Does naturalism imply determinism?

[WisdomTree]

Overall, I guess yes is the answer...

 

[Eudaimonist]

I've been wondering about this idea of naturalism, i.e., that humans are nothing more than physical beings.

That's not how I understand naturalism. It shouldn't be confused with reductive materialism.

I'm a naturalist, but I don't think that humans are "nothing more than physical beings". While we are physical beings, we also have mental properties. The following article on dual aspect theory may be helpful:

http://www.rogerbissell.com/id11aaa.html

If our brains are just a bunch of chemicals and electrical impulses, does that mean our behaviors are pre-programmed?

No, we may create new behaviors.

How does free will enter the picture (if at all)?

Free will may enter the picture if it is an emergent power. Naturalism does not imply a rejection of emergentism.

It is a given that naturalism implies determinism.

Not to me! I don't do such simplistic package-dealing.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Ripheus27]

Some thoughts I've had skimming through this thread:

1. What is naturalism? Is it a well-defined position? (The word physicalism is hardly better, as far as I know, so I don't think, "Naturalism is physicalism," would be a good answer to the question.)

2. If you're asking, "Should we hold people responsible for their actions if it was not possible, in the moment of action, to choose otherwise?"--well, if you said we should do such a thing, you'd be telling us to do it and thinking we had the ability to do so. But suppose, then, that we don't do it. Then in not holding people responsible for their actions, you'd have to think that we nonetheless could've held people as such responsible; and since what we actually did (not hold people responsible) would also be possible since it actually happened (the impossible is not actualized), then in the moment of our failure to hold other responsible for their actions, we would've had a choice to hold them responsible or not. So the very act of asking "should" questions presupposes the ability to make choices.

3. "Free will is determined or random," doesn't seem to be the real option when it comes to the options, here. For instance, chance and randomness differ (Chance versus Randomness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)), wherefore we might attribute chanciness to free will instead of randomness.

We also have to make sure we're not equivocating between different senses of randomness when saying that our choice isn't free if it's random. One disambiguation would go, "The choice is random in the sense that it can't possibly be predicted in advance," whereas the other would be, "The choice is random in the sense that it is caused to yield an arbitrary output." The latter sense is unfree randomness, but only inasmuch as something besides the person making the choice is not the cause of the arbitrary output.​

 

[WisdomTree]

It really comes down to the Freewill thesis versus the thesis of Universal Causation.

 

[muichimotsu]

Getting into this a bit late, but a lot of this does get into difficulties of the terms we're using. Even naturalism shouldn't be presumed as something we automatically agree upon. The definition you presented seems more aligned with materialism or physicalism to one degree or another. Naturalism is a bit more vague in that it doesn't necessarily claim that the universe is entirely physical in nature, but merely that only natural laws apply to the universe.

Determinism is also not identical with the position you seem to be arguing results from naturalism/materialism/physicalism, which is probably more predeterminism or necessitarianism, where things are predetermined or could not have happened except in one particular way.

Determinism in a causal sense merely claims that events result from prior ones and that there is an interrelation of actions and events as well. The degree probably varies form philosopher to philosopher, but it's markedly distinct from anything close to a belief that we do not have free will in even a remotely libertarian sense: being able to choose and deliberate between alternate options.

Naturalism would only lead to a denial of free will if the natural laws were believed to be comprised in such a way that they would conflict with a basic notion of volition and deliberation in the mind.

 

[jayem]

Here's my 2¢:

Determinism means exactly the same conditions will produce exactly the same outcome. So yes, there is no absolute free will. If your brain was in exactly the same state at two different times, you would behave exactly the same both times. But the chances of this happening are extraordinarily remote under normal circumstances. As long as your brain is able to receive and process sensory input, it is constantly changing. New neural circuitry is continually being established and re-established. A functioning brain is a dynamic organ that is never in exactly the same state. Which means the impulses, motivations, and thought processes that give rise to behavior are never exactly the same. This gives us the impression that we have free will to change our minds and make different choices. But it's a relative free will, not absolute.

Does this make sense?

 

[elopez]

I've been wondering about this idea of naturalism, i.e., that humans are nothing more than physical beings. If our brains are just a bunch of chemicals and electrical impulses, does that mean our behaviors are pre-programmed? How does free will enter the picture (if at all)?

Naturalism has a variety of meanings, none of which are 'pinned down.' The more contemporary meaning is that the laws of nature operate within the universe and nothing supernatural or outside of the universe or laws of nature exist. Physicalism is the view that nothing beyond what is physical exists, or in other words, only physical things or things with physical attributes exist.

Now, naturalism can be related to physicalism, but I don't think the two are necessarily related. What you're describing by saying, "humans are nothing more than physical beings" sounds more like physicalism than it does like naturalism.

This of course all depends on the validity of physicalism itself; is it true that there are only physical things that exist? And of course we can go under the pure assumption that it is, in which case I'd be inclined to say determinism follows, but then again I would see determinism mostly under any view, including theism. I would also see determinism having no conflicting relation to free will, so they can co - exist. Free will just means we understand the effects of our actions and that no one or nothing prevents or forces us to act as we desire.

