Problem of Psychological Determinism

7/29/2019 Problem of Psychological Determinism

1/8

The Problem of Psychological Determinism

The philosophical discussions over the question of whether free will exists or not have

significant implications on concepts such as moral responsibility and personal autonomy. Oneway to approach the problem of freedom and determinism is to see what it means for a person

to be morally responsible. There are two basic conditions that need to be satisfied. Firstly, the

person needs to be a free agenta being having control over his action. For if the actions he

performs are not up to him to decide he deserves no credit or discredit for doing what he

does. Second, he must be a moral agent an agent, that is, to whom moral claims apply. For if

the actions he performs can be neither right nor wrong, then there is nothing to credit or

discredit him with (Wolf 151). Essentially, the issue of existence of free will depends on the

first condition of whether a persons actions are under his control or not.

In this paper, I have tried to argue that a person is indeed a free agent. However, the

definition of what it means to be a free agent may not exactly conform to the strict criterion

laid down above for existence of freedom. This vital aspect will be elaborated in the course of

this paper. Moreover, arguing from the point of view of psychological determinism and

societal repression, I intend to show the possibility of determinism creeping into the actions

of a free agent.

The notion of free will in this case would seem rather paradoxical since the idea of a person

being someone whose actions are under his own control would oppose the notion that his

actions are determined by anything other than himself. In order to resolve this contradiction,

it is important to understand what is meant by psychological determinism. To say an action is

psychologically determined would mean that the actions of the free agent are determined by

his interests, his motives and his desires which are in turn determined by his heredity or

environment. This raises an interesting question as to whether the condition of freedom

depends on ones values or desires or whether it is the persons own free will on which the

values or desires of a person are dependent on. This is a difficult question to answer for it is

arguable that the freedom of a free agent is largely dependent on the conditions of his values

and desires. However, it can also be argued that the origin of ones values is dependent on the

freedom that one possesses. The kind of dependence in either cannot be seen as adhering to

an all infusing causality. For if one starts by assumption that the human agent is a being-for-


2/8

itself then it becomes increasingly difficult to think that their actions are entirely the result of

a causally determined chain of prior events which necessarily had to result in the actions that

they do. Therefore, I shall try to present the case that while the condition of freedom is

largely dependent on the interests one has, there is still an element of freedom in the agent

which becomes increasingly difficult to exercise considering the way he is psychologically

determined.

Parfit in his work Reasons and Persons points out that if one supposes that there is an

unreliable treatment for some disease and in most cases the treatment achieves nothing. But

in a few cases it completely cures the disease then for those particular it is only the effect that

matters (214). This example can be seen as illustrating the idea that causal chains cannot

always be seen as having one kind of effect when we speak of human beings. If we accept

psychological determinism then one can raise an objection as to whether the condition of

freedom is true. For if the interests of an agent are determined by his heredity and

environment then it is not up to the agent to have the interests he has. Furthermore, if the

actions of the agents are dependent on his interests then the agent cannot but perform the

actions he performs (Wolf 152). These objections embark the fundamental notion that if the

condition of freedom is to be satisfied then actions cannot be psychologically determined. For

then the agent would not have the ability to do otherwise. If psychological determinism is

seen in this way, obviously the will of the agent cannot be free. For the will to be free, the

actions of the agent cannot be determined by his interests or his interests cannot be

determined by anything which is external to the agent. However, if one tries to imagine an

agent whose actions are not determined by his interests then this agent would have the ability

to act against his interests. Such an agent would be able to act against everything he believes

in and everything he cares about. It would mean, for example, that if the agent's son were

inside a burning building, the agent could just stand there and watch the house go up in

flames. Or that the agent, though he thinks his neighbor is a fine and agreeable fellow could

just get up one day, ring the doorbell, and punch him in the nose. (Wolf 152-153). On the

other hand if one imagines an agent whose interests are not dependent on anything external

then there are no reasons for the agent to have the interests that he would have. It might be

possible for such an agent yet to care about others at the same time. In both the cases narrated

above, were the agent is psychologically undetermined, the main problem which arises is that

it cannot be possible for the agent to be moral one. For if we require that his actions not be

determined by his interests, then a fortiori they cannot be determined by his moral interests.


3/8

And if we require that his interests not be determined by anything else, then a fortiori they

cannot be determined by his moral reasons (Wolf 153).

In my opinion, the condition of freedom i.e. the actions of an agent are under his control is

taken too rigidly and strongly as to think that a person cannot be influenced in his decision

due to external factors. Free will does exist for a person who has the option to do otherwise.

If the condition of freedom is seen as the ability of the agent to act differently then strict

determinism cannot be accepted. This notion of freedom is a conditional statement which

emphasizes that an agent could have done otherwise had he tried. This does not rule out the

possibility of being psychologically determined since the determination of ones interests is

in my opinion, are not entirely dependent on environment and heredity but is in some part

also dependent on the way one interprets the external factors which influences ones interests.

