How can one reconcile Free Will and Depression

December 11, 2006 6:00 PM

Does the current paradigm of Mental Illness having an underlying physical and biological basis (say, due to a chemical imbalance) negate the concept of Free Will? Also, where can one read more on this issue?
posted by sk381 to Health & Fitness (23 answers total)

Does the current paradigm of Mental Illness having an underlying physical and biological basis (say, due to a chemical imbalance) negate the concept of Free Will?

No. The only thing that is implied is that our mental state can be and frequently is affected by chemicals.

Any recreational drug user can tell you that, as can anyone who hasn't had enough to eat recently.
posted by tkolar at 6:18 PM on December 11, 2006

I don't see any connection between physical/biological explanations of mental illnesses and free will. Chemical imbalances and trauma can alter judgment, inhibition, and decision making. Those are crucial to free will.

Is this a question about determinism?
posted by cyclopticgaze at 6:42 PM on December 11, 2006

BTW, an interesting read on the topic is Listening to Prozac. It doesn't directly address free will, but it does talk about what it means to be "you" if the experience of being "you" can be so dramatically changed by altering the chemical balance in your brain.
posted by tkolar at 6:49 PM on December 11, 2006 [1 favorite]

we have always known that chemicals affect our moods. In fact, this is the crux of the problem of determinism from the start: we seem to be made of purely physical elements, which presumably have to follow strict deterministic rules, so where can the will fit in? We used to refer to black bile and phlegm, and now we talk about seratonin, but the overall paradigm actually hasn't changed that much. We have a lot more of the detailed chemical facts and can fabricate substances more closely correlated to those that occur naturally, but the difficulty of reconciling the physical actuality and the mental experience is just as frustrating as ever.

We know that ingesting substances changes your mood, but we also know that somehow the body produces substances that change mood on its own; the fact that you can will yourself to do anything without taking any pills throws a wrench in the physically deterministic system - yes, the chemicals are there, behaving in a certain way, but what caused them to go into action? Why does watching a sad movie get the sad chemicals going? It's not because of light waves bouncing into electric currents or something. The middleman is knowledge or awareness. How that fits into the equation is still not understood. You could theoretically artificially inject anti-sad chemicals to counterbalance this, but it wouldn't explain the original phenomenon.
posted by mdn at 6:49 PM on December 11, 2006

Here are two previous
AskMes on similar questions.

There are lots of similar questions at Ask Philosophers.org, with short answers from professional philosophers. That first link is to all of the "freedom" questions. Here are some additional questions that might be of interest to you: one, two, three, four, five.

Your question is basically, if the mind is physical, then do we have free will? The question of how to understand human free will has been hotly debated for many centuries in western philosophy, so any answer here will be incomplete. The first thing to note is this: physical systems are not deterministic, as far as our best science tells us right now. That means random, possibly even uncaused, events sometimes occur. Even having said this, though, we might still wonder whether mere randomness is enough to guarantee that we have real free will. After all, our actions/beliefs might be caused by random events, but that wouldn't seem to give us control over them in the sense that we want when we say we want "free will". At this point in the discussion, there are two options: either we do somehow have the kind of control/freedom that we want (and feel like we have!), or we don't. Most philosophers think we do have freedom -- and some of these slightly modify the definition of "freedom" to achieve this result -- but some philosophers accept that we just don't have freedom or control over our own actions/beliefs in the way it feels like we do.

It's a tricky and interesting problem. In the first AskMe that I linked, I recommended a couple of philosophy books and a serious philosophy article in an online philosophy encyclopedia, if you want to take on some pretty heavy reading on this subject.
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:03 PM on December 11, 2006

The concept of "free will" arose out of theological debates, and while some people think it has gained independent meaning it really hasn't - it carries a lot of theological baggage.
posted by MonkeySaltedNuts at 7:15 PM on December 11, 2006

"the fact that you can will yourself to do anything without taking any pills throws a wrench in the physically deterministic system" -MDN

I find that more than a little erm insulting. I suffer from (depending on who you ask) either sever unipolar depression or light bipolar II, and I assure you, I CANNOT "will myself" to feel un-depressed. If I could, I'd happily will myself to stop, you know, being miserably exhausted, sick, apathetic, nauseous and apathetic all the time and will myself into actually wanting to be alive. On a less personal level, I think your comment shows amateur-ism at best, can a person will themselves bipolar-free or schizophrenia-free anymore than he/she/it can will him/her/it-self cancer free?

