Free Will, Naturalism and Social Justice

I have been reading two books, one on Naturalism and one on Free Will. The Naturalism book is by Thomas W. Clark of the Center for Naturalism, “Encountering Naturalism; A Worldview and Its Uses”. The book on Free Will is by Cris Evatt, “The Myth of Free Will”, a book that is largely quote-mined, including from Clark’s book. Both books are very short, barely a hundred pages. Neither uses footnotes nor gives full references for the quotations which are used. I will footnote here. Clark’s book gives a broader view than Evatt’s, so I will mostly refer to his book.

First let’s discuss Naturalism. Naturalism is a philosophy, a worldview, which consists of a primary concept: all that exists is material; and a secondary concept: all knowledge must be evidence based, with science and empiricism being the source of all knowledge.

Clark’s introduction to Naturalism is this:

“It’s important to acknowledge upfront that naturalism depends on taking rational, evidence-based empiricism, epitomized by science, as our way of knowing about what ultimately exists. This is the basic commitment naturalists make about knowledge, and it explains why the see the world as of a piece, not split into the natural vs. the supernatural.” [note 1]

Naturalism is accepted, then, because of science; supernatural existence is not disproved, it is locked out by definition, a definition made by Naturalism, not by science. Science merely admits that it is restricted by its abilities to observe and measure, which are material limits; it does not, cannot, say that nothing exists beyond those limits. So Naturalism goes beyond the bounds of science (and logic) in its claims.

An example of Naturalism is Bertrand Russell’s famous statement:

“While it is true that science cannot decide questions of value, that is because they cannot be intellectually decided at all, and lie outside the realm of truth and falsehood. Whatever knowledge is attainable, must be attained by scientific methods; and what science cannot discover, mankind cannot know. “
Bertrand Russell; Religion and Science (1935), ch. IX: Science of Ethics.

Ignoring Russell’s faulty understanding of truth and falsehood [note 2], both of his statements first concerning knowledge and then concerning what mankind cannot know are not scientific statements. So if his statements are true, then they also are false, classic failures of coherence. Both statements are self-refuting, paradoxes, logical failures.

Returning to the first two concepts of Naturalism: the first observation we can make is this: what is the evidence for either of those positions? Is there material, empirical evidence that “all existence is material”? Is there material, empirical evidence that there is no knowledge outside of the knowledge of material existence provided by empirical science? Of course not. But not to be deterred, Naturalists both make the claim and then later rescind it in order to preserve it.

The claim for full causality is fundamental to Naturalism; however, Naturalists are quick to admit that some things – although fully caused – are too complex to submit to causal analysis, so we will never understand them. This covers a lot of ground with faux determinism, things like the mind, and even portions of the free will argument. The free will denial appears to encompass the main issues of Naturalism, so I will focus on that for the remainder of this article.

Naturalists like to present a dichotomy, which they then dismantle in favor of determinism over free will, or what they present as free will.

Hume's Fork

"Either our actions are determined,
in which case we are not responsible for them,
or they are the result of random events,
in which case we are not responsible for them."
Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, quoted in "The Myth of Free Will".

The Free Will Dichotomy
The dichotomy seems to be this: fully causal (determinate) human actions, v.s. radical contra-causal freewill.

Fully causal, determinate human action is the Naturalist position, predicated on the unproven proposition that there is nothing within the universe that is not material and therefore subject to cause and effect, which in turn is a first principle and an axiomatic proposition of empirical science. Thus, nothing can exist (materially) that is not a material effect produced by a prior material cause. So, in an all-material universe, all human actions are material effects which require material causes, and therefore, all human actions are completely pre-determined by those material causes. These material causes are said to be genetic and environmental, and are inescapable since at birth we enter into an ongoing series of caused events. We are born into an unfolding pre-determined narrative, sporting a pre-determined set of causes for our behavior. A fully materially caused human action leaves no room for individual freedom to determine the action, hence free will is an illusion.

