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Hard determinism, also known as incompatibilism, is the belief that determinism is incompatible with the possibility of free will and moral responsibility (Strawson, n.d.).
In other words, hard determinists believe that if it is true that every thought, action, and occurrence in the world is predetermined by the series of events that preceded them, it is impossible for people to have free will or be truly morally responsible for their behaviors.
According to hard derterminsm, any thought, action, or event occurring could not have occurred in any other way than the inevitable way it did. William James (1842-1910) was the first to use the term “hard determinism,” in his essay “The Dilemma of Determinism” (James, 1896).
In the essay, James defines hard determinism as the “old-fashioned” version of determinism, which was purer and less cowardly than a newer version of determinism called “soft” determinism.
Hard determinism is defined as a distinct version of determinism from soft determinism.
The point of disagreement between these two versions of determinism is regarding whether or not, given a deterministic universe in which every event is bound to happen by all preceding events, it is possible for anyone to have free will or to be held morally responsible for their thoughts and behaviors.
Whereas soft determinists believe that this is possible, hard determinists believe that it is not.
Important definitions
- Determinism: “The philosophy that all events are predetermined, by the chain of events that came before them.” (Hoffman, 2023)
- Soft determinism (compatibilism): “The philosophy that determinism is compatible with the possibility of free will and moral responsibility for one’s actions.” (Hoffman, 2023)
- Hard determinism (incompatibilism): “The philosophy that determinism makes it impossible to have free will and moral responsibility for one’s actions.” (Hoffman, 2023)
Examples of hard determinism
Nagel’s example of the peach or the cake
Imagine you are going through a cafeteria line, and you come across the choice of whether to select a peach or a slice of chocolate cake.
You choose the cake, but think to yourself, “I could have chosen the peach instead.” What, exactly, does that thought mean? And is it true?
This is a hypothetical question used by philosopher Thomas Nagel (1937- ) to explain the concept of determinism, and the difference between soft and hard determinism. Both kinds of determinists agree that the events that led up to your choice were predetermined.
However, a hard determinist would say that your choice of cake was inevitable; it was impossible for you to have chosen the peach based on your genetics, upbringing, environment, personality, and so on. Therefore, you did not act with free will and are not morally responsible for your choice.
On the other hand, a soft determinist would say that even though your choice was predetermined, since no one forced you to choose the cake, you still acted with free will and can thus be considered responsible for your choice.
To study or to party?
Here is another practical example of how hard determinism can be applied in the real world. Suppose you are deciding on your plans for a Friday night at college.
You have a big exam on Monday, and you have to choose whether to stay home for the night to study, or to go out to a party with your friends. Say you ended up staying home to study (good choice!). Did you make this choice out of free will?
Soft determinists and hard determinists would disagree on the answer to this question. Both types of determinists agree that your choice was predetermined; in other words, you would never have chosen to go to the party with your friends.
However, a hard determinist would say that since this choice was predetermined, you did not act out of free will and you therefore cannot be held morally responsible for your choice, because you were always destined to choose to study based on the chain of events leading up to that Friday night.
On the contrary, a soft determinist would agree that your choice was predetermined, but would instead argue that since there was no external force mandating that you study and completely preventing you from going to the party, you acted with free will and can take moral responsibility for your choice to study.
Arguments in favor of hard determinism
Hard determinism argues that if determinism is true, it is impossible to have free will or moral responsibility for one’s actions.
They believe the soft determinist view completely misses what it means to be truly free. Hard determinism argues that if, as determinism dictates, all of a person’s thoughts, actions, motivations, and behaviors are all predetermined before they are even born, then they can never be truly free.
They argue that to be free in any given moment, a person must possess the capacity to think, act, or choose differently than they ultimately did.
There are many philosophers in favor of hard determinism and against soft determinism.
For instance, Kant (2002) referred to soft determinism as “wretched subterfuge…, a petty word-juggerly” because he believed that soft determinism misconstrued the idea of freedom.
A more modern example of an argument favoring hard determinism is the one made by psychologist Dan Wegner (1948-2013).
In his influential book The Illusion of Conscious Will (2002), Wegner argues that the experience of consciousness that people experience as driving their behavior is in fact an illusion generated by the brain to make sense of those behaviors retroactively.
According to this theory, then, free will is also an illusion due to the fact that all our behaviors were predetermined, and it only feels like we have free will due to the illusion of consciousness generated by the brain.
Arguments against hard determinism
Several distinct categories of critics disagree with hard determinism.
Some agree with hard determinists that determinism is true but instead argue that free will and moral responsibility are possible within a deterministic universe.
Others disagree with the premise of determinism altogether—libertarians—and others still argue that no matter the truth of the debate on determinism, free will is impossible.
Soft determinists disagree with hard determinists because the former believe that even if the universe is deterministic, one can have free will and moral responsibility for one’s actions.
They think that to be free, one must have freedom from external forces compelling one to make a certain choice.
Harry Frankfurt (1929-2023) is an example of a soft determinist philosopher. Frankfurt (1971) defined several orders of desire to understand a person’s motivations.
“What you want” is a first-order desire, whereas “what you want to want” is a second-order desire. According to Frankfurt, even if determinism is true, one can have free will if their second-order desires align with their first-order desires.
Psychological research on people’s beliefs about free will
Recently, as philosophers have debated determinism, free will, and moral responsibility, psychologists have joined in to examine regular people’s beliefs about these issues.
Some research from psychology supports the idea that hard determinism often goes against people’s intuitions.
Nahmias (2011) shows that people have a difficult time understanding hard determinism at first, because they often confuse it with a similar but distinct phenomenon called bypassing.
Bypassing is a theorized phenomenon where our bodies act without the input of our minds; this is different that hard determinism, because in the latter, our minds can still have input in our actions, it’s just that our mind’s choices are predetermined.
Another study found that when people consider these issues of determinism and free will, how questions are worded makes a big difference.
Nichols and Knobe (2007) found that when people are asked whether it is possible to have free will under determinism in abstract terms, people will answer no.
On the other hand, if you provide a specific example of the implications of this question, often including emotionally-triggering examples, people will often switch to a more soft determinist outlook.
References
Hoffman, R. (2023). Soft determinism. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/soft-determinism.html#:~:text=Soft%20determinism%2Fcompatibilism%3A%20The%20philosophy,moral%20responsibility%20for%20one%27s%20actions.
James, W. (1896). The dilemma of determinism. In W. James, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (pp. 145–183). Longmans, Green and Co. https://doi.org/10.1037/11061-005
Kant, I. (2002). The Critique of Practical Reason. Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5683/5683-h/5683-h.htm
Nagel, T. (1987). Free will. In T. Nagel, What does it all mean? A very short introduction to philosophy. Oxford University Press.
Nahmias, E. (2011). Intuitions about free will, determinism, and bypassing. In Robert Kane (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Free Will: Second Edition. Oxford University Press.
Nichols, S., & Knobe, J. (2007). Moral responsibility and determinism: The cognitive science of folk intuition. Noûs, 41(4), pp. 663-685. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0068.2007.00666.x
Strawson, G. (n.d.). Free will. The Information Philosopher. https://www.theinformationphilosopher.com/solutions/philosophers/strawsong/free_will.html
Wegner, D. M. (2002). The Illusion of Conscious Will. United Kingdom: Bradford Books.