Or do you honestly believe I can will the "demons" out of my head if I'd just Try. A. Little. Harder.

Philosophically, I don't see a disastrous intersection between Free Will and Mental Illness, but that may come from the fact that as along as I can remember, I see Mental Illness as part of myself, part of me that "wills" decisions. I guess what I am saying is that I don't believe in or feel the existence of a "me" that makes decisions without reference to, influence by or character of being so depressed I don't want to get out of bed. "Me" hates loud noises, being awake, getting out of bed, doing stuff, happy situations where I am expected to act like I care, etc. (I know, I understand that sounds really lamely stereotypical, but it's simply true). So if you alleviated the depression, would the happy decisions be free will?

I don't think so, not if it was artificial, not if it wasn't, uhhh, "me".
posted by bunnycup at 7:18 PM on December 11, 2006

You might also be interested in Against Depression, a later book by the Listening to Prozac guy.

I don't think depression alters one's behavior nearly deeply enough to be an argument against free will. It does pretty much blow away the sort of dualist idea of a mental homunculus existing in a pristine plane of pure thought and operating the meat-puppet body. But as tkolar and mdn point out, so do hunger and libido.
posted by hattifattener at 7:23 PM on December 11, 2006

Response by poster: Your question is basically, if the mind is physical, then do we have free will?

Yes, that was what I had intended to ask. And thank you for the links.
posted by sk381 at 8:04 PM on December 11, 2006

Your original statement is wrong. It is not the case that all mental illness is currently believed to be physical/biologically caused or determined. (For instance, post-traumatic stress disorder is thought to be almost entirely the result of environmental stimuli.)
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 8:12 PM on December 11, 2006

I find that more than a little erm insulting. I suffer from (depending on who you ask) either sever unipolar depression or light bipolar II, and I assure you, I CANNOT "will myself" to feel un-depressed.

I meant, 'do anything' in the sense of, 'even one thing', not in the sense of 'everything', as clearly you cannot will yourself to do everything you wish to (issues of depression or compulsion aside, there are plenty of simply impossible things people may wish to do). The point is, pure determinism is hard to defend because there must be an internal cause of some kind, and if the cause is conscious, then you have free will. The fact that there is an internal cause or 'source of the self' is really the confusing thing. But to get around that you would have to have the theory that there are two separate parts of the self, a pre-programmed cause that reacts according to code, and an observing consciousness that has no effect. But then we would not cry at sad movies.

In other words, I think the free will problem is kind of a red herring. Free will is perfectly cromulent once you accept organized conscious entities. The real problem is consciousness and unity... (as I've said before)

The original issue of whether this fact that sometimes you can't seem to will everything you wish to, does not create a new problem - on the simplest level, the "passions" were originally so named because they were "passive", which is to say, not the result of the will, which is why in medieval philosophy the will is always the "rational will". So the idea that feeling sad is not something you can control is, again, not a new paradigm. The difference is partly terminology (we used to be "melancholy" because our "bodily humors were out of balance" while now we're "depressed" because we have a "chemical imbalance"), partly treatment (it used to be about seasides, diet, and various natural remedies, while now we have a research industry devoted to man-made remedies), but it is really not a philosophical shift.
posted by mdn at 8:16 PM on December 11, 2006

Speaking as someone who was once on antidepressants, I personally feel that the concept and debate about free will is unchanged by medications.
What does change when you adjust brain chemistry is the relative values and importance of the stimuli around you.
For example, before I was on the medication, I would shy away from speaking to strangers. I based this decision on my own feelings of fear and anxiety over the repercussions of my actions. On the medication, the weightings of these feelings were shifted, I was less worried and less afraid, thus swaying my decision towards being more outgoing.
You could make the argument that by shifting the weightings of risk/reward, the medication changes your mind and forces you into certain paths. I would argue instead that it is merely the perception of the world that changes, but the final decision still lies within the individual.
posted by Pink Fuzzy Bunny at 8:23 PM on December 11, 2006

Response by poster: Your original statement is wrong. It is not the case that all mental illness is currently believed to be physical/biologically caused or determined. (For instance, post-traumatic stress disorder is thought to be almost entirely the result of environmental stimuli.)

