A CRITIQUE OF DETERMINISM IN THE LIGHT OF IMMANUEL KANT

A CRITIQUE OF DETERMINISM IN THE
LIGHT OF IMMANUEL KANT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE…………………………………………………………………….…i

CERTIFICATION…………………………………………………………ii

DEDICATION……………………………………………………………..iii

ACKNOWLEDEMENTS………………………………………………….iv

TABLE
OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………..vi

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION AND THE CLARIFICATION OF TERMS

1.1. Freedom ……………………………………………………….……….3

1.2.
Determinism…………………………………………………………….5

1.3. Kinds of
Determinism…………………………………………………..6

1.4. Physical
Determinism……………………………………………………7

1.5. Ethical
Determinism……………………………………………………..9

1.6
Theological Determinism………………………………………………..10

1.7
Psychological Determinism………………………………………………11

1.8 Logical
Determinism…………………………………………………….13

CHAPTER TWO

A HISTORICAL SURVEY OF THE PROBLEM OF FREEDOM AND
DETERMINISM

2.1 Ancient
Period……………………………………………………………15

   2.2 Medieval Period…………………………………………………………21

2.3 Modern
Period…………………………………………………………..24

2.4
Contemporary Period……………………………………………………29

CHAPTER THREE

FREEDOM AND DETERMINISM IN THE LIGHT IMMANUEL KANT

3.1 The
Doctrine of Autonomy of the will in the light of Immanuel Kant…………………………………………………………………..………32

3.2 Freedom as
moral Postulate……………………………………………..36

3.3 The
doctrine of the Phenomena and the Noumena vis-à-vis the Problem of freedom and
determinism……………………………………………………41

CHAPTER FOUR

CRITICAL EVALUATION AND CONCLUSION

4.1 Critique
of the determinist’s Position……………………………………47

4.2
Demonstration of the Freedom of the will57

4.3 Conclusion………………………………………………………….……60

BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………..…62

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION AND THE
CLARIFICATION OF TERMS

Human beings live in a world that is
laden with many possibilities. As a being with the capacity to choose between
alternatives, he has been able to surmount the numerous problems he has so far
encountered.  Not only this, he has been
able to develop this world by merely and freely choosing almost the best out of
his many alternatives.  However, it has
also come to the knowledge of this same man that some external forces influence
most of his actions. This has led some men to the conclusion that man is, in
fact, not free.  This is now a big
problem in the field of philosophy.

This problem of freedom of
the will and determinism has continued to perturb philosophers from the ancient
period till date.  As a matter of fact,
this problem has seen philosophers and some scientists divided into two
opposing camps; those who hold tenaciously to the freedom of the will and those
who deny the reality of the freedom of the will.  The former are known as the libertarians
while the latter group is known as determinists.

It is in the midst of this
controversy that I have set out to defend the reality of the freedom of the
will in the light of Immanuel Kant, a philosopher of great repute, despite the
fact that the juice seem to have, ages ago, been pressed out of this free will
controversy.

Immanuel Kant lived all
his eighty years in the small provincial town of konisberg in East Prussia.  He was born in April 22, 1724. 
His family was among the pietists, a protestant sect somewhat like the
Quakers and early Methodists. This tremendously impacted on his philosophical
works. Kant authored many philosophical works some of which include Critique of
Pure Reason {1781}, Critique of Practical Reason {1788}, Critique Of Judgment
{1790}, Metaphysics of Morals{1797} and a host of others. His other woks, which
he was unable to complete before his demise on February 12, 1804, were gathered together under
the title “opus postunum”.

This work is divided into
four chapters. Chapter one which I have already started deals with the general
introduction and the clarification of terms. 
Chapter two exposes the thoughts of some philosophers on this problem of
freewill and determinism from the ancient period to the contemporary era.  In chapter three, we shall look into the
thoughts of Immanuel Kant on the freedom of the will.  Chapter four is a critical evaluation and
conclusion.

This problem of freedom
and determinism from every indication is a metaphysical issue. At the same
time, it is a moral issue because to deny the freedom of man is to deny
responsibility and morality is built on freedom and responsibility. As a result
of this, I shall limit my work to the defense of the freedom of man and its
relation to morality.

At this juncture, it is
pertinent to clarify certain terms for a better comprehension of the topic and
the problem we are about to handle.

1.1 FREEDOM                                                                                                                   
 

For the man in the street,
‘Freedom’ is the ability to do whatever one desires to do at any point in
time.  Philosophically, freedom can be
seen as the absence of constriction. Oxford advanced learner’s dictionary
defines freedom as “the state of being able to do what you want without
anything stopping you”1.  Freedom is the absence of coercion or
constraint.  Freedom can also signify
that capacity or faculty whereby individuals are left to form their lives
through their choices.  This is called
self-determination and is often regarded as positive freedom or freedom from…
Freedom, however, has so many meanings.

