Why Buridan s Ass Doesn t Starve

Does free will exist? Michael Hauskeller reasons about reasons.

Imagine you go to a restaurant. Looking at the menu, you discover that they serv
e your two favourite meals say asparagus and spinach tart. What will you do? You
may hesitate for a while, but then you will make your choice. You have to make
a choice, don t you? Even if you re hungry or greedy enough to order both, you have
to decide which to eat first.
Now, how do you decide? Given that you like both equally, why do you choose, say
, spinach tart, and not asparagus? There are two possible general answers. You c
an say either that:
a) There is no reason (no cause) for your choice. You just act, and you could eq
ually well choose the other meal. Or:
b) There is a reason, but it s unknown to you.
The second answer seems more plausible, because it accords with a principle that s
fundamental to the way we think. This principle is commonly called Leibniz s Law,
or the Principle of Sufficient Reason. It can be stated in various ways:
Nihil sine ratione: Nothing is without a reason.
Nothing happens without a sufficient reason/cause.
For each event A there is another event B (or a combination of events) that prec
edes it and fully explains why A had to happen.
Ex nihilo nihil fit: Nothing comes out of nothing.
This principle is an expression of our inability to believe that something could
just spring into existence or happen without a cause. Imagine that a glass on a
table suddenly exploded. Even if you don t have the slightest idea what caused th
e glass to behave in that manner, you ll still assume that something must have cau
sed it. If it isn t necessary that events are caused by something, then anything w
ould be possible. But if anything were possible, then we couldn t act anymore, bec
ause in order to act effectively, we must be able to trust in the reliability of
causal relations. So we re certain that there s a reason why the glass exploded. An
d if there s nothing else, we will rather believe in supernatural causes than beli
eve there s no cause at all. We are certain that something must have caused it, wh
atever it is.
The same holds with respect to human actions. When you go to the restaurant and
choose spinach tart, there must be a reason for your choice, we feel. Perhaps yo
u don t feel like asparagus today. Why? Perhaps you had asparagus last week. Or pe
rhaps you feel that spinach tart goes better with the wine you ve already ordered.
But of course, there would have been reasons to choose asparagus instead (eg, y
ou like it very much). So the fact that you did not choose asparagus does not me
an that you had no reason for choosing it. Why then did you not choose it? Appar
ently because you didn t have enough reasons, or you only had reasons that weren t s
trong enough: the reasons in favour of spinach tart were stronger.
So let us presume that every reason has a certain weight. Imagine a pair of scal
es. On one scale we put all the reasons that make us inclined to choose spinach
tart, on the other, all the reasons in favour of asparagus. We then make our dec
ision according to which scale is heavier. Or rather, it is decided for us the s
cales decide. Or, imagine being a piece of iron, and each reason is a magnet pul
ling us in a certain direction. Some magnets pull us in this direction, others i
n that, and we move where the most or strongest magnets are.
Supposing that decisions are made in such a mechanical way, we can imagine a sit
uation where there s perfect equilibrium between the opposing reasons. Here, the w
eights on the scales are equal, or the magnets that pull you to one side are nei
ther stronger nor weaker than those which pull you in the other. What happens th
en? It seems that a rational decision would no longer be possible, because the r
easons for either option are balanced.
This is the situation of Buridan s Ass, named after philosopher John Buridan (1300
-1358). A donkey finds himself halfway between two equally big and delicious pil
es of hay. Because he lacks a reason to choose one over the other, he cannot dec
ide which one to eat, and so starves to death. This tale is usually taken as dem
onstrating that there is no free will; and indeed, it is plausible to ask whethe
r or not free will is possible in such a situation.
In a normal food situation, where there is no perfect equilibrium between opposi
ng reasons, a donkey will be able to move towards food because he has a reason t
o do so. But here it is unclear whether he moves because he freely wills it or b
ecause he is simply pulled in this direction. He wouldn t really decide to eat, bu
t rather would be driven by his hunger and the availability of food. (At least t
hat is how it could be, because a donkey having its strings pulled is indistingu
ishable from a donkey that decides for himself.) In other words: what the donkey
does he could do without free will. He simply doesn t need it. And often we don t,
either. As long as there are reasons to do one thing rather than another, free w
ill is dispensable as an explanatory principle.
To find out whether you re really free, you d have to be in a situation where no rea
son is stronger than any other a situation like the one in which Buridan s unfortu
nate ass finds himself. If you re able to make a decision in such a balanced situa
tion, you d thereby demonstrate the freedom of your will. Buridan s ass isn t able to
decide, so his will is obviously not free. But then, Buridan s ass is a mere ficti
on. How about real donkeys? If we could find a donkey which was dumb enough to s
tarve between two bales, we would have evidence against free will, at least as f
ar as donkeys are concerned (or at least that particular donkey). But that s not v
ery likely. No matter how artfully we arrange the situation, a donkey will not h
esitate very long, if at all, and will soon choose one of the piles of hay. He d
oesn t care which, and he certainly won t starve. However, even if we conducted thou
sands of experiments like this, and no donkey ever starved, we would still not h
ave proved the existence of free will, because the reason no donkey ever starves
in front of two equally attractive piles of hay may simply be that those piles
aren t really equally attractive. Perhaps in real life there aren t any situations w
here the weighted reasons for a choice are equal.
Of course there are situations where we have difficulties in making up our minds
(we sometimes have those difficulties, but not donkeys). This is often the case
when much depends on our decision. But in the end we will decide one way or the
other, even if only because the lapse of time changes the situation. Buridan s as
s starves because he s imagined as timeless, as somehow removed from the passage o
f time. He s frozen in a situation where there s only him and the two piles of hay.
Yet since donkeys live in time, no donkey will ever starve because he lacks free
will.
Prof. Michael Hauskeller 2010
Michael Hauskeller is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Exe
ter.
No animals were harmed in the making of this article.
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