Afraid to Believe in Free Will: The Human Tendency to Avoid Responsibility for Free Choices

By Carl E. Begley

Free will is a frightening yet magnificent part of what it means to be human. Dr. Carl Begley analyzes and uncovers how we defend against the fearful elements of our God-given freedom, diminishing our individual dignity and magnificence. This book recommends the sometimes difficult path of honoring our free will by forgoing excuses. When we recognize and take responsibility for our choices, we can enjoy the optimism that comes with personal empowerment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: May 25, 2010
• ISBN: 9781449701840

Carl E. Begley

In addition to his forty years of private practice in clinical psychology, Dr. Begley has taught the psychology of religion. He has published a half-dozen articles in professional journals, including some on the subject of Charismatic Christians as patients. He currently lives in Florida with his wife. They have three children and four grandchildren.

Book preview

Contents

Part I: A Mysterious Element

Chapter 1: The History of an Idea

Chapter 2: The Scientific Search for Free Will

Chapter 3: The Psychological Power of Belief

Part II: Opposition to Free Will

Chapter 4: The Cult of Science

Chapter 5: Political Pressure

Chapter 6: Arguments from Religion

Chapter 7: Other Types of Opposition

Part III: Wielding Freedom

Chapter 8: The Eternal Youth and Other Abuses of Free Will

Chapter 9: The Search for a Pure Free Will Offering

Conclusion

References

INTRODUCTION

The greatest of God’s largess, when He

Created all, most prized by Him, and best,

As most kin to His own quality,

Was the will’s freedom, crown of all the rest,

Whereof all creatures made intelligent,

They all, they only, were and are possessed.

—Dante

When I was a young student in psychology at the University of Kentucky, I asked a psychology professor whether psychologists believed in free will. He replied, No, and went on to say that if humans had free will, researching human behavior would be like trying to study a ghost. Academic psychologists of that time—the 1950s—didn’t want to deal with any aspects of human behavior that could not be quantified and studied scientifically. I knew something was wrong with strict determinism, but for the time being I left the question as unfinished business.

Determinism is much easier to imagine and describe than free will because items we observe daily appear to function according to unbreakable laws of nature, as part of a mechanical chain of causes and effects. By introspection we observe what appears to us as free choices, but unlike determinism this freedom has no known origin and does not fit in a chain of cause and effect. We are aware of choice and effect, but the cause of the choice is nebulous, uncanny.

When I was a student, clinical psychology was not as firmly in the chokehold of determinism as was experimental psychology. Requirements for a PhD in the field, nevertheless, included several courses in experimental psychology, where there was no escape from the doctrine of determinism. For clinical majors, experimental psychology made up about a third of the time required for a doctoral degree. These many years later, after continued study and fascination with human nature as illuminated by science, but including human phenomena not yet reduced to chemistry and physics, I am undertaking a serious investigation of the consequences of free will. I have not lost my respect for science and have a place for it as a way to study belief in free will.

I’ve become certain that long, long ago, after eons of restless evolution, there came a time of silent crossing into true human freedom. We do not know exactly when that threshold was reached, but with that crossing came mysterious free will and frightening responsibilities so awesome as to allow for the possibility of evil. We have come to a time when evolution will go no further unless humans freely choose to make it so. The mechanics and the dynamics of pre-human evolution are now mixed with the activity of conscious choice, a rich freedom that nevertheless places further progress in jeopardy. If we deny our freedom of choice or misuse it by failing to take part in ongoing change, we cannot continue to progress. As Teilhard de Chardin (1959) wrote, the whole of evolution will come to a halt—because we are evolution. If, instead, we freely choose to go on and on and ascend higher and higher in the evolutionary process, we will be procreators of the future. Teilhard saw this as a great adventure for the human race. Whether progress in evolution, and the human contributions to that progress, are good or bad depends on the free will choices made by those who have the power to use the scientific knowledge that has been achieved. In our present culture, bad choices are ubiquitous. The following example will show what I mean.

