Laura Coleman

The Relationship Between Biology and Free Choice

The ability to communicate through language is an innate mechanism, according to Pinker, an automatic impulse that is not taught but rather appears spontaneously in every person.¹ Damasio believes that consciousness is also innate, and that humans inherently possess the ability to know themselves in every action they perform, that it is they and not someone else who is walking, talking, eating, reading, or executing any other action in life.² The mere fact that these aspects of human existence are already formed and present at birth is incredibly significant, for it means that the mind is not a blank slate, but instead that there are preprogrammed pathways and connections in human brains that at the very least ensure that we will speak in some sort of language, understandable or not, and that we will know it is us who is speaking, that the words and thoughts behind them are our own.

It is precisely here at which the question of free will enters the picture, assuming that we accept Pinker’s argument about an innate language instinct, convinced by his examples that humans, bound by a fixed set of grammar rules and an essentially consistent set of words, can construct brand-new sentences effortlessly, and that babies, who first speak with unintelligible sounds, soon grow into toddlers who can form grammatically correct sentences without any formal teaching.³ It is also assumed that we put faith in Damasio’s belief of innate consciousness, understanding his breakdown of consciousness into both the simplest core level and the most complex extended level.⁴ Consciousness is a key player in how we react emotionally to different situations, for while it allows us to recognize our own existence, it also allows us to recognize the existence of others, hence the two levels. Accepting the validity of innate capacities for language and consciousness, we must now examine how free will also plays a role in our actions and the implications of the discovery of preexisting innate mechanisms within the brain on society and on the use of free will itself.

Free will has long been heralded as fundamental to civilization, for it is the concept around which our laws, our values, and our lives are patterned. It is assumed that while everyone has the opportunity and the ability to break laws, most will exercise free choice in deciding to stick with the straight-and-narrow path, and those who do not will be appropriately punished. At the same time, it is also assumed that individuals will choose to live a moral lifestyle and act in accordance with society’s values. Without the belief in freedom to choose our actions, society would lose any semblance of control over the population, for any action could be blamed on a predetermined mechanism, and the notion of responsibility for one’s deeds ceases to exist. Discovering that the brain does harbor inherent abilities is the first crack in the foundation of free will upon which society is built; it begs the question of whether other actions are also innate, and if so, how do we continue to promote free will as the deciding factor in determining who is considered a law-abiding citizen and who sits in jail when there might actually be a predetermined neurological apparatus for someone’s illegal action.⁵

It seems that we are already on our way to shifting responsibility from ourselves to the brain, as evidenced in our attribution of certain characteristics and effects to various chemicals, like testosterone.⁶ Though this chemical has traditionally been described as the essential ingredient of manliness and masculinity, it is sometimes forgotten that females also possess this hormone in their chemical make-up, albeit it in a much smaller quantity. While it is crucial to recognize that many different biological factors are involved in distinguishing men from women, testosterone does create its share of differences between the sexes. Men are known to be stronger, more competitive, more aggressive, and have higher sexual drives than women, and these differences can be traced to testosterone.⁷ However, there is an enormous distinction between the effects of a drug on a person and his or her corresponding effects on society. Although testosterone and aggression may be directly related, the idea of free will mandates that an individual control his aggression, even though he has no control over its heightened state. Perhaps the most important aspect of free will is acknowledging that biology is not a staunch supporter of the concept. Human biology creates emotions, feelings, and even actions that are incredibly difficult, if not impossible, in the case of a language instinct, to avoid acting on. Biology plays by its own rules, but to eliminate freedom of choice is actually counterproductive to biology’s goal, which overall, is to maintain life.

As stated earlier, free will is the backbone of the world’s legal system, which coincidentally shares the same goal as biology, to keep its population alive and prosperous. However, since the world does not have chemicals and hormones at its ready disposal to inject into every member of the population, it must rely on a different method: yes, you guessed it, free will. So while biology and free will might seem to be enemies, each work for the same higher purpose, only through different methods. Biology would have men engage in sexual relations with every female they see, resulting in billions of babies and therefore guaranteeing a new generation of life and continuing the process of evolution. Free will, though, specifies that men control this sexual urge and instead procreate only with consenting women, infinitely reducing the potential number of babies born, but resulting in a new generation nonetheless. If a man gives in to this reproductive urge, he is promptly jailed for rape. On the other hand, increased competitiveness and aggressiveness among males has potential detrimental effects for biology; if left to run amok, overly aggressive males might fight with anyone they saw as a threat to their superiority, which could lead to a high death rate and a smaller population. But free will rushes to biology’s rescue, as it again mandates control over these aggressive feelings, thereby maintaining peace among the masses and keeping the population level at a higher rate.

To further clarify the relationship between free will and biology, they not only are not enemies, but in effect, they cannot exist without each other. Should biology become overzealous and shortsighted in its quest to continue the evolutionary process, free will tries its best to compensate, promoting control over biologic impulses; while this does slow the process of procreation, it helps it along nevertheless. Also, if procreation were allowed to happen at the rapid rate that it would if biology were king, the population would grow so large in such a short time that progress and technology would most likely not be able to keep up, and the Earth, already of finite size, would quickly become overwhelmed. Yet again, the best effort at preserving humanity and ensuring future generations appears to be living both with biology and free will, using one to keep the other in balance.

Biology and free will also demonstrate their symbiotic relationship in the case of a language instinct, which figures enormously into the choices and consequences that result from free will. In exercising free will and the right to choose, we rely almost completely on the opinions of others, accepted facts, and analyses of results of previously made choices to shape our decisions; these opinions, facts, and analyses are made known to us through language, either in the printed media or through verbal communication. History is one great analysis of choices, describing the consequences of various peoples’ decisions and how they shaped future events, but language is the only reason for which we have this knowledge. Language, both in written and verbal form, preserves history so that current and future generations are able to learn from past mistakes and triumphs and use that knowledge to shape their own decisions. Without language, the past essentially does not exist, for if it is unrecorded, it dies with the last person who lived it and serves no purpose for future generations.

Language is also the catalyst behind discovering new choices and options when making a decision, for it is through the language of others that original ideas and perspectives can be added to existing thoughts. When deciding to buy a computer, for example, one consults printed articles describing the capabilities of different models, friends who share their experiences with their own computers, and perhaps even a salesman, with persuasive arguments for and against certain brands, all in addition to one’s own personal preferences. Language becomes knowledge, for it allows ideas and opinions that otherwise would exist only in one person’s mind to be heard by countless numbers of people. Whether or not one of these people uses the ideas and opinions in making a decision is trivial, for the importance lies in the fact that he or she had access to these ideas and opinions as a result of language. This new knowledge increases the amount of choices that one has and can reveal options that we had not previously considered. With the computer example, the opinions of the articles, friends, and salesman, expressed to us through language, enlighten us to information about different computers that we could not have had otherwise; again, whether we take into account these opinions or whether we buy a computer solely because we like its red exterior is irrelevant. Language broadened our knowledge about the different computers, creating the possibility for it to affect our final choice.

Language’s important effect on free choice can not be overstated, for it is the primary way through which we are made aware of the options from which we must choose. Without it, our concept of free will would be limited to choosing between options known only to us in our minds, eliminating outside influences and taking away the past, a valuable source of information about possible outcomes of different choices. We could not learn from others’ mistakes, for we would not know about those blunders, and therefore progress would be severely impeded because our original narrow range of options and our increased tendency to make errors, due to lack of hindsight. Language is not only crucial to free will, it is crucial to our advancement as a species, as it facilitates innovation and the combining of various minds, each with their own ideas and opinions, to create something greater than one individual could have created on his own.