The Determinants of Free Will. A Psychological Analysis of Responsible, Adjustive Behavior

251 Pages·1978·3.63 MB·English

by  James A. Easterbrook and David T. Lykken (Auth.)

PERSONALITY AND PSYCHOPATHOLOGY
A Series of Monographs, Texts, and Treatises
David T. Lykken, Editor
1. The Anatomy of Achievement Motivation, Heinz Heckhausen. 1966°
2. Cues, Decisions, and Diagnoses: A Systems-Analytic Approach to the
Diagnosis of Psychopathology, Peter E. Nathan. 1967*
3. Human Adaptation and Its Failures, Leslie Phillips. 1968*
4. Schizophrenia: Research and Theory, William E. Broen, Jr. 1968°
5. Fears and Phobias, 7. Λί. Marks. 1969
6. Language of Emotion, Joel R. Davitz. 1969
7. Feelings and Emotions, Magda Arnold. 1970
8. Rhythms of Dialogue, Joseph Jaffe and Stanley Feldstein. 1970
9. Character Structure and Impulsiveness, David Kipnis. 1971
10. The Control of Aggression and Violence: Cognitive and Physiological Fac-
tors, Jerome L. Singer (Ed.). 1971
11. The Attraction Paradigm, Donn Byrne. 1971
12. Objective Personality Assessment: Changing Perspectives,
James N. Butcher ( Éd. ). 1972
13. Schizophrenia and Genetics, Irving I. Gottesman and James Shields, 1972°
14. Imagery and Daydream Methods in Psychotherapy and Behavior Modifi-
cation, Jerome L. Singer. 1974
15. Experimental Approaches to Psychopathology, Mitchell L. Kietzman, Samuel
Sutton, and Joseph Zubin ( Eds. ). 1975
16. Coping and Defending: Processes of Self-Environment Organization, Norma
Haan. 1977
17. The Scientific Analysis of Personality and Motivation, R. B. Cattell and
P. Kline. 1977
18. The Determinants of Free Will: A Psychological Analysis of Responsible,
Adjustive Behavior, James A. Easterhrook.
In Preparation
19. The Psychopath in Society, Robert J. Smith.
0
Titles initiated during the series editorship of Brendan Malier.
THE
DETERMINANTS
OF
FREE WILL
A Psychological Analysis of
Responsible, Adjustive Behavior
JAMES A. EASTERBROOK
Department of Psychology
University of New Brunswick
Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
with the assistance of
PAMELA J. EASTERBROOK
ACADEMIC PRESS New York San Francisco London 1978
A Subsidiary of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers
Copyright © 1978, by James A. Easterbrook
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE REPRODUCED OR
TRANSMITTED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS. ELECTRONIC
OR MECHANICAL, INCLUDING PHOTOCOPY, RECORDING. OR ANY
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PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER.
ACADEMIC PRESS, INC.
Ill Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10003
United Kingdom Edition published by
ACADEMIC PRESS, INC. (LONDON) LTD.
24/28 Oval Road, London NW1
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Easterbrook, James A
The determinants of free will.
(Personality and psychopathology series)
1. Adjustment (Psychology) 2. Eree will and deter-
minism. 3. Autonomy (Psychology) I. Easterbrook,
Pamela J., joint author. II. Title.
BF335.E2 153.8 77-2028
ISBN 0-12-227550-0
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Preface
This book develops the concept of personal adjustment as freedom of will, and
consequently as personal responsibility. Its principal contributions to the litera-
ture on adjustment are that its terms provide an historical context for psycho-
logical doctrine on the topic and that it shows the necessity of morally acceptable
behavior for the attainment of ideal relationships with one's environment. To the
literature on freedom of will it adds a survey of information on the environmental
conditions that affect it, and a review of evidence that two important classes of
determinants are implicated, one concerned with intelligence and intention, the
other with emotion and freedom of choice.
The text is split into four interdependent parts. The first two chapters intro-
duce working definitions and establish the rationale and general framework for
what follows. Many of their propositions are of the nature of claims that are
substantiated in later chapters.
