Do heroin addicts have free will?
Suppose you are a heroin addict for ten years. You haven't shot up for a whole day, and you feel extremely dope sick. After panhandling money for hours, you finally have enough money to buy a bag of heroin. So you go to your local drug dealer and purchase heroin. Then you go to nearest alley and prepare to shoot up. The desire to get rid of your dope sickness is extreme. You desire for heroin is more than anything else in the world. However, suddenly, you ask yourself, "Do I really need to this? My life would be so much better if I get clean."
My question is, does the heroin addict have free will to stop then and there? Free will means you have the ability to choose. Does the heroin addict have the ability to choose not to use the drug even though his desire to use it is unfathomable?
Keep in mind that no one is putting a gun to his head. Nobody is actively forcing him to do anything. There's only one thing that's standing in the way of him choosing not to shoot up, and that is his own desires.
Suppose you say that the heroin addict simply cannot help himself, and at that time, he does not have free will because his own desire is forcing him to shoot up. How is the case of the heroin addict different than regular life where you have a strong desires to do things and you feel like you cannot help yourself? The heroin addict may feel stronger desires than any ordinary circumstance, but where do we draw the line? Where do way say that desire doesn't negate free will, and where do we say it does?
My question is, does the heroin addict have free will to stop then and there? Free will means you have the ability to choose. Does the heroin addict have the ability to choose not to use the drug even though his desire to use it is unfathomable?
Keep in mind that no one is putting a gun to his head. Nobody is actively forcing him to do anything. There's only one thing that's standing in the way of him choosing not to shoot up, and that is his own desires.
Suppose you say that the heroin addict simply cannot help himself, and at that time, he does not have free will because his own desire is forcing him to shoot up. How is the case of the heroin addict different than regular life where you have a strong desires to do things and you feel like you cannot help yourself? The heroin addict may feel stronger desires than any ordinary circumstance, but where do we draw the line? Where do way say that desire doesn't negate free will, and where do we say it does?
Comments (33)
However, there are also heroin, cocaine, alcohol, and cigarette addicts who have not been able to carry through on their own decision to quit using. They wanted to quit; they tried to quit (many times, likely); they failed. Either they are functional addicts (addicted, but able to participate in normal social activity) or they died as addicts at some point.
I don't think we can say, though, that failure to quite using addicting drugs is a demonstration of the absence of free will. They may have WILLED QUITTING, but were unable to buck the demands of their addicted bodies. The wish, or will, was still present, operating. It was just not powerful enough.
If one supposes that humans have free will, can we imagine situations where free will didn't exist? Is being addicted, or preferring dogs to cats, and not wishing to change one's life a sign of free will's absence? I like strawberries and have no wish to change that preference. Is my persistent preference for strawberries over horseradish indication that I don't have free will? No.
People who have been committed to hospital treatment (against their will) and have been cured of addictions are no evidence either. Being forced to do something says nothing about free will. Supposing the cured person is discharged. Free of the hospital, they again have the agency to exercise their will. They can smoke a pack of cigarettes and drink 3 double martinis, or not. Which act proves the existence of free will? I'm not sure.
Of course there are addicts who broke free from their addiction where there was choice involved. My question wasn't about heroin addicts generally, it was specific to the case I mentioned. My question about free will is regarding the instance where the heroin addict already has the heroin in his hand, with a strong desire to use, and he's dope sick to boot. Can the heroin addict choose not to use, at that moment?
So, having gone to a great deal of trouble to get the $10, having found the dealer, having found some hole to shoot up in, having everything ready, set... GO is probably a fore drawn conclusion. You are asking whether one can cancel shooting up when the act is all but completed. I don't know -- ask 1000 former heroin addicts. I would guess that the point at which heroin (or cocaine) addicts decide to quit is not the moment before use, or the moment after use--neither at the peak of pleasure nor the pit of pain. It's probably somewhere in between. One has to have presence of mind to make a freely willed act.
I do know that tobacco addicts can put a cigarette out, throw their cigarettes in the toilet, and not smoke again. Addicts supposedly have to 'hit bottom' before they can effectively decide to quit. I don't know whether that is true or not, but if t is true, then your addict will be in a critical situation whenever he decides to quit. (I haven't smoked in at at least 22 years, but periodically I really, really want to buy a pack and light up.)
What, by the way, is the critical point you want to find in this discussion?
The crucial point that I want to find is about the nature of free will and when it can be taken away. We already know that a person does not have free will when he is forced to do something. If a heroin addict cannot choose not to use once he has everything already prepared, then there's something that can take away your free will besides force. We've made a discovery! On the other hand, if we believe that the heroin addict does have a choice, in the situation mentioned, we might conclude that free will can only be taken away by force.
A doctor at a rehab clinic told me once, talking about ger position on letting addicts leave the clinic before they're ready:
"You wouldn't let a patient with broken legs try to walk out of a hospital, so we shouldn't let people with broken brains try and negotiate their own lives."
In theory, addicts have all the parts of a brain that are necessary for free will, but in practice, they're broken.
How "free" do you think "free will" is? It doesn't seem to be an absolute condition. It is more often constrained than not.
The heroin [or other substance] addicted person may not have been free to be indifferent to a drug, if his or her brain was so composed that it was very susceptible to addiction. A portion of the population may be predisposed to addiction.
