I. Introduction

This question speaks to the longstanding debate on whether we have free will, 1or whether our actions are determined by factors that have nothing to do with free will. The most important thing that makes people with free will responsible for their own actions is that they have the ability to change their behaviors. Therefore, the question is really about the nature of “choice” . As such, this question really boils down to the issue of what it means to be a human who makes choices, 2 and what responsibility, if any, one has for choices made. The decision-making process involves cognition, judgement, and decision. This paper will analyse the situation with free will and situation with deterministic will from these aspects.

It will be shown that the question is about whether the origins of our actions are in one's subjective free will or in the objective deterministic processes of one's biology and physical environment. In other words, it is a question of whether we are active participants in choice or merely passive vehicles for deterministic processes which happen to us. This, of course, is a question that has fuelled philosophical debates for centuries. However, unlike in many of those debates, here I shall argue that, in both cases, one cannot escape the idea of personal responsibility. The presence of choice entails a need for responsibility, whether our choices are deterministic or not. Though, what “responsibility” means differs in both cases – namely the distribution of moral responsibility and social responsibility. In both the answer to the question is “yes, we are ‘ultimately responsible for our choices.’”

Main Discussion

I. How responsibility is addressed, when free will is assumed to exist

If we do not grant the premise of the prompt above and, instead, claim the choices that produce our actions have their origins in subjective volition, then the term “responsible” has a certain kind of meaning. In this case, subjective minds control people’s actions through the conscious volition and will that underlies their choices. In other words, the whole process of making judgments and decisions is active and open at any given moment, not deterministic. We can better understand the nature of responsibility in the context of autonomous will, when we consider its relation to cognition, judgement, and decisions.

Cognition

In the process of making choices, self-awareness is key. This means that one can get a full understanding of what they are doing through perception, even though they are aware of the process without considering the consequences.

Judgement

Experience is the main source of people's judgement. People are good at sorting out formulas in experience, assimilating patterns, and storing them in both conscious and unconscious fields of the mind. For the conscious aspect, the most common pattern that people use is logic. Logic can be understood as the relationships between events. People estimate the likelihood of one thing happening alongside another, pondering a series of potential subsequent results and thus evaluating the feasibility as well as the pros and cons of an event. As for the unconscious part, this internalized pattern is intuition. The intuition employed by people can be thought of as a variety of heuristics, including the recognition heuristic, the One-Clever-Cue heuristic, and so on (Gigerenzer & Gaissmaier, 2011).

Decisions

Since we are aware of the process of making choices and are able to subjectively master the process of judgment, the outcomes of our actions can be controlled. As said above, the most important thing that makes people with free will responsible for their own actions is that they have the ability to change their behaviors. And, to the extent that good choices can be made by people mastering control over themselves, there can be good outcomes to their actions. The same can be said about bad actions. Bad actions produce bad outcomes. Here, with good and bad actions, one can address the morality of choices made, and one can hold individuals responsible for those choices. Therefore, issues of morality and responsibility can be traced back to the volition of the individual.

II. How responsibility is addressed where determinism is assumed to exist and free will is not

On the other hand, if a person’s actions are assumed to have a deterministic, objective origin, then the issue of responsibility does not disappear. On the contrary, "responsibility" simply has a different meaning. As in the above case, here the answer to the prompt is also "yes, people are responsible for their actions” . We can better understand the nature of responsibility within this deterministic context when we consider actions in relation to – again – cognition, judgement, and decisions.3

Cognition

Under a deterministic lens, subjectivity does not disappear. It may be said to be supervening on a material brain, but it still exists. Additionally, “a being's mental properties will be determined by its physical ones” (Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., n.d.). Thus – similarly to the scenario where free will exists – even when free will is thought not to exist, people can still be cognizant that they are taking actions that are subjectively experienced as choices. They are still aware of these actions and can perceive the results of their actions through their senses. This remains true even though they may understand these actions taken are determined, not really “chosen” .

Here, the choice is passive rather than active because this is when people’s “wills” are actually “dominated,” by supervening mechanized, external factors which they must accept as true. More specifically, people’s wills, for the time being, are under the supervenience of external properties. Nonetheless, though people’s actions are thought to be not controlled by them, and there is no free will, the deterministic factors are in fact what is commonly understood as people's "will", or “conscious volition” .

Judgement

Once we recognize that determinism does not make the subjective experience of choice disappear, and only makes it secondary, the roles ofj udgments and decisions are not difficult to see. The process of making judgments, like a will, is also a matter of people's brains mechanically assessing the environment and then guiding their bodies to perform actions. People are not capable of changing their behavior during the entire process, yet they still experience a sense of choice.

One may assume that if people make choices that are subject to external constraints and compulsions, then a person should be aware about their behavior and will definitely carry out certain actions because the whole process is already determined by the law of cause and effect. Then, in this case, people will not hesitate, much less be able to change their choice. While this may be true from an objective perspective, from a subjective one, if there is a situation where people restrain their thoughts and change their choices, for example, by using rational thinking, the above assumption is not reasonable. Under such circumstances, a person who is capable of reason and self-control can still be held accountable to moral standards, just as when free will is believed to exist. Furthermore, some of the actions that one can be held accountable for, ought to be to act in ways that advance one’s own knowledge of oneself in a physiological sense.

