III: FREE WILL vs. DETERMINISM - Soft Determinism
A second position to focus upon is soft determinism. In recent times it has been defended by William James and Patrick Nowell-Smith. In most texts, soft determinism is given short shrift, but I myself believe it deserves more consideration and development. James argued that it is not determinism and freedom that are incompatible but rather determinism and indeterminism. There are a bunch of problems involved and , again, it is beyond this lecture to begin to examine them. For example, is it merely that we are determined by a variety of causes that would result in our achieving a certain outcome if it were not for a variety of contingencies that come in the way of our achieving such an end or is it that besides all this, the agent herself still has, given this point in history, a variety of choices (of necessity limited) open to them?
Some years ago (actually more than some) as a graduate student, I heard the sociologist Talcott Parsons deliver a lecture at my university. The model behind the problem he was dealing with was a sociological one, but I believe it can be applied here as a philosophical one. Parsons was arguing that a social structure is essential if we wish to carry out our activities. In his example, a person tries to get across town in order to attend an important meeting (In latter years, I have made the meeting into one in which a lover is trying to meet their now separated partner in order to save their relation and reconcile their differences). The traffic lights suddenly go out because of a power failure. Is there any chance that our lover can get to his appointment on time? Whether it is the traffic light system, the social structure or a determined world, we need determinism in order to exercise our desires and achieve our ends. Without a determined universe, I could not begin to count on the letters I am typing from my keyboard at this very moment will appear on the screen of my computer in the logical order I intend. And when I press send, I anticipate that you will be able to read all this and not some being in the furthest reaches of our universe eons from now. I need a determined order, whether it is social or physical, to exercise my freedom.