In 1975, Elijah Anderson was a young sociologist living in a gentrifying neighborhood of Philadelphia, close to a ghetto filled with poverty and violence. Casually, and then professionally, he began to study the two neighborhoods. He made extensive observations, interviews, and field notes. With his education at Chicago and Northwestern and his hands-on observations of the reality of poverty and violence, he was well qualified to publish and lecture about his findings and suggestions for lessening the poverty and violence.

At his lecture at the University of North Florida on March 13, 2006, after summarizing the causes of the problem, he presented a solution. Anderson declared the cause of poverty and violence to be the structure, by which he seemed to mean government. He complained of the structure’s shortcomings, pointing out such problems as law enforcement not arriving promptly when called. Then, somewhat inconsistently, he complained that when police came to schools after threats and/or acts of violence, they handcuffed the violent student and gave him a criminal record. He suggested that help needed to come from the central government. In this lecture, he never mentioned the choices made to break the law as a cause. If a person chooses to do bad things, the consequences of the choice are also bad unless he or she is protected from them. The protector in such cases is usually a compassionate government or similar entity. The principle of self-defeating actions leading to bad and punishing consequences is an ancient preventative mechanism. Before human consciousness evolved to include free will, this mechanism held sway as it does today with animals. Now that we have become civilized, we are capable of thwarting the mechanism, and a sizable portion of society is doing just that. To young ghetto citizens who have chosen bad and self-destructive acts, such as dealing in drugs and using a gun, We may be sending this message: Don’t feel bad about your illegal behavior. You are not responsible, and you can do nothing to change. Don’t even try. Your problems were caused by and can only be solved by society and the government. All you need to do is wait for someone else to take responsibility for your bad behavior, correct it, and protect you from the negative consequences.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the victim of a gunshot wound suing the gun dealer who sold the gun to the shooter would have been unlikely. Such suits are not so unusual today. What beliefs and attitudes underlie the differences? Aside from the acquisitiveness of attorneys, one of the causes of this attitudinal change lies in the prevailing disbelief in free will. Though most people have thought little about whether they believe in free will, their underlying opinions are declared by their actions.

A PERSPECTIVE ON BELIEF IN FREE WILL

What were the beliefs of great thinkers of the past with regard to free will? Be they great or ordinary, what are the beliefs of people today? What are the motivations behind their belief or disbelief? What difference does it make?

As did William James, I have chosen to believe in free will, all the while acknowledging that it is a mystery that I cannot prove. Mystery though it be, if we deny or ignore free will, we leave out a rich and extensive range of actions and experiences that make us human. It’s too much to leave out if we have a genuine interest in ourselves and other people.

Unlike free will itself, belief in free will, and why it matters, can be examined. In my clinical practice and in observations of current events as reported in the mass media and professional publications, I have witnessed the fear of free will. Based on these observations I will explore and clarify a number of issues, as well as review some present and past attitudes toward free will. This book:

• explores the powerful effects of belief in free will on human experience;

• defines various motivations for avoiding belief in free will;

• examines the toll disbelief in free will takes on accepting personal responsibility;

• points out strong cultural forces supporting disbelief in free will;

• discusses the difficulties of taking responsibility for one’s own outcome;

• provides an analysis of the psychodynamics behind these difficulties;

• explores the consequences of these dynamics and how they interact with social pressures and influences;

• takes a special look at religious and quasi-religious avenues, such as a belief in predestination;

• shows how a strong belief in free will helps develop and empower the individual to live more completely, take more responsibility, and participate in ongoing evolution;

• investigates some of the complex psychodynamics that swarm about belief in free will verses determinism;

• discusses how to evaluate choices;

• recommends how to honor free will and let it enrich one’s life.

In discussing issues of good and evil or other theological concepts, the intent is to stay within the boundaries of the psychology of religion without crossing over into theology. When the book speaks of God and related religious issues, it will be in reference to the image of God as experienced by humans and the psychological implications of these experiences. For example, when you read herein of how the benefit of choosing to give in a charitable way is more valuable than the benefit of receiving, I may include the saying, It is more blessed to give than receive, which may seem to speak to theology. However, it will become clear that the quote is used to make a psychological point.