Generally, the idea of
freedom connotes the following; absence of constraint, restraint, impediment,
coercion, compulsion or obstacles to the realization of certain willed goal; it
connotes also the ability or power to do what a person wills or to avoid what
he does not want.  Battista Mondin in his
book Philosophical Anthropology
defines freedom as:

That capacity
which man has of choosing to do or not do a thing when all the conditions for
action are already present. It is the sovereign control over the situation by
which the will holds in its hand the power to make the choice fall in favor of
one of various alternative possibilities.2

This is really the sense
of freedom I am set to defend in this work. 
Freedom is another title of man’s excellence and nobility.  It distinguishes him from every other created
thing.  It is this freedom that enables
man to swim through the ocean of possibilities in life.  This freedom is also at the center of moral
practices. We praise or reproach persons for their actions because of our
awareness of the freedom in man.  This is
what makes one a moral being.  It is on
this ground that Immanuel Kant held tenaciously to the reality of freedom of
the human person.  He located it in the
noumenal world (the sphere of the thing- in- itself).

I shall elaborate more on
the views of some philosophers concerning this issue as we move along.  Suffice it to say here that freedom is in the
nature of man.  Without freedom, the
moral law is useless.  What then is
determinism?

1.2      DETERMINISM

This is a
theory, which holds that every event is necessitated.  It means that the rigid laws of nature, the
laws of cause and effect govern every thing. 
This implies that this rigid law of nature is also governing man, being
a part of nature.  By implication
therefore there is no question of freedom in man since he cannot help doing
what he finds himself doing.  According
to the determinists, all our mental states and acts, including choices and
decisions, and all our actions are effects necessitated by preceding
causes.  Determinism, in general, is the
philosophical theory, which maintains that for everything that ever happens
there are antecedent conditions such that, given them, nothing else could
happen.  Determinists consider belief in
self-determination or human freedom as an unscientific illusion.

These determinists gave
their reasons why man is not free.  These
then have given rise to different forms of determinism. Let us now consider
some of these kinds of determinism.

1.3           
 KINDS OF DETERMINISM

There are different kinds
of determinism depending on the reasons given why man is not free.  Omoregbe Joseph enumerated five kinds of
determinism which include; “ethical determinism, theological determinism
physical determinism, psychological determinism and historical determinsn”3. We also have logical determinism.  Let us now consider these kinds of
determinism one after the other.

1.4           
 PHYSICAL DETERMINISM

Physical determinism holds
that all facts in the physical universe and hence also in human history are
absolutely dependent upon and conditioned by their causes. This means that all
things in nature, men included, behave according to inviolable and unchanging
laws of nature, which specify all actions. This hinges on the assumption in
physics that there are certain fixed laws that the heavenly bodies and the
universe as a whole obey, such as the gravitational law, the law of
conservation of energy, the law of relativism, and a host of other natural
laws. Human actions and other events are not regarded as guided by moral
considerations but rather are determined by the rigid laws of nature.

In his view, Omoregbe
opined that physical determinism denies the freedom of man.  According to him;

Physical determinism is the theory that man
is not free because he is part of physical law of nature and all his actions
are determined by the physical law of nature.4

This type of determinism
can be easily deduced from the thoughts of some philosophers.  The atomic theory of Democritus is a good
example.  According to this theory;
“Things were simply a combination of various kinds of atoms…”5This means that everything in nature,
including the human person since he is part of nature is a combination of
various kinds of atoms.  This theory goes
as far as holding that the human soul is made up of atoms of a smoother and
finer nature.

Thomas Hobbes materialism
is a good example of a deterministic interpretation of the human nature in the
modern period.  He conceived man as
completely material and man’s actions as totally controlled [determined] by the
physical law of nature.  Unlike Democritus
who posited atoms in motion as responsible for all that is, Hobbes posited or
held that everything is as a result of matter in motion.  He denied the existence of immaterial
substances or spiritual elements in man. 
This implies that there is no freedom in man.

Reacting against this, Omoregbe
Joseph posed some questions.  According
to him, is it possible to explain the human nature and the activities of man in
material terms?  This and other such
questions seem to have punctured the arguments of materialists of the ilk of
Thomas Hobbes.

1.5           
 ETHICAL DETERMINISM

The advocates of ethical
determinism hold that men’s actions are determined by what they see as
good.  In other words, ethical
determinism is a theory that holds that men’s actions are determined by
whatever they perceive as good.  Socrates
and Plato are regarded as the foremost founders of ethical determinism.  According to them to know the good is to do
the good.  Nobody does evil
knowingly.  St. Thomas Aquinas who also
held this view argued that just as the intellect is made for the truth, and
cannot help embracing it whenever it is found, so is the will made for the good
and is not free to reject when confronted with it.

