ARE WE REALLY FREE?! (PART 1)

WHAT IS MEANT TO BE 'FREE' AND 'DETERMINED'?

The problem of free-will and determinism is discussed within Philosophy, by academic theologians, religious believers and non-believers. The debate as to whether we are free beings is intense. Interestingly it also attracts the attention of scientists. 

When we speak of being free, what we mean is that we have a choice as to how we behave. We have the freedom to take action A instead of action B. We are responsible for whatever actions we take, in other words, we have 'free will'. When people speak of determinism, they mean that all events are subject to scientific laws and are theoretically predictable. In other words, we can predict what events will take place. It thus has the implication that we are actually being driven by impersonal laws, that even if we experience ourselves as free, this an illusion. All actions are 'determined'.

Before we discuss it further, it is important to survey what key thinkers had to say about free-will and determinism.

BACKGROUND TO THE DEBATE

Democritus (c.460-370 BCE)

The first thinker to consider the issue was the Greek philosopher Democritus (5th Century B.C.E). He was an 'atomist', meaning he believed that everything consisted of atoms in space. Objects exist independent of our observation of them, and in theory it was possible to predict how each and everything would behave. He also argued that atoms are eternal, and that they grouped together to form more complex objects which were constantly changing. The implication of such a view is that you have a material world, which is eternal, in which all that is experienced is a collection of atoms. The universe is seen as a single, determined mechanism, operating on impersonal laws, and that we to are temporary, composite creatures. This obviously creates problems for human freedom and purpose, for what purpose do we have if our behaviour is driven by impersonal predictable laws?

St Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

This problem was given religious significance by St Augustine, with regards to the traditional problem of evil, that we cannot accept the claims that evil exists, God is all good, and God is all powerful; accepting two claims negates the third. Augustine believed that evil was a sign that humankind had fallen, but God gives us free-will and the responsibility for our actions. However, Augustine maintained that God is also all-knowing, so he argued for predestination, that God knows who is to be saved and who is to be damned, and we cannot change this. If we accept this, are we really free? Should we be held accountable for our actions?  

Isaac Newton (1643-1727)

With the rise of science from the 17th century onwards, Newtonian physics suggested that everything in the world may be described by laws which operate with mathematical precision. If we knew what the laws of nature were, it would be possible to predict exactly what would happen in each and every situation.  Thus, everything is determined. Science thus assumes that everything has a causes, or a large number of causes, which determines the outcome. This has implications on the freedom and determinism debate, and an unexplained event is not put down to divine intervention, rather an unexplained law. The issue is, if science is able to explain everything in terms of causes, is there any room for freedom and choice? 

LEIBNIZ- GOD'S CHOSEN WORLD

Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716)

The philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Leibniz saw God as an eternal and infinite mind who saw and determined everything in the world and who had chosen to make the world exactly as it is. A change in any one individual thing in the world would require that everything else be changed as well. There maybe a number of possible worlds, in which things are different, but in this world everything has to be as it is. Since he believed that it would have been possible for God to have created any sort of world, since God chose to create this one, it must be the best possible one.

We cannot predict what happens in this world since we do not have God's mind. It follows that, not knowing we are completely determined, we actually experience ourselves as free. Freedom maybe defined as 

                                              not knowing all the reason why we behave in certain ways. God would                                                 also be the creator of this world, because Leibniz argued that a world                                                   with freedom but evil is better than a world with little freedom but no evil.

However, another problem arises: there is still a difference between what is experienced (freedom) and what is actually the case (a world totally determined, in this particular case by the mind of God). Can they be related without conflicting? The German Philosopher Immanuel Kant tackled this question.  

DETERMINED BUT FREE-KANT

To understand Kant's view, two terms must be defined:

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

1. Phenomena- Things as we experience them

2. Noumena- Thing as they are in themselves (we don't need experience to know them)

According to Kant, our minds understands Phenomena by means of the concepts of space, time and causality. Our minds are organised to assume that everything experienced is an effect for which there is a cause, and this is how we understand Phenomena. However, I know I am free to act. I experience freedom, although I cannot detect in the phenomenal world. Kant thus saw humans as Phenomenally determined but Noumenally free. What is experienced may be determined, as our minds are organised to perceive things that way, but we experience our own freedom- it is one of the presuppositions of every choice made.

