I’ve written a number of posts here about the source of morality; mostly because I no longer believe that our sense of morality is given to us by God (or to put it another way, I don’t believe that without god there is no right and wrong). I think our sense of right and wrong has an anthropological or evolutionary explanation, which I’m coming around to gradually. In order to support that contention I’ve looked at various defenses of morality (as being religion-based, God-given or the like), and raised what I think are pretty good arguments against each position. But maybe the wrinkle is free will. Maybe we DO have an innate, God-given sense of morality, but competing with that is free will. We are able to look at each situation, weigh it against our desires, aspirations and preconceived notions and then decide what to do; free will then, is what allows us to override the moral code God has given us. This tension between what we want to do and what we know is right (from our innate sense of morality) could explain why we struggle with morality.
Before we get into that however, let’s take a look at the notion of free will. On the surface that makes no sense; a basic concept of free will seems to be pretty much ingrained in our thought processes. Of course we have free will! We’re not programmed robots, after all. We can consider several courses of action in any given situation and decide what to do; that’s free will.
It turns out however, that philosophers have argued the question of whether free will even exists for over 2,000 years, with no clear answer. So I’m not going to pretend to try to come up with an answer that’s eluded people for two millennia, nor even to add significantly to the debate. But it IS an interesting question, once you start digging into it. On one hand, it seems intuitive and obvious that we can decide what to do, and that’s how to define free will. On the other hand, when we look around us, virtually every event has a cause. If there’s a fire in the kitchen and a house burns down, we assume that something caused the fire; it didn’t just happen. Thus, cause and effect drives everything. Yet when it comes to us as humans we say that process stops. We believe we override cause and effect by our choices, which are the result of deliberation and decisions we make. Yet, think about this: I have done things that, afterwards, I wonder why I did it. I seemed compelled in some way to do something contrary to my wishes. Or I tried to blame some external factor. “I don’t know what I was thinking; that’s just not like me!” I suppose you could say that I COULD have done otherwise, so I still had free will; I just chose not to exercise it. But that seems like not confronting the reality of the situation: I felt like I was not really choosing what to do, but more reacting to external causes.
Cause…and effect. And yet, something about this doesn’t feel right. I can’t yet defend it completely, but I just feel that we have free will; that we control out destiny.
Either way, I don’t believe that the notion of free will explains our struggle with morality. I’ll explain why in the next posting.
About BigBill
Stats: Married male boomer.
Hobbies: Hiking, woodworking, reading, philosophy, good conversation.
Does free will explain our struggle with morality? (part 1)
I’ve written a number of posts here about the source of morality; mostly because I no longer believe that our sense of morality is given to us by God (or to put it another way, I don’t believe that without god there is no right and wrong). I think our sense of right and wrong has an anthropological or evolutionary explanation, which I’m coming around to gradually. In order to support that contention I’ve looked at various defenses of morality (as being religion-based, God-given or the like), and raised what I think are pretty good arguments against each position. But maybe the wrinkle is free will. Maybe we DO have an innate, God-given sense of morality, but competing with that is free will. We are able to look at each situation, weigh it against our desires, aspirations and preconceived notions and then decide what to do; free will then, is what allows us to override the moral code God has given us. This tension between what we want to do and what we know is right (from our innate sense of morality) could explain why we struggle with morality.
Before we get into that however, let’s take a look at the notion of free will. On the surface that makes no sense; a basic concept of free will seems to be pretty much ingrained in our thought processes. Of course we have free will! We’re not programmed robots, after all. We can consider several courses of action in any given situation and decide what to do; that’s free will.
It turns out however, that philosophers have argued the question of whether free will even exists for over 2,000 years, with no clear answer. So I’m not going to pretend to try to come up with an answer that’s eluded people for two millennia, nor even to add significantly to the debate. But it IS an interesting question, once you start digging into it. On one hand, it seems intuitive and obvious that we can decide what to do, and that’s how to define free will. On the other hand, when we look around us, virtually every event has a cause. If there’s a fire in the kitchen and a house burns down, we assume that something caused the fire; it didn’t just happen. Thus, cause and effect drives everything. Yet when it comes to us as humans we say that process stops. We believe we override cause and effect by our choices, which are the result of deliberation and decisions we make. Yet, think about this: I have done things that, afterwards, I wonder why I did it. I seemed compelled in some way to do something contrary to my wishes. Or I tried to blame some external factor. “I don’t know what I was thinking; that’s just not like me!” I suppose you could say that I COULD have done otherwise, so I still had free will; I just chose not to exercise it. But that seems like not confronting the reality of the situation: I felt like I was not really choosing what to do, but more reacting to external causes.
Cause…and effect. And yet, something about this doesn’t feel right. I can’t yet defend it completely, but I just feel that we have free will; that we control out destiny.
Either way, I don’t believe that the notion of free will explains our struggle with morality. I’ll explain why in the next posting.
About BigBill
Stats: Married male boomer. Hobbies: Hiking, woodworking, reading, philosophy, good conversation.