So could depression (and other mental disorders?) But the underlying mechanisms would still be chemical in nature.
posted by sk381 at 8:43 PM on December 11, 2006

"Your question is basically, if the mind is physical, then do we have free will?"

Sort of: within the parameters defined by our physical forms, inherited characteristics, the influences our diets and our societies have, etc., yes of course we have free will. We just can't will ourselves to fly by flapping our arms -- at least we can't fly UP.

"(For instance, post-traumatic stress disorder is thought to be almost entirely the result of environmental stimuli.)"

I thought it was by the effect of the stressful stimuli on the chemicals and sometimes physical structure of the brain. Cortisol, according to what I remember reading in the New York Times years ago. You can be "driven crazy" in other words, and shit that happens can break your brain. (Paging ikkuyu2!)
posted by davy at 9:41 PM on December 11, 2006

You should read Thomas Szasz (not because I think he's right, but because he's dedicated a good chunk of his life to arguing exactly the proposition you're questioning). Szasz argues that the biological model of mental illness negates the possibility of free will. Because he believes that free will does exist, he ascribes to mental functioning a kind of causal exceptionalism, in which human reasoning and behavior are privileged over all other natural phenomena because they cannot be explained by mere biology.

The Myth of Mental Illness provides a good explanation for Szazs' beliefs about free will. There's also a wealth of information, both positive and negative, on the internet about his beliefs.
posted by decathecting at 10:12 PM on December 11, 2006

You might be interested in this post I made to Metafilter in September, about free will and ultimate moral responsibility. Also look through the free will articles at naturalism.org - they are biased towards one viewpoint but I think you'll find them interesting.

The main problem for free will is that it is logically impossible for events to occur that are not caused, random, or some combination of the two. This means that not only do we not have free will, but nobody anywhere can ever have it. The impact of progress in neuroscience is that it makes this basic truth harder to ignore.
posted by teleskiving at 4:13 AM on December 12, 2006

As a long time sufferer of Bi-polar disorder, I'm come to the conclusion that problems such as depression (and their treatments) are more an issue of capacity than of will.

Capacity is what you are able to do. Free will is what allows us to decide what to do. There is, of course, the question of whether or not what we decide to do or not is deterministic. But that's seems outside of the scope of your question. But it should be noted that very little of what we do in our daily lives actually constitutes will based action.

When someone throws a ball at your head, what do you do? Most people will instinctively try to catch. Free will has nothing to say about it. It would probably take a concerted effort, a specific act of will, to stop your hand from raising to catch the ball.

Psychoactives such as alchohol, lsd, pot, prozac, etc. affect your filters and your capacity. They may affect your ability to make sound decisions, but those decisions, sound or otherwise, are yours to make.

Consider this as an analogy: lets say you have a leg problem (like Dr. House) such that your leg is in absolutely excruciating pain all the time. If you take a specific pill, that pain goes away. When untreated, walking of any sort is almost, though not completely, impossible. You can do it, but it hurts so much, that fankly, you'd rather not. It's too hard. Regardless of what you want to do, you will probably limp around when necessary, but spend most of your time sitting.

If you're being chased by a monster from the 5th dimension, though, you'll probably run, pain or no. Will can, on occasion, overcome diminished capacity.

On the other hand, if you take the pill, the leg stops hurting completely. You are free to walk without hinderance or consequence. You capacity has changed. So, now your choice to run, walk or sit ceases to be a battle between will and capacity. You can do any as you choose.

Depression is a sort of mental anguish which makes doing anything difficult. And when the pain become such that your will can no longer overcome your diminished capacity, that's called clinical depression. Drugs such as prozac (and whatever all else) are designed to take that edge off, make it so that just getting out of bed doesn't hurt. They change your capacity and while this may affect your decisions (due to new possibilities) they don't change the fact that the decision is yours.
posted by jaded at 4:29 AM on December 12, 2006

Steven C. Den Beste: Your original statement is wrong. It is not the case that all mental illness is currently believed to be physical/biologically caused or determined. (For instance, post-traumatic stress disorder is thought to be almost entirely the result of environmental stimuli.)

Well, I see a bit more debate about how much biological and physical factors influence PTSD. And on the other hand, it is widely acknowledged that some environmental factors can influence clinical mood disorders. Not to mention that there is some evidence that both PTSD and mood disorders change brain structure and function. So 'round and 'round the circle we go. We are overdue for shifting these discussions to a systems approach rather than a strictly biology vs. environment approach.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 5:00 AM on December 12, 2006

It seems more likely that we don't have free will. At least not in the fluffy form it's normally portrayed.