The second part of the book sets out basic arguments on will, causal responsi-
bility, and personal adjustment. Inspired particularly by the thought of Kurt
Goldstein, it differentiates behaviors that are determined by what is immediately
4
'given" from those which are shaped by, and serve to attain, the "possible" or
ideal. One fundamental chapter is devoted to the impelling, choice-reducing,
effects of distressed biological and emotional conditions, and to the sources of
resistance against their driving influence. Another reviews evidence on the
differences in content of thoughts by people who often produce forward-looking,
situation-shaping behavior and others whose actions are commonly shaped by
their situations.
The third part of the text takes up the problem of independence in a social
context. One chapter focuses on the maladjustments produced by societies that
require obedience to the commands or examples of others. Another surveys
evidence on the childhood determinants of self-discipline, introduces the con-
cept of self-rewarded self-instruction, and raises the issue of its validity. The final
chapter pursues the themes of motivational and informational independence
ix
χ Preface
through the literature on attitudes as mechanisms of behavioral autonomy. It
recounts evidence of both maladjustment and restricted freedom of will in
"closed-minded" persons and of similar disabilities in gullible individuals.
Different conceptual systems, different criteria of truth, and different instruc-
tional histories seem to distinguish the attitudinally free from both the atti-
tudinally rigid and the situationally driven.
The four final chapters of the book are concerned with conditions in which
freedom of will and good personal adjustment can be shared by interacting
and interdependent persons. An account of laboratory studies into the develop-
ment of cooperation reveals how freedom of will promotes social harmony and
depends upon relative equality of power. This theme is followed into the
socioeconomic field, with a description of recent theory and evidence about the
sociological determinants of free will and adjustment. A subsequent review of
research into moral concepts justifies considering the interactional systems that
promote freedom of will in large numbers of people as ethically more advanced.
It is contended that higher ethical beliefs are in fact concerned with the pro-
motion of freedom of will for all as a matter of right. The book concludes with
a résumé of the necessary social conditions for the maintenance and propagation
of free will, and brief synoptic descriptions of the responsible personality and the
good life.
To place all of this in the context of philosophical history, it is convenient
to refer to the eighteenth-century work of Immanuel Kant, whose views on free-
dom of will seem to have dominated European conceptions of human potentiality
for at least a century. There are, in fact, important similarities between Kant's
views and those described here, if one thinks metaphorically. Kant maintained
that "to will... is to choose a course of action" and that "independence from
the determining causes of the world of sense is freedom." This is analogous to
what stands out in the behavioral evidence I have reviewed. It seems clear, too,
that rational man, as a collectivity, has indeed displayed autonomy in developing
his "conceptions of laws"—the determining causes of behavior that is shaped
in the "world of understanding"—and that actions taken in accordance with
some of those conceptions do indeed promote the independence we are con-
cerned with.
It is at this point, though, that Kant's and the following thesis first diverge.
In postulating self-legislation in the "world of understanding" as the principal
condition of freedom—in order to reconcile freedom of will with determinism—
Kant seems to have misjudged the importance of accuracy or objectivity in that
understanding. It is true that he mentioned the value of "moderation in the affec-
tions and passions, self control and calm deliberation" to freedom of choice,
and clearly stipulated that their maintenance should be regarded as a matter of
duty. Yet, in the course of his grand argument, he focused upon autonomous
Preface xi
intelligence, to the apparent neglect of effectiveness in maintaining the relations
with the environment that facilitate ''calm deliberation." When he specified
mere autonomy in the world of understanding as the source of freedom for the
will, he seems to have dignified subjectivity at the expense of effectiveness.
It is evident, however, that actions which bring environmental events under their
author's control, and accordingly produce autonomy, also differ from impulsive,
situationally stimulated (or inhibited) actions in being more objectively appro-
priate, as if determined with a more objective understanding.
The following reconciliation of free will with determinism agrees with Kant's
that freely willed behavior is determined and that the contribution of "under-
standing" to its determination differentiates it from other sorts of action. How-
ever, it follows Goldstein in viewing accurate abstraction and imagination as
sources both of will and of freedom. The "world of understanding" creates
freedom of will in persons who are competent to shape their actions by its
"laws." Over the long term, then, it does so because those laws represent
reality better, and facilitate a superior adjustment, than do the "determining
causes of the world of sense." It does so because those "laws" reconcile
and serve to predict the evidence of that world, not because they ignore it, nor
yet because they are newly invented.