In other words, the world that we experience maybe determined, but we are free as humans; freedom is Nominal, to use Kant's term.

In the next part of the post, scientific determinism, the role of quantum physics and also how viewing a complex situation either from a reductionist or a holistic point of view impacts on the free-will and determinism debate.

A PHILOSOPHY THAT CHANGED THE WORLD: MARXISM (PART 4)

INTRODUCTION 

In this final post of the Philosophy of Marx, criticisms towards his theories will be discussed. The criticisms are generally directed at his ideas of history, economics and how attempts to apply Marxist principles have not worked. 

MARXIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY

In part 1, the idea of the dialectic was discussed, as well as Marx's interpretation that all events in history are subject to it. Although it may be a useful way at looking at the past, to claim that the dialectic is a general law that effects all events, past and future can be criticised. Such a claim cannot possibly be verified. Furthermore, to claim that society is heading towards the ideal of a classless system can also be attacked, for is this society the ideal? Can the process not continue on? 

Marx also claims that as society develops, it becomes ethically superior. The classless system is therefore superior to those societies that preceded it. If we speak of such historical progress, then we are judging those societies against some moral criterion, which Marx will not admit the validity of. He himself claims that moral values are not expressions of 'eternal truths' but are relative to which society they are in. Thus, one can see an inconsistency between Marx's objective ideals of history and his subjective views of social morality.   

MARXIST ECONOMIC THEORY

According to Marx, the capitalist system inevitably produces periodic depressions, misery of the workers and ownership of wealth by the owners of production. Such misery is what causes a revolution and inevitably the establishment of a classless society. 

However, defenders of capitalism may argue that none of this can be confirmed. If anything, the workers are doing better, as they have more money and can afford to work fewer hours, and have a higher standard of life. Capitalism has produced higher standards of living and better relations between the workers and the owners. Within the system there are also developments that protect the workers: the growth of trade unions, anti-trust laws, and social-security measures that keep they system working. 

On the other hand, a response to this maybe that the many of these measures are socialist measures; perhaps this system maybe preferred. Measures such as trade unions are needed to stop the system destroying itself; otherwise capitalism will take the part already described by Marx. 

The view that capitalism requires within it safeguards to protect the workers maybe valid, but this does not imply that capitalism should be completely replaced. 

MARXISM IN THE 20TH CENTURY 

Many countries such as the former East Germany, Hungary, the former Soviet Union and many other parts of eastern europe adapted Marxist principles. When they applied Marx's theories, there were obvious flaws. 

Firstly, the idea of the state being replaced by a classless society was shown to be false. Many countries since 1917 which attempted to apply Marxism became dictatorships and suppressed the ability of their people to democratically participate in Government (not being able to join any political party except the communist party for example) and became increasingly unpopular. Eventually in the late 1980's and early 1990's, massive opposition to governments meant that countries such as the former Soviet Union, combined with economic difficulties disintegrated and were replaced. 

Marxism does underestimate the force of nationalism and ethnic rivalries and identifications. These, rather than belonging to an economic class have motivated changes in countries such as Yugoslavia, where ethnic differences, rather than communist ideals, led to disintegration of the state. 

Finally, economically speaking Marxism has not worked. In areas such as the former Soviet Union, people's standard of living fell behind those in the west, and especially in the Soviet Union, where after many years of planning could still not produce enough food to feed it's population.  

It could be argued though, that many of these countries did not apply Marxist principles properly. There are countries where socialist principles have been applied in a democratic system such as the Scandinavian countries and countries such as France and Italy, which make for better models of Marxism. 

So what do we make of this system? Maybe we could say it is still relevant, maybe it should dismissed out right. In the middle, is the view that Marxism is correct in highlighting some of the negatives in capitalist society and that there are ways to deal with them, but that the ideals themselves are impossible to follow.  

Sources: Philosophy (Popkins and Stroll)
               Religion and Science (Mel Thompson) 

A PHILOSOPHY THAT CHANGED THE WORLD: MARXISM (PART 3)

CAPITALISM HARMS HUMANITY

According to Marx, capitalism causes humanity to disappear in the treatment of people by each other, and is replaced by an inhuman drive for profits. So not only did Marx argue that capitalism was economically flawed, but part of his theories focuses upon the ethics of that system, and his views on morality will be further discussed.

