Topics Freedom

Question If quantum indeterminacy is true, it proves that we do not live in a deterministic world. But I seem to have trouble with the notion that indeterminancy give you responsibility for your actions and decisions. For example, I am walking into a store and I open the door. There is someone behind me. I can hold the door open for them or I can keep on walking. If quantum indeterminancy is true, than I have the possibility to do both. But am I truly the author of the decision or was the decision ultimately made by something which I had no control over? And is it intelligible to say that the former is even possible?

Accepted:
November 12, 2005

Comments

I'm with you: I don't see how indeterminacy helps with free will. That's what makes free will such a tough nut: we seem to lose either way. If everything is determined, then it looks like we don't have free will, because we could not have done otherwise that what we do. If not everything is determined, then this might mean that some of our actions have a random element, but then these actions hardly seem ours: they certainly don't seem to involve any more free will than under determinism.

It's heads or tails; if it's heads, we lose; if it's tails, we lose; so we just lose.

For this reason, many philosophers now suppose that the problem of free will really has nothing to do with determinacy.

My own favorite book on the subject is Daniel Dennett's Elbow Room, but I'm sure other people have other favorites.