December 28, 2025

By Stephen Stofka

A man gets into an elevator. There are buttons on the control panel but no labels. The man pushes one of them, feels the elevator car move upward, then stop. The doors open and he walks out of the elevator onto a floor that is not labeled. How can the man know if his pushing the button caused him to reach his desired floor?

Another story. An alien walks into a cellular phone store checking on reports of intelligent life on Earth. Are the phones transmitting signals from intelligent life or are they creating the pictures themselves? How would the alien decide?

This week I want to explore the distinction between free will and determinism. Like so many of the axes I have looked at, there isn’t a clear separation between the two concepts. There are degrees of autonomy and capacity, and implications for moral responsibility. If our sense of choice is an illusion, are we responsible for our actions? Since this is a holiday week, this post will be shorter than usual. This week, I will take a brief look at this first axis of free will and determinism. Next week, I will consider a second axis, moral responsibility, and how the two interact.

The Britannica article on free will identifies several types (Source). I will call them “hard” and “soft” free will. The hard version of free will is the libertarian variety that holds that our present choices are random and not bound by the choices we made in the past. The “soft” version of free will is compatibilism, an attempt to reconcile determinism and free will. Yes, our choices are guided by earlier actions and events we still have the choice whether to be bound by those earlier actions or events.

Economics students learn about the sunk costs fallacy, the mistake of basing a decision on the amount of time, effort and money we have already invested that cannot be recovered (Source). We have an instinctive aversion to loss but we can choose to ignore that instinct and base our choice not on past events but on future costs and benefits. Let’s say a college student has invested two years in college to get a four year degree and the prospect of a better paying job. They receive a job offer that does offer them more pay and has some stability. If they decide to stay in school because they don’t want to waste two years of effort and tuition, then they are being ruled by past events. If they decide to stay in school because they think that they will get an even better job and higher earnings with a four year degree, then they are basing their decision on future prospects, and not falling prey to the sunk cost fallacy.

There is a hard and soft side to determinism as well. The soft variety is the compatibilism I discussed above. Hard determinism holds that the future is fixed because of past causes and the laws of nature. Planning and decision making are still effective because they will guide future outcomes. Fatalism is distinct from hard determinism. Fatalism believes that outcomes are fixed by destiny. Determinism focuses on causes, not outcomes.

What is the problem that these philosophical speculations of free will and determinism are trying to solve? Moral responsibility. If outcomes are destined, as fatalism claims, then how can we be held responsible for our actions? A society cannot function unless there is individual responsibility, so fatalism is both unpopular and impractical.

At the opposite end from fatalism is libertarian free will, or “hard” free will. If present actions are not determined in the least by past choices, then we are all responsible for an outcome based on the choice we made regardless of circumstance. A drunk motorist who kills another person is guilty of murder. His state of inebriation doesn’t matter because past behavior supposedly does not influence present choices, or the inability to make a rational choice. We instinctively understand this point of view to be flawed.

Understanding moral responsibility has been the task of philosophers since Aristotle wrote his book Nicomachean Ethics 2500 years ago. Assigning moral responsibility has been the task of governments and legal scholars since the days of Ur, 5800 years ago. Let’s take the situation with two neighbors, neither of whom is inebriated. There is a history of dispute and acrimony between the two over some persistent situation. Maybe it is a dog that makes too much noise at night when left out in the backyard. One day there is a heated argument between the two neighbors. Let’s say that there is a third neighbor who witnesses the argument. One person leaves, saying they are coming back to kill the other. When they return with a club, the other neighbor interprets that club as a gun, shoots and kills his neighbor, believing they are doing so in self-defense. If past actions have no influence on present choices, then the person who shot can be guilty of murder. The law, however, considers past actions as a context for present action. Did the person who shot have reasonable cause to think the other person had a gun? Well, yes, and the witnessing neighbor corroborates that interpretation. Even if the gun was only a club, the person had sworn they were coming back to kill. The possession of the club or gun indicates that this was no idle threat.

Is the aggressive neighbor with the club responsible for his own death? Should the neighbor who shot him bear any legal consequences for his choices? Perhaps the difficulty in assigning responsibility comes from an incomplete understanding of how we make choices. Next week, I will tackle that subject. Have a great holiday season and I hope you see you next week.

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Photo by Олександр К on Unsplash