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Aidan Loftis

Prof. Ball

Phil 100

18 March 2019

AJ Ayer and Free Will

Ayer lays out his views on the the question of free will in an essay called “Freedom and

Necessity” (all quotations are from that essay). The need to look at the question of determinism

versus free will comes from the desire to guarantee moral responsibility on one's actions. If

someone is free, then they can be held morally responsible for their actions. If everything is

predetermined for someone however, it is unfair to hold someone responsible for their actions.

These points of view are held by two camps: moralists, people who believe in free will and

believe people should be responsible for their actions, and determinists, people who believe that

everything is determined so people shouldn’t be held morally responsible for their actions. Ayer

himself was a compatibilist. This meant he believed that free will and determinism aren't direct

opposites and are actually compatible together. He says “ I shall try to show that from the fact

that my action is causally determined it does not necessarily follow that I am constrained to do it:

and this is equivalent to saying that it does not necessarily follow that I am not free.”

When we act, he says we feel free because we feel like we could have acted otherwise.

We feel like we have control over our decisions and that our decisions are not determined by

other causes. But Ayer points out that feeling free is not proof that we are actually free and says it

matters whether we make our decisions on purpose or on accident. He argues that if a decision is

made on accident or by chance, then the person did not have free will because they had no say in
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the decision being made. On the other hand, if a decision is not made by chance then it has a

cause. So he comes to the conclusion that a free choice must include a cause. This means, to

Ayer, that “if we are to retain this idea of moral responsibility, we must either show that men can

be held responsible for actions which they do not do freely, or else find some way of reconciling

determinism with the freedom of the will.”

To the determinist, causation undermines free will because they see causation is the

opposite of freedom. Ayer believes instead that the opposite of freedom should be seen as

constraint. He says that “while it is true that being constrained to do an action entails being

caused to do it, I shall try to show that the converse does not hold.” Constraints are causes that

leave the person with no other choice than to make the choice that they do, therefore taking away

free will. But causes are not always constraints. For example Ayer argues that one’s life and

character are the set of experiences that the person went through and these circumstances lead a

person to make the decision that they do, but this past doesn’t require a specific decision in a

given instance so that the person still has the ability to make a different choice even though they

might have been caused in some general way to make the choice that they did. He says “from the

fact that my behaviour is capable of being explained, in the sense that it can be subsumed under

some natural law, it does not follow that I am acting under constraint.” But if a person is

constrained they are not free and there is no choice to make. Ayer believes that causation still

leaves a person open for moral responsibility for their actions because they still have free will.

He believes that the three requirements for an act of free will are: one could have done

otherwise; the action was voluntary; and that one is not compelled one to act in the way they did.

A cause still leaves people a choice to make, even though the cause might influence the decision.
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How one’s decisions are made is based on their character, and the given circumstances. One’s

character has been formed by their cumulative experiences, upbringing, knowledge and the

decisions that they have made in the past which influence someone's actions. Constraints on the

other hand specifically determine someone’s actions. Ayer uses the example of a common thief

versus a kleptomaniac to show the difference between a cause and a constraint. A thief might

have reasons they want to steal something. Maybe it will help them, or they were never taught to

not steal. Something about their character and their past has lead them to the circumstance where

they have the option to steal or to not steal, and depending on their experiences and character

they might choose to steal or not. There is a cause for the theft, and their actions might have been

predicted, but they had the freedom to steal or not. So the thief is morally responsible for their

actions. A kleptomaniac would be an example of someone who is caused and constrained to

steal. No matter their experiences or upbringing, they have no free choice to make because they

have a mental illness that causes and constrains them to steal. This removes moral responsibility

because the action could not be otherwise. The actions of both of these people were determined

in one way or another to steal in those given circumstances. However one person was determined

in a general way by their past and their character to steal or not to steal, and the other was

determined without choice to steal by something outside of themselves.

Ayer agrees that If you could know enough about someone's past, then you might

reasonably predict how they will act in the future under given circumstances but, he says “to say

that my behaviour can be predicted is not to say that I am acting under constraint.” Ayer agrees

with the determinists “if all that is meant is that it is possible, in principle, to deduce it from a set

of particular facts about the past, together with the appropriate general laws, then, even if this is
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true, it does not in the least entail that I am the helpless prisoner of fate.” But he also agrees with

the moralists. People who are not constrained can still make free choices that are caused and

which will cause other choices in the future. Their actions are both effects of what has happened

in the past and causes of what will happen in the future. This means that one has free will, but

what will happen, will still happen.