Elements of metaphysics

by A. E. Taylor

And that the degree to which we are free varies with the nature of our purposes and their relation to the environment, is also manifest. There is an indefinite plurality of such degrees, ranging up from the total or all but total absence of freedom in the case of directly constrained motion up to the case of cordial co-operation with the other members of a relatively self-supporting social group in the conscious and systematic execution of an elaborate and coherent scheme of action. To indicate the principal distinctions among such grades of freedom which are of practical importance for law and morality is the task of systematic Ethics, and need not be attempted by us here. We may add that our investigation has made it apparent that true moral freedom, of whatever degree, is no inalienable heritage into which men step by the “accident of birth,” but—in the main and as an actual possession—a prize which has to be won by the double discipline of self-knowledge and self-mastery, and of social comradeship, and may be, and is, forfeited by the neglect of the arts by which it was first gained. No doubt one man’s inherited disposition may make the practice of self-control, or again of social fellowship, easier to him than to another, and to this extent we may say that we are born with a greater or lesser “capacity for freedom,” but of its actual possession we have all to say, “with a great price purchased I this freedom.”

(4) Finally, our examination of the facts of morality enables us to define true freedom. We are free, as we have seen, just so far as our experience is the embodiment of coherent and permanent interest or purpose, and freedom is, like “will,” simply an abstract expression for the teleological unity which, in varying degrees, is an essential feature of all experience. Hence we can at once see that freedom does not mean “absence of rational connection” or “absence of determination,” but does mean, as so many recent philosophers have told us, for us finite beings, self-determination. I am most free when acting for the realisation of a coherent rational purpose, not because my conduct is “undetermined”; in other words, because there is “no telling” what I shall do next, but because it is, at such times, most fully determined teleologically by the character of my inner purposes or interests,—in other words, by the constitution of my self. The more abiding and logically coherent my various purposes in action, the freer I am, because it is my whole self or system of rationally connected interests, and not the insistence of others, or some passing whim or impulse which I may forthwith disown as no part of my “true self,” which is getting expression in my outward deeds. And if it were possible for a finite being to become absolutely free, as we have seen that it is not, such a being would, in the very moment of its entire deliverance, become also absolutely determined from within; its whole life, as manifested to the outsider in the series of its deeds, would become the perfect and systematic expression of a single scheme of coherent purposes.

§ 4. We see, then, that such a genuine but limited freedom as is really implied in the existence of morality is not only compatible with, but actually demanded by, the principles of a sound Metaphysics. From the side of morality we meet with the demand that human beings shall be, in part at least, creatures whose outward acts shall be the genuine expression of individual purpose; from the side of Metaphysics we have already learned that just this teleological unity, genuine though imperfect, is the essential nature of every finite experience. We are now to see how a problem in itself quite simple leads to insoluble difficulties and to the rival absurdities of Indeterminism and Determinism when it is perverted by an initial metaphysical blunder. The initial mistake of both the rival theories consists simply in taking rigid mechanical determination of events by their antecedents in accord with the principle of Causality as an actual fact, the divergence between them only concerning the extent of the sphere of existence for which such determination prevails. According to the indeterminist, the action of conscious beings forms a solitary exception to a principle of determination which is absolutely valid for all purely physical processes. According to the determinist, there are no exceptions to the principle, and our confessed inability to predict the course of an individual life or a period of history from general laws in the same way in which we predict an eclipse or a display of leonids, is due merely to the greater complexity of the necessary data, and the temporary imperfections of our mathematical methods.

It should be noted that there is no substantial disagreement between the more sober representatives of the two views as to the actual facts of life. The indeterminist usually admits that in practice, when you know enough of a man’s character and of the influences brought to bear upon him, you can tell with some confidence how he will conduct himself, and that social intercourse, education, and penal legislation would be impossible if you could not. Similarly, the determinist admits that it would be very rash to treat your predictions of human behaviour in practice with absolute confidence, and that the unexpected does frequently happen in human life. The dispute is solely about the philosophical interpretation of facts as to which there is virtually universal agreement. According to the determinist interpretation, if you were put in possession of the knowledge of a man’s “character” and of his “circumstances” (and it is assumed that it is theoretically possible to have this knowledge), and had sufficient skill to grapple with the mathematical problems involved, you could calculate his whole behaviour in advance, from the cradle to the grave, with infallible precision. According to the indeterminist, you could not do so, and your failure would arise not from any theoretical impossibility of obtaining the supposed data, but from their insufficiency. Our behaviour, he alleges, is not exclusively determined by the interaction of “character” and circumstances; even with the complete knowledge of both these elements, human action is incalculable, because of our possession of a “free will of indifference” or power to act indifferently according to or in violation of our “character.” You can never say beforehand what a man will do, because of this capacity for acting, under any conditions, with equal facility in either of two alternative ways.

I propose to show briefly that the determinist is right in saying that conduct is completely determined by “character”—if the term be understood widely enough—and circumstances, but wrong in holding that this makes infallible prediction possible; on the other hand, that the indeterminist is right in denying the possibility of such prediction, but wrong in the reason he gives for his denial. Infallible prediction is impossible, not because of the existence of “free will of indifference,” but because the assumed data of the prediction are such that you could not possibly have them until after the event. Finally, it will be pointed out that the two errors both arise from the same false metaphysical theory that the causal principle is a statement of real fact.[^[209]]

§ 5. Determinism. To begin with the view of the determinist. Human conduct, he says, must be, like other processes, unequivocally determined by antecedents, and these antecedents must consist of (a) character and (b) external circumstance. For (1) to deny the causal determination of our acts by antecedents is to deny the presence of rational connection in the psychical sphere, and thus to pronounce not only Psychology, but all the sciences which take psychical events as their material and attempt to discover rational connections between them, in principle impossible. Thus the very existence of Psychology, Ethics, and History proves the applicability of the principle of causal determinism to “mental states.”

(2) This is still more evident if we reflect that all science consists in the formulation of “laws” or “uniformities,” and that the formulation of “laws” rests upon the principle that “same result follows under same conditions”—i.e. upon the principle of causal determination.

(3) Further, if psychical events are not so determined, then Psychology and the mental sciences generally are inconsistent with the general principles of the mechanical physical sciences.

(4) And, as a matter of fact, we do all assume that psychical events are causally determined by their antecedents. In Psychology we assume that our choices are determined by the strength of the motives between which we choose. Hence, if you know what are the “motives” present to a man’s choice, and the relative strength of each, the determinist thinks the prediction of his conduct is reduced to the purely mathematical problem of the solution of an equation or set of equations. That our present mathematical resources will not avail for the unequivocal solution of such equations is, on this view, a mere temporary defect incidental to the present condition of mathematical science. In principle the equations must be soluble, or “there is no science of human action.”

(5) And in practical life we do all assume that it is possible to predict with considerable confidence the effect of typical conditions upon the aggregate of mankind, and also, when you have the requisite data, the effect of a definite set of conditions upon an individual man. Thus we count upon the deterrent effects of punishment, the persuasive influence of advertisement, etc.; and again, in proportion as we really know our friends, we believe ourselves able to answer for their conduct in situations which have not as yet arisen. Why, then, should we suppose it theoretically impossible, if adequate data were furnished, to calculate the whole career of a man or a society in advance, as the astronomer calculates the path of a planet from its elements? These are, I think, the chief of the stock arguments by which Determinism has been defended. (With the purely theological argument from the absoluteness of the divine foreknowledge I have already dealt in passing, and do not propose to refer to it again.)