the freedom to to act upon our will unencumbered. But what formed our “will” in the first place?
I don’t think the compatibilist, as such, is terribly worried about that question. Innumerable things play into forming that will; I can offer lots of particular factors, but I don’t think we are even close to being able to be specific and exhaustive. Some of those factors might even be non-mechanistic, like quantum uncertainty–but if that sort of randomness does have an effect on human behavior, it is still one of those givens that is antecedent to the agent’s choice.
“ It seems to me that the free-will described by compatibilism is the freedom to to act upon our will unencumbered. But what formed our “will” in the first place?” Exactly in order to have free will you’d need to be aware of every factor influencing your decision and in control of every factor influencing your decision neither of which are ever the case and thus it’s not possible to have free will as there’s always going to be some reason why you did what you did it’s like how Shopenhaur I think put it (this is a paraphrase) I can do whatever I will I just can’t will what I will.
Wait, Tomos, are you in favor of compatiblism? That’s how I read your last comment, but earlier I thought you were specifically rejecting it as inadequate and as playing semantic games (i.e., calling things free that aren’t). Not picking a fight, just trying to understand how the conversation is unfolding.
And even if we could control every factor influencing a certain decision we made (e.g. do I choose to eat chocolate or vanilla) what was behind our desire to control every factor influencing our decision.
I think that is an absolutely key problem with libertarian free will.
Oh no that’s cool I definitely didn’t think you were picking a fight! I’m definitely not in favour of compatibilism as you would be right in that I think it is playing semantic games a bit as the majority of people even libertarians would define free will as the ability to have done differently and I know that compatibilists themselves would say they couldn’t have done differently even if that’s not how they define free will and thus if they want to argue that free will is conscious action they can certainly do that but that’s not what the majority of people would say free will is.
“ I think that is an absolutely key problem with libertarian free will.”
I’m glad someone finally agrees with me as I have been trying to convince family and friends of this for ages but they all seem to think I’m mad as they don’t seem to understand that determinists aren’t arguing you can’t do whatever you want they’re just saying you can’t want what you want.
So I think the compatibilist justification would be that they aren’t so revisionist as the determinist is. They aren’t denying the basic accuracy of your experience of thinking about what to do and then doing it.
Your basic experience isn’t an illusion. You did think about what to do, weighing up various factors you thought relevant at the time, and you did settle on one, and that decision you reached really was the causal explanation for why you ended up doing what you did. It is just that the common explanation for this experience isn’t philosophically examined.
Let me put it this way: do you always do what–overall–seems, in the moment, best to you? If so, you are a determinist. If not, then why do you sometimes do what doesn’t seem best?
Maybe you will try to break the fork and say, sometimes nothing seems best; all available options seem, in all relevant respects, comparable. But that would introduce a whole new line of argument.
It seems to me the more spontaneous the choice the less free it was (and so the less imputable to the agent). Premeditated murder is generally reckoned more serious than spur-of-the-moment murder.
Moral theologians talk about semi-deliberate acts–those committed under pressure or with little deliberation–and they are by nature acts we are less responsible for (on the standard moral theologian reckoning which I think accords with common sense).
So, granted people act spontaneously, the more spontaneous the act, the less I think it is an act of free will.
“ I agree with Porphyry that this sounds like you are arguing against free will”
Oh Yh I am as I’m a determinist so I don’t think free will exists but I’m also not a compatibilist as I feel that in order to be one I’d need to redefine free will to something that I don’t consider anyway to be free will
An analytical model doesn’t really reflect human action to me. I think spontaneous free acts can also be very liberating.
My initial reaction is to say that liberating doesn’t mean free, but freeing–I don’t mean to be impertinent. I mean that deliberation is mentally exhausting, and so just getting the decision out of the way and committing so you can stop fretting over what to do can feel freeing–it frees you from the mental load and anxiety that comes with deliberating. But that seems like a completely different freedom from the freedom we ascribe to acts, so that the fact that spontaneous acts are freeing doesn’t mean that such acts are more free themselves.