Concerning the idea of acting differently, Wolf writes that incompatibilists, will point out

that such an analysis is insufficient. For an agent who would have done otherwise if he had

tried cannot be blamed for his action if he could not have tried. The compatibilist might try to

answer this objection with a new conditional analysis of 'he could have tried'. He might say,

for example, that 'he could have tried to do otherwise' be interpreted to mean he would have

tried to do otherwise, if he had chosen. But the incompatibilist now has a new objection to

make: namely, what if the agent could not have chosen? (154). The objection raised by the

incompatibilist is the claim of the universal determinists who regard all conscious desires and

preferences as having a causal history. In that regard, human actions are only free as long as

the agent is doing what he wishes even if he has no real choice (Meissner 96-97). However,

this rather reduced concept of freedom makes it very difficult to assign moral responsibility. I

shall argue that relatively free decision making is possible within a context of psychological

determinism. It will be shown that while the individual could choose to act otherwise in cases

where other options are available and thus cannot evade the moral responsibility. However,

exercising this freedom requires a certain realization of this choice being available to the

agent which is difficult in the way societies have been set up.

The idea of free-will that I wish to present, does not entirely deny determinism. As pointed

out before, the sort of determinism that is involved here is different from the causal

determinism of natural sciences. The Austrian psychologist, in his psychoanalytic theory

dealt with the problem of determinism and free-will. This determinism accounts for the

relatively mature capacity for deliberative decision-making and for self determining choice


4/8

possible realistic alternatives (Meissner 97). The determinism of psychoanalysis deals

ultimately with motives and reasons rather than with causes. It deals only with psychic

actions and deliberations and not with actions that may be coerced. Psychoanalysis showed

that there are many psychic actions involving choice among alternative possible objects or

action or courses of action in which the decision does not seem to be predetermined and

options remain possible but not necessary, and there therefore not necessarily determined

((Meissner 97). Ernest Wallwork writes concerning Freud that [he] holds on to the paradox

that freedom of choice is compatible with determinism not by narrowly restricting freedom to

a contrived definition but by seeing that the emergence of the capacity for relatively free

decision-making and action occurs within a context of psychological determinism (73). It

cannot be said that Freud was equivocally committed to hard determinism since there are

many statements found in The Ego and the Idwhich refute that position. For instance, Freud

writes that Analysis does not set out to make pathological reactions impossible, but to give

the patients egofreedom to decide one way or the other (50)

Freuds ideas on free will are ambiguous as he assumes that free will and determinism are

mutually exclusive. Free will is viewed more as a subjective experience in which the agent

experiences that his acts are free. I think the idea that free will and determinism are mutually

exclusive is relevant, but it cannot be simply concluded that the free will is merely a

subjective experience. "Freedom does not lie in the experience but in the actual capacity and

function of choosing and deciding among possible alternatives" (Meissner 98). The reduced

view of freedom as merely a subjective experience leaves it in a conceptual limbo which has

no real impact or efficacy (Meissner 98). Such view of freedom raises the question as to

whether free will is a psychological capability or simply an illusion. The will is not entirely

determined since there is the possibility of choosing other options within psychological

determinism. One can say that there are certain motives, desires and needs can be so

compelling that the action of the will is coerced and therefore the will is not free in that case.

However, this is always not the case since the very experience free choice can also be seen as

being illusionary. For instance, if I choose to continue to write, and if I do choose to write

then my motive is determined; but I can also choose to do something to something else and I

choose to do then my choice is determined in that case too. In either case the motives for both

the choices are different. However, the choice in both the cases is determined and yet at the

same time free. The evidence of my experience of non-coerced, non-necessitated choice is a

valid piece of evidence that cannot be dubbed as mere illusion (Meissner 99).


5/8

Determinism and freedom can thus be seen as being mutually exclusive in certain cases when

the action of the will is not coerced by any other factor. The aim of psychoanalysis is to

liberate man from his inner shackles and [help] him to enlarge the sphere of his autonomy

and gain greater self mastery (Dilman 181). In psychoanalysis it is up to the agent to

actually heel the divisions within oneself in order to arrive at a truer self by establishing

autonomy over ones motives and the actions which follow from them. While Freud does not

deny the reality of free will and responsibility (Dilman 189) it is important to question the

very need for psychoanalysis. Why is it that there are divisions within oneself and why would

a person feel the lack of self autonomy over the actions in which he has the choice to act

differently. I think that even if one accepts that there is free will then the mere idea of having

these thoughts shows that there might be some element of determinism entering a free world

scheme. The Scottish psychologist R.D Laing wrote in the Preface to his book TheDivided

Self that "Freud insisted that our civilization is a repressive one. There is a conflict between

the demands of conformity and the demands of our instinctive energies, explicitly sexual.

