecting an outdated dualistic view of the world.

Rather, Dr. Dennett argues, it is precisely our immersion in causality and the material world that frees us. Evolution, history and culture, he explains, have endowed us with feedback systems that give us the unique ability to reflect and think things over and to imagine the future. Free will and determinism can co-exist.

We have the power to veto our urges and then to veto our vetoes,” he said. “We have the power of imagination, to see and imagine futures.”

Answer 3

I personally believe that free will has less to do with science than with emotion. (The scientific aspects of emotion are a whole other ball of wax...)

To me, free will is all about impulse. Yes, I could take the easiest path presented to me, and most of the time I do, just like anybody else. But free will is that little urge to do something differently just for the sake of doing it differently.
The example of the temptation of fatty foods is good, but in that situation, I don't see free will as "taking a step back and evaluating things logically." I see it as forcefully taking control of your actions and telling yourself, "No, I will not eat that just because it is easier or tastier or readily available. I will take an extra step because it is worth it." It's much more of an emotional evaluation than a logical one. You're not refusing the fatty food because of the logical nutritional benefits, but because of an emotional statement like, "I don't want to be fat," or "This is BAD for me."
I think the reason that "switch" appears to be a difficult one to throw in some situations is because of the lack of emotion involved in regular decision making. Certainly it is more logical to eat healthier foods, but you can sit and think about how healthy and logical that is all you want, and still be eating burgers left and right. It takes a violent emotional outburst to change the habit. Throwing the switch of free will is not simply a matter of better decision making, but a matter of emotional resolve.

Answer 4

Free will to me is the power I have to make choices, I am free to choose whatever path is put in front of me. However I'm not free to choose the consequence that may result from that choice.I don't know what science has to say about this,this is only my own humble opinion.What you describe as free will seems more like rationalization to me.

Answer 5

The problem of free will is the problem of whether rational agents exercise control over their own actions and decisions. Addressing this problem requires understanding the relation between freedom and causation, and determining whether or not the laws of nature are causally deterministic. The various philosophical positions taken differ on whether all events are determined or not—determinism versus indeterminism—and also on whether freedom can coexist with determinism or not—compatibilism versus incompatibilism. So, for instance, hard determinists argue that the universe is deterministic, and that this makes free will impossible.

The principle of free will has religious, ethical, and scientific implications. For example, in the religious realm, free will may imply that an omnipotent divinity does not assert its power over individual will and choices. In ethics, it may imply that individuals can be held morally accountable for their actions. In the scientific realm, it may imply that the actions of the body, including the brain and the mind, are not wholly determined by physical causality. The question of free will has been a central issue since the beginning of philosophical thought.

Society generally holds people responsible for their actions, and will say that they deserve praise or blame for what they do. However, many believe that moral responsibility requires free will. Thus, another important issue is whether individuals are ever morally responsible for their actions—and, if so, in what sense.

Incompatibilists tend to think that determinism is at odds with moral responsibility. It seems impossible that one can hold someone responsible for an action that could be predicted from the beginning of time. Hard determinists say "So much the worse for free will!" and discard the concept. Clarence Darrow, the famous defense attorney, pleaded the innocence of his clients, Leopold and Loeb, by invoking such a notion of hard determinism. During his summation, he declared:

What has this boy to do with it? He was not his own father; he was not his own mother; he was not his own grandparents. All of this was handed to him. He did not surround himself with governesses and wealth. He did not make himself. And yet he is to be compelled to pay.

Conversely, libertarians say "So much the worse for determinism!" Daniel Dennett asks why anyone would care about whether someone had the property of responsibility and speculates that the idea of moral responsibility may be "a purely metaphysical hankering". Jean-Paul Sartre argues that people sometimes avoid incrimination and responsibility by hiding behind determinism: "... we are always ready to take refuge in a belief in determinism if this freedom weighs upon us or if we need an excuse".

The issue of moral responsibility is at the heart of the dispute between hard determinists and compatibilists. Hard determinists are forced to accept that individuals often have "free will" in the compatibilist sense, but they deny that this sense of free will can ground moral responsibility. The fact that an agent's choices are unforced, hard determinists claim, does not change the fact that determinism robs the agent of responsibility.

Compatibilists argue, on the contrary, that determinism is a prerequisite for moral responsibility. Society cannot hold someone responsible unless his actions were determined by something. This argument can be traced back to Hume. If indeterminism is true, then those events that are not determined are random. It is doubtful that one can praise or blame someone for performing an action generated spontaneously by his nervous system. Instead, one needs to show how the action stemmed from the person's desires and preferences—the person's character—before one can hold the person morally responsible. Libertarians may reply that undetermined actions are not random at all, and that they result from a substantive will whose decisions are undetermined. This argument is considered unsatisfactory by compatibilists, for it just pushes the problem back a step. It also seems to involve some mysterious metaphysics, as well as the concept of ex nihilo nihil fit. Libertarians have responded by trying to clarify how undetermined will could be tied to robust agency.

St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans addresses the question of moral responsibility as follows: "Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?" In this view, individuals can still be dishonoured for their acts even though those acts were ultimately completely determined by God.

A similar view has it that individual moral culpability lies in individual character. That is, a person with the character of a murderer has no choice other than to murder, but can still be punished because it is right to punish those of bad character. How one's character was determined is irrelevant from this perspective. Hence, Robert Cummins and others argue that people should not be judged for their individual actions, but rather for how those actions "reflect on their character". If character (however defined) is the dominant causal factor in determining one's choices, and one's choices are morally wrong, then one should be held accountable for those choices, regardless of genes and other such factors.

One exception to the assumption that moral culpability lies in either individual character or freely willed acts is in cases where the insanity defense—or its corollary, diminished responsibility—can be used to argue that the guilty deed was not the product of a guilty mind. In such cases, the legal systems of most Western societies assume that the person is in some way not at fault, because his actions were a consequence of abnormal brain function.

Joshua Greene and Jonathan Cohen, researchers in the emerging field of neuroethics, argue, on the basis of such cases, that our current notion of moral responsibility is founded on libertarian (and dualist) intuitions. They argue that cognitive neuroscience research is undermining these intuitions by showing that the brain is responsible for our actions, not only in cases of florid psychosis, but even in less obvious situations. For example, damage to the frontal lobe reduces the ability to weigh uncertain risks and make prudent decisions, and therefore leads to an increased likelihood that someone will commit a violent crime. This is true not only of patients with damage to the frontal lobe due to accident or stroke, but also of adolescents, who show reduced frontal lobe activity compared to adults,and even of children who are chronically neglected or mistreated. In each case, the guilty party can be said to have less responsibility for his actions. Greene and Cohen predict that, as such examples become more common and well known, jurors’ interpretations of free will and moral responsibility will move away from the intuitive libertarian notion which currently underpins them.

Greene and Cohen also argue that the legal system does not require this libertarian interpretation. Only retributive notions of justice, in which the goal of the legal system is to punish people for misdeeds, require the libertarian intuition. Consequentialist approaches to justice, which are aimed at promoting future welfare rather than meting out just deserts, can survive even a hard determinist interpretation of free will. The legal system and notions of justice can thus be maintained even in the face of emerging neuroscientific evidence undermining libertarian intuitions of free will.