As I think through different sorts of spontaneous acts, it seems there are some that are genuinely spontaneous–where something prevented you from deliberating before acting: a lack of time, distraction, impaired mental state–and there are some where you choose to cut short deliberation. I don’t see why the former would be freer than deliberate acts. The latter, it seems to me, actually are at root deliberate (we might call them voluntary in cause), and not that different from other deliberate acts: you deliberated about deliberating and decided you don’t want to (perhaps you realize that thinking through what to do makes your evening a lot less fun, so in the interest of having a good night, you resolve to adopt a devil-may-care attitude and act impulsively, possibly aided by some alcohol to help you overcome your natural tendency to be responsible and think about consequences).
But I may not be following what you mean. Could you paint a picture of the sort of spontaneous free act you have in mind?
Jill, move a little closer to the microphone. Ha!
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Well, thank you very much; tap, tap. I was just going to say something fluffy about how logos was in ancient times thought to be the rational force of the universe; and that according to this theory, whatever decisions we make the outcome of those decisions will depend on the affect of the rationale of that logos.
I read Jane Goodall’s “A Reason for Hope” some years ago. I recall that she remarked once where in the area she was making her observations, the people across the border had started to war and she was telling how the chimps she was observing in that same general area had become influenced by this warring and had also begun warring amongst themselves. That is rather a common notion. Sympathetic violence, as one baby cries the rest start crying out of sympathy. (Well, maybe one won’t because he’s got to hold himself together for the rest.) That’s how that works. The rationale of the universe.
I know nothing about DCT. I can say there is some evidence offered in the bible – prophecies that what God commands is not always the thing to do. Child sacrifice being the first to come to mind.
…logos was in ancient times thought to be the rational force of the universe; and that according to this theory, whatever decisions we make the outcome of those decisions will depend on the affect of the rationale of that logos. Maybe another way of saying karma…
This is a very old argument. Homer thought even the gods were subject to moira. We’ve simply moved it to the level of physics. I think anyone who looks closely at this issue must admit that much (most?) human behavior takes place at a preconscious level. The moment of “choice” is the moment at which the choice becomes conscious. But it’s all “us”. It requires a conceptual leap. We are not objects or even subjects in time and space. We are processes in space/time. Processes that take place in an environment not always subject to our conscious awareness or understanding.
But let’s talk ethics. What does determinism do to human responsibility? What does it mean to speak of morality without human responsibility? Let me begin with an analogy. Somewhere in Africa a leopard begins to terrorize a village, hunting and devouring men, women and children of the village. Now, no one would accuse the leopard of committing a “crime”. It acts out of its nature. It is doing what leopards do. Nevertheless the elders of the village hire a hunter to track and kill the leopard.
Ok, substitute the leopard for a human serial killer, the village for a city in the US, the hunter for the police. On a functional, existential level what is the difference? Well, we would claim that the killer did “wrong”, committed a “crime”, and should be punished because of that fact. We would claim that the killer should be held responsible for his action because he could have chosen to do otherwise. But what if, like the leopard, he could not have done otherwise? Is he responsible? Can he be punished?
The village protected itself because it did not wish for its citizens to be eaten. The only way to do that was to hunt and kill the leopard. The residents of the city do not wish to be murdered so they hire police to protect themselves. None of this requires that either the leopard or the serial killer be responsible for their actions.
Laws are not simply prescriptive. They are descriptive as well. (I would claim mostly descriptive.) They are codified formal statements of the values of a community. Values lagely arrived at before the laws are written.
I realize this is a quick simplistic analogy but it kind of gets the point across. Try this as an idea of a deterministic morality.
Morality is a description of the interrelationships between members of a social species that evolves over time. Morality is not The Rules. The Rules are codifications of values that already exist. Murder is not wrong because the The Rules tell you so. The Rule against murder is written because members of the community already do not wish to murder or wish to be murdered.
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