Chapter III: Complications of Mental Life (3)

When we anticipate a final result of an extended series of movements, it frequently happens that the movement which directly leads to that result is, for one cause or other, not immediately possible. Imagine that a person for the first time sees some one pulling a cork from a bottle, pouring some of the contents into a glass, and inviting him to drink. Seeing the bottle again calls up in his mind the idea of a delicious beverage and the movement of drinking. But drinking is impossible, for there is no glass, and the bottle is corked. In such a case the idea of the result, which because of its importance is being kept constantly in mind, unrolls the total series of ideas in the reverse order. It calls up first the thoughts directly preceding the final result, then the thoughts preceding these, and so on, until an idea is reached which can be realized by a movement. In our example the person becomes conscious of the idea of pulling the cork, of the corkscrew used for this purpose, the place where the corkscrew was found hanging, the movements of preparing it for the task, and a similar set of ideas for the glass; and he thus becomes able to carry out the whole series of movements which result in the taste of the beverage.

QUESTIONS

196. Give examples of serial activities of the foreseeing kind.

197. In what ways are activities of the kind just mentioned
perfected?

198. What is the relation of sensory activity, consciousness, and
performance in perfected serial movements?

199. Illustrate by a pathological case the relation just spoken of.

200. What rule is illustrated by the example in the text of pulling
a cork from a bottle?

§ 22. FREEDOM OF CONDUCT

As experience of the connections, complications, and consequences of things advances, the ideas called up by any impression must clearly become very numerous. Ideas of near and remote, probable and improbable, desirable and undesirable, consequences,--ideas of fit and unfit, direct and indirect means of bringing about or preventing those consequences,--ideas of difficulties and obstacles, facilities and openings must tend to appear, to compete with each other, to disappear and reappear in rapid succession, or merely to approach consciousness ready to appear when their services should be needed. We refer to these various mental states, according as they appear in one or another form of connection, by such terms as _reflecting_, _considering_, _choosing_, _desiring_, _rejecting_, _intending_, _deciding_, and many others, all having in common the foreseeing of something to be experienced in the future as the result of our action.

What action occurs in each possible case depends on the relative force of the factors coming into play. The actual sensory impression is as a rule a rather insignificant factor. It sets free the ideas derived from innumerable previous sensory impressions. The resulting action is then nearly always extremely different from the instinctive reaction belonging to the sensory stimulation. Such actions, resulting essentially from factors _within_ the mind, not from external factors which happen to impress the mind at the moment, are called _free_ actions. Their freedom does not mean that they have no causation, that they are free of causes, but they are free of the compulsion exerted by the external stimuli of the moment. They are free actions as opposed to instinctive actions, which are not free of these stimuli of the moment, but on the contrary, completely determined by them.

Scholastic philosophy--and popular thought, which is still largely under the influence of that philosophy--recognizes still another kind of freedom of the mind. It assumes that mind, under the impression of perfectly definite external conditions and with perfectly definite internal motives of thought and action, possesses the faculty of deciding in favor of the action opposed to its own motives and of enforcing this action. This faculty of an absolutely causeless willing is assumed to be added to all the other external and internal factors determining action or, as the case may be, suppressing action. Such a faculty we cannot accept, since according to our most fundamental conceptions _mind_ is not a being added to its experiences, but the totality of its experiences, in so far as it knows itself; whereas it is called _brain_ in so far as it is known by other minds. The arguments brought forward in favor of a freedom of the will in the sense of a possibility of causeless action are inacceptable to the psychologist because they would make a psychological science impossible. Nevertheless, it is worth while to discuss the more important ones briefly.

Three arguments are most commonly offered. First, immediate experience tells us that, whenever we decide in favor of one action, we could have decided differently. We were conscious of the possibility of acting otherwise. The second and third arguments are of a practical nature. According to the second, the idea of a uniformly effective causation of our actions paralyzes our activity. If everything takes place by necessity, the idea of influencing the physical world or human society becomes meaningless. No one can believe in determination of our action and at the same time make an effort to instruct and educate people to act differently. Thirdly, no one can be held responsible for his actions if he could not help performing them. If all actions are causally determined, punishment becomes mere cruelty.

The first argument fails because our immediate experience under no conditions informs us exactly as to what caused and what did not cause our actions. We have just seen that a serial movement cannot be carried out unless constant sensory impressions are received from the progress of the partial movements. Immediate experience gives us no information about this necessity, which was entirely unsuspected until physiological experiment and pathological observation revealed the fact. Immediate experience tells a person who in his boarding house praises a very ordinary dinner in exaggerated terms, that _he might have kept silent_ as he usually does--he does not remember that the evening before when he was in a state of hypnosis a suggestion was given to him to praise his dinner the following day. Everybody else knows that he will, that he must, do it. He alone thinks, on the basis of his immediate experience, that it was an act of free will without causation. It was free, uncaused, in the same sense in which the issue of a disease, the outcome of a war, the weather, the crops, are free and uncaused; that is, _he was ignorant of the cause_.

