Free Will and Determinism

[john_doran]

MichaelLewis:

If fatalism is true, then regardless of what I might want, if I’m fated to commit a murder, I’ll commit a murder. If just determinism is true, on the other hand, if I don’t want to commit a murder, I wont commit a murder. My desires DO determine my actions. Although, my desires are themselves determined.

according to this, your desires cause your actions, and your desires are caused by the world (neurology, bioelectrics, etc.). so the world causes your actions; i.e. your actions follow necessarily from the initial state of the universe along with the applicable covering laws.

explain to me how this is (pragmatically, anyway) different from fatalism.

if you substitute “cause” for “want” - since that’s all a want is - you can see the absurdity of the position:

If fatalism is true, then regardless of how I might be caused, if I’m caused to commit a murder, I’ll commit a murder. If just determinism is true, on the other hand, if I’m not caused to commit a murder, I won’t commit a murder.

 

[MichaelLewis]

john doran:
i meant only to observe that persons and what they do are different: a good person can commit a bad act, and a bad person can commit a good act, which would be straightforwardly impossible if evaluations of character and actions were necessarily identical.

of course, becoming a good person requires the consistent performance of good acts, and vice versa for becoming a bad person. which is further demonstration of the difference between the two.

whether or not it’s demeaning to god, god cannot be caused to act by anything : as the uncaused cause, god is necessarily free in the libertarian sense.
You would also say that God exists outside of time, wouldn’t you? I can’t imagine what it would mean to act, desire, or be conscious outside of time. Maybe we should say that the conscious aspect of God, within time, acts based upon a value-set that is a timeless part of God? Frankly, if God does exist, I don’t know if we can really talk meaningfully of his ultimate nature, as opposed to just the limited aspects we might interact with; our words and thoughts probably can’t help but distort the truth. It is probably best to stick to the metaphysics of our actions and leave it at that. But I do hope that God’s actions proceed from his nature (presuming he has a good nature)

Michael

 

[Ghosty]

You would also say that God exists outside of time, wouldn’t you? I can’t imagine what it would mean to act, desire, or be conscious outside of time. Maybe we should say that the conscious aspect of God, within time, acts based upon a value-set that is a timeless part of God? Frankly, if God does exist, I don’t know if we can really talk meaningfully of his ultimate nature, as opposed to just the limited aspects we might interact with; our words and thoughts probably can’t help but distort the truth. It is probably best to stick to the metaphysics of our actions and leave it at that. But I do hope that God’s actions proceed from his nature (presuming he has a good nature)

You don’t have to imagine what it would be like to exist outside of time. You only have to recognize that God does exist as such, if you recognize God’s revelation to us. This is what “I Am That Is” means. Incidently, Catholics don’t tend to speculate about God beyond what God has revealed. We speculate about what we’ve seen, and attempt to infer possible implications of these things, but we generally don’t sit around making up qualities of God that aren’t based on revelation.

 

[MichaelLewis]

John Wrote:

explain to me how this is (pragmatically, anyway) different from fatalism.

If fatalism were true, if you *didn’t want *to kill someone, but you were fated to do so, you would end up killing them anyway. Your desires are irrelevent. Your desires ARE relevent with standard determinism. I don’t see how I can be much more clear about the difference.

if you substitute “cause” for “want” - since that’s all a want is - you can see the absurdity of the position:
If fatalism is true, then regardless of how I might be caused, if I’m caused to commit a murder, I’ll commit a murder. If just determinism is true, on the other hand, if I’m not caused to commit a murder, I won’t commit a murder.

A want can be a cause, but it is always more than a cause. A hammer can be a cause of a nail being driven into a board, but a hammer isn’t “a nail being driven into a board” Desires are part of our psychology, first and foremost; and that is to say that they are part of who we are.

Michael

 

[MichaelLewis]

John wrote:

explain to me why the ability to differentiate between these worlds experientially is important. can you explain the difference in experience between a world with a god and a world with none? a world with necessary truths and a world with none? a world that was created 5 minutes ago to look like it’s 15 billion years old and a world that’s actually 15 billion years old? a world where there are other minds and a world where you are the only mind? a world where you are being systematically deceived by a malicious cartesian demon into believing the world is as it appears when it’s not, and a world that is as it seems?

-In a world with a god, there would be a being who would experience being a god. There also might be other beings who have encountered god.

-It is nonsensical to talk of a world without ANY necessary truths. In that world, 1+1 might conceivably not equal 2.

