Will determinism destroy morality?

People assume we somehow own and create our actions so that we are the cause as persons. This is the doctrine of free will. Its opposite is determinism - the notion that we only imagine we are in control.

Determinism says we have a will but we only feel free. It is programming. We do not truly own our actions and choices.

If it is true and simplicity says it is then our souls are not destroyed so why should believing it be soul-destroying?

Determinism gets its strength from showing there is no need to believe in free will.

“If you really thought you had no free will you would not come out of bed for what is the point?”

Answers – that is probably the only argument against determinism that anybody considers essential. It is a discussion about meaning. But the power to create your own actions is not necessarily about meaning. And to say you should stay in bed if you don’t believe in free will is assuming you have the free will to stay in bed. It's an argument against belief. It still tells us nothing about whether we have free will or not.

Disbelief has not stopped the most ardent defenders of determinism from getting out of bed and early too. If determinism can keep you in bed it can keep you out too.

If you are not leaving your bed then the question "Is morality real?" is not an issue. It becomes an issue when you open your eyes and waken.

The scaremongers maintain that if determinism is true then there is no morality. True. But who gives a damn when we can still behave like moral free agents would? The forces that control "our" will will program us to act in a good way because determinism is true and stronger than us. We are lucky it programs us to accept how it it uses us.

Knowing determinism is true or believing it is true cannot change how we are made. Make no mistake, those who say determinism destroys morality really mean that belief in it doe that!


Could we be happy if nature made people behave in a loving way towards us though they were not free? Yes we would. We are happiest when we are sure that our girlfriend or boyfriend or siblings or parents are FORCED by nature herself to have great loving feelings towards us. The person who freely does good to us gets less adulation from us. The parent who wants to hate the child often cannot.

Determinism does not advocate treating people as automatons. People are not the same as calculators or computers. What a person wants should be respected for they have feelings and feel free and have a right to live according to their nature when it harms none. All are priceless therefore equal.

Free will and determinism both might psyche some people up to behave cruelly. Free will implies that we deserve all we get for deserve means earning and consenting to good or bad treatment depending on the nature of the act. Free will does justify hurting those who are supposedly deserving but determinism does not. It means that whoever hurts you is not doing wrong in hurting you though it may be wrong for other reasons. It would be wrong to have people hurting themselves to feel sorry for you if you deserve your troubles. Determinism implies that you are not terrible if you harm others for it is not your fault but nature’s. There is nothing that we can do if people abuse the doctrines. People will be happier without the negativity of judgement that free will brings and when people are happier they are much less likely to harm. Even for free will to imply that it is better when there is a choice to hurt a person who is free for he deserves it to some extent than to hurt a person who is not free which it does imply necessarily, is diabolical. Free will is just an anarchist philosophy.

Determinism does say that what will happen will happen. But the determinist cannot say that they should do evil for they will do it anyway for they can just as easily say they should do good for they will do good anyway.

Determinists can be more optimistic and enthusiastic in trying to change people for the better than indeterminists because they believe that if the right buttons were pressed people would be healthy, happy and good. The indeterminist just has to hope that they will change and that is all. Hope is associated with fear. Free willism justifies fear and fear always leads to violence, first inner violence against yourself and then against others and often explodes into outer physical attacks on others for it is violence taking over you. When anybody says that God does not want us to be afraid of him they should be laughed at. Free will and religion are about fear and when they are not they should be. But determinists hope as well you may say. But not to the extent that free willists do.

If most people in your community believed in determinism or at least that free will might exist but we should live as if it does not exist then sincere goodness would be commoner. People know they will be seen as ill if they do wrong and not as bad. This will encourage them to do good because they want to do good and not just because good pays which it does in a society that condemns people who do wrong and hates them. To do good because it pays means you never know if a person is really good or not or is just doing good to be liked and make a good impression for their own sake.

If determinism were as harmful as belief if free will it would still be better to adopt it instead of the latter just in case we are not free.

It is certainly not any worse. It is actually best.