Clark says,

“There’s no causally privileged agent who could have done otherwise in the circumstances of your life as it unfolded; all your decisions, food and bad, arose without the benefit of a supernatural self that made things happen as they did. This rather startling realization, so contrary to the Western assumption that individuals can (and should) transcend their circumstances, releases us from the regret, protest, shame and guilt wrapped up in the supposition that we could have done otherwise as a situation develops”. [Note 3]

As we shall see, Naturalists dither around the issue of agency within the narrative. Clark’s earlier assertion was this:

“Human persons don’t disappear under Naturalism, even though we can explain how they originate and develop. Without contra-causal freedom, we remain complex, autonomous creatures, who act for reasons and motives that are legitimately ours, not anyone else’s. You don’t stop being a locus of rational, effective behavior just because you were caused to be that way. Your will –expressed in your passions, plans, and actions – is just as strong as ever. And your thoughts and actions feed back into the further development of your character and motives, giving you a significant (but of course not contra-causal) role in shaping yourself.” [Note 4].

but then again, Clark emphasizes:

”Naturalism denies that we have this sort of leverage [contra-causal] since it holds that everything about us, including our capacities for memory, enticipation, thought, deliberation and planning, ultimately comes from somewhere else via our genes or our environment or both. The moment-to-moment expression of these capacities, including our conscious thoughts and actions, and indeed our very selves in every respect, are fully caused phenomena”. [Note 5]

And later he quotes B.F.Skinner:

”Nothing about the position taken in this book [‘About Behaviorism’] questions the uniqueness of each member of the human species, but the uniqueness is in the sources [genetics/environmental history]. There is no place in the scientific position for a self as a true generator or initiator of action” [Note 6]

But Clark then takes this tack in order to salvage human agency despite lacking any free will:

”Even thought our actions are caused, that doesn’t mean they don’t have effects. It simply is not the case that no matter what we did, the future would have happened as it did. Without making efforts we don’t get what we want, therefore the future depends on us to a great extent. So Naturalism does not entail fatalism.” [Note 7]

These quotes should be sufficient to illuminate the logic shuffling that goes on in the anti-free will world. Again, the fight against free will is couched in terms of contra-causal free will, a position no one takes. The concept of radical contra-causal freewill seems to presume that such a decision environment requires an existence where there is no intellect, no discernment, no judgment, as well as no sensory inputs, because all those things are fully materially caused, and could not be part of contra-causal free will. So an exercise of contra-causal free will would be to make a choice without either a mind or a concept of existence.

So is radical contra-causal freewill as Naturalists define it truly the thesis which is being defeated by the antithesis, which is fully causal human action? Who, exactly, has proposed such a thing? It appears that radical contra-causal free will is a straw man, irrational in its conception in order to be easily destroyed. The dichotomy as presented, is false.

The actual thesis proposal of dualism is not contra-causal free will at all. The proposal is that free will is another aspect of life, and life is not caused by the deterministic assembly of molecules, but is caused by an undetectable or at least undetected source. It is clear that assembling molecules into the exact form of a human being will not produce life in that assembly; it is for this reason that the term “life” is bent into ambiguity by those defending Naturalism, Philosophical Materialism and Atheism. Life is observable, but not material. And that cannot be, because “Naturalism is True”, remember? For the Naturalist, Naturalism is a first principle upon which everything else must depend. It’s true because it is defined as Truth. Yet even the most rabid evolutionist will agree that all life “comes only from prior life”, and is not assembled from deterministic elements, ad hoc. (Otherwise evolution is out the window).

Evolution, in fact, requires a First Life in order to maintain its position of common descent. The cause of First Life, if the cause is necessarily material, fails the empirical criteria of the principle of Cause and Effect. The failure consists of creating something deterministically that is outside and beyond the capacities and limitations of the cause. A cause is not seen, ever, to create an effect that is greater than the cause itself. But under Naturalism, a purposeful cooperative of molecules and cells is created (caused) from deterministic, non-cooperative individual molecules. This failure is a fatal failure of Naturalism. But there is more.

The naturalist approach for dealing with the Common Sense issues of free will is another logical fatality. If the individual empirical finding is that he, the individual, has the capacity to choose, has the capacity to change himself and become something beyond his genetics and environment, this Common Sense empirical understanding comes to have logical standing if it is universally held or nearly so. Thus Naturalism needs to find a way to cope with this Common Sense empirical understanding of personal agency, and resulting “personhood”. So the Naturalist claims that the illusion of free will works, but it is still an illusion under the determinism required by Naturalism, which is presumed True. So while we appear to have it, and we use it to our benefit, it does not exist. Another failure of logic.

