The topic of "free will" is one of the most enduring and controvertial issues in the history of philosophy. I'm not going to attempt to settle the issue on this humble blog post, but merely bring attention to the fact that two issues can be easily blurred in the debates: epiphenomenalism and determinism. The two issues are related but are distinct and if we're ever to hope that this debate can be settled, the distinction between the two topics must be understood.
First, let's untagle epiphenomenalism. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia, epiphenomenalism means that mental events are caused by physical events, but mental events do not case physical events. An old, famous comparison is the relationship between the steam created by a locomotive and the locomotive itself. The steam contributes nothing to the action of the locomotive, but is merely a byproduct of it.
Determinism's meaning is more nebuolous. Using Stanford again, a world is deterministic if "given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law". In other words, everything that occurs( including human actions) can be explained by previous states of the world coupled with the laws of nature. If we rewind history and the conditions are the same, there is no wiggle room for people to do other than what they did.
The two issues are related (given the fact that both have an effect on human agency), however, they are distinct. Epiphenomenalism entails determinism, at least with regard to human action. This is becasue human action is wholly governed by the laws of physics. Ephiphenomenalism, however, contends something further: that human action is in no way caused by human mental life. This is a particularly ghastly view. As philosopher of mind John Searle noted, if epiphenomenalism is true then we are very much mistaken about why we do things. We don't eat because we are hungry, drink because we are thirsty, or cry becasue we are sad. States such as hunger, thirst, or saddness are mental and mental events don't have effects on physical events such as eating, drinking, and crying. Besides the prima facie absurdity, there are a host of problems with the view that won't be addressed here.
A problem that will be examined, however, is that epiphenomenalism seems to be predicated on a dualistic premise; a premise not shared by determinism. In order for epiphenomenalism to be sound, it seems that there needs to be a real, ontological distinction between the mental and physical realms. The mental isn't identical with the physical, substantively.The motivation for this view, then, seems to be that its a way to avoid the problem of having mental events violate the physical closure of the world (the position supported by science that the rules of physics govern all of what we experience). But this violation only happens if you make the mental distinct from the physical! One could thus affirm determinism and the phyiscal closure of the world, and not affirm epiphenomenalism.
Take for example, the position of Spinoza. Spinoza was a hardened determinist. Spinoza believed that everything that happens, (including human actions), could not be otherwise because it follows necessarily from God's nature. However, from what I understand, he was not an epipheonomenalist. Spinoza was a monist, meaning that he believed in only one substance and this substance mererly had different attributes. The mind and the body, therefore, are identical in substance, and the only difference between them is that the mental is concieved under the attribute of thought and the body was concieved under the attribute of extension. Thus, on Spinoza's view, the mental has just as much causal power as the physical.
Even though one might not adopt the percise language of Spinoza, a monism regarding the physical and the mental seems to solve the problem that motivates epiphenomenalism. If the mental really is just upper level brain actvity, then the mental is in fact causal. Just like a hurricane is an upper level phenomenon that causes things, brain activity causes things such as eating, drinking, and crying. Thus, we can have mental causation and the physical closure of the world.
This distinction is important because the issue of free will becomes difficult when the two issues are blurred. One commentator who I believed did confuse the issues is Noam Chompsky. After being asked his position on free will, he responded that he must affirm its truth becasue if weren't true then nobody would do things for "reasons". This position, which Chompsky claims to be shared by William James, seems to be based on the idea that to deny free will is to affirm epiphenomenalism. Since rational inferences belong to mental states and epiphenomenalism entails that the mental doesn't actually cause people to act, people don't do things because of reasons. Though denying free will entails determinism, its denial does not entail epiphenomenalism. Thus, Chompsky's concern is misplaced.
Now, there are people who would deny that the mental and the physical can be of the same substance. My point here, however, is not to defend monism; it is to draw a distinction between epiphenomenalism and determinism, which, again, I beleive goes a long way in preventing confusion in the free will discussions. So if you intend to talk to someone on this topic, make sure they read this post!
Note 1: Arguments for monism can be found in the first entries of this blog, which critiqued Cartesianism.
Note 2. On reviewing Chompsky's comments on youtube, I think he's even more confused then I orginially thought. He said that we can have free will even though our decisions are mostly unconcscious! It's hard to see what he then means by free will. Moreover, this seems to be in tension with his concern about the lack of causal power of "reasons", which I think presupposes epiphenomenalism. Check out his comments yourself here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3fhKRJNNTA
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