Some free will choices are clearly good, some clearly bad, but many are ambiguous. They may be neutral, or their moral value may be controversial; they may be hard to assess. Even when discussing clearly understood issues of moral rightness and wrongness, however, points about volition will usually not depend on whether the reader agrees with any moral judgment. For example, when it’s implied that it is morally good to prevent the wasteful exploitation of our planet, the few readers who disagree can still find what I say about relevant free will choices interesting.

With that in mind, let’s move on to a discussion of what thinkers from the past—religious and not—have had to say about free will.

Part I: A Mysterious Element

Chapter 1: The History of an Idea

Because psychology has had an enormous influence on every aspect of modern culture, it is important to review what some of its greatest or most decisive figures believed about free will. We will begin with William James, the father of American psychology. Gordon W. Allport, no minor psychologist himself, in his introduction to James’ (1884/1961) textbook, wrote, William James is a towering figure in the history of American thought—without doubt the foremost psychologist this country has produced. His depiction of mental life is faithful, vital, subtle. In verve he has no equal (p. viii). Though more than a century has passed since the great James wrote about free will, other psychologists have mainly avoided the subject. Even James (1884/1961) noted that psychologists were afraid free will could jeopardize their status as scientists. He described the psychologist of his time as having a great motive in favor of determinism. He wants to build a Science; and a Science is a system of fixed relations … Most actual psychologists have no hesitation in denying that free-will exists (p. 324).

James died in 1910, and a few years later, John B. Watson brought forth Behaviorism. The immense influence of his work in determinism dominated academic psychology though the mid-twentieth century when, as a graduate student, I was told to forget about free will. This period is sometimes called the dark ages of psychology. To a lesser extent, as I will show later, Watson’s determinism still influences university psychology departments, as well as the American Psychological Association (APA).

In clinical psychology (and psychiatry), one of the largest figures in the twentieth century was Sigmund Freud (1930/1955) who had great influence not only on psychology but, also on popular culture. He did not believe in free will, and in his book, Civilization and Its Discontents, he predicted a dim future for the human race:

And now, I think, the meaning of the evolution of civilization is no longer obscure to us. It must present the struggle between Eros and Death, between the instinct of life and the instinct of destruction, as it works itself out in the human species. This struggle is what all life essentially consists of, and the evolution of civilization may therefore be simply described as the struggle for life of the human species … (p. 69).

Freud added a footnote: And we may probably add more precisely, a struggle for life in the shape it was bound to assume after a certain event that still remains to be discovered … He continued in the main text with an expression of condescension for religious believers: And it is the battle of the giants that our nurse-maids try to appease with their lullaby about heaven (p. 69).

Even though he was not, strictly speaking, an experimental psychologist, Freud, an MD, called himself both psychologist and scientist. Psychologists today generally agree that Freud’s psychoanalysis is not based on science but on hermeneutics. Nevertheless Freud dogmatically rejected such mysterious, ghostly matters as life after death. He proudly proclaimed himself a godless Jew. When analyzing religion, he asserted that belief in God was the belief that father is always right, an immature and unsatisfactory solution to the Oedipus complex. It was a solution because it was the result of a decision to submit to the powerful father, a decision to give up the hope of murdering one’s father in order to marry one’s mother. Freud felt that people should grow up to stand on their own feet and eschew childlike dependency on a strong father figure like God. Taking what he considered the mature stance and acknowledging no higher power, he bravely made his own choices. Can we say, therefore, that he in fact did unconsciously believe in free will?

Consciously, Freud denied free will. Unlike many writers about human nature who offer recommendations for saving the world, the older Freud had little faith in salvation for humankind. Taking the role of disinterested observer, he saw a world without hope for a future. Assuming Freud was honest and believed he was consistent in his rejection of the possibility of free choice, he must have felt that not only he, but the whole human race, was powerless to choose to go with Eros instead of yielding to Thanatos. (Eros is the preservation instinct of both the individual and the human race, Thanatos the death instinct.)

Freud speaks of the evolution of civilization as a process which works itself out in the human species. Works itself out! Itself, as a pronoun, does not stand for a human being, but rather as Freud saw it, for evolution, a process over which humans have no control. His outlook left no place for human intervention in the process of evolution’s working itself out.