Some people are more risk-averse; others are risk tolerant. Which of the two responses to risk one prefers may be biological or learned at an early age. So, if one is risk averse, equipment free mountain climbing will not be an activity they can be freely chosen. Some people are thrifty "by nature" (the trait appears early on) and others are not. Thrift may not be freely chosen. We like to think that our virtuous acts and other people's wickedness are freely chosen.
So you or I, virtuous people both, can freely choose to be good. Can we freely choose to perform acts we consider evil? Could we, for instance, freely decide to blow up a building and kill everyone inside? I have my doubts. In order for us to make such a choice, we would have to undergo considerable desensitization training. Having undergone such training, we might no longer be as free willed as we once were.
In summation: "free will" might be a useless concept in the real world of a million confounding factors.
Firstly, what do you mean by "will" and consequently "free will"?
Not to speak for him bit I'd say "will" refers to the intent/directedness/conscious motivation driving actions, and "free" refers to the opposite of causal determinism.
The cravings will almost always be there, along with obsessive behaviors (depending on the drug of choice).
That being the case, then it's not that we ever lack free will. Instead, there seems to be a lack of the necessary response to alleviate the problem being faced. In this way, 'being forced into something' is just a consequence of lack of better choices to make. I think it would be better to blame it on our limited intelligence because it seems like we always have free will.
For example, if someone held a gun to my face and demanded that I give whatever is in my pockets, I would still have the free will to respond to them and beg them not to shoot while I complied with their demands. On the other hand, if I was suicidal and determined that this was a good way to tempt fate, I may decide to disobey. Still, in any case, there seems to be a number of ways my free will would manifest.
Usually I find that it's not that we don't have free will, but that people have a notion that free will is analogous to omnipotence.
Well, some people claim that you never have free will with respect to how I characterized it. And I'd say that definitely you don't have free will when it comes to some things--it is possible to be forced to do some things.
I would say that we always have free will except that, at times it's not enough to overcome the limitations present in certain situations. It's just like having money but not enough to buy what one wants.
You don't believe in causality at all?
Or in other words, having a free will is a dynamic process, not an absolute as professed here.
I do. But, human energies, free will included, are factors in causality as well. Free will doesn't negate causality.
It's the other way around. Causality negates free will as I defined it because we're talking about causal determinism, not the opposite of causal determinism.
I would say that, unless our free will is absolute, it factors into causal determinism.
Okay, but that's different than how I defined it, no?
Perhaps... :chin:
I don't think I can really produce a hard and fast definition, but I'll try anyways.
By "will" I mean the power in you to do things. By "free will" I mean you have the power to do things and you have a choice on whether or not you do certain actions.
There are thousands of examples you can create where your will is challenged. The heroin addict's will is tested minute by minute. Regardless, he has a free will.
Does a person who lives a healthy lifestyle exhibit free will, or are they enslaved by an irresistible compulsion to eat well and exercise?
I don't remember whether this was a fictitious example or a true story, but either way, it's possible for this to happen. You can force someone to experience certain sensory perceptions by manipulating portions of their brain. You can certainly change someone's disposition through torture, medication, indoctrination, etc.
I don't believe we would respond correctly to environmental stimuli, and by correct I mean conducive to survival, if we had free will.
A free will is not judged by the actions one takes; but, rather by the things that can be resisted from doing. So, therefore, if I can't resist the urge to light up a cigarette or take heroin, does that really count as not having a free will?
That is a direct contradiction.
How so? I know I am professing sophistry here; but, it seems like the only logical conclusion to be had here.
I mean, isn't it a contradiction to say that one has a free will; but, can't resist the cravings for shooting some heroin?
I think we always have free will at all times and in all situations. The limiting factor is whether we see fit to use it with respect to the outcome we want. To use the money metaphor again, sometimes having free will is like having money which may not be enough (or perhaps it may be undermined by priority) in providing for the things one wants. The bottom line is you have it. Whether or not it accomplishes one's goals is a different matter.
They may be victims of their natural history. Children raised to like fruits and vegetables are doomed to a lifetime of broccoli, apples, rutabagas, kiwi, and carrots. Seriously. As Alexander Pope put it, “Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.” Children raised on junk food are not all that free to become vegans (even though Twinkies are a kind of perverted vegan food-like substance).
Similarly with exercise. The 40 year old who has been a couch potato for life will need a great deal of free will indeed to become fit. Our lives, so far, have a deterministic influence on our lives to come. The deterministic weight depends on various factors, just as free will does.
I wasn't a couch potato when I was in school, but I was in my mid-twenties when I got interested in fitness. I had enough will (freely exercised) to jog, do calisthenics, swim laps, and bicycle, but I couldn't overcome 25 years of doing no particular body building exercise.
Twinkies contain beef fat!
Personally, I prefer NutterButters and GS Thin Mints to satisfy my vegan munchies :wink:
Thank you for your deep understanding Hanover. I genuinely appreciate your empathy when it comes to understanding how absolutely touch and go it is for every man or woman, day after day, hour after hour.
My only saving grace when it comes to Opiate addiction is that I am afraid of needles and that is enough for me to leave my own dragon slayed with the pill form. The thing is: that dragon never dies and I am keenly aware of how fortunate I am to not have my addiction available to me in the way that an alcoholic must face their addiction everywhere they turn. From tradition to religious reasons, alcohol is a heavy thread in the makeup of the fabric of our country and I am doing everything in my power to make sure that is not the fate of the opiates/heroin phenomenon.