-5 Minutes ago there was nothing to see in the world created 5 minutes ago, but there were things to see 5 minutes ago in the world created 15 billion years ago.

(You see where I’m going with this?)

I’m not demanding that you explain how we would know the difference; rather I’m asking how someone (anyone) could, conceivably, know the difference. If you can’t imagine how someone in some conceivable circumstances could tell the difference, you don’t have a real difference in mind, just an empty abstraction.

maybe not. but no one understands quantum mechanics, either, for one thing. or the human brain. or what it’s like to be dead. what’s your point?

My point is that without some idea of what you are talking about, you really aren’t talking about anything at all. (Not that I’m stating dogmatically that you don’t have something in mind, though I would encourage you to analyze it and see if it isn’t just your ability to imagine having done things differently and an emotional reaction against determinism.) Without some idea of how a libertarian free choice is different from a randomly generated choice, you can’t differentiate between them.

Michael

 

[john_doran]

MichaelLewis:

If fatalism were true, if you *didn’t want *to kill someone, but you were fated to do so, you would end up killing them anyway. Your desires are irrelevent. Your desires ARE relevent with standard determinism. I don’t see how I can be much more clear about the difference.

but by your own admission, a want is just another cause in the chain. which means that it is impossible for fatalism to be true and for you to act in a manner other than you are caused to act.

we keep going over the same ground here - explain to me how it would be possible to be caused by your desires to act in a certain way, but yet not act in the manner in which your desires cause you to act.

put another way, fatalism is the doctrine that you cannot avoid doing whatever it is you do; determinism is the doctrine that all your actions are caused according to strict covering laws. how are they different? i mean, if you’re actions are caused, then you can’t avoid acting in whatever way you’re caused to act…

on the one hand, this is simply self-contradictory; on the other hand it sounds like you are perhaps slouching toward the bethlehem of libertarianism.

MichaelLewis:

A want can

be a cause, but it is always more than a cause. A hammer can be a cause of a nail being driven into a board, but a hammer isn’t “a nail being driven into a board”
i have no idea what you’re saying here.

MichaelLewis:
Desires are part of our psychology, first and foremost; and that is to say that they are part of who we are.
i’ll ask you again: what difference does it make what language you use to describe it - if we are caused to act by neurobiophysical laws, what difference does it make what language you dress it up in? whether you call an action the necessary effect of synoptic stimuli of the amygdala and temporal lobe, or you call it “desire for a candy bar”, it amounts to the same thing: something caused your brain to behave in a certain way, which in turn caused you to eat the candy bar.

where’s the freedom?

 

[john_doran]

MichaelLewis:

-In a world with a god, there would be a being who would experience being a god. There also might be other beings who have encountered god.

-It is nonsensical to talk of a world without ANY necessary truths. In that world, 1+1 might conceivably not equal 2.

-5 Minutes ago there was nothing to see in the world created 5 minutes ago, but there were things to see 5 minutes ago in the world created 15 billion years ago.

(You see where I’m going with this?)

no. i’m afraid i don’t.

i guess i wasn’t sufficiently clear: there are truths about the way the world is that have got nothing to do with experience. by which i mean to observe simply that the experiences we do have are equally compatible with mutually exclusive truths.

which means that it’s in principle impossible to distinguish between a world that is as it seems, and a world that isn’t when both worlds seem the same way.

so. in a world that popped into existence 5 minutes ago, you would have exactly the same memories as you would if the world was 15 billion years old. so appealing to your memories to distinguish between the worlds is futile.

and so on.

which means that you have to explain to me why it matters that it’s experientially impossible to tell the difference between a world with random choices and a world with libertarian choices; give me an argument or principled reasons or something.

after all, if we believe in one of a number of groups of alternative propositions ***despite ***the fact that it’s impossible to tell which of them is true solely by appealing to experience, then there seems to be no good reason to think that experience is a necessary condition for true belief.

i mean, really - to take a basic example, just because i can’t tell just by looking which van gogh is a forgery and which is real doesn’t mean that one isn’t a forgery and one isn’t real; so why should it matter when it comes to differentiating between random choices and libertarian choices?

