Argument from morality

Some critics of determinism argue that if people are assumed incapable of independent choice (free will) there can then be no rational basis for morality, and therefore some aspects of criminal and civil jurisprudence and legislation appear irrational and unjust. How, they ask, can one be punished for an involuntary action? In order to maintain the integrity of social institutions that rely in part upon holding people responsible for their actions, it becomes necessary in their eyes to deny determinism, at least as far as it applies to what we ordinarily call voluntary actions. However, determinists hold that there is a logical basis for morality.

Determinists argue that this is a fallacious appeal to consequences, that the factual or logical truth of the matter is entirely independent of whether that truth is perceived as beneficial. The presumed social utility of ideas of crime and justice should not be permitted, they argue, to override questions of truth.

Some would also note that determinism and morality are not necessarily mutually exclusive. The "voluntary" nature of an action would be irrelevant when instead focusing on the social utility served in punishing such behavior in order to prevent future behavior. Moreover, some determinists would also note that in observing determinism, what people now largely observe as voluntary action would not simply cease to exist, but rather be redefined as a combination of physiological and environmental influences. "Right" and "wrong" need not be divorced from such a reconception. One may technically have no "choice" to perform an action in the strict philosophical sense, and yet still have moral culpability for normatively-flawed actions stemming from negative internal stimuli. It is also arguable that if every human action is predetermined, immoral actions are not the only things to which that applies--judgements of the actions are also uncontrollable, as are punishments of the action.

American philosopher Donald Davidson, among others, has argued that if people behaved in an uncaused way then one would describe their actions as insane, not as free. His view is consonant with the philosophical position advocated by Mencius that maintains that one's innate characteristics are the result of deterministic causation, that among these innate characteristics there exists a set of drives (analogous to other drives such as the sex drive) that are axiological or moral in nature, and that factors external to these moral drives can act to inhibit their operation. Inhibiting their action is tantamount to a loss of freedom, which is something one instinctively seeks to avoid. In Western terms, Mencius would say that human beings are born with a conscience, that they are acting in accord with their own natures and inclinations when they guide their actions by their consciences (along with their other drives such as hunger), and that we all experience a loss of freedom when we realize that we are being controlled either directly or indirectly by outside forces -- whether those forces are the lingering effects of conditioning or the imminent threat of death posed by a pistol held to one's head. In short, self-determination is freedom and other-determination is loss of freedom. Morality depends on the exercise of what one's nature has determined one to be and on being de facto responsible for all the consequences of what one decides to do. If one is free of external control one is an entelechy; to the extent that one becomes determined by external factors, one loses one's individual identity and becomes merely the extension of another entity.