Free Will and Forgiveness
Exploring the Interplay Between Human Choice and Compassionate Understanding.
When we approach the topic of whether free will exists, it is crucial to define what free will means and what it means to have free will.
Defining free will as ‘the ability to do whatever we want’ is crude and unsophisticated. A nuanced take would involve constructing the question in this way: “Did I have the ability to do things differently?” An emphasis on the past tense is essential. (Throughout history, free will has been given several definitions, but this was the one that helped me think about this whole affair clearly).
Of course, we live as if free will exists, but does free will really exist? This is the line along which we need to contemplate. For example, imagine you got an ice cream this morning. You chose vanilla. You might say, “Yes, I have free will. I chose vanilla, and I could’ve easily chosen chocolate if I had wanted to.” However, as far as some philosophers and neuroscientists are concerned, we do not have free will; that is, we could not have chosen chocolate ice cream.
Let me explain in detail.
Essentially, we do something or anything because:
- We want to do it.
- We’re forced to do it.
The second case conspicuously implies the absence of free will. The first case, however, is a tricky one. I’ll give you an example before getting into it. Imagine you were walking down the street and a dog bit you, leaving you physically hurt and traumatized. After a month, you’re walking down the street again and you see another dog dying. You are scared to help, remembering the incident that happened a month ago. So, you don’t save the dog and mind your own business.
Do you think you had the free will to save it if you wanted to?
Now, what some philosophers argue is that, no, you do not have free will. It might seem like you could have acted in a different way, but what we forget to consider is why we act the way we act. You chose not to save the dog because you were traumatized/had a bad experience with a dog before.
This decision was influenced by an incident that you had no control over — the random attack a month ago. You had no control over that. And now your response to a different situation is governed by something that is not under your control.
This is obviously a dumbed-down example of how external factors rob us of our freedom to decide without bias. We’ll get into more of that later.
This way, if we wind back the clock and analyze every single thing that happened to us, our so-called “wants” were influenced by our environment. And by our environment alone.
The existence of free will is most often debated in religious and philosophical settings.
One side claims that humans have control over their actions independent of external influences. The other side argues that free will is an illusion. A human’s behavior and actions are governed by genetics, environment, and past experiences (all of which we have no control over). Thereby, true freedom of choice is impossible, and the perception of free will is merely a product of biological and psychological factors.
The former side argues their stance by highlighting subjective experiences of freedom to choose to deduce a conclusion.
The situation is confused by the concept of Pre-Determinism. “Oh, you don’t have free will, it’s all pre-determined, it’s fate, all of it is already decided!”
But the underlying reason why we don’t have free will is — the world is chaotic.
The world is random — things favor entropy.
Our lives are not predetermined — they are uncertain.
So many things that determine our future are happening everywhere — all at once.
Regret and forgiveness:
Though it sounds like a cliché, when we were born we were a blank canvas, containing the genes of our ancestors — that we have no control over, born in a place and to people — that we have no control over.
If you were born in the household of Elon Musk, had the same parents, had the same education, had the same experience among people, and had the same exposure to life, you would have become him. The decisions he took, his passion, his personal life, and every single thing he did was because of happenings that he had no control over.
His wants were sculpted by it, his decisions were molded by it.
The same thing was said about Dostoevsky too — that he was quite lucky. He was brought up in a rich household, his education made him curious and so he read an illegal piece of literature for which he was convicted and sentenced to death. He was made to stand in a line and put a cloth on his face. The man before Dostoevsky was beheaded. When it was his turn, an official came and revoked the punishment and instead gave the remaining people in the line prison sentences. Imagine Dostoevsky, his anxiety, and how he was spared.
This pushed him to believe in God and spread orthodox Christian values, and this incident helped him understand people and internal torments better than anyone who lived at that time.
This idea of the absence of free will is freeing. I have regrets in my life and so do you.
It should be freeing to realize that — It couldn’t have been different.
We’re exactly where we’re supposed to be.
And accepting the absence of free will also increases the ability to empathize and forgive — If I were them, I would’ve done the same thing. (Remember I’m not saying if I were in their position, I said if I were them — implying if I were born and brought up as them)
When I first came across the concept of free will, I watched a video made by Alex J O’Connor (A Philosophy and Theology student from Oxford University, YouTube: Cosmic Skeptic). Just like everyone else, I did believe I was free, but when I heard him say — “…..but we do not have control over our wants..”, I had an epiphany and a thirst to learn more.
Some religions preach and support the existence of free will. God has given us all the free will to act as we want and if we commit ‘sins’ we’re supposedly punished eternally for that.
But if all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by external causes, doesn’t it imply that individual human beings have no free will and cannot be held morally responsible for their actions?
Keep wondering…
(The debate is still going on. I’m in no way writing a conclusion, this is just my take on the topic. New branches of science — Neuroscience, Quantum Mechanics, Cognitive Science, Ethics, etc., are constantly giving their inputs to solve the question)
