INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN PERSON

SVDPA eClassroom

FREEDOM AND
ACCOUNTABILITY
UNDERSTANDING HUMAN FREEDOM

Freedom and accountability are two closely related essential features of human personhood.
Human persons are free in making choices and performing actions, and are, consequently, accountable
for these choices and actions.

Natural and Social Freedom

❖ A human person is free to make choices and actions, and is consequently accountable for these
choices and actions.
❖ The will refers to our mental ability to make choices and do actions to carry out these choices. If
humans are free in making choices and doing actions, it is because their will, which enables
them to make choices and do actions, is free. Thus, saying that humans are free is just the same
as saying that humans have free will. Conversely, saying that they are not free is just the same as
saying that they do not have free will.
❖ Freedom is one of the necessary conditions of accountability, we assume that humans are free.
Our purpose is simply to get better understanding of what it means for humans to be free.
❖ Accordingly, there are three main philosophical positions on the possibility of human freedom,
namely, hard determinism, libetarianism, and compatibilism or soft determinism.
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Hard determinism
- Believes that humans are not free while both libetarianism and compatibilism believe that
humans are. But while libetarianism does not agree with hard determinism that everything
is determined, compatibilism does not agree with hard determinism that everything is
determined, compatibilism does. Hard determinism and libetarianism share a definition of
freedom that differs from compatibilism’s definition of the same.

Determinism
- Is the view that all events that happen in the world are caused by previous events or
conditions along with the laws of nature. It follows that if we know the relevant conditions
for an event to occur and the natural laws governing its occurrence, we will be able to
predict the occurrence of this event.

❖ Hard determinism accepts determinism, and further believes that determinism and freedom are
incompatible, that they cannot both be true.
❖ “What is hard” about hard determinism is its conclusion: “NO FREE WILL AND NO MORAL
RESPOSIBILITY,” explains Double (1999,203).
❖ The incompatibility between determinism and freedom is explained by the view (sometimes
called the Principle of alternate possibilities for freedom) which states that actions done freely or
choices made freely could have been otherwise.

Libetarianism
- It rejects determinism. It accepts that while certain events in the world are caused and thus
are determined, there are also some events that are not, referring precisely to human
choices. Libetarianism accepts the premise of hard determinism that determinism and
freedom are incompatible but rejects its premise that determinism is correct.
- If free choices are not caused by previous events and some natural laws, what then
produces or causes for them? For libetarianism, it is only the self or the mind of the human
person that produces these free choices through the power of its will. In this consideration,
freedom is sometimes referred to as self-determinism.

Compatibilism
- Rejects the premise that determinism and freedom are incompatible. For compatibilism,
even if determinism is correct and thus all human actions are caused by previous events or
conditions along with natural laws, still such actions can be free.
- Compatibilism is neutral to the truth of determinism (or does not really care whether
determnism is correct) as it defines freedom not in terms of the absence of determinism.
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HARD LIBETARIANISM COMPATIBILISM

DETERMINISM

Is freedom
incompatible with YES YES NO
determinism?

Is determinism correct? YES NO It does not matter

Are humans free? NO YES YES

When are human When they are not When they are not When they are not
choice/ actions free? determined by external determined by external forced to make choices
factors. factors. or do actions.

From these three views on the possibility of human freedom, we see two different definitions
given to human freedom. One is the definition shared by hard determinism and libetarianism that
human freedom Is the absence of determinism in human choices and actions.

Hard determinism and libetarianism both believe that freedom is incompatible with
determinism, so if humans are to be free in their choices and actions, then these choices and actions
should not be determined. We can refer to this kind of freedom as “NATURAL FREEDOM”, in this kind of
freedom, human actions are distinguished into the voluntary kind, referring to actions that are not
determined or actions done to carry out free choices.

MIND-BODY RELATION

Another way of Understanding human

freedom is to examine it in the context of the
philosophical discussion that human freedom is
rooted in the human will, referring to a certain
power or ability of the mind. Through this will, the
mind can initiate its own acts independent or
external factors (including natural laws) in the form
of mental states and processes such as choices,
intentions, desires, and beliefs.
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❖ Free will or the power of the mind to freely come up with mental states and processes
and to freely cause the body to perform actions is also referred to (in the philosophy of
the mind) as the power of ‘’Mental Causation”.
❖ Interactionism – regarded as “default position”.
❖ Parallelism – there is causal relationship between mental events and the physical events
in the body.
❖ Epiphenomenalism – which claims that mental states are mere by-products (or indirect
effects) of the physical states or processes of the body, which do not have any causal
powers.