The everyday reality of free will.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
In his new book, The Science of Free Will , Roy Baumeister, professor of psychology at The University of Queensland, discusses three studies that asked college students and adults what they think it means to have free will . The themes that emerged were essentially, “making a choice and not being constrained or coerced,” and surprising to me, “thinking about the future, as in planning.” That is, “pondering future events relevant to the present choice.”
I wondered if free will really is at play in making the decision to have a baby. Initially, it seems so. But because we are social creatures, how much of the decision to have a child or a second or third child is influenced by our friends, family, culture or practical circumstances. How exactly does free will operate when making major life decisions?
I contacted Dr. Baumeister looking for clarity. In defining free will he noted, “I follow the scientific definition, which is free will is the ability to act differently in the same situation.” In an email exchange, I asked him to explain how he understood the free will-baby connection and how free will applies when making other significant decisions.
Q: Can deciding family size or making the leap from having one child to two or more be a free will decision?
“Yes, of course. Obviously it is not always such: Not all pregnancies are intentional. Sometimes the precautions fail and the woman finds herself pregnant but not by any choice of hers or her partner’s. No free will there, or only in relation to having the relationship and sex .
If the pregnancy is because of failure of birth control, or impulsive mistake, it is not free will. But sometimes, and I think ideally, the man and the woman decide they want a child, and they make love without contraception [trying to conceive]. That would be free will, very different from the unplanned and unwanted pregnancy.
Adoption is nearly always a product of free will, I should think. If the second child is adopted, that is almost always a result of deliberate, conscious decision by the parents.”
Q: How does free will play into the decision to have a baby when we’re influenced by many outside factors—such as age, financial situation, family history, and what your friends are doing?
“Some scientists think of free will as being independent of all outside factors, unaffected and uninfluenced by any of them. I agree that there is no free will if you define it that way.
However, we evolved to react better and better to our environment, so we (and our offspring) can thrive. For that, we need to know the outside factors, understand them, and deal with them. Above all, we have to make the choices that will bring the best results for ourselves and our loved ones, within our world and our present situation. And that requires us to understand the external factors really well.
Deciding whether to have a child is complicated, much more so now than in previous centuries. Birth control is a triumph of culture over nature, and its value is precisely that of letting individuals use their free will to decide whether to have another child.
Money might plausibly have more impact on the second child decision than the first, if couples conceive the first child heedless of money, but then realize the importance of money and so include it in the decision about the second.”
Q: In what way can understanding free will make a decision like this easier?
“It is important to understand how life will change. I recall a parent considering whether to have a third child, and considering the structural change. In sports terms, he put it, henceforth it would all be zone defense. With two parents and two children, the man-to-man strategy would still work—in this situation you take the daughter and I’ll take the son. Once there are three children, the parents are outnumbered, and since it is not viable to leave one child unattended, it is necessary to have systems by which the two parents can manage all three children. To get some benefit, understand how free will operates, and put those into practice.”
Baumeister noted:
- Free will means considering the future and understanding your options.
- Free will includes ideas and meaning. Consider your values. What do you think is important in life? What is most rewarding now— career , hobbies, family? In 20 or 30 years, when you look back, what will you be most pleased about or what will you regret the most?
- Free will involves your place in society. Do you want to stick with one child and put more of your life and energy into other pursuits? Or do you want to participate in society that much more as a parent, contributing to the next generation?
- Free will also depends on the brain’s executive function . That requires energy, which gets depleted. So do not make the final decision about whether to have another child when your mental energy, your willpower , is low.
- We should not think of free will in terms of yes-or-no, but on a continuum. Having children is less free than other decisions, probably swept along by some emotional distortion and impulsive feeling. The solution is to register how you’re feeling at present but postpone the final decision. If you still feel that way, and want to have another child after waiting a period of time, then you should move ahead.
Getting a good result
Whether you are wrestling with family size, or making another impactful decision, consider everything that’s behind that choice. Taking it all in, “acting on their inner wishes and preferences, not being constrained by others, being morally responsible, and getting a good result,” he writes in his book, “that’s the everyday reality of free will for most people.”