Juvenal said, “No one ever reached the climax of vice at one step.” Obviously, a couple of thousand years ago he wasn’t speaking of our contemporary problems of addiction to crystal meth, or opioids, or even to cocaine, but he observed that humans don’t become engulfed by vice in an initial encounter. Vice isn’t a one-off matter; it’s habitual. And as we all know because we all have habits both helpful and not-so-helpful, habits reproduce themselves like rabbits.
Is there such a thing as “free will”? Or is the brain and its chemistry in complete control? A few decades ago an experiment by Benjamin Libet seemed to demonstrate the absence of will. Libet’s experiments centered on simple muscle movement, but might have had an experimental flaw in their design.* Apparently, Libet could identify the moment the brain sent a signal for a finger to move prior to the test subject’s awareness of the signal, but then he relied on some self-reporting by the test subject to confirm the lack of synchronicity between message and awareness. The brain’s activity preceded the conscious decision to move in this experiment, but as we all know, self-reporting after the fact, even closely after a fact, can be tainted by changes in focus and split-second intervening events, tiny ones to boot.
As Juvenal tells us, getting involved head over heels in vice isn’t a single act. Some vices, like taking harmful drugs or visiting a house of ill repute, take planning. If vices were the necessary result of some predisposition and action in the brain, then reaching the “climax of vice,” would entail no more than that single step sans conscious decisions. Even if one were a fully engaged materialist, that’s a difficult proposition to accept with regard to, say, gambling or acquiring expensive drugs. Materialists might favor brain chemistry, whereas in opposition, free-will proponents* would say that will exerts itself through consciousness, through self-awareness.
Once addicted, however, a person appears to have yielded to chemistry over will. In that, the materialists and determinists have a point to make. It’s a matter of a philosophy of biology: “The body does what it does,” they would say. Of course, that thinking makes psychotherapy a futile exercise and reduces us to the same kind of chemistry that produced life abiotically 3.5 billion years ago long before consciousness entered the world.
Generally, when we perceive that either we or someone else is free from “bad habits,” we usually attribute that freedom to will power. But one could just as easily argue that being free from inimical habits is a habit itself, that it isn’t much different from establishing a pattern of taking a daily walk or jog.
“But a daily walk or jog is a good thing, isn’t it?” you ask. “Surely, it’s not the same as taking the repeated steps toward the ‘climax of vice.’”
Both are patterns of behavior, and both require more than “one step.” Materialists could argue that in “good” habits we find our brains flushed with dopamine and serotonin just as vices can boost their flow. That would mean simply repeating a “good” habit is also a matter of chemistry—a matter of matter.
“I can’t help myself” implies thinking of oneself as an interaction of chemicals. Of course, as Juvenal said, it isn’t that one step that entraps us. Even if Libet had demonstrated the lack of free will in the short term, there is still the matter of the long term, the term over which habits and addictions form. If you read about Libet’s experiment, you’ll come across his term “free won’t.” It’s his notion that we have the power to veto what the brain might tell us to do beneath our level of apparent consciousness. Everyone has experienced “I want to, but....”
Maybe we will never be able to prove that we have free will. But then, maybe we will never be able to explain how the physical world arrived at consciousness, and how in us the universe became self-conscious.
Whether or not we have free will or free won’t, we still have to deal with those many steps we need to take to get to the “climax of vice,” and that’s where self-awareness plays its role. More time equals more steps. If we become aware of Juvenal’s “one step,” we have a chance to change. And if we don’t stop that “one step,” we have other steps to avoid on the path to vice.
Look down. Watch your feet. Are they ineluctably stepping toward a “climax of vice”? If so, see whether or not you have the willpower to step off the path or change direction.***
*Libet experiment critiques: 1) https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-darkness/201709/benjamin-libet-and-the-denial-free-will
2) https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22144-brain-might-not-stand-in-the-way-of-free-will/
3) http://www.jneurosci.org/content/38/4/784
**I’m tempted to say free-willers, but it might make someone think of Free Willy. In the dualism of spirit and body, spirit is beyond quantification. But if the world is mere matter, then any assessment or qualification, any involvement by mind or will, can’t really exist unless materialism is self-contradictory. Yet, we know we, material beings undeniably so, think. Should we believe that all thinking is mere reaction to chemistry, as in Libet’s “free won’t” ?