THE PROBLEMS OF AN INDUSTRIAL WORLD

According to him, industry and technological advances develop very rapidly, in fact faster than the techniques of controlling them. So those developments which should have made it possible for people to live together more comfortably are doing just the exact opposite.

The system is driven to accumulate the maximum profit, so it will cause wars; children might be forced into labour and the tension between the classes is intensified. This is caused by two factors: 'self-alienation' and 'fetishism'. 

Self-alienation- Marx used this term to describe a person's plight in the industrial world. Industry does not help improve the person's relationship with other people nor is it helpful; people are cut off from one another, are isolated and made fearful and insecure. A person creates a highly technical world, but cannot control it and cannot gain any leisure, culture, comfort and so on from it. 

Fetishism - This is a worship of the products of labour. For instance if the labour results in a car, having produced a car, we become ruled by this object. They could be said to be 'obsessed' with such objects. It might be said that this leads to a very materialistic society. 

MARX'S ETHICAL VIEWS

A picture during the industrial revolution. It shows a child
sweeper.

Capitalism depersonalises the relations between people and makes them more like machines and machines more like people, according to Marx. In his opinion, this is what makes the system ethically inferior and problematic. 

Marx feels that socialism will remedy the economic problems of capitalism (discussed in part 2) and introduce a new morality, which is superior and which will be different to a machine-centred morality. This new morality will be based on human values, not on machine values.

Having explored Marxist ideas, we must now understand some of the criticisms made towards his ideas, and that will be discussed next. 

A PHILOSOPHY THAT CHANGED THE WORLD: MARXISM (PART 2)

THE SYSTEM OF A CLASS 

A Russian Propaganda Poster depicting the Capitalist Class
System. (Around the time of the first Russian Revolution)

In this post, Marx's economic theory will be discussed, but before this can be done, it is important to understand how Marx understood the working of the class system. 

Marx felt that every person belongs to certain socio-economic group within society, known as a class. The system of classes that a given culture has is completely determined by the economic means and conditions of production in that culture. Capitalism is thus an economic system with three main social classes: those who own or control the means of production, the capitalists; those who are entirely dependent upon the earnings they get while working for the owners, the working class; finally we have the middle classes such as business people.

This is an important point to understand. In the previous blogpost I had mentioned the logical process of the dialectic and Marx's interpretation of the same. According to him, the thesis (in the struggle between the classes) is the presence of capitalist upper classes exploiting the lower classes economically. The anti-thesis is the working classes who, fed up of their conditions and lack of proper pay will rise up, and the synthesis will eventually be a classless society. Let us now examine Marx's economic theories to see how this happens.

LABOUR THEORY OF VALUE

This theory, though not unique to Marx*, is used in his ideas. The theory of Labour value attempts to define what is meant by 'economic value'. He distinguishes between 'use value' of a commodity and its 'exchange value'. While a commodity might be useful for us, it may not have any worth if we try to exchange it for something else. The air might be useful to us, but we could not exchange it for something else. Something has exchange value, if it needs to obtain at a cost, for example buying a book using money. Marx termed this cost its 'economic value'.

What makes a commodity costly is the amount of labour power that goes into its production. So 'economic value' is defined in terms of the quantity of labour necessary for its production. Marx went on to say that the worker is forced to sell his/her labour and thus is a commodity themselves. the amount of money which the employer pays to the worker is an estimation of the economic value of the labourer. We now move on to what Marx called 'The Theory of Surplus Value'

THE THEORY OF SURPLUS VALUE 

The labourer is said to produce goods which have a higher economic value than those wages the worker receives. There is a difference between the economic value of the product and the amount the worker receives for their efforts. Marx termed this difference the 'surplus value'. The employer does not pay them for this, instead they take the surplus value and utilise it in various ways, mainly profit. According to him, the workers actually produce the wealth through the amount of labour they contribute, but the capitalists take a considerable amount of it without rewarding the worker. This is how they make their profit. 

This is a crucial point, because it allows us to examine the source of the conflict between the classes. Whilst the capitalist wishes to accumulate the maximum profit, the worker demands a higher way and to buy good as cheaply as possible. Marxists see this inconsistency leading to an unavoidable conflict.