MichaelLewis:

My point is that without some idea of what you are talking about, you really aren’t talking about anything at all. (Not that I’m stating dogmatically that you don’t have something in mind, though I would encourage you to analyze it and see if it isn’t just your ability to imagine having done things differently and an emotional reaction against determinism.) Without some idea

of how a libertarian free choice is different from a randomly generated choice, you can’t differentiate between them.
ok, look. you have to stop simply stating and re-stating the same stuff over and over again…

i’ve told you a number of times that i do have an idea what the difference is between random and libertarian choices: the former are actions that are caused randomly, and the latter are actions that are caused by uncaused choices.

you’re going to have to show me why it’s impossible for an individual to make a choice that is uncaused; just saying that you can’t “see” how such a choice isn’t random is just not helpful.

i have given you the rudiments of an argument for my position: moral responsibility can only accrue to actions that are freely chosen; an action is freely chosen only if it isn’t caused; therefore free choices are uncaused.

you continue to offer nothing but your inability to imagine what i’m talking about…

incidentally, can you imagine a 1000-sided figure? can you imagine a 999-sided figure? can you tell the difference between the two in your head? what can you conclude about closed plane figures from this failure of imagination?

 

[MichaelLewis]

John wrote:

we keep going over the same ground here - explain to me how it would be possible to be caused by your desires to act in a certain way, but yet not act in the manner in which your desires cause you to act.

**

It is not possible. I have never claimed it was; I’m saying if it was caused by your desires, it was caused by you.

put another way, fatalism is the doctrine that you cannot avoid doing whatever it is you do; determinism is the doctrine that all your actions are caused according to strict covering laws. how are they different? i mean, if you’re actions are caused, then you can’t avoid acting in whatever way you’re caused to act…

The trouble is, when you say, “you can’t avoid acting” that implies that you WANT to avoid acting in whatever way you want to act (since the cause is question is you desire). A non-fatalist determinist would deny that. Why WOULD you want to avoid acting in the way you want to act, anyway? If you did want to avoid acting in a particular way, you could!

i have no idea what you’re saying here.

I’m denying your “…if you substitute “cause” for “want” - since that’s all a want is”

I never said that a want was nothing more than a cause. A want is a psychological phenomenon that can be a cause. A hammer is an object with (for example) a metal head attached to a wooden shaft, it can be a cause of a nail being driven, but it could never JUST be a cause of nail being driven. It will always have other attributes as well. In the same way, a want is not just a cause of action, so your substitution is unfair.

i’ll ask you again: what difference does it make what language you use to describe it - if we are caused to act by neurobiophysical laws, what difference does it make what language you dress it up in? whether you call an action the necessary effect of synoptic stimuli of the amygdala and temporal lobe, or you call it “desire for a candy bar”, it amounts to the same thing: something caused your brain to behave in a certain way, which in turn caused you to eat the candy bar.

First of all, I’m not assuming physicalism. Perhaps our actions are determined by non-physical minds, but that is irrelevant to the question, as determinism would just apply to a broader system than the physical universe.

So to alter YOUR statement: “something caused your consciousness to behave in a certain way, which in turn caused you (that is your body, as your consciousness is doing the causing) to eat the candy bar.

The only sense in which external things cause a consciousness to behave in a certain way is the sense in which they have a hand in creating the consciousness or interacting with it once it is already formed. When such interaction occurs after a consciousness has already been formed, the consciousness as it is interprets external factors, controlling their influence on itself, at least to some extent. (This excludes brain damage of course.)

For a nice, not-to-long treatment of the free will problem (that distinguishes determinism and fatalism):

http://www.princeton.edu/~jimpryor/courses/intro/notes/determinism.html

 

[MichaelLewis]

John wrote:

i guess i wasn’t sufficiently clear: there are truths about the way the world is that have got nothing to do with experience. by which i mean to observe simply that the experiences we do have are equally compatible with mutually exclusive truths.
which means that it’s in principle impossible to distinguish between a world that is as it seems, and a world that isn’t when both worlds seem the same way.
so. in a world that popped into existence 5 minutes ago, you would have exactly the same memories as you would if the world was 15 billion years old. so appealing to your memories to distinguish between the worlds is futile.
… i mean, really - to take a basic example, just because i can’t tell just by looking which van gogh is a forgery and which is real doesn’t mean that one isn’t a forgery and one isn’t real; so why should it matter when it comes to differentiating between random choices and libertarian choices?