Another way in which Kant's thesis seems inadequate by contemporary
standards has to do with the importance of cultural influences upon the develop-
ment of freedom of will. When he discussed autonomy in the creation of laws
of the "world of understanding," he did not distinguish man, the individual,
from man, the collectivity. Accordingly, of course, he was able to elide the fact
that much of our world of understanding is provided by others. We have more
and better evidence today. In fact it seems to be true, in large measure, that
freedom of will develops when it is cultivated in us by influential others in
favorable social and economic conditions.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am particularly conscious, at this moment, of the favorable social conditions
in which this book has been produced. Many persons have contributed to it. Some
of them are cited. I fear, though, that the help of many persons will not have been
acknowledged. It seems to me that much psychological and sociological theory
and research has been moving for some time in the directions I have outlined.
One cannot be confident of having identified every important influence on such a
trend.
Of course I have had local support too. Pamela J. Easterbrook's assistance is
recognized on the title page. Her work on self-discipline yielded Chapter 7 and
exerted an important influence on my thinking. She helped in many other ways
xii Preface
as well, not least by buoying my faith in the project. Sergio Sismondo, then
director of research for New Brunswick Newstart, Inc., and Satrajit Dutta, one
of my colleagues at the University of New Brunswick, performed similarly
supportive functions. Their criticisms of my drafts were extremely valuable; our
discussions were often exciting, commonly provocative, and always enjoyable.
The patience of others who examined the text is also appreciated, notably that
of the students who endured a term with an inadequate draft and helped me
identify faulty passages in it. Finally, as every writer knows, the whole enter-
prise would have been impossible without the patience and support of my wife
and other members of our family.
Free Will in Psychology
and Human Affairs
Sigmund Freud was studying hysteria and Karl Marx was writing Das Kapital
when William Ernest Henley, under treatment for tuberculosis in the 1880s,
produced a short poem that ended with the lines,
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.
Henley's belief in freedom of will was widely shared in Victorian Europe, but
the theses Marx and Freud were developing at the time have seemed to contradict
it. Those great works showed how social affairs and human thoughts and actions
are influenced by forces outside the individual mind, by economic and cultural
circumstances and biological instincts. They went further and said those forces
determined human affairs. Their authors had adopted the scientific assumption of
determinism, and their arguments proved very persuasive. Indeed, as many
writers have noticed, they were so persuasive as to change some men's views of
the nature of man. In the words of Rollo May, "The image that emerged was of
man as determined—not driving any more but driven [1969, p. 183]." They
brought about revolutions in modern thought about psychic and social affairs that
have led to a widespread rejection of the Victorian belief in willpower.
More than that: in the opinion of a number of philosophers and psychiatrists
cited by May, the social sciences that Freud and Marx pioneered have created
new problems of human existence. They have led some people to believe that
individual choices do not matter and that enterprises involving personal imagina-
tion, effort, and fortitude cannot prosper or succeed. If world events in general
and human behavior in particular are determined, how can private choices or
3
4 Free Will in Psychology and Human Affairs
endeavors be either possible or effective? How can individuals be responsible for
the outcomes of their actions, good or bad? Some social science students speak
this way, as if pride, guilt, and responsibility were out of date; these students are
alienated instead. Rollo May regards thoughts like theirs as "neurotic":
Indeed the central core of modern man's neurosis, it may be fairly said, is the undermining of
his experience of himself as responsible, the sapping of his will and ability to make decisions.
The lack of will is much more than merely an ethical problem: the modern individual so often
has the conviction that even if he did exert his "will"—or whatever illusion passes for it—his
actions wouldn't do any good anyway. It is this inner experience of impotence, this contradic-
tion in will, which constitutes our critical problem [1969, p. 184].