There is a fair bit of evidence (empirical and a priori) that we don't have free will, and not really much to suggest we do, just a big lack of conscious awareness of how our awareness works - awareness isn't meta-aware - thus it feels like the beginning of the process and non-causal, yet would feel that way regardless of whether it was or wasn't the beginning.
posted by -harlequin- at 11:59 AM on December 12, 2006

Don't we have to define free will before we can decide if any particular individual has it? There are probably almost as many definitions as there are philosophers who have written on the topic (if not more).

In some definitions, free will is not presented as a binary condition, but a continuum. Accordingly, some indiviuals may have more or less free will than others. It certainly seems plausible to me that certain mental illnesses could diminish free will.

I got a lot out of both Elbow Room and Freedom Evolves, both by Daniel Dennett.
posted by thedward at 12:43 PM on December 12, 2006

So it's a matter of deciding how willful you're willing to be? Anyway, there is a ‘nonlinear dynamical way of thinking clinically’ you might find interesting. On depression, check out:

Heinrichs DW (2005). Antidepressants and the Chaotic Brain: Implications for the Respectful Treatment of Selves. Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 12.3: 215-257

its three commentaries:

Globus, G (2005). Nonlinear Dynamics at the Cutting Edge of Modernity: A Postmodern View. Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 12.3: 229-234

Wahman J (2005). Determined by Chaos: The Nonlinear Dynamics of Free Will. Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 12.3: 235-237

Kellert, SH (2005). The Uses of Borrowed Knowledge: Chaos Theory and Antidepressants. Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 12.3: 239-242

and Heinrichs’ response to the three commentaries:

Heinrichs, DW (2005). Chaos and Clinical Theory. Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 12.3: 243-246

On thinking about schizophrenia in nonlinear dynamical terms, check out:

Paulus MP, Braff DL (2003). Chaos and schizophrenia: does the method fit the madness? Biological Psychiatry 53:3-11

and its favorable response from a Maudsley psychiatrist:

Jones, H (2003). Regarding “Chaos and Schizophrenia: does the method fit the madness? Biological Psychiatry 54(6):661

I don't know if that helps any. It's just a suggestion.
posted by srs at 5:38 PM on December 12, 2006

So could depression (and other mental disorders?) But the underlying mechanisms would still be chemical in nature.

all "underlying mechanisms" are going to be physical, but the question is whether the mind has a causal relationship to the physical or is some kind of detached observer. If the mind is truly integrated and resultant from the organized chemicals, then why can the data received by the mind not in turn effect change back? If the mind is only a result and not an integrated aspect of the brain, then conscious information should have no impact on our behavior.

We can make a case for mechanical behavior in simple data reception, ie, a certain smell hits a receptor and causes a chain of activity that results in the animal pouncing, or whatever, but when symbolic data such as squiggles on a page can cause us to have intense responses, it seems clear the mind is involved in our activity. If the mind is both cause and effect of chemicals, that means that the fact that your emotions are physically manifest does not reduce them to mechanical determinism.

Although, one more time, emotions have never been considered under the domain of free will - any poet or philosopher in history can show you that.
posted by mdn at 8:13 PM on December 12, 2006

The main problem for free will is that it is logically impossible for events to occur that are not caused, random, or some combination of the two. This means that not only do we not have free will, but nobody anywhere can ever have it. - teleskiving

That's too quick, I think.
Consider seriously what we want out of free will.

Even if all events were caused, my choosing Froot Loops for breakfast today would still have been caused by previous mental states of mine (my hunger, my belief that Froot Loops are tasty and that there are some in the cupboard, etc). My mental states might be identical (or some complex kind of semi-identical) to physical states of my brain, but still my later actions were caused by my earlier ones.

This brings us to a real confusion at the heart of the question about free will. I've described a situation where my actions are caused by my beliefs. If that's not free will, then what would be?

This kind of consideration has led some philosophers to revise their ideas about what would count as "free will". In some of the links I gave above, you can look for "compatibilist" views to get a flavor of what such accounts look like.

In short, it's a difficult and interesting question, and one philosophers are still debating.
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:13 PM on December 12, 2006