Challenging Notions of Free Will

Decisions decisions

I had never really thought about ‘free will’ before — because of course, I have it. I have to. How could I not have it? What does it even mean for me not to have free will?

I chose chocolate over vanilla at the ice cream parlour, and I decided to sit down and write this essay that no one asked for. I did this of my own volition. It would be a lie to say I was not in control of my actions because I absolutely feel that I was.

I just twiddled my toes in defiance of this ludicrous notion that I don’t have free will.

Looking Inward

Think of a colour? I thought of red. But why? Where did that idea come from? What if I had never seen the colour red? Would I still have thought of red? No, maybe blue then. So, it probably has something to do with my seeing red growing up or just liking red.

Well, what about the ice cream? Why did I choose chocolate? Because I like it. Why? Well … because I’ve grown up liking it and just never really liked vanilla. Oh, so both the choices had something to do with my personal experience. That’s odd, I thought I chose it, and I did, but if not for growing up liking red and liking chocolate, I would’ve chosen otherwise.

Otherwise

This word seems to be doing a lot of heavy lifting. What does it mean that ‘I could’ve done otherwise?’ You’re telling me there’s a me separate from my experiences? Well, no, my experiences contribute to who ‘me’ is.

Right, so my experiences have contributed to how I make these decisions. Chocolate or vanilla, red or blue, my experiences obviously matter, but I’m choosing these, separate from my experiences. I felt like choosing chocolate today. But wait, I didn’t choose red, it just popped up.

Popped up?

Yup, just like that. Red just showed up. The difference is odd, I agree, but you know you told me to say the first colour that came to mind. I took my time choosing chocolate.

Hold on, didn’t you say you’ve never liked vanilla? Doesn’t seem like much of a choice, then.

Yeah, but they had all these other flavours — butterscotch, coffee, the lot. I could have picked any of them.

So why did you choose chocolate?

I just liked it. Ah, I see, I might’ve liked something else if I grew up eating that instead of chocolate… But so what if I grew up eating chocolate, and so I like it now. That’s how taste develops in everyone. It’s nonsense, saying that I didn’t make that choice. I did.

My Preferences

So, at that counter ordering your ice cream, could you have chosen coffee, butterscotch or any of the other options?

Yeah, duh. I could order whichever I wanted. I could’ve ordered 10 different flavours if I wanted.

Ok, but could you have chosen to like any flavour more than chocolate? Could you suddenly choose to like coffee more?

No, but I could’ve ordered coffee; I just wanted to order chocolate more. I can’t change what I like willy nilly. I’d have to develop that taste for coffee ice cream over some time for me to really like it, and even then, I don’t know if I would.

So you ‘chose’ chocolate, but you didn’t choose to like chocolate?

Ok, when you say it like that, it sounds dumb. But, yeah man, that’s just how my taste developed over time. I chose it, but I already liked it, so I chose what I like.

That Seems Circular

You chose chocolate because you wanted chocolate. You wanted chocolate because you like chocolate. You like chocolate because... what? Your taste buds? Your childhood? That one really good chocolate in that cafe with your mom when you were seven?

All of it, I guess. I chose it every time I went to get ice cream, and since I chose it every time, I started liking it more and more.

So you chose chocolate because you liked it, and you liked it because you kept choosing it? What about the first time? Why did you choose it then?

To be honest, I’m not sure. I was quite young. I think my dad told me to choose it. I have a sneaking suspicion he only did that because he likes chocolate and he knew he could eat my leftovers.
Oh… Oh, I get it. You’re saying that was out of my control. Since the first domino was my dad pushing me to get chocolate, everything that happened after that was a cascading sequence of events which were not really ever in my control.

The First Domino

That’s ridiculous, though. How could I not have had any control after the first time? I still went and got chocolate ice cream so many times after. Maybe that first time I tried it, I just realised how much I liked chocolate.

Realised? So you might not have wanted to like chocolate, but you just did?

Oh.

My Point

Let’s say I take your point. I chose chocolate at the ice cream parlour, but the reason I did was that I liked it, and the reason for that was ultimately out of my control.

Doesn’t sound very free will-y if you ask me.

Fine, maybe there wasn’t that much in that scenario, but it’s not a binary. There’s nuance in a discussion like this. Sometimes I’m more in control and sometimes less. It’s why we have things like the insanity plea — sometimes people are not fully in control.

You just went from ‘yes, of course I have free will’ to ‘sometimes maybe there’s some nuance’. That’s quite a change in stance.

Maybe my surface-level intuitions were slightly naive. I can show humility every now and then. I still think I’m in control most of the time, and I can do what I want. It’s not like I’m on rails. I can do what I want.

Wants

So, where do your wants come from?

uh… my brain? What sort of question is that? I choose my wants.

Like how you chose the chocolate ice cream?

Look, maybe I didn’t choose chocolate ice cream in the way I was thinking about at the beginning of this dialogue, but I have preferences today that have been shaped by the past, and I can act in accordance with them. I like chocolate, so I can go and get chocolate ice cream.

The Rails Guiding Our Behaviour

So you’re free because you can do what you want... but you didn’t choose what you want. How is that different from rails?
If your actions are governed by your wants and your wants are outside of your control, how are you free?

Ok, that’s a good question. And I don’t have an easy answer for that. This seems to be the limit of my intuition.
But isn’t there a difference between someone putting a gun to my head and saying, ‘get chocolate or die,’ forcing me to get chocolate and me wanting chocolate and then getting it. That has to matter.

It’s quite clearly coercion in one and not the other. And you’re right that there’s a difference. Being forced at gunpoint is different from acting on your desires. But does that make acting on desires free? Or just... less constrained? You still didn’t author the desires themselves.

The Phenomenology of Choice

But I still feel like I’m choosing. I really, really do. I get that my wants might just be a result of my genetics, environment, and upbringing. But that distinct feeling of making decisions, could that feeling be an illusion?

I’m 22 years old — people magnitudes smarter than I have spent their whole lives studying this topic and have never reached an answer.

I can’t answer that.

Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t.