It is important to note
here that most of the advocates of ethical determinism did not deny the freedom
of man. For instance, St. Thomas Aquinas, in holding that man’s will is
determined by the ultimate good which for him is God, maintained that man at
the same time exercises his freedom when making choices among particular goods
which St. Thomas considered as the means to the ultimate end. Descartes, who opined
that man is determined by whatever he perceives as the highest good, added that
these, that is, knowing the good and being thereby determined by the good,
equally constitute human freedom. 

1.6           
  THEOLOGICAL
DETERMINISM

Theological determinism
holds that since God is omniscient and omnipotent he has pre-determined all
that happen in the universe and the choice man has to make.  This has been a problem to Christian thinkers
in the medieval era.  They were unable to
reconcile God’s foreknowledge of future events and man’s freedom.  Jonathan Edwards, an American Calvinist and
theologian, saw human freedom as a contradiction.  For him, there is no question of human
freedom since God is the ultimate cause and has foreknowledge of all that
happen in the universe.

It was St. Augustine who first made genuine attempt
to the solution of the problem. According to him, God’s foreknowledge of future
human actions does not in any way determine those future human actions.  It does not deny man’s freedom.  Man still retains his freedom to do or not to
do.

Another version of
theological determinism is the one taught by protestant reformers such as
Martin Luther and John Calvin. This version holds that God has predestined some
people for salvation while others are destined for eternal damnation.  Those who have been predestined for
salvation, God provides with his grace to enable them live a good life.  They are known as the elect.  This version portrays God as being unjust.

1.7           
 PSYCHOLOGICAL
DETERMINISM

Psychological determinism
is the view that our actions are determined by some psychological factors such
as instincts, motives, one’s environment and other factors that are regarded as
psychological.  According to them, nobody
performs an action without a motive and these motives are effects of prior
causes, which are also effects of preceding causes, and so it continues.

Most philosophers conceive
of voluntary action as one that is caused by such inner events as volition,
motive, desire, choice or the likes. 
John Lock in his view did not suppose that anything within the mind is
causally undetermined, nor did he think it necessary to suppose this in order
to preserve the belief in human freedom which he thought misleading to label
“freedom of the will”. He went further to define liberty or freedom as “a power
in any agent to do or forebear any particular action, according to this
determination or that of the mind, whereby either of them is preferred to the
other.” This means that a human being acts freely provided he is acting
according to the preference of his own mind, and this is perfectly consistent
with his actions being causally determined.

For David Hume there is no
philosophical problem of free will.  The
whole dispute, he opined, has been purely verbal in character involving only
confusions in the meanings of word.  In
his view free action is that which springs from the free motive of the
agent.  He defined freedom as; ‘Being
able to act according to the determinations of one’s own will.’6

This definition points to
the fact that human actions are caused. 
He went further to argue that all laws are based on rewards and
punishments and thus rest on the assumption that men’s motives can be relied
upon to have a regular influence on their behaviour.  Following the fundamental point of his
philosophy that causation is essentially constant succession, Hume argued that
to ask whether human action is caused is to ask whether there are anything they
constantly joined to.

1.8           
 LOGICAL DETERMINISM

Logical determinism is the
theory, which holds that whatever that is going to happen will happen.  It implies that it is not in the power of man
to alter anything in nature for men’s wills are fettered.

Diodonus Cronus developed
this thesis.  His fundamental principle
was that it always follows from the fact that something has happened that it
was   going to happen and hence, that it
was true that it was going to happen by chance and nothing depends on the
deliberation and decision of man.

The stoics thought that
the most elementary consideration of logic shows this to be true.  In logic, there is a law known as “the law of
the excluded middle”.  This principle
holds that either a statement is true or it is false.  There is no middle position, if this is so,
then it must hold for statements about the past, the present and the
future.  For instance the fact that Nigeria got her
political independence in 1960 is true thousands of years ago.  In other words, if somebody had made this
assertion that Nigeria
will have her independence in 1960 thousands of years ago, the assertion will
be true even though it has not yet materialized.

Before I conclude this
chapter, it is also important to mention that there are also other forms of
determinism; soft and hard determinisms. Soft determinism is the idea which
holds that man is determined at the same time it gives room for some freedom in
human actions.  J.S Mill, David Hume and
Thomas Hobbes belong to this group.  On
the other hand, hard determinism gives no room for freedom in human
action.  The materialists advocate this
type of determinism.

Like I mentioned earlier,
this problem of freedom and determinism has been there since the beginning of
philosophical speculation. In the next chapter, I shall x-ray the opinions of
different philosophers on this problem from the ancient to the contemporary
period.