Certainly the experiences we DO HAVE are compatible with many possible truths. But I think you misunderstand my point; I am not asking for a reason for us to believe in libertarian free will, I’m asking for an account of how libertarian free will is different from a RDG, in terms of how any* concievable being* in any* concievable circumstance* could tell the difference between them. Even though it is possible that in fact no one exisited in the world 5 minuts ago, if some consciousness were there, (say we could traval back in time) they would find that nothing else was. Even if the van gogh and the forgery were identical down to the atom, it would still be the case that if some being were observing the original van gogh since its creation, they would be able to tell the difference. This is a criterion for meaning, not for knowledge.

i have given you the rudiments of an argument for my position: moral responsibility can only accrue to actions that are freely chosen; an action is freely chosen only if it isn’t caused; therefore free choices are uncaused.
you continue to offer nothing but your inability to imagine what I’m talking about…

I’m asking you to defend the notion that ‘uncaused’ isn’t the same thing as random. It’s as if you were saying “I’m talking about Chilean Sea Bass, not Toothfish!” (they are the same animal). If there is a difference, explain how any being (God, if you like) under any circumstances could tell the difference. You might respond that you have had or can imagine some experience that would allow you to distinguish between them, but you can’t describe it, and that might be; but if you don’t have some concievable experiential difference in mind, you really don’t have a concept of free will that is any different from the concept of randomness, aside from how you feel about it.

incidentally, can you imagine a 1000-sided figure? can you imagine a 999-sided figure? can you tell the difference between the two in your head? what can you conclude about closed plane figures from this failure of imagination?

I’m not suggesting that only what I can imagine exists, I’m only claiming that if I’m going to really refer to something, I’d better have something in mind. My concept of a 1000-sided figure is not defined by an image, but by a potential process. I might conceivably count the sides of a figure and number them 1000. I think that’s about all there is to my concept of a 1000-sided figure.

I enjoy discussing this with you John, I hope you are enjoying it too. It sometimes seems (maybe I’m just sensitive) that there is some irritation reflected in your posts. I hope you know that I’m not trying to be difficult or antagonistic.

Thanks,

Michael

 

[john_doran]

MichaelLewis:

The trouble is, when you say, “you can’t avoid acting” that implies that you WANT to avoid acting in whatever way you want to act (since the cause is question is you desire). A non-fatalist determinist would deny that. Why WOULD you want to avoid acting in the way you want to act, anyway? If you did want to avoid acting in a particular way, you could!

sure. but you can’t help wanting what you want.

my point about wants is that they are just another domino in the chain: once the first domino is caused to fall, all of the others fall necessarily. which, in this case, means that as of the first moment of time, you will necessarily do whatever you do because, by your lights, you will necessarily want everything you want.

and if you do what you do necessarily, then you cannot be culpable for doing it.

MichaelLewis:
I never said that a want was nothing more than a cause. A want is a psychological phenomenon that can be a cause. A hammer is an object with (for example) a metal head attached to a wooden shaft, it can be a cause of a nail being driven, but it could never JUST be a cause of nail being driven. It will always have other attributes as well. In the same way, a want is not just a cause of action, so your substitution is unfair.
you miss my point. whatever causal role you give “wants”, they play a causal role; they are at least necessary conditions for action in your story, even if they are not always sufficient. the point i am again trying to make is that if you are right, then all of our actions are caused, whether they’re caused just by our desires, or by the conjunction of our desires with environmental conditions, or whatever: they’re caused. which means we do them, and do them necessarily.

what you seem to be continuing to insist is that, although our actions are caused, the fact that one or more of the (necessary or sufficient) conditions for our actions can be called “wants” is enough to make the actions they cause “free”. but why, michael? why does it matter what you call a cause in a chain? if the final effect is the necessary result of every preceding state of the system, then the effect was caused and is therefore necessary, ***irrespective ***of what you may decide to call any of the causes in the sequence.

i mean, if i call the electrons in the wires in my house “desires”, how would that make the lights and appliances in my kitchen “free”?
MihaelLewis:

First of all, I’m not assuming physicalism. Perhaps our actions are determined by non-physical minds, but that is irrelevant to the question, as determinism would just apply to a broader system than the physical universe.

So to alter YOUR statement: “something caused your consciousness to behave in a certain way, which in turn caused you (that is your body, as your consciousness is doing the causing) to eat the candy bar.

The only sense in which external things cause a consciousness to behave in a certain way is the sense in which they have a hand in creating the consciousness or interacting with it once it is already formed. When such interaction occurs after a consciousness has already been formed, the consciousness as it is interprets external factors, controlling their influence on itself, at least to some extent. (This excludes brain damage of course.)
ok. so some of the initial conditions and covering laws may be non-physical. this doesn’t change your position that all of our actions are the ***necessay result ***of those initial conditions and covering laws.

