Hey everyone! I am back with another issue of Psychology with Arjun and this time, I have something new for you. Thanks to my submissions and my lack of progress in dissertation work, I find myself with very little time to do my writing but nothing to fear, I bring to you another riddle that has plagued psychologists and philosophers for centuries if not millennia.
Do You Have Free Will?
Alright, so I will cut right to the chase. Imagine you are sitting at your friend’s place on a comfortable Saturday night with the threat of assignment submissions looming large on your head but you decide to relax for a while. We can only have so many Saturdays in our life, right?
Now, owing to the pressures that are on you and how overwhelming it can get for someone, you decide to have a drink just to blow some steam off.
What was the driving force in that decision of yours?
Was it a completely personal choice that you acted upon or was it the world around you such as the expectation to relax on a Saturday night, the company of your friend, the pressure of assignments that was in the back of your mind, or maybe your genetic predisposition to using alcohol as a coping mechanism played a role as well?
Where do personal choice and personal decision making end and external or internal influences begin?
That basically, is the crux of the debate between the free-will and the deterministic camps.
The people who believe in free will believe that humans have the capacity to make a decision or a choice irrespective of the factors that are out of an individual’s control. It is a characteristically liberating school of thought, albeit one that doesn’t always have empirical support in its favour.
And why would there be evidence for it as well? Psychology as a science, as a discipline, is all about predicting and understanding human behaviour. The camp of free will believes that human behaviour cannot be predicted because, at our very core, humans are free. The individual self is ultimately free of external influences. Sure, we are influenced by the outside world, but still, there is a small part of our self which is untouched, unblemished….pure.
That little part… is free will.
Determinism vs Free Will
Throughout history, there have been scholars and thinkers who have been determinists or free will believers. Freud, for example, was a firm believer in a deterministic world. William James on the other hand was a firm believer in free will.
His famous lines, “I believe my will is free and my first act of freedom is to believe that my will is free.”
You don’t necessarily have to read up on famous philosophers and their texts. You can have your own position on it just with a little introspection. Do you believe in astrology? Do you believe in horoscopes? Palmistry? Numerology? A major organized religion?
If yes, you are probably a determinist. You believe that everything is written or that whatever happens, happens for good. You believe you are simply a passenger in the cosmos living the life that was written for you as a result of past life karma or a divine script.
Free will people believe that you are the only one in control of your life. Your choices will have consequences on your life and you will be the only one responsible for them.
Okay, these descriptions might be slightly biased since I identify myself strongly with the free will camp but oh well, nobody is perfect.
Where Do You Stand?
What do you think about the free will and determinism debate? If you feel strongly with the determinism camp, would you be okay with people being let off for murder because, after all, they were not in control right? It was a result of a person’s world, not their individuality.
On the other hand, if you are firmly in the free will camp, why have we not seen evidence for it yet? If every human being was truly free, we would see or observe it, right? Where does this freedom disappear all the time?
I lean towards the free will camp often simply because it offers me the possibility of being the master of my own life. It’s not something that makes rational sense but it is something that gives me a sense of peace when I put myself to sleep at night.
What does it mean for you?
You can let me know by replying to this email or in the comments :)
Until next time,
Arjun
I think for the current generation the only thing stopping us from free will is FOMO. There is just so much fomo for standards and expectations. It is quite overwhelming.
Always had this small question when i was studying social psychology that why people get influenced and try to fit in and what if like someone just doesn't wanna fit in and doesn't even care about the social norms or atleast the " acceptable social norms" then what about such peeps? What is their mechanism ? This free will part somewhat explains that part ! (: