Category: Metaphysics

Years ago, Azim Shariff and Kathleen Vohs had their article, “What Happens to a Society That Does Not Believe in Free Will”, published in Scientific American. This article considers the causal impact of disbelief in free will with a specific focus on law and ethics.

Philosophers have long addressed the general problem of free will as well as the specific connection between free will and ethics. Not surprisingly, studies conducted to determine the impact of disbelief in free will have the results that philosophers have long predicted.

One impact is that when people have doubts about free will they tend to have less support for retributive punishment. Retributive punishment, as the name indicates, is punishment aimed at making a person suffer for their misdeeds. Doubt in free will did not negatively impact a person’s support for punishment aimed at deterrence or rehabilitation.

While the authors did consider a reason for this, namely that those who doubt free will would regard wrongdoers as like harmful natural phenomenon that need to be dealt with rather than subject to vengeance, this view also matches a common view about moral accountability. To be specific, moral accountability is generally held to be proportional to the control a person has over events. To illustrate, consider the difference between these two cases. In the first case, Sally is speeding, texting, and sipping her latte. She doesn’t see the crossing guard frantically waving his sign and runs over the children in the crosswalk. In case two, Jane is driving the speed limit and children suddenly run directly in front of her car. She brakes and swerves immediately, but she hits a child. Intuitively, Sally acted in a way that was morally wrong—she should have been going the speed limit, and she should have been paying attention. Jane, though she hit the children, did not act wrongly, she could not have avoided the children and hence is not morally responsible.

For those who doubt free will, every case is like Jane’s: for the determinist, every action is determined and a person could not have chosen to do other than they did. On this view, while Jane’s accident seems unavoidable, so was Sally’s: Sally could not have done other than she did. As such, Sally is no more morally accountable than Jane. For someone who believes this, inflicting retributive punishment on Sally would be no more reasonable than seeking vengeance against Jane.

 However, it would seem to make sense to punish Sally to deter others and to rehabilitate Sally so she will drive the speed limit and pay attention in the future. Of course, if there is no free will, then we would not chose to punish Sally, she would not chose to behave better and people would not decide to learn from her lesson. Events would happen as determined—she would be punished or not. She would do it again or not. Other people would do the same thing or not. Naturally enough, to speak of what we should decide to do in regard to punishments would seem to assume that we can chose—that is, that we have some degree of free will.

A second impact that Shariff and Vohs noted was that a person who doubts free will tends to behave worse than a person who does not have such a skeptical view. One area where behavior worsens is that such skepticism seems to incline people to be more willing to harm others. Another area is that such skepticism also inclines others to lie or cheat. In general, the impact seems to be that such skepticism reduces a person’s willingness (or capacity) to resist impulsive reactions in favor of greater restraint and better behavior.

Once again, this makes sense. Going back to the examples of Sally and Jane, Sally (unless she is a moral monster) would feel remorse and guilt for hurting the children. Jane, though she would surely feel bad, should not feel moral guilt. This would certainly be reasonable: a person who hurts others should feel guilty if she could have done otherwise but should not feel moral guilt if she could not have done otherwise (although she certainly should feel sympathy). If someone doubts free will, then she will see her own actions as being out of her control: she is not choosing to lie, or cheat or hurt others—these events are just happening. People might be hurt, but this is like a tree falling on them, it just happens. Interestingly, these studies show that people are consistent in applying the implications of their skepticism to moral (and legal) accountability.

One important point is to consider what view we should have regarding free will. I take a practical view of this matter and believe in free will. As I see it, if I am right, then I am…right. If I am wrong, then I could not believe otherwise. So, choosing to believe I can choose is the rational choice: I am right or I am not at fault for being wrong.

I agree with Kant that we cannot prove that we have free will. He believed that the best science of his day was deterministic and that the matter of free will was beyond our epistemic abilities. While science has marched on since Kant, free will is still unprovable. After all, deterministic, random and free-will universes would all seem the same to the people in them. Crudely put, there are no observations that would establish or disprove metaphysical free will. There are, of course, observations that can indicate that we are not free in certain respects—but completely disproving (or proving) free will is beyond our abilities—as Kant contended.

Kant had a practical solution: he argued that although free will cannot be proven, it is necessary for ethics. So, if we want to have ethics (which we do), then we need to accept the existence of free will on moral grounds. The experiments described by Shariff and Vohs seem to support Kant: when people doubt free will, this has an impact on their ethics.

One aspect of this can be seen as positive—determining the extent to which people are in control of their actions is an important part of determining what is and is not just punishment. After all, we should not want to inflict retribution on people who could not have done otherwise or, at the very least, we would want relevant circumstances to temper retribution with justice.  It also makes more sense to focus on deterrence and rehabilitation more than retribution. However just, retribution merely adds more suffering to the world while deterrence and rehabilitation reduce it.

The second aspect of this is negative—skepticism about free will seems to cause people to think that they have a license to do ill, thus leading to worse behavior. That is clearly undesirable. This provides an interesting and important challenge: balancing our view of determinism and freedom to avoid both unjust punishment and becoming unjust. This, of course, assumes that we have a choice. If we do not, we will just do what we do and giving advice is pointless. As I jokingly tell my students, a determinist giving advice about what we should do is like someone yelling advice to a person falling to certain death—they can yell about what to do, but it won’t matter.

 

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As I tell my students, the metaphysical question of personal identity has important moral implications. One scenario I use is a human in a persistent vegetative state. I say “human” rather than “person”, because the human body might no longer be a person. For a metaphysical dualist,  if a person is her soul and the soul has abandoned the shell, then the person is gone.

 If the human is still a person, then it seems reasonable to believe they have a different moral status than a body that that was once a person (or once served as the body of a person). This is not to say that a non-person human would have no moral status—I do not want to be misinterpreted as holding that view. Rather, my view is that personhood is a relevant factor in the morality of how an entity should be treated.

Imagine a human in that vegetative state. While the body is kept alive, people do not talk to the body and no attempt is made to entertain the body, such as playing music or audiobooks. If there is no person present or if there is a person present who cannot sense anything, then this would seem morally acceptable—after all it would make no difference whether people talked to the body or not.

There is also the moral question of whether such a body should be kept alive—after all, if the person is gone, there would not seem to be a compelling reason to keep an empty shell alive. To use an extreme example, it would seem wrong to keep a headless body alive just because it can be kept alive. If the body is no longer a person (or no longer hosts a person), then this would be analogous to keeping a headless body alive.

But, if despite appearances, there is still a person present who is aware of what is going on around them, then the matter is morally different. In this case, the person has been isolated—which is very bad for a person. They have, in effect, been sentenced to solitary confinement.

In terms of keeping the body alive, if there is a person present, then the situation would be morally different. After all, the moral status of a person is different from that of a body of merely living flesh. The moral challenge, then, is deciding what to do.

One option is, obviously enough, to treat all seemingly vegetative (as opposed to clearly brain dead) bodies as if the person was still present. That is, the body would be accorded with the moral status of a person and treated as such.

This is a morally safe option—it would presumably be better if some non-persons get treated as persons rather than risk persons being treated as non-persons. That said, it would still seem both useful and important to know.

One reason to know is purely practical: if people know that a person is present, then they would presumably be more inclined to take the effort to treat the person as a person. So, for example, if the family and medical staff knew that Bill is still Bill and not just an empty shell, they would, one would hope, tend to be more diligent in treating Bill as a person.

Another reason to know is both practical and moral: scenarios arise in which hard choices must be made, knowing whether a person is present is critical. That said, given that one might not know for sure that the body is not a person anymore it could be correct to keep treating the alleged shell as a person even when it seems likely that they are not. This brings up the obvious practical problem: how to tell when a person is present.

Most of the time we judge there is a person present based on appearance, using the assumption that a human is a person. Of course, there might be non-human people and there might be biological humans that are not people (living headless bodies, for example). A somewhat more sophisticated approach is to use Descartes’s test: things that use true language are people. Descartes, being a smart person, did not limit language to speaking or writing—he included making signs of the sort used to communicate with the deaf. In a practical sense, getting an intelligent response to an inquiry can be seen as a sign that a person is present. Or that the LLM is working well.

In the case of a body in an apparent vegetative state, applying this test is a challenge as this state is marked by an inability to show awareness. In some cases, the apparent vegetative state is exactly what it appears to be. In other cases, a person might be in “locked-in-syndrome.” The person is conscious but can be mistaken for being minimally conscious or in a vegetative state. Since the person cannot, typically, respond by giving an external sign some other means is necessary.

One breakthrough in this area is due to Adrian M. Owen. He found that if a person is asked to visualize certain activities (playing tennis, for example), doing so will trigger different areas of the brain and this activity can be detected. So, a person can ask a question such as “did you go to college at Michigan State?” and request that the person visualize playing tennis for “yes” or visualize walking around her house for “no.” This method provides a way of determining that the person is still present with a reasonable degree of confidence. Naturally, a failure to respond would not prove that a person is not present, the person could still remain, yet be unable (or unwilling) to hear or respond.

One moral issue this method can help address is that of terminating life support. “Pulling the plug” on what might be a person without consent is morally problematic. If a person is still present and can be reached by Owen’s method, then this would allow the person to agree to or request that they be taken off life support. Naturally, there would be practical questions about the accuracy of the method, but this is distinct from the more abstract ethical issue.

It must be noted that the consent of the person would not automatically make termination morally acceptable—after all, there are moral objections to letting a person die in this manner even when the person is clearly conscious. Once it is established that the method adequately shows consent (or lack of consent), the broader moral issue of the right to die would need to be addressed.

 

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Way back in 2014 popular astrophysicist and Cosmos host Neil deGrasse Tyson did a Nerdist Podcast in which he seemed critical and dismissive of philosophy. There was a response from the defenders of philosophy and some critics went so far as to accuse him of being a philistine. While philosophy’s most ancient enemy is poetry (according to Plato), science is usually up for a good fight.

Tyson presents a not unreasonable view of contemporary philosophy, namely that “asking deep questions” can cause a “pointless delay in your progress” in engaging “this whole big world of unknowns out there.” To avoid such pointless delays, Tyson advised scientists to respond to such questioners by saying, “I’m moving on, I’m leaving you behind, and you can’t even cross the street because you’re distracted by deep questions you’ve asked of yourself. I don’t have time for that.”

While I wrote about this back in 2014, it is wise to revisit my views on the matter.

The idea that a scientist might see philosophy as useless (or worse) is consistent with my own experiences in academics. Since 2014, STEM has risen and the humanities have been under constant attack. As one example, as of Fall 2026 Florida A&M University will no longer have a distinct philosophy (and religion) major. I will still be teaching philosophy, but in a new combined program made up of philosophy, history, religion, and African-American studies.  We are, of course, lucky that we are still permitted to even exist. To be fair and balanced, a case can be made against philosophy. And the concern that the deep questioning of philosophy can cause pointless delays has merit and is well worth considering. After all, if philosophy is useless or even detrimental, then this would be worth knowing.

The main bite of this criticism is that philosophical questioning is detrimental to progress: a scientist who gets caught in these deep questions, it seems, would be like a kayaker caught in a strong eddy: they would be spinning around rather than zipping down the river. This concern also has practical merit. To use an analogy outside of science, consider a committee meeting aimed at determining the curriculum for state schools. This committee has an objective to achieve and asking questions is a reasonable way to begin. But imagine that people start raising deep questions about the meaning of terms such as “humanities” or “science” and become too interested in the semantics. This sidetracking will create a needlessly long meeting and little or no progress. After all, the goal is to determine the curriculum, and deep questions will only slow down progress towards this practical goal. Likewise, if a scientist is endeavoring to sort out the nature of the cosmos, deep questions can be a similar trap: she will be asking ever deeper questions rather than gathering data and doing math to answer her shallower questions.

Philosophy, as Socrates showed with his Socratic method, can endlessly generate deep questions. Questions such as “what is the nature of the universe?”, “what is time?”, “what is space?”, “what is good?”, “what’s for lunch?”, and so on. Also, as Socrates showed, for each answer given, philosophy can generate more questions. It is also often claimed that this shows that philosophy has no answers as every alleged answer can be questioned and only raises more questions. Thus, philosophy seems to be bad for scientists.

A key assumption is that science is different from philosophy in a key way—while it raises questions, proper science focuses on questions that can be answered or, at the very least, it gets down to the business of answering them and (eventually) abandons a question if it turns out to be a distracting deep question. Thus, science provides answers and makes progress. This, obviously enough, ties into another stock attack on philosophy: philosophy makes no progress and is useless.

One obvious reason philosophy is seen as not making progress and as useless is that when enough progress is made on a deep question, it often becomes a matter for science rather than philosophy. For example, ancient Greek philosophers, such as Democritus, speculated about the composition of the universe and its size.  These were considered deep philosophical questions. Even Newton considered himself a natural philosopher. He has, of course, been claimed by the scientists (many of whom conveniently overlook the role of God in his theories). These questions are now claimed by physicists, such as Tyson, who now see them as scientific rather than philosophical questions.

Thus, it is unfair to claim that philosophy does not solve problems or make progress. When philosophy makes progress in an area, that area often becomes a science and is no longer considered philosophy. However, progress is impossible without the deep questions and the work done by philosophers before the field was claimed to be a science.

At this point, some might grudgingly concede that philosophy did make some valuable contributions in the past, but philosophy is now an eddy rather than the current of progress.

Philosophy has been here before—back in the days of Socrates the Sophists contended that philosophical speculation was valueless and that people should focus on getting things done—that is, achieving success. Fortunately for contemporary science, philosophy survived and philosophers kept asking those deep questions that seemed so valueless then.

While some might see philosophy as a curious relic of the past, it is worth considering that some of the deep, distracting philosophical questions are well worth pursuing. Much as how Democritus’ deep philosophical questions led to the astrophysics that a fellow named Neil loves so much.

 

 

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A fundamental question of science, philosophy and theology is why the universe is the way it is. Over the centuries, the answers have fallen into two broad camps. The first is teleology, the view the universe is the way it is because it has a purpose, goal or end for which it aims. The second is t is the denial of the teleological view. Members of this camp often embrace purposeless chance as the “reason” why things are as they are.

Both camps agree on many things, such that the universe seems finely tuned. Theorists vary in their views on what a less finely tuned universe would be like. On some views, the universe would be just slightly different while on other views small differences would have significant results, perhaps even a lifeless universe. Because of this apparent fine tuning, a concern for philosophers and physicists is explaining why this is the case.

The dispute over this big question mirrors the dispute over a smaller question, namely why living creatures are the way they are. The division into camps follows the same pattern. On one side is teleology and the other side is its rejection. Interestingly, it might be possible to have different types of answers to these questions. For example, the universe could have been created by a deity (a teleological universe) who decides to let natural selection sort out life forms (non-teleological). That said, the smaller question does provide some ways to answer the larger question.

The teleological camp is very broad, with members including Aristotle and Joel Osteen. In the United States, the best-known form of teleology is Christian creationism. This view answers the large and the small question with God: He created the universe and the inhabitants. There are other religious teleological views—the creation stories of various other cultures and faiths are examples of these. There are also non-religious views. Among these, probably the best known are those of Plato and Aristotle. For Plato, roughly put, the universe is the way it is because of the Forms (and ultimately the Good). Aristotle does not put a personal god in charge of the universe, but he saw reality as eminently teleological. Views that posit laws governing reality also seem, to some, within the teleological camp. As such, the main division in the teleological camp tends to be between religious theories and the non-religious theories.

Obviously enough, teleological accounts have fallen out of favor in the sciences—the big switch took place during the Modern era as philosophy and science transitioned away from Aristotle (and Plato) towards a more mechanistic and materialistic view of reality.

The non-teleological camp is at least as varied as the teleological camp and is as old. The pre-Socratic Greek philosophers considered what would now be called natural selection and the idea of a chance-based, purposeless universe is ancient.

One non-teleological way to answer the question of why the universe is the way it is would be to take an approach like Spinoza, only without God. Which, some might point out, would not be like Spinoza at all. This would be to claim that the universe is what it is as a matter of necessity: it could not be any different from what it is. However, this might be unsatisfactory as one can still why it is necessarily the way it is.

The opposite approach is to reject necessity and embrace a random universe—it was just pure chance that the universe turned out as it did and things could have been different. So, the answer to the question of why the universe is the way it is would be blind chance. The universe plays dice with itself.

Another approach is to take the view that the universe is the way it is and finely tuned because it has “settled” down into what seems to be a fine-tuned state. Crudely put, the universe worked things out without any guidance or purpose. To use an analogy, think of sticks and debris washed by a flood to form a stable “structure.” The universe could be like that—where the flood is the big bang or whatever got it going.

One variant on this would be to claim that the universe contains distinct zones—the zone we are in happened to be “naturally selected” to be stable and hospitable to life. Other zones could be different—perhaps so different that they are beyond our epistemic abilities. Vernor Vinge explores the idea of variable physics in his novel A Fire Upon the Deep.  Or perhaps these zones “died” thus allowing an interesting possibility for fiction about the ghosts of dead zones haunting the cosmic night. Perhaps the fossils of dead universes drift around us, awaiting their discovery.

Another option is to embrace the idea of a multiverse. This allows an analogy to natural selection: in place of a multitude of species, there is a multitude of universes. Some “survive” the selection while others do not. Just as we are supposed to be a species that survived the natural selection of evolution, we live in a universe that survived cosmic selection. If the model of evolution and natural selection is intellectually satisfying in biology, it would seem reasonable to accept cosmic selection as also being intellectually satisfying—although it will be radically different from natural selection in many obvious ways.

 

 

 

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In my previous essays I examined the idea that love is mechanical and its ethical implications. In this essay, I will focus on the eternal truth that love hurts.

While there are exceptions, the end of a romantic relationship involves pain. As noted in my l essay on voles and love, Young found that the loss of a partner depresses a prairie vole. This was tested by dropping voles into beakers of water to determine how much they would struggle. Prairie voles who had just lost a partner struggled less that those who were not bereft. The depressed voles differed chemically from the non-depressed voles. When a depressed vole was “treated” for this depression, the vole struggled as strongly as the non-bereft vole.

Human beings also suffer from the hurt of love. For example, a human who has ended a relationship often falls into a vole-like depression and struggles less against the tests of life (though dropping humans into beakers to test this would presumably be unethical).

While some might derive pleasure from stewing in a state of post-love depression, this feeling is something most would want to end. The usual treatment, other than self-medication, is time: people usually tend to recover and seek out a new opportunity for love. And depression.

Given that voles can be treated for this depression, humans could also be treated as well. After all, if love is essentially a chemical romance grounded in strict materialism, then tweaking the brain just so would fix that depression. Interestingly enough, the philosopher Spinoza offered an account of love (and emotions in general) that match up with the mechanistic model being examined.

As Spinoza saw it, people are slaves to their affections and chained by who and what  they love. This is an unwise approach to life because, as the voles in the experiment found, the object of one’s love can die (or leave). This view of Spinoza matches this as voles that bond with a partner become depressed when that partner is lost. In contrast, voles that do not form such bonds do not suffer this depression.

While Spinoza was a pantheist, his view of human beings is similar to that of the mechanist: he regarded humans as within the laws of nature and was a determinist. He believed that all that occurs does so from necessity—there is no chance or choice. This view guided him to the notion that human behavior and motivations can be examined as one might examine “lines, planes or bodies.” He held that emotions follow the same necessity as all other things, thus making the effects of the emotions predictable.  In short, Spinoza engaged in what can be regarded as a scientific examination of the emotions—although he did so without the technology available today and from a more metaphysical standpoint. However, the core idea that the emotions can be analyzed in terms of definitive laws is the same idea that is being followed currently in regards to the mechanics of emotion.

Getting back to the matter of the negative impact of lost love, Spinoza offered his own solution. As he saw it, all emotions are responses to what is in the past, present or future. For example, a person might feel regret because she believes she could have done something different in the past. As another example, a person might worry because he thinks that what he is doing now might not bear fruit in the future. These negative feelings rest, as Spinoza sees it, on the false belief that the past and present could be different and  that the future is not set. Once a person realizes that all that happens occurs of necessity (that is, nothing could have been any different and the future cannot be anything other than what it will be), then that person will suffer less from the emotions. Thus, for Spinoza, freedom from the enslaving chains of love would be the recognition and acceptance that what occurs is determined.

Putting this in the mechanistic terms of modern neuroscience, a Spinoza-like approach would be to realize that love is purely mechanical and that the pain and depression that comes from the loss of love are also purely mechanical. That is, the terrible, empty darkness that seems to devour the soul at the end of love is merely chemical and electrical events in the brain. Once a person recognizes and accepts this, if Spinoza is right, the pain should be reduced. With modern technology it is possible to do even more: whereas Spinoza could merely provide advice, modern science can eventually provide us with the means to simply adjust the brain and set things right—just as one would fix a malfunctioning car or PC.

One problem is, of course, that if everything is necessary and determined, then Spinoza’s advice makes no sense: what is, must be and cannot be otherwise. To use an analogy, it would be like shouting advice at someone watching a cut scene in a video game. This is pointless, since the person cannot do anything to change what is occurring. For Spinoza, while we might think life is a like a game, it is like that cut scene: we are spectators and not players. So, if one is determined to wallow like a sad beast in the mud of depression, that is how it will be.

In terms of the mechanistic mind, advice would seem equally absurd because to say what a person should do implies that a person has a choice. However, the mechanistic mind presumably just ticks away doing what it does, creating the illusion of choice. So, one brain might tick away and end up being treated while another brain might tick away in the chemical state of depression. They both eventually die and it matters not which is which. This is another reason why I choose free will; if I am right, then maybe I can do something about my life. If I am wrong, I am determined to be wrong and hence can neither be blamed nor choose to be any different.

In my previous essay I discussed the theory that love is a mechanical matter. That is, love behavior is the workings of chemistry, neurons and genetics. This view, as noted in the essay, was supported by Larry Young’s research involving voles. This mechanistic view of love has some interesting implications, and I will consider one of these in this essay, the virtue of fidelity.

While humans (such as King Solomon and various officials in the current Trump regime) sometimes have polygamous relationships, the idea of romantic fidelity has been praised in song, fiction and in the professed values of modern society. Given Young’s research, it could be that humans are biochemically inclined to fidelity in that w form pair bonds. Sexual fidelity, as with the voles, is another matter.

While fidelity is publicly praised, an important question is whether it is worthy of praise as a virtue. If humans are like voles and the mechanistic theory of human bonding is correct, then fidelity that grounds pair-bonding would be a form of addiction, as discussed in the previous essay. On the face of it, this would seem to show that such fidelity is not worthy of praise. After all, one does not praise crack addicts for their loyalty to crack. Likewise, being addicted to love would not make a person worthy of praise.

An obvious counter is that while crack addiction is seen as bad because of the harms of crack, the addiction that causes pair bonding should be generally regarded as good because of its consequences. These consequences are those that people usually praise about pair bonding, such as the benefits to health.  However, this counter misses the point: the question is not whether pair bonding is good (it generally is in terms of consequences) but whether fidelity should be praised.

If fidelity is a matter of chemistry (in the literal sense), then it would not seem praiseworthy After all, a lasting bond that forms is merely a matter of a mechanical process, analogous to being chained to a person. If I stick close to a person because I am chained to her, that is hardly worthy of praise—be the chain metal or chemical.

If my fidelity is determined by this process, then I am not acting from the virtue of fidelity but acting as a physical system in accord with deterministic (or whatever physics says these days) processes.  To steal from Kant, I would not be free in my fidelity—it would be imposed upon me by this process. As such, my fidelity would not be morally right (or wrong) and I would not be worthy of praise for my fidelity. For my fidelity to be morally commendable, it would have to be something that I freely chose as a matter of will. At least for thinkers like Kant.

One concern with this view is that it seems to make fidelity a passionless thing. After all, if I chose to be faithful to a person on the basis of a free and rational choice rather than being locked into fidelity by a chemical brew of passion and emotion, then this seems cold and calculating—like how one might select the next move in chess or determine which stock to buy. After all, love is supposed to be something one falls into rather than something one chooses.

This reply has considerable appeal. After all, a rational choice to be loyal would not be the traditional sort of love praised in song, fiction and romantic daydreams. One wants to hear a person gushing about passion, burning emotions, and the ways of the heart—not rational choice.  Of course, an appeal to the idealized version of romantic love might be a poor response—like any appeal to fiction. That said, there does is a certain appeal in the whole emotional love thing—although the idea that love is merely a chemical romance also seems to rob love of that magic.

A second obvious concern is that it assumes that people are capable of free choice, and a person can decide to be faithful or not. The mechanistic view of humans typically does not stop with the emotional aspects. Although Descartes did see emotions, at least in animals, as having a physical basis—while leaving thinking to the immaterial mind. Rather, they tend to extend to all aspects of the human being and this includes decision making. For example, Thomas Hobbes argued that we do not chose—we simply seem to make decisions, but they are purely deterministic. As such, if the choice to be faithful is merely another mechanistic process, then this would be no more praiseworthy than being faithful through a love addiction. In fact, as has long been argued, this sort of mechanistic view would seem to dispose of morality by eliminating agency.

The humble prairie vole was briefly famous because of research into love and voles. Researchers such as Larry Young found that the prairie vole is one of the few socially monogamous mammals that pair bonds for extended periods of time (even for life). Interestingly, this bonding does not occur naturally in other varieties of voles—they behave like typical mammals, such as many politicians.

Larry Young found that the brains of the voles are such that the pleasure reward of sexual activity becomes linked to a specific partner. This mechanism involves oxytocin and vasopressin, and the voles become, in effect, addicted to each other. This is like how a smoker becomes addicted to cigarettes and associates pleasure with the trappings of smoking.  To confirm this, Young genetically modified meadow voles to be like prairie voles. The results showed that the bonding is probably due to the chemistry: the normally non-bonding meadow voles engaged in bonding behavior.

Humans, unlike most other mammals, also engage in pair bonding (sometimes). While humans are different from voles, the mechanism is presumably similar. That is, we are addicted to love.

Young also found that prairie voles suffer from heart ache: when a prairie voles loses its partner, it becomes depressed. Young tested this by dropping voles into beakers of water to determine the degree of struggle offered by the voles. He found that prairie voles who had just lost a partner struggled to a lesser degree than those who were not so bereft. The depressed voles, not surprisingly, showed a chemical difference from the non-depressed voles. When a depressed vole was treated for this depression, the vole struggled as strongly as the non-bereft vole.

This seems to hold for humans as well. While humans typically become saddened by the loss of a partner (by death or breakup), this research suggests that human depression of this sort has a chemical basis and could be cured. This is what is often attempted with therapy and medication.

While the mechanical model of love (and the mind) might seem new, the idea of philosophical materialism (that everything is physical in nature) dates to Thales. Descartes saw the human body as a purely mechanical system, albeit one controlled by a non-material mind. Thomas Hobbes accepted Descartes view that the body is a machine but rejected Descartes’ dualism. Influenced by the physics of his day, Hobbes held that a human being is a deterministic machine, just like all other machines and living creatures.

Perhaps the most explicit early development of the idea of humans as machines was in Julien de La Mettrie’s Man a Machine.  While La Mettrie is not as famous as Hobbes or Descartes, many of his views are duplicated today by modern scientists. La Mettrie held that humans and animals are essentially the same, although humans are more complex than other  animals. He also held that human beings are material, deterministic, mechanist systems. That is, humans are essentially biological machines. Given these views, the idea that human love and vole love are essentially the same would probably be accepted by La Mettrie and would, in fact, be exactly what his theory would predict.

Contemporary science is continuing the project started by philosophers like Thales, Hobbes and La Mettrie. The main difference is that contemporary scientists have much better equipment to work with and can, unlike La Mettrie and Hobbes, examine the chemical and genes that are supposed to determine human behavior. Probably without realizing it, scientists are proving the theories of long dead philosophers.  The chemical theory of love does have some rather interesting philosophical implications and some of these will be considered in upcoming essays.

“The amazing, the unforgivable thing was that all his life he had watched the march of ruined men into the oblivion of poverty and disgrace—and blamed them.”

 

-The Weapon Shops of Isher, A.E. van Vogt

 

In the previous essay, I discussed the role of chance in artistic success. In Salganik’s discussion of his experiment, he noted it probably had broader implications for success. Sorting out the role of chance in success is both interesting and important.

One reason it is important to sort out chance is to provide a rational basis for praise or blame (and any accompanying reward or punishment). After all, success or failure by pure chance would not merit praise or blame. If I win a lottery by pure chance, I have done nothing warranting praise. Aside from acquiring a ticket, I had no substantial role in the process. Likewise, if I do not win a random lottery, I do not merit being accused of failure.

This also ties into morality in that chance can mitigate moral responsibility. If the well-maintained brakes on my truck fail as I approach a stop sign at a reasonable speed and I hit an innocent pedestrian, I am not to blame—this seems a matter of chance. I were to accidentally crash into someone trying to commit murder and save their intended victim, I am not responsible for this fortuitous outcome.

Much less obvious is the connection between chance and setting rational public policy and laws. After all, setting public policy on such matters as unemployment benefits and food stamps without properly assessing the role of chance in success and failure would be a grave moral error. Suppose as some claim, people end up unemployed or in need of food stamps because of factors that are well within their control. That is, they effectively freely decide to be unemployed or in need. If this is the case, then it would be reasonable to set public policy to reflect this (alleged)reality, and this would seem to entail that such support should not exist. To use an analogy, if someone foolishly throws away her money, I have no obligation to give her more money. Her poor decision making does not constitute my obligation.

However, if chance (or other factors beyond the control of the individual) play a significant role in success and failure, then it is reasonable to shape policy to match this alleged reality. Suppose as some claim, people often end up unemployed or in need of food stamps because of chance rather than their own choice. In this case, public policy should reflect this alleged reality, and such aid should be available to help offset chance.  To use an analogy, if someone is robbed of the money she needs to buy food for herself and her children, then her situation does obligate me—if can help her at reasonable cost to myself, I should do so. Otherwise, I am lacking in virtue.

Thus, determining the role of chance in success and failure is important matter. Unfortunately, it is also a very complex matter.  I think it would be helpful to use an example to show that chance seems to be a major factor in success in factor. Since I am most familiar with my own life, I will use myself as an example of the role of chance in success and failure.

As I mentioned in the previous essay on this matter, I was accused of believing in choice because I want to get credit for my successes. As might be imagined, people who are successful usually want to believe their success is largely due to their decisions and efforts—that they have earned success. Likewise, people who are failures often blame chance (and other factors) for their failures. People also apply their view to the opposite of their situations: the successful attribute failure to the decisions of those who have failed. Those who have failed attribute the success of others to chance. People usually embrace the narrative that pleases them most. However, what pleases need not be true. As such, while I like to believe that my success is earned, I am willing to consider the role of chance.

One factor that is entirely a matter of chance is birth. It is, if there is chance, a matter of chance that I was born in the United States to a lower middle-class family and that I was healthy. It is also largely a matter of chance, from my standpoint, that I had a family that took care of me and that I was in a society that provided stability, healthcare and education. If I had been born in a war and poverty ravaged area or had serious health issues, things would have been much different.

The rest of my life was also heavy with chance. For example, I almost ended up a Marine, but budget cuts prevented that and instead I ended up at Ohio State. I ended up meeting a woman there who went to Florida State University and thus I ended up in Tallahassee by chance. This allowed me to get the job I have—which was also largely due to chance. Florida A&M University needed a philosophy professor right away and I just happened to be there. I could, easily enough, go through all the matters of chance that resulted in my success: meeting the right people, being in the right place at the right time, avoiding the wrong people, and so on.

Of course, my desire to take credit drives me to add that I surely had a role to play in my success. While chance put me in the United States with a healthy body and mind, it was my decisions and actions that got me through school and into college. While chance had a major role in my getting a job as a professor, surely it was my actions and decisions that allowed me to keep the job. While chance played a role in my book sales, surely the quality of my work is what wins people over. Roughly put, chance put me into various situations, but it was still up to me to take advantage of opportunities and to avoid dangers.

While my pride drives me to seize a large share of the credit for my success, honesty compels me to admit that I owe almost everything to pure chance—starting with day zero. Presumably the same is true of everyone else as well. As such, I think it wise to always temper praise and condemnation with the knowledge that chance played a major role in success and failure. And we should do what we can to help ensure that everyone can have a good life and not just the lucky few who all too often think they deserve what they have been granted by chance.

Because of my work on metaphysical free will, it is hardly a shock that I am interested in whether sexual orientation is a choice. One problem with this issue is it seems impossible to prove (or disprove) the existence of free will in this, or any, context. As Kant argued, free will seems to lie beyond the reach of our knowledge. As such, it cannot be said with certainty that a person’s sexual orientation is a matter of choice. But this is nothing special: the same can be said about the person’s political party, religion, hobbies and so on.

Laying aside metaphysical speculation, it can be assumed (or pretended) that people do have a choice in some matters. Given this assumption, the question would seem to be whether sexual orientation is in the category of things that can be reasonably assumed to be matters of choice.

On the face of it, sexual orientation is within the domain of what a person finds sexually appealing and attractive. This falls within a larger set of what a person finds appealing and attractive in general.

Thanks to science, it seems reasonable to believe that some of what people find appealing and attractive has a foundation in our neural hardwiring rather than in choice. For example, humans find symmetrical faces more attractive than non-symmetrical faces and this does not seem to be a preference we choose. Folks who like the theory of evolution often claim that this preference exists because those with symmetrical faces are often healthier and hence better “choices” for reproductive activities.  

Food preferences also involve some hard wiring: humans like salty, fatty and sweet foods and the usual explanation also ties into evolution. For example, sweet foods are high calorie foods but are rare in nature, hence our ancestors who really liked sweets did better at surviving than those who did not really like sweets. Or some such story of survival of the sweetest.

Assuming such hardwired preferences, it makes sense that sexual preferences also involve at least some hardwiring. So, for example, a person might be hardwired to prefer light hair over dark hair.  Then again, the preference might be based on experience—the person might have had positive experiences with those with light hair and thus was conditioned to have that preference. The challenge is, of course, to sort out the causal role of hard wiring from the causal role of experience (including socialization). What is left over might be what could be described as choice.

In the case of sexual orientation, it seems reasonable to have some doubts about experience being the primary factor. After all, homosexual behavior has often been condemned, discouraged and punished. As such, it seems less likely that people would be socialized into being homosexual—especially in places where being homosexual is punishable by death. However, this is not impossible—perhaps people could be somehow socialized into being gay by all the social efforts to make them be straight.

Hardwiring for sexual orientation does seem plausible. This is mainly because there seems to be a lack of evidence that homosexuality is chosen. Assuming that the options are choice, nature or nurture, then eliminating choice and nurture would leave nature. But, of course, this could be a false trilemma as there might be other options.

It can be objected that people do choose homosexual behavior and thus being homosexual is a choice. While this does have some appeal, it is important to distinguish between a person’s orientation and what the person chooses to do. A person might be heterosexual and choose to engage in homosexual activity for practical reasons or curiosity. A homosexual might act like a heterosexual to avoid being killed. However, these choices would not change their orientation. As such, my view is that while behavior can be chosen, orientation is probably not.

A few years ago, I was doing my pre-race day run and, for no apparent reason, my left leg began to hurt. I made my way home, estimating the odds of a recovery by the next day. On the morning of the race, my leg felt better and my short pre-race run went well. Just before the start, I was optimistic: it seemed my leg would be fine. Then the race started. Then the pain started.

I hobbled forward and “accelerated” to an 8:30 per minute mile (the downside of a GPS watch is that I cannot lie to myself). The beast of pain grew strong and tore at my will. Behind that armor, my fear and doubt hid—urging me to drop out with whispered pleas. At that moment of weakness, I considered doing the unthinkable: hobbling to the curb and leaving the race.

From the inside this seemed a paradigm example of freedom of the will: I could elect to push through the pain, or I could take the curb. It was all up to me. While I was once pulled from a race because of injuries, at that time I had never left one by choice—and I decided that this would not be my first. I kept going and the pain got worse.

At this point in the race, I considered that my pride was pushing me to destruction or at least a fall. Fortunately, decades of running had trained me in pain assessment: like most veteran runners I am good at distinguishing between what merely hurts and what is causing significant damage. Carefully considering the nature of the pain and the condition of my leg, I judged that it was mere pain. While I could have decided to stop, I decided to keep going. I did, however, grab as many of the high caffeine GU packs as I could—I figured that being wired would help with pain management.

Aided by the psychological boost of my self-medication (and commentary from friends about my unusually slow pace), I chose to speed up. By the time I reached mile 5 my leg had gone comfortably numb and I increased my speed, steadily catching and passing people. Seven miles went by and then I caught up with a former student. He yelled “I can’t let you pass me Dr. L!” and went into a sprint. I decided to chase after him, believing that I could still hobble a mile even if I was left with only one working leg. Fortunately, the leg held up better than my student—I got past him, then several more people, then crossed the finish line running a not too bad 1:36 half-marathon. My leg remained attached, thus vindicating my choice. I then chose to stuff pizza into my pizza port—pausing only to cheer on people and pick up my age group award.

As the above narrative indicates, my view is that I was considering my options, assessing information from my body and deciding what to do. That is, I had cast myself as having what we philosophers like to call free will. From the inside, that is what it seems like. Maybe.

Of course, it would presumably seem the same way from the inside if I lacked free will. Spinoza, for example, claims that if a stone were conscious and hurled through the air, it would think it was free to choose to move and land where it does. As Spinoza saw it, people think they are free because they are “conscious of their own actions, and ignorant of the causes by which those actions are determined.” As such, on Spinoza’s view my “decisions” were not actual decisions. That is, I could not have chosen otherwise—like the stone, I merely did what I did and, in my ignorance, believed that I had decided my course.

Hobbes takes a somewhat similar view. What I would regard as a decision making process of assessing the pain and then picking my action, he would regard as a competition between two competing forces within the mechanisms of my brain. One force would be pulling towards stopping, the other towards going. Since the forces were closely matched for a moment, it felt as if I was deliberating. But the matter was determined: the go force was stronger and the outcome was set.

While current science would not bring in Spinoza’s God and would be more complicated than Hobbe’s view of the body, the basic idea would remain the same: the apparent decision making would be best explained by the working of the “neuromachinery” that is me—no choice, merely the workings of a purely mechanical (in the broad sense) organic machine. Naturally, many would throw in some quantum talk, but randomness does not provide any more freedom than strict determinism. Rolling dice does not make one free.

While I think that I am free and that I was making choices in the race, I have no way to prove that. At best, all that could be shown was that my “neuromachinery” was working normally and without unusual influence—no tumors, drugs or damage impeding the way it “should” work. Of course, some might take my behavior as clear evidence that there was something wrong, but they would be wrong.

Kant seems to have gotten it quite right: science can never prove that we have free will, but we certainly do want it. And pizza.