MichaelLewis:

For a nice, not-to-long treatment of the free will problem (that distinguishes determinism and fatalism):

[princeton.edu/~jimpryor/courses/intro/notes/determinism.html](http://www.princeton.edu/~jimpryor/courses/intro/notes/determinism.html)

i understand the difference. but neither position is different with regards to the claim that our actions are necessary.

you have still to elaborate a manner in which actions can be necessay and still be the subject of moral evaluation.

 

[john_doran]

MichaelLewis:

Certainly the experiences we DO HAVE are compatible with many possible truths. But I think you misunderstand my point; I am not asking for a reason for us to believe in libertarian free will, I’m asking for an account of how libertarian free will is different from a RDG, in terms of how any* concievable being* in any* concievable circumstance* could tell the difference between them. Even though it is possible that in fact no one exisited in the world 5 minuts ago, if some consciousness were there, (say we could traval back in time) they would find that nothing else was.

you have answered your own question: if we, or some other being (god, perhaps) were directly aware of the operation of our faculty of choosing, we would be able to perceive directly our making choices without any antecedent causally sufficient conditions. we would be able to perceive that we make the choices, and that they are not random.

MichaelLewis:

Even if the van gogh and the forgery were identical down to the atom, it would still be the case that if

some being were observing the original van gogh since its creation, they would be able to tell the difference.
sure. and even if the libertarian choice and the random choice were identical down to the atom, it would still be the case that if some being were directly perceiving the making of the libertarian choice, they would be able to tell the difference.

but all of this misses my point, michael: why is it important for these two positions to be distinguishable by means of perception?

for example, in the world where all of your perceptions are the result of the systematic deception of a malicious demon, it would be impossible in principle for you to tell whether or not your percetions are deceiving you. and this is obvious: if you doubt the veracity of your faculties, then it is impossible to rely on those faculties to eliminate the doubt.

all you are doing is taking examples where you already recognize the existence of an ontological distinction, and then placing it in an example where you state “and there’s a being who can perceive the distinction”. which, of course, can be done for any putative difference. like the difference between libertarian and random free choices.

 

[john_doran]

MichaelLewis:

I’m asking you to defend the notion that ‘uncaused’ isn’t the same thing as random. It’s as if you were saying “I’m talking about Chilean Sea Bass, not Toothfish!” (they are the same animal). If there is a difference, explain how any being (God, if you like) under any circumstances could tell the difference. You might respond that you have had or can imagine some experience that would allow you to distinguish between them, but you can’t describe it, and that might be; but if you don’t have some concievable experiential difference in mind, you really don’t have a concept of free will that is any different from the concept of randomness, aside from how you feel about it.

ok, look. i have stated the difference between libertarian and random choices - libertarian choices are made by people; they are made by people without any antecedent causally sufficient conditions - random choices would happen to people; they would happen ***to ***people.

now, what you’re doing is making the possibility of an ontological distinction rest on the ability to make a phenomenological distinction; you are saying, “there can’t actually be a difference between A and B unless it is in principle possible for some being to ***perceive ***a difference between A and B”.

and, again, i ask you: why believe that? i certainly don’t.

besides, it seems to have the distinct disadvantage of being self-defeating: after all, how would someone perceive the difference between a world where this criterion of yours is true, and one where it isn’t? how could you ever perceive that only perceivable differences actually exist?

of course, i would be willing to accept that there are faculties of intellectual perception that are, say, sensitive to truth and falsity, or contingency or necessity. in which case i would say that i perceive that “all uncaused choices are random” is false.

and you still haven’t given me an account of how causally necessary actions can attract moral culpability…

MichaelLewis:

I’m not suggesting that only what I can imagine exists, I’m only claiming that if I’m going to really refer to something, I’d better have something in mind. My concept of a 1000-sided figure is not defined by an image, but by a potential process. I might conceivably count the sides of a figure and number them 1000. I think that’s about all there is to my concept of a 1000-sided figure.

and i do have something in mind: the concept of non-random, non-caused, choices made by individuals. why isn’t that enough?

MichaelLewis:

I enjoy discussing this with you John, I hope you are enjoying it too. It sometimes seems (maybe I’m just sensitive) that there is some irritation reflected in your posts. I hope you know that I’m not trying to be difficult or antagonistic.

not irritation. frustration. (i’m not sure if you can perceive a difference… ). and for which i apologize, michael.

 

[MichaelLewis]

**

John Wrote:

if you do what you do necessarily, then you cannot be culpable for doing it.