Decision

If we take, for example, a person who has a genetic propensity toward extreme alcoholism, then knowledge and further education of this fact can play a role in the kinds of decisions that person makes. A person who is aware of this risk and decides to drink is morally responsible for actions in a way that one who is unaware is not.

III. How responsibility exists in both cases, though the term has different meanings in each

Both of the cases above are not limited to philosophical contexts. They are each relevant to how one approaches the issue of personal responsibility and how it relates to society as a whole. Here, we must make a distinction between personal moral

responsibility and social responsibility.4

Free will and social order

When we attribute free will to individuals, people can control their will and their actions. So when faced with different situations, people can change their actions, depending on their intent. One of the major factors of intent is emotions, which is the most important factor that makes people act in what is called "irrational" ways.5 In this case, people are still held morally and socially responsible for their “irrational” actions.

In this case, human action and behavior are products of rational and emotional thinking. Faced with different situations, one person can change their behavior, but whether they choose to change or not is a question to be considered, so the choice is actually still in people's hands, and people are therefore morally responsible for their own choices. On the other hand, in order to maintain social order – considering that people are rational and emotional creatures – the law can be sensitive to human feelings while protecting the rights and interests of each person.

Determinism and social order

Even in the absence of any real meaning for subjective choice, we can still assess action and behavior from the objective perspective of society’s norms, morals, and ethics insofar as they help to support a healthy and stable community. To be specific, the happiness of the society as a whole should be maximized to make sure of the

benefits for everyone in the society, which means that utilitarianism can be employed.6

Noted utilitarian Jeremy Bentham argued that ensuring maximum happiness would be the only goal of the government in a republican representative democracy (Crimmins, 2021). Under such circumstances, moral reasoning should be applied to the range of potential consequences, not to the intent of a person. Here, a person's responsibility depends on the consequences of their actions on the external world.7 So the responsibility people have from the deterministic perspective is to not impact society in a negative way. In this case, norms, morals, and ethics should be used to increase the benefits of all within society. In this way, people should still be held responsible for acting in accordance with norms, even though their actions are determined, not really chosen.

The analysis regarding psychotic people can now be discussed in the context of this point. Psychopaths are basically unable to control their own wills or the part of their wills that can be controlled by them is too small.8 The inability to empathize with others indicates their lack of theory of mind.9 They cannot control their actions and do not exercise free will. It is a situation that roughly parallels the concept of determinism. In this case, they commit crimes for which they have very little or almost no moral responsibility, but they still need to take social responsibility for their actions in order to maintain the order and general well-being of society as a whole. Thus we see how, when people's actions are not dictated by their own will, their moral responsibility is greatly reduced or even absent, yet their social responsibility is no less.

IV. Conclusion

As I have shown, no matter which route you take, free will or determinism, the result is the same: Individuals should be held responsible for their actions. In both cases, people are subjectively aware of the decisions that determine their actions. Yet how we are to understand the nature of responsibility is different in each case. On the one hand, when free will is believed to exist, they are to be held responsible for their intent as they cognize, make judgments, and make decisions while having the ability to change their behavior. On the other hand, when free will is believed not to exist, even though individuals do not have the ability to change their behavior, they stillexperience cognition, judgment, and decision making, and they are still to be held responsible for their actions in order to limit the negative consequences for society.

1 In this essay, we will leave aside the debate about the origins of the doctrine of free will.

2 This includes a wide range of topics. The traditional debate often involves discussion of the “soul” , a topic included in Plato's works, specifically in Book IV of The Republic. There, Plato posits rational, spirited, and appetitive aspects to the human soul (O'Connor & Franklin, 2018). And today it may even include a discussion of the global dynamic states of neurons that are generated by activating interconnected neural populations, which are the basis of human perception and cognition (Dominici et al., 2022).

3 The special case of psychotic people will be discussed specifically below.

4 To take my own perspective as an example, moral sense comes from empathy, meaning that one can imagine being in others’ situations and feel concerned for them. And the ability to empathize develops from the basic theory of mind, which is a way to explain behaviors that "when there is a conflict between belief and reality it is the persons’ belief, not the reality that will determine their behavior” (Frith, & Frith, 2005).

5 For example, Pablo Escobar, a major drug lord in Columbia, stepped up to help the poor and build the community (Bowley, 2013).

6 In the view of utilitarianism, one ought to maximize the overall good, in other words, consider the good of others as well as one's own good (Driver, 2014).

7 This is essentially a consequentialist framework. For more on consequentialism, see Driver, J. (2011). Consequentialism. Routledge.

8 For example, criminal behavior, especially violent crime, is more common in people with schizophrenia than in the general population (Munkner, Haastrup, Joergensen & Kramp, 2003).

9 This is especially true for those born with antisocial personality, who carry the heritability of crime-relevant traits.

Works Cited

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