Freud (1930/1960) used a quote from Goethe’s Faust that conveys the idea of the death instinct. We might add that the quote presents the additional idea that evil functions to stop the progress of evolution. He chooses a passage in which evil is personified as the devil, Mephistopheles, who sees his adversary as creation’s progress:

For all things, from the Void

Called forth, deserve to be destroyed …

Thus, all which you as sin have rated—

Destruction—aught with evil blent, —

That is my proper element.

From Water, Earth, and Air unfolding,

A thousand germs break forth and grow,

In dry, and wet, and warm, and chilly:

And had I not the Flame reserved, why, really,

There’s nothing special of my own to show (p. 67-68).

Interestingly, Mephistopheles even predicts that change and growth will go wrong and do his work for him. We might say Mephistopheles complains that destruction of the gains of evolution will happen in a deterministic way, leaving him hardly any significant role. The word hardly is important here, because it points to Mephistopheles’ ability to use fire in counteracting mankind’s progress. Mephistopheles values his free will, and wants to use it in a way that makes a difference. But Freud, in any case, uses the quote from Goethe to rationalize his own pessimism.

In contrast, Teilhard de Chardin (1957/1960), a paleontologist and Jesuit, delighted in the diversity and excellence of evolution and the privilege and responsibility of participation in it. We may, perhaps, imagine that the creation was finished long ago. But that would be quite wrong. It continues still more magnificently, and at the highest levels of the world …. And we serve to complete it, even by the humblest work of our hands. That is, ultimately, the meaning and value of our acts (p, 62). To follow de Chardin’s line of thought, we must assert: Choosing to reject the progress of evolution in favor of some lesser good is an evil choice. Such a choice is a rejection of the fullness of life, a rejection of human life at a stage when we are evolution. A specific form of this rejection is the denial of will, a refusal to believe in free will, a choice that makes a tremendous difference.

If Freud had admitted that he believed in free will, would he have held a more optimistic belief that humankind had a chance to save itself? Would he have been more encouraged that his own contributions and insights into human consciousness might help humanity save itself? It is interesting to note Freud’s personal encounter with a true believer in free will. The psychology conference at Clark University, September 1909, was the scene of the historic meeting between Freud and William James, reported by Peter Gay (1988) in his biography of Freud:

William James, America’s most celebrated, most influential psychologist and philosopher, spent a day at Clark to hear Freud and take a walk with him. It was a walk Freud could not forget. James was already suffering from the heart disease that would kill him a year later. In his autobiographical study, Freud recounted how James suddenly stopped, handed Freud his brief case, and asked him to walk on; he felt an attack of angina pectoris coming on and would catch up with Freud as soon as it was over. Since then, Freud commented, I have always wished for a similar fearlessness in face of the near end of life. Brooding on death as he had

Reviews for Afraid to Believe in Free Will

[thelogo · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Don't you wish that there was someone else to blame for all of your mistakes? Of course you do. So do I. In the world of my self-deception I am to be praised for all the good in my life, able to take credit for my success, but all of my failures and bad decisions are the result of some form of determinism; I was raised that way, the social structures I inhabit left me no choice, or the devil made me do it. In this book Begley argues, from the point of view of psychology, that we are indeed afraid of free will and the responsibility it thrusts upon us. Begley knows that we cannot prove, or disprove, the existence of free will. However, he take son some of the modern trends in science and psychology towards determinism and points out their flaws. He then argues that free will is central to what it is to be human and that we ought to, if we can, choose to believe in free will. I had no idea what to expect coming into this book. An examination of free will not taken from a theological perspective? You mean this isn't a book about Calvinism and Arminianism? No, indeed it is not. But then what is there to say? Well, a lot, as it turns out. And a very interesting 'lot' at that. Begley's examinations of the sources of resistance to free will, of various sorts, was highly interesting. His insights into the world of psychology and the skew towards determinism in the sciences were very much worth reading. I am still digesting all the details of this book, but I think it is more than worth reading and thinking about. Conclusion: 4 out of 5 stars. Conditionally Recommended. If this topic, or constellation of topics, interests you in the slightest then you should read this book. Book provided by Thomas Nelson for review.