Against Free-Will

[Buck_Crosswhite]

Buck:

Cuidado chico! The Catholic Church does not infer that anyone - that was extant on Earth - is in Hell. (The Mod may take this denigration of Calvin very seriously. We want you around!)

God bless,
jd

I hope I didn’t break any forum rules. It’s just that what he’s saying smacks of Calvinism.

 

[Perplexity]

I don’t care about free-will. I do what the Church wants. I do what my boss wants. When I have spare time I do what I want.

That explains it. I’m atheist btw. Calvinists are compatibilists: they think we have free-will and that it’s compatible with causal determinism. I’m what’s known as a hard-incompatibilist: I think free-will is incompatible with determinism and indeterminism. My position is antithetical to Calvinism.

 

[Buck_Crosswhite]

That explains it. I’m atheist btw. Calvinists are compatibilists: they think we have free-will and that it’s compatible with causal determinism. I’m what’s known as a hard-incompatibilist: I think free-will is incompatible with determinism and indeterminism. My position is antithetical to Calvinism.

You win. I’m finished.

 

[Lochias]

:extrahappy:

Loved it, Buck Crosswhite.

Did you notice Perplexity cooked your burger?

:extrahappy:

 

[Godfollower]

Godfollower;8780860:

You seem to be saying that, if an act occurs randomly, then we can’t claim credit for its happening.

That of course makes sense; in fact, it’s practically tautological. But I don’t see what point you’re trying to prove.

Not just randomly. If an act occurs indeterministically, then we can’t claim credit for its happening.

My argument attempts to elicit, for indeterministically occurring acts, that intuitive response you’ve given to randomly occurring acts.

Okay; but the problem is that you’ve defined your problem to include the answer necessarily. Observe:

I’d like to outline a reason for doubting that free-will exists:

There are different kinds of freedoms of the will. The one we’re concerned with is that which is necessary for us to be morally responsible agents. An agent is morally responsible for an action if she’d deserve praise or credit if she understood that it was morally good, or she’d deserve blame if she understood it was morally bad. She’d deserve these moral predications solely in virtue of her performing the action.

Some say this free-will is compatible with us being determined, others don’t. But, what seems fairly uncontroversial (as much as can be in this field) is that an agent must be the appropriate source of the action in order to have been free with respect to performing it. She must exhibit a certain kind of control over the action in order to be morally responsible for it. If the action is produced randomly, we’d be wont to say the agent was responsible for it. etc.

What I want to suggest is that the free-will required for moral responsibility is incompatible with us being determined, or indetermined. This is good reason to doubt we have it.

I will not be providing my reason for thinking free-will is incompatible with determinism since I know of no determinists here. Rather, I’ll focus on indeterminism and its incompatibility with free-will.

So, let’s suppose that there is some agent, S, and some action A. Suppose that S causally influences the obtaining of A; but, that this causal influence is indetermined. That is, S was not causally determined to produce A.

So, we could even say there is some time, t1, at which S exerts her causal influence, and another time, t2, at which A obtains.

In order for S’s causal influence on A to be indeterministic the sum of all of S’s causal influences on A prior to t2 must be insufficient to bring A about. If that sum suffices to bring about A, then A is determined.

Therefore, taking all of S’s causal contributions collectively, prior to t2, it’s literally up in the air whether A will obtain or not. After taking all the causal conditions antecedent to A’s occurring, S plays no further causal role in whether A occurs. So, if A does happen to occur, it’s not because of S. It’s just a matter of luck whether A happens.

It seems, therefore, quite intuitive to me to say that S doesn’t exhibit the kind of control over A needed in order for S to be morally responsible for A. That is, if A happens to occur, it’d seem quite unnatural for us to ascribe praise or blame to S for A.

But, if an undetermined S isn’t morally responsible for A, then S doesn’t have free-will with respect to A.

I feel confident then in concluding that indeterminism is incompatible with free-will.

Thoughts?

In the beginning of your example, you’ve defined S’s influence over A to be indetermined. Then you end up concluding that S must not have caused A. That’s a simple tautology; if A is not determined by S, then of course S must not have caused A.

Then you add a moral (ha!) to the story: if S isn’t morally responsible for A, then S doesn’t have free will for A.

But, again, that is also a simple tautology. If you can’t affect an event (understanding “affect” in a broad sense), you aren’t morally responsible for it. That’s simple Catholic theology.

