The Determinist-Indeterminist False-Dichotomy

The determinist thesis is that there is no such thing as volition. On this point they present us a dichotomy: either you accept causality in which case every action of man is caused and therefore pre-determined, or you reject causality in order to keep volition in the picture. This is a false-dichotomy accepted by the “indeterminists,” who accept this notion of libertarian free-will—that is, they agree with the fundamental premise that causality is incompatible with free-will, then accept that man does have free will, and therefore conclude that causality is false.

The origin of this dichotomy is found in the erroneous notion of “mechanistic causality,” to put it clearly: to be caused does not mean to be necessary. All that the law of cause and effect tells us is that every action has a cause and that the same cause has the same effect; it does not say that said action cannot be to choose. Specifically, the action caused by man’s nature is to select or choose between different possible activities—this is still an action caused by his nature, it is not a non-action, nor is it man acting outside of or against his nature.

It is on this that the only valid conception of “compatibilism” is found: namely, compatibilism is correct if it is the thesis that causality is compatible with free will, but not if it is the thesis that determinism is compatible with free will.

To be clear: man’s choices are indeed caused, caused by his specific nature as a conceptual being. It is a specific trait of a conceptual consciousness in particular that it has the faculty of reason which is not and cannot be pre-determined. This can be validated not only on the grounds of epistemology being dependent upon the fallibility of a conceptual consciousness, or on the impossibility of the determinist validating his own thesis on his own grounds, but also by direct introspection. All honest men can grasp the fact that they can focus their mind to differing degrees and that said focus can be employed either in blanking out or seriously apprehending reality.

Objectivism regards this dilemma as a false alternative. Man’s actions do have causes; he does choose a course of behavior for a reason–but this does not make the course determined or the choice unreal. It does not, because man himself decides what are to be the governing reasons. Man chooses the causes that shape his actions.

To say that a higher-level choice was caused is to say: there was a reason behind it, but other reasons were possible under the circumstances, and the individual himself made the selection among them.¹