Humans as Animals Lacking Free-will

One of the most frequently discussed hypotheses in Straw Dogs is the idea that humans are lacking a radical separation from the animals. Gray’s main purpose behind reminding us of this seems to be rooted in one of the conclusions that allegedly follows from it: Namely, that free-will cannot exist if we believe the former to be true. Gray postulates that, in the world of Darwin, humans and animals alike are “products of chance and necessity,” and goes on to maintain that “we cannot choose to be what we are born. In that case, we cannot be responsible for what we do”^[1]  John Gray. Straw Dogs. 1st ed. N.p.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. Print. (65).. Therefore, one is not the author of his own actions; he has no free-will and thus can only react to external stimuli^[2]  Ibid.. This observation changes the entire outlook on life for Gray. Purpose becomes an invalid premise replaced by a single aim–to simply see ^[3]  Ibid. (199)..

The argument is a persuasive one, but if we look a little closer there seem to be some potential problems. Firstly, there is no account as to why we should believe that humans are no different from the animals. We are told that this follows from Darwin’s discoveries; however, this is not obvious and needs further explanation. For instance, Alvin Plantinga, a well respected contemporary philosopher, believes that evolution and free-will are compatible, as evidenced in his book God, Freedom, and Evil and his evolutionary argument against naturalism. He even goes so far as to state that it is not evolution and free-will that are incompatible, but evolution and naturalism.

Secondly, it is a leap in logic to say “we cannot choose to be what we are born.” Thus “we cannot be responsible for what we do.” Why not? It is not clear. This simply doesn’t follow by necessity and thus needs an additional premise or at minimum needs further explanation. It is possible that he is presupposing the inability of a free thing to be formed from a non-free thing. But it doesn’t seem clear that this is the case. In fact, from our experience, thinking of ourselves, it seems to be quite clear that free things can be formed from non-free things.

And lastly, the conclusion that life’s aim is merely to “see,” is a contradiction as Gray himself points out. “Other animals do not need a purpose in life. A contradiction to itself, the human animal cannot do without one.” So we discover that this aim to see, which has supposedly replaced life’s need for a purpose, is itself a purpose. Thus in Gray’s own words, and in the conclusion to Straw Dogs, no less, we find at least one clear distinction between animals and humans–humans need a purpose and animals do not.