I would depart from you here: If S can cause A to occur or not to occur at S’s option, then S is morally responsible for A or not-A; while, if S’s choice cannot affect whether A occurs or not, then S is not morally responsible for A or not-A. But the question of whether free-will exists is left out, because your scenario defines it out of the problem by supposing both that S causally influences the obtaining of A; but also that this causal influence is indetermined (by which I assume you mean that A was not determined, as opposed to S’s choice was not determined). Those twin suppositions remove S’s free will with respect to A – but they don’t answer the question of whether free will exists in the first place.

 

[Barbkw]

Not just randomly. If an act occurs indeterministically, then we can’t claim credit for its happening.

My argument attempts to elicit, for indeterministically occurring acts, that intuitive response you’ve given to randomly occurring acts.

Do you know why people have attempted to say that there is no such thing as free-will?

So they can “say” that they aren’t responsible for the choices they’ve made in their lives.

They think that without this mental responsiblity they are both free to do whatever they want and that they have no culpability during the punishment phase.

These are the same thoughts of noncompliant children. “I didn’t do it, he made me do it.”

The same is true of those people who say “there is no sin.”

 

[ASimon]

Do you know why people have attempted to say that there is no such thing as free-will?

So they can “say” that they aren’t responsible for the choices they’ve made in their lives.

They think that without this mental responsiblity they are both free to do whatever they want and that they have no culpability during the punishment phase.

These are the same thoughts of noncompliant children. “I didn’t do it, he made me do it.”

The same is true of those people who say “there is no sin.”

If a sane person pre-meditatedly murders somebody else, even if we wanted to be super-reductionist about it and say that they weren’t “at fault” because they were not the ultimate author of their action, this would not rule out, say, putting them in jail as a reasonable response to their act. Because whether or not the person actually “chose” to plan and kill someone else, they are clearly the type of person that is capable of doing it. So we have a vested interest in keeping them locked up.

 

[jschutzm]

Okay; but the problem is that you’ve defined your problem to include the answer necessarily. Observe:

In the beginning of your example, you’ve defined S’s influence over A to be indetermined. Then you end up concluding that S must not have caused A. That’s a simple tautology; if A is not determined by S, then of course S must not have caused A.

Then you add a moral (ha!) to the story: if S isn’t morally responsible for A, then S doesn’t have free will for A.

But, again, that is also a simple tautology. If you can’t affect an event (understanding “affect” in a broad sense), you aren’t morally responsible for it. That’s simple Catholic theology.

I would depart from you here: If S can cause A to occur or not to occur at S’s option, then S is morally responsible for A or not-A; while, if S’s choice cannot affect whether A occurs or not, then S is not morally responsible for A or not-A. But the question of whether free-will exists is left out, because your scenario defines it out of the problem by supposing both that S causally influences the obtaining of A; but also that this causal influence is indetermined (by which I assume you mean that A was not determined, as opposed to S’s choice was not determined). Those twin suppositions remove S’s free will with respect to A – but they don’t answer the question of whether free will exists in the first place.

That’s how I read Perp’s post. I’ve been reading each post trying to figure out what I missed in the OP’s post.

It seems quite rudimentary to a lay person that just stumbled into this post that Perp’s OP has nothing to do with Freewill.

If neither we, nor even Agent S, can concretely determine how his/her actions caused action A to occurr…then OF COURSE Agent S had no real influence or control over it, so far as we can tell, that is why it is indeterminate.

But this has nothing to do with proving that freedom of will (that I define as the ability to know what I want to do or the ability to make a decision) exists or doesn’t exist.

I guess to ME, it seems like the OP created a straw man argument that was easy to knock down but was a really bad representation of reality.

 

[empther]

Perplexity the King of Quibblers babbled:

I think free-will is incompatible with determinism and indeterminism.

:extrahappy:

Keep it coming, your majesty. You’re getting funnier all the time.

 

[Perplexity]

In the beginning of your example, you’ve defined S’s influence over A to be indetermined. Then you end up concluding that S must not have caused A. That’s a simple tautology; if A is not determined by S, then of course S must not have caused A.

My conclusion is not that S doesn’t cause A (S causes A probabilistically). Rather, my conclusion is that S is not the kind of cause for A that she needs to be in order for her to be morally responsible for A.

This is because she wouldn’t exhibit the needed control over A: after taking all of her causal contributions into account, it’s still totally up in the air whether A will occur. It’s just luck if it happens to. Otherwise, she’s determined.

If S can cause A to occur or not to occur at S’s option, then S is morally responsible for A or not-A

On this understanding of moral responsibility (which I think has deep problems), if our actions have indeterminacy in their causal histories, then we’re not morally responsible for them.