THE COMING OF SOCIALISM

The aim of the capitalists is to maximise profit. This involves engaging in constant competition with other business people, since making profits depends on the number of goods sold. To sell the most number of goods also means selling them as cheaply as possible. In the long run, the easiest way to do this is to use the cheapest labour possible. As the capitalist gains more profit in this way, getting the cheapest labour possible is vital. Ultimately, they will drive smaller businesses out of competition and will remain in competition with a few large scale producers. To keep maximising their profit, the capitalist must pay the workers less and less, and so on. 

This tendency according to Marx will eventually ensure that the workers will keep getting poorer and the capitalists richer. Tension will develop as the workers get tired of being exploited (they become 'class conscious') and finally conflict will break out. The outcome of the conflict is that the worker will take over the means of production, and a new thesis will be inaugurated- the age of the classless society, or socialism.

What will be discussed in the next part of this blog post is what Marx highlighted as something ethically wrong with this drive towards profits, caused by the economic system of  capitalism. 

*This theory owes much to the works of economists such as David Ricardo and Adam Smith. 

A PHILOSOPHY THAT CHANGED THE WORLD: MARXISM (PART 1)

INTRODUCTION 

There is no doubt Marxist Philosophy has had a major impact in our world, inspiring revolution and the ruling of Governments both in the past and in the present day. To understand Marxism is not only to understand Philosophy but also history, politics and economic theory, to name a few, have all been majorly influence by Marx. 

WHO WAS KARL MARX? 

Karl Marx

Marx (1818-83) was born in Prussia, now in Germany. Born into a wealthy middle-class family, he went to the universities of Bonn and Berlin, where he became interested in the Philosophy of Georg Hegel, which would majorly influence his ideas. After university, he wrote for a radical left-wing newspaper in Cologne, and started the process of formulating his theories. He moved to Paris in 1843 where he continued writing for radical newspapers and also where he met Fredrick Engels, who would become a life-long friend and helper. Expelled form France in 1845, he then opposed the Prussian king in 1849, and thus moved to London in exile in 1849. It is here that he formed much of his theories on society, economics and politics, which would be called Marxism. 

INTRODUCING MARXISM 

Marxism is not easy to define as a theory. Marx's Philosophy depends on the disciplines such as logic, metaphysics, economic theory and ethics. In this blog post I will introduce one of the central ideas surrounding his Philosophy, the idea of the Dialectic.

THE DIALECTIC 

Georg Hegel

A term often associated with the Philosopher Hegel, the Dialectic actually goes back to Plato. It is a logical process of resolving arguments. An idea, or a certain argument, known as a thesis, will exist. An opposing idea or argument is called an anti-thesis also exists, and the two opposing ideas will clash. However, they are resolved in what is known as a synthesis. This new idea could be another thesis, and will be resolved with an anti-thesis in a synthesis, and so on. 

Hegel expanded on this idea. In what is popularly known as the 'Hegelian Dialectic' he proposed that this process is always taking place between nations. The process goes on ad infinitum and is heading to an ideal, what he called the 'Spirit'. To understand Marx requires this understanding of Hegel's Metaphysics.  

Marx accepted the idea of the dialectic, as he felt that this process governed the events of history and that all occurring events are subject to this law. However, he did not accept the Hegelian idea of the 'spirit'. He felt instead that the synthesis which governs the events in history is actually a struggle taking place between the classes. How is this so? 

THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE CLASSES

Marx explained that the history of the world should not be regarded as history of the rivalry between nations, but the rivalry of the classes is what causes historical change. According to him, societies can be broken down into a thesis and an anti-thesis: king-rulers on the one hand, the dispossessed and slaves on the other. A struggle creates a new synthesis: Feudalism, which itself breaks down into the opposing forces of lords and serfs. The struggle within Feudalism lead to a new synthesis, namely capitalism. However, a struggle between the proletariat (the working classes) and the bourgeois (the upper classes) will eventually resolve itself in a new synthesis, namely a classless society.

The famous Hammer and Sickle.
His Philosophy inspired communism.

According to Marxists this conflict is inevitable as those societies which are inferior will be replaced. In other words, conflicts between classes are not created by human beings, they will happen due to the nature of the dialectic. Marx believed that the eventual society will have no classes, and where wealth is share equally amongst the people, who will have enough
and will not need a government.

A further look at the role of economics and the class system is
required to understand Marxism. In Part 2 of this blog
post I will discuss these issues as well as discussing
certain points of Marx's economic theory.