A Clockwork Orange, an acclaimed film by Kubrick, asks us what it means for man to be free. Its protagonist lives a youth of what he calls "ultra-violence" where during the night he roams around with a gang of friends savagely beating who he pleases, stealing what he can, and generally being a curmudgeon. Eventually he accidentally murders someone, gets caught, and goes to prison. He wins release by agreeing to undergo a fictional two week behavior modification program which uses classical conditioning to force him into associating intense feelings of suffering with any violent or malicious act. He cannot willingly do wrong without excruciation. The film introduces a political dialogue surrounding his treatment where one party calls his state deprived of freedom and will, and the other ignores questions of will and claims that he is a better man as a result.
The question posed by the first party's assertion that he loses human freedom when compelled to action by psychological training is an interesting one. We are inclined to wonder whether he is free when so conditioned.
Several influential philosophers actually adopted views regarding freedom similar to the fictional dissidents of Clockwork Orange who find the protagonist not to be free. Locke for one argued essentially that to be free, we must do as we choose, which consists of picking our action, and also of having the ability to preform that action. This is interesting in the context of A Clockwork Orange because the film implies that were we psychologically trained to hate one act, then we would have our freedom, a freedom that we supposedly innately possess, abridged.
When our protagonist is trained not only to detest violence, but also the music playing while violent images are broadcast to him during his treatment, we are moved to feel outraged at the loss. The doctor overseeing him even has full capability to just flip the switch on the Beethoven, and thus save his subject the loss of something beautiful, but he chooses not to.
But why are we upset? We are upset because we have this belief that innately in us is the ability to, of our own volition, like classical music, hate classical music, and live as we see fit. Our perception of classical conditioning(1) as depriving us of this core freedom should set off warning bells in the context of freedom. Conditioning hardly stops when experimenting does. In the example of the doctor altering the movie's protagonist, we have this active entity that can be faulted for the process, but what of all the other times when we are so conditioned?
As I understand it, when we play a video game, win, receive praise, and then enjoy that game as a result, we are being conditioned. When we do something society conceives of as bad, are yelled at, and then avoid that action or feel guilty about it thereafter, we are being conditioned. When someone makes a comment on our clothing, and we associate that subconsciously into our perceptions of that item, we are being conditioned. This form of input determines how we respond to much of the world, and in this way our behavior is actively shaped by everything around us?
How does the omnipresence of conditioning matter for freedom? As you may have guessed, if we are going to say that an experiment removing someone's choice also takes away their liberty, then we never really were free. It seems that none of ou decision making criteria are free of the influence of condition. In the coming years, as our understanding of the human brain grows, it will be fascinating to find out just how deeply we are conditioned, but certainly to the extent that our sensibilities are purely products of experience, our actions are as inevitably determined as a rock's fall.
(1) As a simplified version, classical conditioning theory holds that when we experience something that innately makes us respond, like a strong flavor, in conjunction with something that doesn't, like someone whistling near us, eventually we will have responses that would normally accompany the flavor from hearing a whistler.
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