This is probably an irresolvable point of contention. As a practical matter, though, don’t we all judge people based upon their established characters?

*what you seem to be continuing to insist is that, although our actions are caused, the fact that one or more of the (necessary or sufficient) conditions for our actions can be called “wants” is enough to make the actions they cause “free”. but why, michael? why does it matter what you call a cause in a chain? if the final effect is the necessary result of every preceding state of the system, then the effect was caused and is therefore necessary, **irrespective *of what you may decide to call any of the causes in the sequence.
i mean, if i call the electrons in the wires in my house “desires”, how would that make the lights and appliances in my kitchen “free”?

Would you really not (rightly) feel moral outrage at a sadistic child-torturer if he didn’t have libertarian free will? Wouldn’t his malevolence be enough? The lights and appliances in your kitchen aren’t motivated by a desire to see others in pain or to see them happy and virtuous. That’s what makes the difference to me.

When I assign moral responsibility, all I am doing is making an evaluation of a person’s character (or adding a piece of evidence to weigh on a possible future evaluation). I can’t imagine what else I might be doing.

you have answered your own question: if we, or some other being (god, perhaps) were directly aware of the operation of our faculty of choosing, we would be able to perceive directly our making choices without any antecedent causally sufficient conditions. we would be able to perceive that we make the choices, and that they are not random.

I don’t know what it would be like to be directly aware of a random choice being generated, I only know what the results would be (different in some possible worlds); that entails my conception of randomness. How would you know a libertarian free choice if you did directly perceived one? Like a random choice, the results would be different in different possible worlds, but how would you (or God) tell the event itself from a random choice?

but all of this misses my point, michael: why is it important for these two positions to be distinguishable by means of perception?

Because words and sentences are nothing more than tools for communicating what we are thinking about. We flush out the meanings of abstract terms by specifying (more or less exhaustively) the sorts of things or events we apply them to. Our mental life of pictures, stories, metaphors, processes, raw feelings and criteria is richer than our vocabulary; it cannot be poorer (assuming that we know what we are trying to say).

for example, in the world where all of your perceptions are the result of the systematic deception of a malicious demon, it would be impossible in principle for you to tell whether or not your percetions are deceiving you. and this is obvious: if you doubt the veracity of your faculties, then it is impossible to rely on those faculties to eliminate the doubt.

But the demon knows it is deceiving me; remember, all I’m asking is that some conceivable being in some conceivable situation be able to tell the difference.

(cont…)

 

[MichaelLewis]

(cont.)
all you are doing is taking examples where you already recognize the existence of an ontological distinction, and then placing it in an example where you state “and there’s a being who can perceive the distinction”. which, of course, can be done for any putative difference. like the difference between libertarian and random free choices.

I’m not just saying it, I can describe what it might be like. “Ha ha! I am making him believe he is typing on a computer!” the evil demon might be saying to himself right now. I can even point (not reach) beyond what I can imagine: “If God exists, I bet he knows things that, if I came to know them, would surprise me more than anything has ever surprised me before; things that I could never grasp without divine help. One of those things might have to do (in some way I can’t imagine) with moral responsibility and the choices we make.” (I don’t find that view objectionable, but libertarians seem to want to say more than that.) The point is that I can tell (in my mind at least) a story or set of stories about concrete experiences that at least partly determines the reference for any abstract word I use; if I can’t, I should at least be aware that I’m not useing the word in question meaningfuly. (Though it still might play a useful role in my social interactions.)

*libertarian choices are made by people; they are made by people without any antecedent causally sufficient conditions - random choices would happen to people; they would happen **to *people

To make a clay pot, you have to have a nature. You need hands, tactile senses, motor control, knowledge, skill in choosing and using tools, and many other antecedent attributes as well. What you bring into making a clay pot will, to a great extent, determine its nature. To the extent that it reflects your nature, it reflects you as a pot-maker. We bring things into our decisions as well, and to the extent that a decision reflects our nature, it reflects who we are as decision-makers. Anything that doesn’t follow from who we are renders that which we are making a little less a reflection of ourselves.

I wonder, would you consider a person with no established character, just a libertarian free will, to be freer than we are? Suppose that a person’s every action were completely uninfluenced by their attributes; how would such a person’s behavior differ from someone who’s decisions were determined randomly? (This time I’m not asking so much to get at the meaning of libertarian freedom, as I am to draw out why such freedom is desirable. If it is good only in small doses, why is that?)

now, what you’re doing is making the possibility of an ontological distinction rest on the ability to make a phenomenological distinction; you are saying, “there can’t actually be a difference between A and B unless it is in principle possible for some being to **perceive **a difference between A and B”.
and, again, i ask you: why believe that? i certainly don’t.

