On the illusory nature of choosing

"Free will is a trick of perspective."

-John Gray, Straw Dogs (2002) 

In my previous critique of the concept of free will I explored the inevitable limits within which a person makes choices. Upon confronting a situation in which she could (theoretically speaking) act in multiple different ways, the person represents possible courses of action in her mind before choosing what to do. I argued that these mental representations of action emerge in a contingent manner, so that the subject ultimately has to choose from a given set of options. Since then, I have developed a more radical critique of free will and especially the concept of "choosing".

As I argued before, since I cannot have knowledge of any thought, e.g. a choice, before it already happens in my mind, I cannot be the one in control of my thoughts. This principle was first applied to the formation of mental "images" or representations that precede the act of choosing. But it appears that through that very same principle, even the eventual choice can be shown to involve no conscious, subjective control. Instead, it merely happens to the person: she experiences the choice in the present and does not consciously predetermine it.

Consider this case example involving what we could traditionally see as a "moral" choice. Mary is a teenage girl whose parents grant her a weekly 10 pounds of money. It's friday, and Mary's mother does not remember whether her daughter has already received her allowance that week. She has, in fact, already on tuesday. But since her mother does not recall this, she asks Mary: "Honey, have I already paid you the usual 10 pounds this week?" Mary, who has already spent her allowance, faces a choice. On the one hand, she should be honest and accept that her 10 pounds is spent for that week. On the other hand, she has the option to cheat and receive an extra 10 pounds. It is tempting, because it's friday and she will be going out with her friends later. She imagines the two options in her mind for a little moment. And then, Mary makes her choice at time t. We'll say she opts for cheating.

The decision to cheat appears in her mind at t. At any of the preceding moments, say, t-1, she probably did not yet know that she will decide to cheat. If she did know that already at t-1, it is unclear whether she made the decision at t and not at t-1. And if she was aware of her decision already at t-1, what about t-2? There is no reason why not to make an endless regression out of this, up to the moment t-n, and yet there would still be no explanation for the decision being made at that very moment. Should we say Mary has been aware of her eventual choice through all eternity before it? That would be unrealistic. She has not. Then it is most reasonable to admit that she first becomes aware of her deciding at time t, which is the moment the decision actually happens. Now why does it happen?

An important maxim in Western philosophy, at least since Aristotle, has been that "everything that begins to exist has a cause", or in more Aristotelian terms, "everything that moves is moved by another". In the context of this influential claim, the act of choosing can be effectively deconstructed. Mary's decision to cheat begins to exist in her mind at time t. What caused it? Of course, you might say, Mary herself! She is the cause of her own choice. The next question is, what caused Mary? She has definitely begun to exist at some point. So she can't be without a cause. If you are more precise, you will probably say that it was Mary's preceding state of mind that caused her choice. But what was it, then, that caused the state of mind? You will either end up postulating for Mary's choice some cause outside herself, or you will claim that Mary is her own cause and has thus not begun to exist.

It is, of course, possible to say that nothing ever has begun to exist, but that everything exists eternally. Past and future, actuality and potentiality would only be illusions arising from the limited perspective of a human being. This was a position importantly developed by Spinoza, and possibly some thinkers even long before him. Moreover, it appears to be supported by some well-established findings of 20th century physics, such as the Special Theory of Relativity. If this is an adequate way to view reality, it is possible that nothing is caused in the traditional sense. Therefore, not even Mary's choice is necessarily a caused event.

Therefore, either

1) Mary's choice has a cause that is not Mary, unless Mary is the cause of herself.
2) Mary's choice has no cause.

My point here is to ask whether, in the light of the above said, Mary has had the slightest chance to consciously determine what she chose at time t. If she did not know of the choice before it happened, she had no means to consciously prevent it from being the morally "bad" one, the one of cheating and lying. Had the decision been different, this could not have been due to any conscious control exercised by Mary. The same can be said of any of Mary's thoughts, at t-1, t-2 or t-n. I see no conscious control of her own involved in the formation of her thoughts, and thus no "choices". All I see is thoughts or, broadly speaking, states of mind following one another. A posteriori (afterwards), Mary might think that her thought A "led" to her thought B. Still, when thought A was present, Mary could not know a priori (beforehand) what thought B would be like. The thought at time t does not tell anything a priori of what will be experienced at t+1, and thus even choices are just unpredictable thoughts appearing in the consciousness.

I recognize that my discussion of this subject depends on considering time as moments (t, t-1, t+1 and the like), and even more radically on the concepts of past, present and future. There is apparently a wide range of philosophical literature on the meaning of these terms, with which I am not very familiar yet. As regards the ontology of time, Einstein's special relativity has shown how the notions of past, present and future are dependent on the observer. On the other hand, when we speak of our subjective experience of time, it can be questioned whether the division of time in moments or periods is always meaningful. Is not the experience of time, after all, quite seamless and lacking clear points of division? But, in the context of a certain widely used language of time, I think I have adequately challenged the idea of consciously controlled thoughts and, thus, of consciously controlled choices.