This is because if there is genuine indeterminacy, S cannot cause A to occur or not at S’s option. It’s literally up in the air whether A will occur or not. It’s a matter of luck. (Hence, Luck Objection) So, I think your proposed understanding of moral responsibility undermines your position.

Those twin suppositions remove S’s free will with respect to A – but they don’t answer the question of whether free will exists in the first place.

My argument, if successful, shows that no agent whose actions involve indeterminacy has the free-will required for her to be morally responsible.

 

[Perplexity]

It seems quite rudimentary to a lay person that just stumbled into this post that Perp’s OP has nothing to do with Freewill.

Of course, if my argument fails to prove whether free-will exists or not, the fact that free-will is the topic shows that the OP has everything to do with free-will.

If neither we, nor even Agent S, can concretely determine how his/her actions caused action A to occurr…then OF COURSE Agent S had no real influence or control over it, so far as we can tell, that is why it is indeterminate.

As I stated, in order for us to be morally responsible for our decisions/actions, we need to have free-will with respect to the performance of them. In order to have this free-will, we must be the source of our actions/decisions in a specific way. e.g., if our actions and decisions are random, we’re not the source of them in the required way.

My argument tries to show that if our actions/decisions have indeterminacy in their histories, then we’re not the source of them in the way we need to be for us to be morally responsible for them.

So far, it seems many agree that indeterminacy is problematic but are failing to draw the appropriate conclusion: either we’re determined or we’re indetermined. If we’re indetermined, we’re not morally responsible. If we’re determined, we’re not morally responsible. Ergo…

 

[empther]

My argument, if successful, shows that no agent whose actions involve indeterminacy has the free-will required for her to be morally responsible.

Man’s moral choices are neither determined from outside by God or indeterminate within himself since he obviously can make choices about which meal to buy at MacDonalds and whether to eat it himself or give it to a homeless person.

---

:How easy it is to slam an atheist !

 

[jschutzm]

WHOA WHOA WHOA… I’m going to stop ya at your first couple of paragraphs…

My conclusion is not that S doesn’t cause A (S causes A probabilistically). …This is because she wouldn’t exhibit the needed control over A: after taking all of her causal contributions into account, it’s still totally up in the air whether A will occur. It’s just luck if it happens to. Otherwise, she’s determined.

You say S caused it probabilitistically - fine. HOWEVER, you then turn around and seem to say that it was “totally up in the air” if A happened or not. That to ME doesn’t sound probabilitistically… that sounds like “completely undetermined”

I think you are perhaps either failing to articulate what you are truly thinking, OR confused, because it seems like in every explanation, you somewhere contradict yourself.

To ME, probable and ‘totally up in the air’ are two different things. Even a 10% probability to me is better then “totally up in the air”
Maybe we are arguing over semantics… but either S influenced A to a measureable and knowable, aka a “determinable” degree, OR NOT. - can’t be both (at least not to the same person)

Now I’m not a Philosopher, so I’m only arguing what is logical from a real world perspective.

So to ME… the 2nd part of this that I’m not sure you are dealing with is the difference between 1) our knowledge of the events and how much we can determine S to influence A and 2) the objective influence that S had over A in reality, separate from our knowledge of it.

For example - in Japan, someone may cause an ill-moral action to take place. I have no knowledge of it… but we can argue that it objectively happened and the “reality” is that someone 5,000 miles away objectively did something ill-moral.

In some cases… we may not know the exact extent of S’s influence on A. But that doesn’t change the reality… the objective truth of the matter.

Lastly… if you are concerned with “control” in order to say if someone is morally responsible for something… are you prepared to assign fractional responsibility in some cases?

For example: Because my father abused me, and my mom was always working… this “contributed” to me joining a gang. We can therefore say that my parents are ‘partly to blame’ for me being in Prison, even though I used my freewill to commit those crimes.
They used their freewill to be bad parents… and mine to be a criminal. But they partially influenced by decisions based on their choices.

 

[Perplexity]

You say S caused it probabilitistically - fine. HOWEVER, you then turn around and seem to say that it was “totally up in the air” if A happened or not. That to ME doesn’t sound probabilitistically… that sounds like “completely undetermined”

Some cause, C, probabilistically causes an effect, E, if it raises the probability of E occurring prior to E’s occurrence. Probability runs from anywhere near 0 to 1, 1 being necessary. So, C could be a probabilistic cause of E even if it raised E’s probability only to .0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000009.