(I address this above.) How do you determine meaning?

(cont…)

 

[MichaelLewis]

besides, it seems to have the distinct disadvantage of being self-defeating: after all, how would someone perceive the difference between a world where this criterion of yours is true, and one where it isn’t? how could you ever perceive that only perceivable differences actually exist?

Criteria aren’t strictly true or false; they are standards that can be valued or serviceable. This standard is very serviceable, given the fact that words are just tools which can represent ideas once they are interpreted, but have no meaning (though many uses) apart from the ability of conscious beings to interpret them. To interpret a statement (not that we necessarily do this with most spoken statements) is to understand at least some of its possible implications for conscious experience. If we can’t interpret a sentence, then while it may have a role in our social or emotional lives, it doesn’t have any meaning for us. Do you disagree? Again, what is your criterion for meaning?

of course, i would be willing to accept that there are faculties of intellectual perception that are, say, sensitive to truth and falsity, or contingency or necessity. in which case i would say that i perceive that “all uncaused choices are random” is false.

This seems very vague. Can you express what you have in mind? Can you tell me a story so that I can understand it (without evoking libertarian ‘moral responsibility’—unless you can unpack that too)? How did you learn about this distinction? Certainly you may have something ineffable in mind; some experience you can’t convey. If so, at the very least you can’t expect those who don’t know what you are talking about to believe in what you are thinking about. All they could do is pretend. It seems unreasonable for the Catholic Church to expect this on the same grounds. It would amount to a demand for dishonesty: “Assent to the truth of gooble gooble gooble! (As those without the ineffable experience understand it)” Yet such people can’t just not think of these matters, we all need the concept of moral responsibility, and isn’t a compatiblist sense of responsibility at least better than nothing?

not irritation. frustration. (i’m not sure if you can perceive a difference… ). and for which i apologize, michael.

No need, you haven’t been rude or anything. I just wanted to make sure this was friendly.

 

[Dilandau]

Michael wrote,

“But there must be some reason why a child makes the choice one way vs. the other. If there is no reason, the choice is random, if there is a reason the child (who, remember, is innocent up to this point) is not responsible for it.”

I don’t think anyone has really addressed this problem that Michael has brought to our attention. People seem to be skirting the issue and not really approaching it.

Can someone provide the fallacy to this logic?

 

[john_doran]

MichaelLewis:

This is probably an irresolvable point of contention.

yes, it probably is.

but you still haven’t explained it to me, michael: how can caused actions be properly subject to moral censure? if our actions follow necessarily from their initial conditions and covering laws, then how are they different from the actions of other animals, or robots, or kitchen appliances?

and it can’t just be because you have decided to call some of the causes by a certain name; that would mean that linguistics determines morality, which is absurd.

MichaelLewis:

As a practical matter, though, don’t we all judge people based upon their established

characters?
well, i don’t judge people at all, but to the extent that i would, i would only judge them by what they did freely - i.e. what they did but need not have done.

MichaelLewis:

Would you really not (rightly) feel moral outrage at a sadistic child-torturer if he didn’t have libertarian free will? Wouldn’t his malevolence be enough?

no, i wouldn’t. any more than i would feel moral outrage at a shark for eating a person. or a lion. or mudslide. or a tornado. or a flood. or a volcano. or…

this is rock-bottom for me, michael - it literally makes no sense to me to think about actions which are committed of necessity in moral terms. none at all. if the murdering pedophile is determined to do what he does ***in any way ***- i.e. if his actions are performed necessarily - then his actions are morally no different from the lion or the shark or the mudlside or the tornado or the hurricane or the lightning bolt.

MichaelLewis:
The lights and appliances in your kitchen aren’t motivated by a desire to see others in pain or to see them happy and virtuous. That’s what makes the difference to me.
but a “desire to see others in pain” is just a name you’ve given to certain neurological and biochemical events - potassium and calcium ions moving around in your brain, cholines and biogenic amines, bioelectrical pulses firing according to strict (bio)physical laws. or non-physical events occuring according to strict spiritual laws.

just like the electrons wiggling back and forth in the wires of in your house, propagating the electromagnetic energy that causes your appliances to turn on and spin and heat up and whatever.