But still another logical failure mode is this: the distinction between the fully deterministic atom and molecule, and the human “person” is made circularly: the human is a person because we can see that the human is a person. Thus there is no need to think that determinism at the molecular level necessarily forces determinism at the person level. Why not? Because we can see that it is not so; humans do make plans and accomplish goals. This is a major failure of Naturalism; the Naturalist belief system refuses to acknowledge simple empirical observations of a universal faculty which is inherent in all humans. Instead Naturalists insist that it is an illusion. Why? Because Naturalism is declared true, and free will violates Naturalism. There is no thought of rejecting Naturalism in the face of empirical facts which contradict it.

And that destroys the logic of full determinism and fully caused actions of humans. We easily can see that it is not valid.

Next, let’s examine Clark’s position on spirituality, which he attempts to co-op for Naturalism. He presents several quotes, including these:

“To understand that we are structurally no different from the rest of the cosmos is let ourselves expand into infinity”.
Chet Raymo, ”Skeptics and True Believers” [Note 8]

“The realization that I needn’t have answers to the Big Questions has served as an epiphany. I lie on my back under the stars and the unseen galaxies and I let their enormity wash over me. I assimilate the vastness of the distances, the impermanence, the fact of it all. I go all the way and then I go all the way down, to the fact of photons without mass and gauge bosons that become massless at high temperatures. I take in the abstractions about forces and symmetries and thy caress me like Gregorian chants, the meaning of the words not mattering because the words are so haunting”
Ursula Goodenough, ”The Sacred Depths of Nature”[Note 9]

It is clear that Naturalism is a religion, one that is to be believed despite any contradictory evidence, one that inspires awe in its believers, one that has “sacred depths” where words are meaningless yet haunting.

And now for Progressivism as emergent from Naturalism. Clark devotes an entire chapter to Progressivism, and begins to justify it in the first paragraph of that chapter:

”Appreciating that persons are not self-made, but completely a function of environmental and genetic circumstances, lends support to humanistic, progressive and effective policies”. [Note 10]

It will be no surprise then, that criminals are not responsible for their actions, because we are responsible for their defective environments. But then, on to Social Justice, wherein he remarks,

”There are no literally self-made men or women that deeply deserve their fortunes”. [Note 11]

He quotes John Rawls, “A Theory of Justice”:

”It seems to be one of the fixed points of our considered judgments that no one deserves his place in the distribution of native endowments, any more than one deserves one’s initial starting place in society. The assertion that a man deserves the superior character that enables him to make the effort to cultivate his abilities is equally problematic; for his character depends in large part on the fortunate family and social circumstances for which he can claim no credit.” [Note 12]

Clark summarizes thus:

”A naturalism that accepts causality will help shift the justification for having a reasonable standard of living from getting what you deserve on the basis of self-caused merit, to getting what you need to live a fulfilled, satisfying life.” [Note 13]

Is there any remaining question about either the attachment of Naturalism, Philosophical Materialism, and Atheism to Progressivism and Leftism, or the siren song of classist, redistributionist, communism? And consider who it would be that would decide exactly what you deserve, and what sort of life you should lead in order to be fulfilled. Because you have no free will, it won’t be you. Naturalism is not merely misguided; it is logically wrong and if taken to its conclusion, it is dangerous.

Coming soon:
Naturalism and Personhood - who is and who is not a person; also, Morality under Naturalism, and the exceptionalism of Naturalists.

Notes:
Note 1: Clark; Encountering Naturalism; Center for Naturalism; 2007; pg 6.

Note 2: Science does not produce truth, it produces contingent factoids that are
subject to further findings to establish their degree of validity or non-validity.

Note 3: Clark: EN, pg 31.

Note 4. Clark: EN, pg 19.

Note 5. Clark: EN, pg 78.

Note 6. Clark: EN, pg 87.

Note 7. Clark: EN, pg 78/79.

Note 8. Clark: EN, pg 56.

Note 9. Clark: EN, pg 57.

Note 10. Clark: EN, pg 39.

Note 11. Clark: EN, pg 42.

Note 12. Clark: EN, pg 43.

Note 13. Clark: EN, pg 43

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