Atheism and Theism JJ Haldane - Common Sense Atheism

Atheism and Theism 63
quantum effects, which are indeterministic, as for example our retina and
visual system is sensitive to the arrival of a single photon, but it does not
seem plausible that this indeterminism is important in affecting behaviour:
it is doubtful whether our behaviour would be significantly different if our
neurons were completely deterministic in their operation. In cricket a batsman
facing a fast bowler has to have a very fast and reliable lot of computations
going on in his brain or he would not be able to get his head out of the way
of a fast moving ball. It is true that the person in the street tends to equate
free will with indeterminism, if he or she is asked to make a philosophical
comment about it. The question, however, is whether the concept of free
will that is implied in everyday talk is or is not compatibilist. There is no
clear answer here because there is not a precise boundary between everyday
talk and metaphysical talk. Compatibilism seems right in relation to any
sensible account of free will. Indeterminism does not confer freedom on us:
I would feel that my freedom was impaired if I thought that a quantum
mechanical trigger in my brain might cause me to leap into the garden and
eat a slug.
It really is extraordinary how many physicists in their popular writings
come out with the idea that quantum mechanical indeterminacy leaves room
for free will. Roughly speaking – I shall make a qualification or two shortly –
we feel free in so far as we are determined by our desires (together of course
with our beliefs).
Some help here may come from J.L. Austin’s suggestion that ‘free’ is really
a negative word, used to rule out one or another way of being positively
unfree. 104 We set a prisoner free and she goes wherever she wants. Before that
she was unfree in that she wanted to go elsewhere, but could not do so. In
a shotgun marriage we say that the bridegroom did not want to marry the
bride but wanted even less to be shot by the prospective father-in-law. In
another context the bridegroom could be said to be free, because he is doing
what he wanted, that is to avoid being shot. In one way an alcoholic is free to
stop drinking: he is not bound hand and foot and having the drink poured
down his throat. On the other hand he may say that he is not free (or not
able) to stop drinking. He wants to overcome his craving for drink but cannot
do so. Here is a case in which he is thwarted in respect of a higher order
desire (to modify his desire to drink) by the sheer inalterability of his lower
order desire. We can modify the relative strengths of another person’s desires
in various ways: reasoning, rhetoric, persuasion, threats, promises. None of
these are incompatible with determinism: indeed they all presuppose it, or at
least (remembering quantum mechanics) an approximation to it. This is the
notion of free will and responsibility of most use to the law. The main reason
for punishment is deterrence. Deterrence is the imposing of conditions that
change the relative strengths of a person’s desires, such as not to be fined or