Philosophy of Free Will and Necessity
In his essay, “Freedom and Necessity”, A.J. Ayer maps out his argument for
Determinism, the idea that humans act the way they do because of the way
already existing factors in their lives incline them to, and not of their own freewill.
These already existing factors are known as casual laws. These casual laws are
past experiences, feelings, and other factors that make people be who they are.
He believes that this theory of Determinism and the idea of freewill can coexist in
relation to human behavior. Meaning that even though people are compelled to
act a certain way by certain casual laws, they are not constrained to their choices
and are therefore responsible for them. He argues this theory by redefining the
term freewill. He defines freewill as the absence of constraint.
A.J. Ayer said that Freewill and determinism are compatible. He said free will is
only free if ones actions could have differed and because of ones actions he/she
is held morally responsible. He also stated that if the agent would have acted
otherwise if the causes of his actions had been different. But being what they
were it seems to follow that he was bound to act as he did. And if there is any
causal determinism then there is no way for it to be free will, there for defining
determinism.
Ayer believes that once you acknowledge your freewill, it is no longer free. He
believes it should be in your unconscious. Once you think to yourself “I am acting
on freewill.” You no longer are. It is now determined that you will act this way.
Also just because you think your will is free. It very well might not be.
Ayer tells about a scientist he meet back in the day, who always stops an
experiment before he can come to a conclusion. He stops because he thinks it is
his lack of knowledge that is keeping him from reaching any conclusions, when
really it is just that he is not going deep enough into the experiment. What Ayer is
inadvertently saying is that the scientist is acting on free will when he stops the
experiment. The experiment is always open for more research, it’s not like he
went as far as he could, and there was just nothing there, he chose to stop.
While speaking of human conduct we are able to predict most things but not