I think you are perhaps either failing to articulate what you are truly thinking, OR confused, because it seems like in every explanation, you somewhere contradict yourself.

Perhaps, but I think you’re unfamiliar with some of these notions.

To ME, probable and ‘totally up in the air’ are two different things. Even a 10% probability to me is better then “totally up in the air”

I agree; but, I never said probable.

Now I’m not a Philosopher, so I’m only arguing what is logical from a real world perspective.

hmm, that’s an odd dichotomy for me. I take philosopher’s in general to be attempting to discover and defend a logical real world perspective.

So to ME… the 2nd part of this that I’m not sure you are dealing with is the difference between 1) our knowledge of the events and how much we can determine S to influence A and 2) the objective influence that S had over A in reality, separate from our knowledge of it.

I’m concerned with the latter.

In some cases… we may not know the exact extent of S’s influence on A. But that doesn’t change the reality… the objective truth of the matter.

Sure. I’m only suggesting that if there is genuine indeterminacy in A’s causal history, then S isn’t morally responsible for A.

Lastly… if you are concerned with “control” in order to say if someone is morally responsible for something… are you prepared to assign fractional responsibility in some cases?..For example: Because my father abused me, and my mom was always working… this “contributed” to me joining a gang. We can therefore say that my parents are ‘partly to blame’ for me being in Prison, even though I used my freewill to commit those crimes. They used their freewill to be bad parents… and mine to be a criminal. But they partially influenced by decisions based on their choices

This is an excellent question. To answer it via using your analogy, I’d say only if the father and mother were morally responsible for those actions. I mean, suppose the father was causally determined to abuse you. That is, it was physically necessary for him to do so: he couldn’t possibly have done otherwise. I think we’d look at him more as a robot than as a responsible agent. etc. But, yes, I’d be willing to do that.

 

[empther]

The King of Quibbles wrote:

suppose the father was causally determined to abuse you. That is, it was physically necessary for him to do so: he couldn’t possibly have done otherwise. I think we’d look at him more as a robot than as a responsible agent. etc. But, yes, I’d be willing to do that.

Perplexity gets more ridiculous all the time.

 

[jschutzm]

Sure. I’m only suggesting that if there is genuine indeterminacy in A’s causal history, then S isn’t morally responsible for A.

OK, and earlier you said you are only concerned with the latter… the OBJECTIVE reality, not our ‘lack of knowledge’ of the causal control that S exterts on A

I’m totally comfortable with that. I would argue that there are very FEW situations where the objective reality of the causal relationship between S and A are undeterminable. MORE likely is that individuals can’t see the relationship between the 2 and therefore it “appears” undeterminate from our limited human perspective. But in reality S does exert control over whether or not A occurrs and therefore the fraction of moral responsibility that S has for A does in fact exist. Independent of our knowledge of it.

This is an excellent question. To answer it via using your analogy, I’d say only if the father and mother were morally responsible for those actions. I mean, suppose the father was causally determined to abuse you. That is, it was physically necessary for him to do so: he couldn’t possibly have done otherwise. I think we’d look at him more as a robot than as a responsible agent. etc. But, yes, I’d be willing to do that.

But what if he wasn’t causally determined… i.e. a robot… and made the decision to abuse. What then?
We have things in his history exerting influence, thus making it ‘possible’ that he abuse his children, but not determining that he will. He chooses to anyways. What we’ve just proven is freewill exists. Because while we can see influences… none exert enough influence to make him a robot and directly CAUSE him to abuse his children. Nothing his children did forced him to either (why we call it abuse)

But as individuals, we COULD assign fractional responsibility to events in his past, possibly reducing his moral responsibility if we chose to look at ALL the causal histories of every person involved.

But I’m not sure his moral responsibility would ever reach zero, unless he became a robot and could not resist or not perform a particular action. Unless choice was completely removed.

To ME, freewill is an internal process… a privatization of choice - the ability to know what one desires and act on it (or not) - that “choice” is what Freewill is to me.

It may be fractionally influenced or externally limited…but it is that ability to know what one wants and act on that impulse (or not)

 

[Perplexity]

Perplexity gets more ridiculous all the time.

I don’t think this guy has any idea what quibbling means. His use of that word (and its cognates) is almost always awkward and contextually inappropriate. But, putting that aside…the vast majority of his posts are silly ad-hominems. I don’t think he understands the issues. That would explain why he doesn’t interact with them: he can’t if he wanted to. But…the mystery is what he gets out of insulting others…it’s obviously not to convince them of his position. No…I think it’s compensation. He doesn’t understand what’s going on in the thread, but needs to be seen as educated or intellectual. So, he belittles others to compensate.