Paralysis of activity is said to be the consequence of a belief in universal causation. But surely the energetic and ambitious man is not paralyzed by this belief. He feels that he is the tool used by nature to shape the destinies of the world. How could a consciousness of his importance in the causal connections of events paralyze his activity? The idle and indolent may excuse his lack of activity by saying that it is his nature to love inactivity, that he cannot help it. But who would have any more respect for him on that account? Of course it is not his belief in universal causation that makes him indolent. The lesson from history is very significant in this respect, but it must not be read one-sidedly. It is all right to point out that the fatalistic Islam is losing piece after piece of its dominion. But the same fatalistic Islam also conquered a world and for centuries kept all Europe in terror. Thus it cannot be its fatalism that determined both its rise and its downfall. In recent years, did the belief in predestination make the Boers less energetic than the belief in freedom the orthodox Spaniards?

We must say, then, that in general neither belief is of much practical significance. But as a guide in special cases the belief in universal causation is by far preferable. What can give more encouragement to the educator than the conviction that his efforts will bear fruit in one way or other because they must help to shape and direct his pupil’s activities in later life? What can be more discouraging than the belief that, whatever may be his efforts, they are just as likely to be lost on his pupil as to be effective, since the latter has the faculty of causelessly acting either in one way or in the opposite way?

The third argument asserts that universal causation is incompatible with responsibility. But what do we mean by responsibility? Nothing but the fact that society, if it can do so, will punish its members for certain deeds. Why should a belief in universal causation prevent society from punishing its members? Bismarck writes in a letter to his sister: “It is not the wolf’s fault that God has created him as he is. That does not prevent us from killing him whenever we can.” Holding a person responsible, punishing or rewarding him, does not lose its meaning if we regard his actions as being determined by causes. We do not then hold him responsible for the single act, but for his being so natured that under such circumstances he cannot help committing such a deed. The question becomes this: What is the more plausible reason for punishing a person, his abnormal deed or his abnormal, unsocial nature which made this deed possible?

It is true that punishment dealt out by an individual or a small group is often merely an instinctive act of revenge for a single deed. If a person beats me, do I have less pain if I beat him and cause him pain too? Should a gambler beat the roulette because it makes him lose and the other man gain? Would the roulette act differently for having been beaten? Am I sure that the person whose beating me was undetermined by causes will treat me better the next time? If his actions are caused, he probably will treat me better because the memory of the blows received from me will act as a cause. The instinct of returning blows would be incomprehensible if human action were independent of causes.

But the legal punishment dealt out by the officers of a nation has lost the significance of an instinctive act of revenge. Does this fact make it compatible with the doctrine of causeless activity? Would not punishment, under this doctrine, be cruelty pure and simple? Punishment can be justified only if it can act as a cause determining human behavior. Society introduces fear of threatened punishment and memory of suffered punishment as motives into the mental life of its members, in order to inhibit criminal actions in those who are so natured that they will commit acts inimical to society when occasion offers, or when they are tempted. The degree of the penalty is adapted to the effectiveness of the temptation under different circumstances. Children and intoxicated and insane persons are treated in a different manner because the fundamental condition of punishment--the existence of an idea of punishment capable of serving as a motive of action--is not fulfilled in them. All this becomes entirely purposeless, meaningless, if we accept the doctrine that human actions are not completely determined by causes. Responsibility, social order, and law, far from being called in question by determinism, are, on the contrary, dependent on it for their justification.

Indeterminism, the doctrine of causeless activity of the mind, of freedom of a will which is regarded as an entity added to the contents of the mind, is no better supported by these special arguments than by general considerations. More than a hundred years ago Priestley said of this doctrine: “There is no absurdity more glaring to my understanding.”

QUESTIONS

201. Give at least a dozen words all meaning the foreseeing of a
future experience resulting from action.

202. How are free actions defined?

203. What other name is mentioned in the text for unfree,
compulsory action, a name which has already been much used in a
previous chapter?

204. What are the three arguments mentioned in favor of the
assumption that causeless action is possible?

205. What do we learn from a post-hypnotic suggestion with respect
to the question of free will?

206. Give examples from history showing that both energy and
indolence are independent of theories about the will.

207. Can the belief in causeless activity be expected to contribute
to educational endeavor? Give reasons for your answer.

208. What is the aim of legal punishment? How is this aim related
to the doctrine of causeless activity?

209. Why are children not made subject to legal punishment?