 

[WisdomTree]

In my opinion, naturalism implies a strict interpretation of the thesis of universal causation, therefore determinism.

 

[muichimotsu]

It doesn't have to. Causality could in some models imply indeterminism, since anything could happen, even if it was merely possibility. We have habits, but that doesn't mean they rule us. It can imply that causation is so, but only on a particular level, where there isn't the generation of personality or the like. Animals can be trained, but their instincts and such cannot be dispensed with. Human minds, and human organic forms, are more complex, and thus the idea that we are wholly disposed is mistaken. Genetics play a part, but ntotabsolutely so. And even if we tried to apply it to physical processes, the level of activity is fairly high, so the variability is also high.

 

[Eudaimonist]

In my opinion, naturalism implies a strict interpretation of the thesis of universal causation, therefore determinism.

I'm a naturalist, and it's not my view that naturalism requires a "strict interpretation of the thesis of universal causation". I assume here that you are talking about Rene Descartes's view that causation implies a billiard ball or domino-like cascade of events, where one event is caused by a prior event, and views everything that happens in material reality as determined by previous events.

This might well be a position that naturalists have often held, but it's not an essential one to naturalism, and it's not my view. My view is that it is entities that cause actions, not events. Causality is the law of identity applied to actions, and it is entities that engage in actions. Therefore, entities may initiate of their own patterns of causation if it is in their nature to do so.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Jade Margery]

A page or two too late for this particular point, but I'd like to make a case for punishment.

Even if a person has no control over their own actions (punching a co-worker), that does not mean they shouldn't be punished. This lack of control is based on their brain chemistry rather than being forced by another person or direct outside influence. Punishing them for that act will cause their brain chemistry to change--perhaps to a configuration that in the future, will NOT punch the co-worker. Reward and punishment are both needed for a person to learn. From childhood we find certain actions cause us pain or deprive us of something, regardless of whether someone else is inflicting it on us. Touching a hot stove is the classic example. Without either negative or positive feedback, our brain chemistry won't change and we won't be more or less likely to do that thing in the future.

That's why punishment should be proportional to the crime regardless of whether free will exists or not. Suppose the person in question regularly punches a specific co-worker and no one else. If one is attempting isolation rather than punishment, it is just as easy to reassign the co-worker being punched rather than the one doing the punching. Without any other kind of negative feedback, (getting fired, getting sued, being punched back) the first person will not learn that what they have done is wrong.

 

[Paradoxum]

Even if naturalism were false, and we had souls, determinism would still necessarily be true. We would still either act for a reason (which is based on prior reasons and states) or randomly. There is no room for libertarian free will in any possible universe.

 

[muichimotsu]

This seems to deny the possibility that you can deliberate between actions, which I somehow doubt you would. You could respond to this, you could eat a snack, you could watch a music video on youtube, any number of things. If anything, the idea that freewill is a matter of habit could be a way of arguing that free will is compatible with determinism in some sense of the word, particularly with organic entities.

 

[Eudaimonist]

Even if naturalism were false, and we had souls, determinism would still necessarily be true. We would still either act for a reason (which is based on prior reasons and states) or randomly. There is no room for libertarian free will in any possible universe.

As I see it, that view carries certain debatable assumptions about the nature of causation. It is also implicitly reductionistic.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Paradoxum]

This seems to deny the possibility that you can deliberate between actions, which I somehow doubt you would. You could respond to this, you could eat a snack, you could watch a music video on youtube, any number of things. If anything, the idea that freewill is a matter of habit could be a way of arguing that free will is compatible with determinism in some sense of the word, particularly with organic entities.

Are you talking to me?

Well subjectively we have to assume free will it seems, for practical purposes.

As I see it, that view carries certain debatable assumptions about the nature of causation. It is also implicitly reductionistic.


eudaimonia,

Mark

If nothing is caused then it would seem to be random, and that isn't free either. Why is it reductionist?

How would you get round the problem in more detail?

 

[muichimotsu]

Are you talking to me?

Well subjectively we have to assume free will it seems, for practical purposes.

Assuming it is part of the process, but demonstrating it to be likely is another thing, to be fair.

 

[quatona]

This seems to deny the possibility that you can deliberate between actions,

I don´t think it does - it just points out that the way you deliberate is determined.

You could respond to this, you could eat a snack, you could watch a music video on youtube, any number of things.

So? Every inanimate object could do a lot of things, as well.

 

[muichimotsu]

Inanimate objects aren't organic, or more particularly, complex enough in their brain patterns to develop varying habits of thought and such. We start out simple as children, but that's only because we haven't experienced things and discerned that actions have particular consequences and we set up a sort of category of prediction.

 

[quatona]

Inanimate objects aren't organic, or more particularly, complex enough in their brain patterns to develop varying habits of thought and such. We start out simple as children, but that's only because we haven't experienced things and discerned that actions have particular consequences and we set up a sort of category of prediction.

Yes. I´m not sure, though, how all that possibly makes a case against determinism.

 

[muichimotsu]

It doesn't deny determinism in causation, but it denies that free will as a property of an entity to deliberate between alternatives in a genuine fashion is incompatible with that form of determinism