 

[Perplexity]

I’m totally comfortable with that. I would argue that there are very FEW situations where the objective reality of the causal relationship between S and A are undeterminable.

Think of the indeterminacy we’re talking about like this:

Imagine a line of dominoes. Suppose there are 10 in the line. The first domino is pushed, and it hits the second, which hits the third, which hits the fourth…etc. Will the 9th hit the 10th? If you say yes you’re saying that event is determined. i.e., given the past (the previously pushed dominoes) and the laws of nature (gravity, etc.), the 10th must be hit, unless something intervenes.

Indeterminacy means that, without any interference, the 9th might not hit the 10th. That is, the past (9 dominoes being struck) and the laws, are insufficient to determine the 10th’s fate.

Now, suppose the domino’s prior to 10 are the causal influences of an agent. The 10th domino is the action or decision in question. The 10th is either determined to fall, or indetermined to fall.

I think we both agree that if it’s determined, the agent isn’t responsible for it: he’s just another domino in a line, not a responsible agent. He didn’t really choose, he just functioned like a computer.

But, what about if the 10th is indeterminate? Supposing that 10 falls, it doesn’t seem like the line of dominoes preceding 10 produce 10’s fall in the way we want. It happens to fall, sure, but not really because of the dominoes. So, it doesn’t seem like an agent is free on indeterminacy either.

As to your points with fractional moral responsibility, I don’t think we should assign that. I agreed that if the agents were morally responsible we should assign fractional etc., but I don’t think they are. My argument for that is above in the domino dealio.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

I’d like to outline a reason for doubting that free-will exists:

If the conclusion of your argument happens to be true, it means that I cannot freely reason it to be false or true. Any reasonable person can see that this is a problem; especially in terms of knowing and reasoning to the truth.

Isn’t your argument a bit self defeating?

 

[jschutzm]

Thank you for that explanation of determinance. Based on your prior definition of “philosopher” I guess I am one. However, one without any formal training. Just common sense. ( I did take an intro Philosophy class in college, but it was more geared towards argumentation)

I’d take up issue with the appropriateness of the domino analogy. It may be quite accurate in explaining to me the difference between the ‘concept’ of determinance and indeterminance, and so for that I thank you.
But I think it does a rather poor job of explaining human intellect/reason and the implications this has on the concept of freewill.

People are not dominoes, which everyone would agree have no freewill and and are bound purely by the laws of physics.

Human intellect are not bound solely by physics. Or at least the causal effects are SOOO complicated and so intertwined that an outside can not determine what caused Agent S to decide to do Action A, except to say “freewill”

IF, perhaps, we knew how ALL the various tiny insignificant (or apparently so) variables tied together and we could assign blame to each one… THEN perhaps we could remove freewill from the equation, because we would have replaced it with billions of probabilities and such all the way back to the Big Bang, I suppose.
PERHAPS… even then, human intellect may still posess some sort of randomness that we can’t account for. - But since that’s not the reality and we DON’T have that level of knowledge… then Freewill is the best explanation we have for why individuals chose certain things. And I don’t see that changing.

I argued with an atheist friend of mine regarding Freewill and said this…

IF there is no freewill, then none of us can be responsible for anything we do… nor blame anyone for anything they do. This effectively amounts to chaos. And renders all of us Cosmic Chumps… Victims.
The rapist as much the victim of cosmic inevitability as the rape victim.
Not much of anything, if anything, matters… since we have no control nor responsibility for firing of our own synapses let alone our thoughts or actions.

Laws are unjust because they put blame on something which is outside of our control. We should have no expectation or right to security or anything - since nothing has any ability to make a choice, freely.

Right and Wrong are cruel since none of us can exert any control over what we chose to do.

If anything, my theist bias keeps coming back to 2 things as I ponder this.

1. Boy! does this seem to scream for a creator, an entity that DOES know the objective truth and can sort out and ascribe responsibility for all the complicated influences, since obviously we can’t. Another wards, if there IS an objective truth… then that screams that something must know what that is. If it is not any of us… then it hints that this may be larger then us.
2. Man!, if nothing else this seems to me to show just how wide reaching our actions are. And how stepping on a butterfly can later on down the road, lead to the eventual extermination of the entire planet. And because we don’t know all the extent effects of our actions… we need to be even MORE careful in what we do and adhere to the highest moral code, not the lowest or even something in between.