***Okay, here’s the next argument by the materialists: Maybe the brain in an act of self-preservation can decide to walk off the path that leads to a harmful “climax of vice.” Maybe the brain knows better than the mind and acts in the absence of will.
Is there such a thing as “free will”? Or is the brain and its chemistry in complete control? A few decades ago an experiment by Benjamin Libet seemed to demonstrate the absence of will. Libet’s experiments centered on simple muscle movement, but might have had an experimental flaw in their design.* Apparently, Libet could identify the moment the brain sent a signal for a finger to move prior to the test subject’s awareness of the signal, but then he relied on some self-reporting by the test subject to confirm the lack of synchronicity between message and awareness. The brain’s activity preceded the conscious decision to move in this experiment, but as we all know, self-reporting after the fact, even closely after a fact, can be tainted by changes in focus and split-second intervening events, tiny ones to boot.
As Juvenal tells us, getting involved head over heels in vice isn’t a single act. Some vices, like taking harmful drugs or visiting a house of ill repute, take planning. If vices were the necessary result of some predisposition and action in the brain, then reaching the “climax of vice,” would entail no more than that single step sans conscious decisions. Even if one were a fully engaged materialist, that’s a difficult proposition to accept with regard to, say, gambling or acquiring expensive drugs. Materialists might favor brain chemistry, whereas in opposition, free-will proponents* would say that will exerts itself through consciousness, through self-awareness.
Once addicted, however, a person appears to have yielded to chemistry over will. In that, the materialists and determinists have a point to make. It’s a matter of a philosophy of biology: “The body does what it does,” they would say. Of course, that thinking makes psychotherapy a futile exercise and reduces us to the same kind of chemistry that produced life abiotically 3.5 billion years ago long before consciousness entered the world.
Generally, when we perceive that either we or someone else is free from “bad habits,” we usually attribute that freedom to will power. But one could just as easily argue that being free from inimical habits is a habit itself, that it isn’t much different from establishing a pattern of taking a daily walk or jog.
“But a daily walk or jog is a good thing, isn’t it?” you ask. “Surely, it’s not the same as taking the repeated steps toward the ‘climax of vice.’”
Both are patterns of behavior, and both require more than “one step.” Materialists could argue that in “good” habits we find our brains flushed with dopamine and serotonin just as vices can boost their flow. That would mean simply repeating a “good” habit is also a matter of chemistry—a matter of matter.
“I can’t help myself” implies thinking of oneself as an interaction of chemicals. Of course, as Juvenal said, it isn’t that one step that entraps us. Even if Libet had demonstrated the lack of free will in the short term, there is still the matter of the long term, the term over which habits and addictions form. If you read about Libet’s experiment, you’ll come across his term “free won’t.” It’s his notion that we have the power to veto what the brain might tell us to do beneath our level of apparent consciousness. Everyone has experienced “I want to, but....”
Maybe we will never be able to prove that we have free will. But then, maybe we will never be able to explain how the physical world arrived at consciousness, and how in us the universe became self-conscious.
Whether or not we have free will or free won’t, we still have to deal with those many steps we need to take to get to the “climax of vice,” and that’s where self-awareness plays its role. More time equals more steps. If we become aware of Juvenal’s “one step,” we have a chance to change. And if we don’t stop that “one step,” we have other steps to avoid on the path to vice.
Look down. Watch your feet. Are they ineluctably stepping toward a “climax of vice”? If so, see whether or not you have the willpower to step off the path or change direction.***
*Libet experiment critiques: 1) https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-darkness/201709/benjamin-libet-and-the-denial-free-will
2) https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22144-brain-might-not-stand-in-the-way-of-free-will/
3) http://www.jneurosci.org/content/38/4/784
**I’m tempted to say free-willers, but it might make someone think of Free Willy. In the dualism of spirit and body, spirit is beyond quantification. But if the world is mere matter, then any assessment or qualification, any involvement by mind or will, can’t really exist unless materialism is self-contradictory. Yet, we know we, material beings undeniably so, think. Should we believe that all thinking is mere reaction to chemistry, as in Libet’s “free won’t” ?
***Okay, here’s the next argument by the materialists: Maybe the brain in an act of self-preservation can decide to walk off the path that leads to a harmful “climax of vice.” Maybe the brain knows better than the mind and acts in the absence of will.
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