Freud could see no easy resolution of this antagonism, and he came to believe that in our time

the possibility of natural love between human beings had already been abolished" (11). This

conflict between the demands for conformity and our instinctive energies can be seen as

being at the root of the problem of determinism. What this conflict creates is a feeling of the

lack of autonomy. Laing in his study of people suffering from schizophrenia concluded that

the reason for the madness of these people was because they gave into psychological

determinism and could not make choices in cases where they did have the ability to act

differently. Laing points out that the task in psychotherapy was to make an appeal to the

freedom of the patient in deciding who they would like to be (61).

In how far we are free in making free choices when it comes to performing actions within the

context of psychological determinism is a problem that not only concerned the

psychoanalysts but others as well. With the rise of existentialism in the twentieth-century, an

emphasis is placed on the the quest for authenticity, the shedding of the repressive "ready

made"1 life that society shackles us with in favor of true spontaneity, living in accordance

with one's authentic self (Malinovich 158). Another intellectual group that was concerned

with this problem of psychological freedom was the Hegelian Marxists who emphasized

Marxs early writings on the alienation of the worker within a capitalistic society. They

argued that it is only within a genuinely socialist society could human beings be free to


6/8

realize their true nature (Malinovich 159). The realization in the twentieth-century that way

modern societies had set themselves up leads to people living their lives in a way which is not

entirely authentic goes to show how difficult it can be to make free choices within the context

of psychological determinism. Psychoanalysis presupposes that it within oneself to define the

way one wants to be. However, the extent of self division, evasion ad self-deception in

human life and of the failures of autonomy in individual lives (Dilman 188-189) make man

inevitably bound up in a way which makes it difficult to exercise freedom in a broader sense.

In Herbert Marcuses Eros and Civilization, he brought together the ideas of existentialism,

psychoanalysis and Hegelian-Marxism (Malinovich 159). In my opinion, he showed that

freedom in the capitalistic world had now become a very limited concept and this has made it

very difficult to exercise autonomy within psychological determinism. Marcuse was severely

critical of the way present societies impose psychological determinism by providing a very

narrow notion of what a persons motives and desires ought to be. I agree with Marcuse,

since many of our most basic motives (that govern are actions) are largely dependent on our

environment and society which are presented to us in a way which makes it very hard to

envisage alternatives or other possible ways of exploring ones potentialities. Malinovich

writes that

One of the few possibilities which comes to mind, in contemporary society, is some

attempt at regulating aspects of the mass media, in particular those which affect the

psychological development of young children. There has been much concern of late

about the effect that the constant portrayal of violence has on children's minds. More

generally, there is concern about the passivity created by the fact that American

children spend a large part of their leisure time watching television and are subjected

to a conditioning based almost entirely on commercial interests. These are dangers

which Marcuse was one of the first to point out-long before they became documented

by studies (177-178)

The problem that the conditioning of the psychological development of young children is

becoming regulated and is highly dependent on external factors is an issue which shows to

what extent the actions of these children are psychologically determined. I have tried to show

that strict determinism is impossible through the theory of psychoanalysis which assumes that

humans do have the ability to choose otherwise and do possess some freedom in cases where

it is available. It is possible to assume that human beings do have free will since determinism

is shown to have been something which is not necessary in all cases. The condition of


7/8

freedom can be satisfied if a human thinks that his actions are in line with his desires and

motives. However, our actions are very much determined by our motives and desires which

are largely dependent on psychological determinism which is external to human beings.

While free will is a possibility, a limited form of determinism has come into play which has

made it increasingly difficult to choose otherwise due to way societies have set themselves

up. In order to be able to explore a greater possibility of freedom, it is important that

psychological determinism is taken seriously. The conditioning of a persons motives and

desires should aim at providing a greater choice and showing different ways to interpreting

ones environment and exploring other possibilities so that a person may become more

autonomous, self-directing, self-governing, self-rulingabove all sovereignin his decision

making.


8/8

References

Dilman, Ilham. Free Will: An Historical and Philosophical Introduction. Routledge, 1999.

Freud, Sigmund. The Ego and the Id. The Hogarth Press Ltd. London, 1949

Laing, R.D. The Divided Self. 1990 Reprint. Penguin Books, 1960.

Malinovich, Myriam Miedzian. "On Herbert Marcuse and the Concept of Psychological

Freedom." Social Research Vol 49:1(1982): 158-180.

Meissner, William W.. The Ethical Dimension of Psychoanalysis. SUNY Press, 2003

Wallwork, Ernest. Psychoanalysis and Ethics. Yale University Press, 1991.

Parfit, Derek. "Reasons and Persons." Western Philosophy: An Anthology. Ed. John

Cottingham. 2006 Edition Blackwell Publishing, 1996

Wolf, Susan. "Asymmetrical Freedom." The Journal of Philosophy Vol. 77, No. 3(1980)):

151-166.

Documents

Problem of Psychological Determinism