IV. Determinism and Morals.
§30.
Determinism, then, does not in any way interfere with morals. It is worth noticing that freewill, on the contrary, would interfere most seriously, if anybody really believed in it. People never do, as a matter of fact, believe that anyone else’s actions are not determined by motives, however much they may think themselves free. Bradshaw consists entirely of predictions as to the actions of engine-drivers; but no one doubts Bradshaw on the ground that the volition of engine-drivers are not governed by motives. If we really believed that other people’s actions did not have causes, we could never try to influence other people’s actions; for such influence can only result if we know, more or less, what causes will produce the actions we desire. If we could never try to influence other people’s actions, no man could try to get elected to Parliament, or ask a woman to marry him: argument, exhortation, and command would become mere idle breath. Thus almost all the actions with which morality is concerned would become irrational, rational action would be wholly precluded from trying to influence people’s volitions, and right and wrong would be interfered with in a way in which determinism certainly does not interfere with them. Most morality absolutely depends upon the assumption that volitions have causes, and nothing in morals is destroyed by this assumption. (§ 30 ¶ 1)
Most people, it is true, do not hold the freewill doctrine in so extreme a form as that against which we have been arguing. They would hold that most of a man’s actions have causes, but that some few, say one per cent, are uncaused spontaneous assertions of will. If this view is taken, unless we can mark off the one per cent of volitions which are uncaused, every inference as to human actions is infected with what we may call one per cent of doubt. This, it must be admitted, would not matter much in practice, because, on other grounds, there will usually be at least one per cent of doubt in predictions as to human actions. But from the standpoint of theory there is a wide difference: the sort of doubt that must be admitted in any case is a sort which is capable of indefinite diminution, while the sort derived from the possible intervention of freewill is absolute and ultimate. In so far, therefore, as the possibility of uncaused volitions comes in, all the consequences above pointed out follow; and in so far as it does not come in, determinism holds. Thus one per cent of free will has one per cent of the objectionableness of absolute freewill; and has also only one per cent of the ethical consequences. (§ 30 ¶ 2)
In fact, however, no one really holds that right acts are uncaused. It wouldbe a monstrous paradox to say that a man’s decision ought not to be influenced by his belief as to what is his duty; yet, if he allows himself to decide on an act because he believes it to be his duty, his decision has a motive, i.e. a cause, and is not free in the only sense in which the determinist must deny freedom. It would seem, therefore, that the objections to determinism are mainly attributable to misunderstanding of its purport. Hence, finally it is not determinism but freewill that has subversive consequences. There is therefore no reason to regret that the grounds in favour of determinism are overwhelmingly strong. (§ 30 ¶ 3)