In Edwardian times there were many groups promoting ‘Free Thinking.’ And when I first engaged in its study, most of the people behind it appeared to be driven by a belief that what they called ‘Religious thinking,’ restricted peoples’ mind and that, the new sciences of psychology and psychiatry were showing that the brain had options not explored by the old obstructive notions of ancient myths and religions. To promulgate ‘Free Thinking,’ Societies were formed in mostly Christian countries whose national identities and philosophies were based on the culture of the ancient Greeks and Romans. These Societies published books, and a popular topic of debate was a question that had been discussed in ancient Greece by Miletus. “Are human thoughts and actions determined, or are humans capable of free will?”
Obviously discussion need not be just one or the other but possibly something in between but, because every generation finds reason to discuss this same notion in one form or another, I’ like to spend a few moments looking at the effect of choosing one side of the debate or the other?
Actually, an example of such a choice occurred in January when Sky News carried an ‘exclusive’ answer as to which side of that debate the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) would come down, when Andrew Goddard its President announced that, “Until obesity is recognised as a disease, rather than a lifestyle choice, its prevalence is unlikely to be reduced”. He went on, ‘We’ve come to realise obesity isn’t a lifestyle choice – it’s something people have a genetic predisposition to and it depends on the environment we live in.’ adding ‘Recognising it as a disease allows people to see they have a disease and reduces the stigma of having obesity.”
His statement goes in an interesting direction. ‘The individual has no choice as to their genes and so, because the condition is one over which he has no control he cannot be responsible and so does not need to feel stigmatised by others. Although Mr Goddard does not say so, I assume that he would add a note to the effect that a person does however have some degree of control over how he responds to his own genetic predisposition. Otherwise his logic is that any human being who has a genetic predisposition to something or other (that’s all of us) could claim that we are victims of our genes and not responsible for what we think or say or do.
Medical associations, which are generally kindly disposed to the sick and suffering, particularly need to be cautious when medicalising a human condition. A predisposition by any of us to just one trait within the whole range of human attributes is surely normal, and as such is within the scope of an individual to develop, or neglect that attribute or trait at will. (Think of the parable of the talents) All too often we see experts analysing human behaviour in ways that reduce the subject; whether it be Patient, Client, Customer or Defendant in the dock, to little more than a bundle of genes in need of the special expertise of the person who has described the condition. Experts, if not careful, might eventually cause ordinary folk to ask, “What will happen when everybody abrogates responsibility for their own actions once you have made us victims by taking away the idea that we have free will?
Every January I update a new NFU pocket diary with contact details and although I have simplified the task by using a computer list which I shrink down into columns prior to printing, there is a problem.
It is easy to add new people, but it is difficult to erase details of family, friends and old colleagues who have died. I simply do not want to let them go. Their names are not just in a box in my brain but are spread around by thousands of linkages called memories. To delete them would be to rip out all the connections and the internal wiring of the mind. They are integrated into the operation of my mind and I do not want to consider their not being there. So I choose to keep them alive in the mind and in the diary. However, as each year passes their numbers grow and so some must fade away. Those who shaped the best of me will however, never die. I suppose every reader has a list of those so precious they cannot be let go but, at the same time, accepts the reality of a growing distance between the Then and the Now. ‘What was, is not what now is.’
I hope readers will not mind if I close this rather reflective article with a statement of personal belief. Unlike some free thinkers in the RCP whose philosophy would fix individuals to the inevitabilities of their genetic past, “I believe that we have been made free and have free will.”
A common saying is, “Where there is a will there is a way,” and its efficacy was demonstrated during a recent police cadet examination when, to the question, ‘What would you do if you had to arrest your own mother?’ one bright applicant replied,
Call for backup
View from the Pew 