For many, like the renowned skeptic Martin Gardner, the problem of free will is much like the problem of consciousness, something currently unsolvable based on our lack of knowledge or an insufficient framing of the question. However, what if we’re approaching this the wrong way altogether? What if we’re making this problem harder than we have to? This is author Dan Barker’s take on the problem, in his new book, Free Will Explained. Barker, a former fundamentalist minister turned atheist, uses his breezy tone and biting wit to address one of philosophy’s most daunting problems, one he thinks we’ve grown from a molehill into a mountain.
He defines free will as “the ability to do otherwise” and proposes an alternative to the determinism-free will dichotomy. Barker argues that this dichotomy isn’t how we should frame the discussion. As he writes, “the real battle is not between determinism and free will. It's between determinism and indeterminism. Free will, in my opinion, is not indeterministic, so it can’t be incompatible with determinism.” He describes this view as “acompatibilism,” because he says “you can’t pit one logical level against another logical level. . . . If we insist on arguing horizontally where the separation is vertical, the debate will dissolve into equivocation and category error. The dispute is artificial.” In a sense, free will emerges out of our conscious drives as humans to make choices, which isn’t always at odds with living in a determined universe.
This presumption of choice is not the same as a scientifically-rigorous view of determinism. The first is normative where the second is evaluative. This is where the acompatibility comes in. Barker’s distinction is made clearer in a later passage:
Free will is not an essence but a quality. It is not a power or ability. It is not an entity that exists on its own. It is a product of something else. It is more like beauty than a physical fact or logical conclusion. It emerges when we make behavioral judgements, not before. You see it when you see it. It is not a cause of anything. It is an effect. Free will is a product of judgment.
Reframing the discussion this way bypasses the whole determinism discussion, because Barker is not denying the cause and effect of the natural world. Rather, he is placing the notion of free will on a different plane of analysis -- as a socially-constructed, emotionally-valent phenomenon that is the product of conscious, choosing individuals. This becomes more apparent as the level of judgement increases. Barker explains: “As the complexity of the judgment varies, so does the strength of the feeling of free will. Free will resides in the harmony created by the extra social dimension that raises human thought and behavior above the level of merely existing as a single grain of sand, an individual animal.”
At this point, Barker presents his alternative theory, which he calls “harmonic free will.” Free will, to Barker, is dependent on the “frame of reference.” This is where his background in music, particularly jazz piano, comes into play. Barker breaks down the discussion into “melodies” and “harmonies,” which for laymen are basically the building-blocks of music. Melodies are the single-lined musical phrases you hear in a song, usually when a singer or lone instrumentalist plays on top of a band. Harmonies, by contrast, form when multiple melodies combine to make a cluster of sound, or a “chord.” Another great way to think about this is the Beach Boys. Most of their songs feature a melody with harmonies underneath (see, “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”). Melodies by themselves are pretty linear, they only go in one direction, whereas harmonies create a layered, almost three-dimensional sound that can go in multiple directions.
Barker sees free will in the exact same way. As he writes, “melodically, free will does not exist; but harmonically it does.” What he means by this is that free will is necessarily relational. We don’t have free will by ourselves, but we do in relation to others in a social context. Thus, “We individual human beings are indeed the result of pre-determined evolutionary processes (melody), but we are also a part of a society that transcends ourselves (harmony).” While individual lives, by themselves, are largely determined, their interactions within networks of social goals and interests enables choice and personal flexibility. This makes free will what Barker calls “the harmonic structure to our melodic lives.”
In this light, Barker’s free will exists as what the philosopher John Searle calls a “social truth.” Marriages, mortgages, and money are not exactly true in the empirical, scientific sense. Instead, they are truths that we socially agree are valuable to create, but which “have the real world as a material context for their meaning.” Free will is just another variation on this theme. That is not to say that it is purely subjective or relative. On the contrary, Barker writes that “judgment, accountability, and free will don’t transcend the physical world. They are concepts in social minds that have survived by protecting themselves from those who threaten well-being.” It’s also not to say that libertarian free will is real either, which Barker dismisses outright. “A libertarian or theological free will,” Barker notes, “would have had to be determined, if not by the known laws of physics, then by some other laws or principles outside of itself. You cannot be a ‘you,’ biological or not, without having been determined to be a ‘you.’” Therefore, Barker’s free will is the emergent property of complex social systems which require conscious deliberation and choice.
This emphasis on the social dynamics of free will is especially prescient. Barker’s not trying to claim absolute free will, nor is he giving in to the hard determinists. He’s trying to a build a pragmatic synthesis of social values, scientific insight, and personal experience into a “useful illusion” for living a good life. Many atheists and humanists might be ruffled by this notion, but Barker assures readers that he’s not appealing to outside “wonder stuff” to make his free will work. If he was, he would be peddling a delusion, which is far worse. He notes that “an illusion is rooted in reality but does not become a reality in the mind. A delusion is not rooted in reality but becomes a reality in the mind.” With this paradigm, Barker concludes that “socially true harmonic free will is an illusion. Libertarian or theological free will is a delusion.” Still, some might ask: “If it’s an illusion, why should we care about it?” Barker says we should care because without socially true harmonic free will, “moral responsibility becomes meaningless. It is indeed meaningless on the melodic deterministic axis. But morality is immensely meaningful on the harmonic social axis.” Responsibility, ever important for the flourishing of a social species, acts as another emergent property from networks of conscious, motivated moral agents.
Finally, when we are equipped with the “social truth” of free will, Barker encourages us to live our lives akin to “jazz musicians.” As the works of John Coltrane, Miles Davis, or Sun Ra illustrate, the sheet music can only take you so far. At some point, within the framework of modal or harmonic changes, a player can go off-script and develop their own unique melody. The parallels to free will are easy to see. As Barker notes:
I think this is a nice analogy for free will. As you go through life, you are not usually reading from a printed score. You create. The raw materials that make up the “vocabulary of life” are deterministic instincts, reflexes, traits, talents, skills, energy, needs, desires, limitations, emotions, fears, pleasures, memory, stories, knowledge, opportunities, and more. You pull from this “language” and make it up as you go. And when you improvise, you own it.
This sense of “owning it” is what it means to have free will -- you’re making conscious choices within a social system and taking responsibility for their consequences. As he succinctly puts it in the introduction, “If we can view the world more like jazz musicians than classical musicians, we will see free will as a beautiful improvisation of the human species.”
In all, free will is an active, normative process rather than a metaphysical trait. “Although we talk about ‘having’ free will, it is not something we have,” Barker says, “it is something we experience. It is one of many works of art that reveal that we are more than just a swarm of atoms in motion. Free will makes us fully human.” With that in mind, you could also call Barker’s perspective “humanistic free will,” a version of free will which puts the powers and responsibilities in the hands of conscious, socially-engaged individuals and not supernatural agents or scientific rigidity. It also implores us to show up for life, to take chances and to aspire for things that we want for ourselves. If everything was left to the caprice of a God or the strict arrangement of atoms of our bodies, it wouldn’t feel like our lives belonged to us. As an alternative, Barker’s “harmonic free will” takes our agency back from the cosmos and puts it back in our hands.