This book is addressed to these conflicting views of man's nature and condi-
tion, to the reality they reflect, and to the associated problems of human well-
being they regard as solvable or not. Its central thesis holds that the kinds of
human behavior men have meant by the term freedom of will are commonly
evident today, though often under other names. They are now called "purpo-
sive," "deliberate," "enterprising," "skillful," and so on; and the per-
sonalities who produce them reliably are known as "competent," "well-
adjusted," "mature," "self-actualizing," or something of the sort. Moreover, it
holds that these sorts of behavior are properly contrasted with the anxiety, de-
pression, impotence,and "neurosis" that May and others associate with lack of
"will."
PRELIMINARY DEFINITIONS
As an initial definition, freely willed behavior is considered to have been
demonstrated whenever an individual has planfully created preferred changes in
his environment. These are also the conditions in which one is held, and holds
himself, responsible for his actions. Driven behavior, by contrast, arises when
action is impelled by immediate external circumstances or events, and the actor is
not considered responsible. When the behavior of human beings is "driven," it
and they are often described as "maladjusted," and sometimes this is attributed
to a disorder of the psyche. Freely willed behavior, on the other hand, produces
and thrives upon the personal satisfactions that develop in harmonious social and
economic conditions and is comparably described as "well adjusted."
These crude preliminary distinctions and definitions are developed in later
chapters, each of which elaborates on them while describing relevant theory and
fact. Nonetheless they will serve here as context for a crucial proposition: The
driven and freely willed types of behavior are equally subject to the "causal"
principle that underlies the notion of "determinism," although their determi-
nants seem to differ in both their numbers and their nature. This is not to say that
Preliminary Definitions 5
the determinants of a given choice can be fully specified; it is to claim that the
possibility of making a choice is determined and that determined components
enter the choice.
The alleged incompatibility of free will and determinism, discussed on the
opening page, involves a misconception of will. It is based on a biased
question—one that implies that will must work in a causal vacuum. A better
question focuses on the concept of will and carries the opposite implication: "If
events in the world are not determined, how might anyone produce any of them
at will?" This sort of consideration recurs in the following chapters, in reference
to the effects of experience on human behavior. It refers as much to the defini-
tion, as to the psychology, of will. For present purposes, an old definition of that
old concept is acceptable. It is one of Kant's. ' The will is conceived as a faculty
of determining oneself to action in accordance with the conception of certain
laws. And such a faculty can be found only in rational beings [Kant, (1785/1910,
p. 358)]." Thus will (and its freedom) refers to the type of, not the lack of,
determination shown in action.
In turn, the concept of freedom is understood as referring to a relationship
between an individual and his environment, in which freedom varies as a func-
tion of the individual's ability to govern what happens to him. Of course compe-
tence by a person depends upon predictable responsiveness in the environment
and the person's possession of appropriate knowledge or power. Individual com-
petence counteracts the restraints, impulsions, or compulsions that oppose free-
dom. Indeed its various determinants come into focus in various dictionary
1
definitions of freedom. Thus "exemption from arbitrary, despotic or autocratic
control" emphasizes the importance of environmental predictability and indi-
vidual knowledge of it. And "exemption or release from slavery or imprison-
ment" focuses on relative power. So does the more general definition, "the state
of being able to act without hindrance or restraint." Each of these statements has
a weakness, however, in its use of a dichotomous term ("exemption," "re-
lease," "without") that depicts freedom as an all-or-nothing matter. It is clear
that the restraints, impulsions, and compulsions that oppose it can vary in
strength. The same is true of a person's ability to govern what happens to him.
Freedom, like restraints and the rest, varies in degree.
Although there is no more freedom than will in movements or wishes that
occur in reflex reaction to environmental events, both are evident in all projects
^rom The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1971. It will be seen later that the general definition of freedom in the opening sentence of this
paragraph is also consistent with Kant's (1785/1959) statement that "independence from the deter-
mining causes of the world of sense. . . is freedom [p. 71]." It is consistent, too, with the main
conclusion of M. J. Adler (1958, p. 616) that "A man ... is free in the sense that he has in himself
the ability or power whereby he can make what he does his own actions. . . ," but perhaps not with
the corollary that completes Adler's statement, . .and what he achieves his own property."