MichaelLewis:

When I assign moral responsibility, all

I am doing is making an evaluation of a person’s character (or adding a piece of evidence to weigh on a possible future evaluation). I can’t imagine what else I might be doing.
and if what you call the person’s “character” is just a redescription of certain neurological-cum-biophysical-cum-psychological properties he has, then there’s no reason you should withhold similar moral judgment from other entities with similar determined physical properties. like tornadoes. or tsunamis. or earthquakes. i mean, the leap is not so great, is it? we call natural disasters “vicious”, just like people…

MichaelLewis:
I don’t know what it would be like to be directly aware of a random choice being generated, I only know what the results would be (different in some possible worlds); that entails my conception of randomness. How would you know a libertarian free choice if you did directly perceived one? Like a random choice, the results would be different in different possible worlds, but how would you (or God) tell the event itself from a random choice?
the same way you tell the difference between the color red and the color blue - they appear different.

look, i don’t know what it would be like to be directly aware of an electron or a proton or someone else’s thoughts or any number of other things, but so what? the successfulness of the analogy doesn’t depend on anyone’s being able to know what it would be like: the success of the example is built right into it - the putative perceiver (me, you, god) is stipulated as being directly aware of the phenomena in question.

so, again - you’re not being able to imagine what it would be like is irrelevant - if you could do it, you wouldn’t need to imagine it.

 

[john_doran]

MichaelLewis:

The point is that I can tell (in my mind at least) a story or set of stories about concrete experiences that at least partly determines the reference for any abstract word I use; if I can’t, I should at least be aware that I’m not useing the word in question meaningfuly. (Though it still might play a useful role in my social interactions.)

this sounds like you adhere to something like a verificationist criterion of meaning: a proposition is meaningful if and only if it is analytic or in principle empirically verifiable.

i’ll ask you again: why should anyone believe that? i mean, the principle itself is neither analytic nor empirically verifiable…

MichaelLewis:

To make a clay pot, you have to have a nature. You need hands, tactile senses, motor control, knowledge, skill in choosing and using tools, and many other antecedent attributes as well. What you bring into making a clay pot will, to a great extent, determine its nature. To the extent that it reflects your nature, it reflects you as a pot-maker. We bring things into our decisions as well, and to the extent that a decision reflects our nature, it reflects who we are as decision-makers. Anything that doesn’t follow from who we are renders that which we are making a little less a reflection of ourselves.

you’re just stating your position again: anything we do that is not caused by our natures cannot really be said to be something that is done by us.

i think that’s false.

MichaelLewis:

Criteria aren’t strictly true or false; they are standards that can be valued or serviceable.

what does that mean? if a criteria isn’t true, how can it be serviceable?

MichaelLewis:
This standard is very serviceable, given the fact that words are just tools which can represent ideas once they are interpreted, but have no meaning (though many uses) apart from the ability of conscious beings to interpret them.
how can it be serviceable if it’s false?

[MichaelLewis]To interpret a statement (not that we necessarily do this with most spoken statements) is to understand at least some of its possible implications for conscious experience. If we can’t interpret a sentence, then while it may have a role in our social or emotional lives, it doesn’t have any meaning for us. Do you disagree? Again, what is your criterion for meaning?
i am not sure what kind of theory of meaning you are espousing here, but it seems to be one with which i am in radical disagreement. on the one hand, you seem to have something like Wittgenstein’s “meaning as use” in mind; on the other, it sounds like you’re buying into Frege’s “sense determines reference”. but since the former was formulated precisely as a rejection of the latter, i’m not sure how you could hold them in conjunction with one another.

but that is as may be. i believe both are false.

but what difference does it make? what work do you think our respective theories of meaning are doing here?

 

[john_doran]

i really don’t think this point-by-point responding to each others’ posts is helpful - it obscures the deep disagreement we have about two or three fundamental points:

you believe:

1. that if a choice isn’t caused by one’s character, then it is random;
2. that unless it is conceivable for two states of affairs to be distinguished phenomenologically, then they are not in fact distinct states of affairs;
3. that moral culpability is compatible with actions that are the necessary result of initial conditions and covering laws.

i believe :

1. that choices can be made be made by inividuals in the absence of antecedent causally sufficient conditions;
2. that phenomenology has got nothing to do either with ontology or semantics;
3. agents cannot be morally responsible for anything they do which they were caused to do - i.e. anything that they do necessarily.

i’m pretty sure that we’re just not going to get anywhere with these various disagreements…

 

[MichaelLewis]

John wrote:

*but a “desire to see others in pain” is just a name you’ve given to certain neurological and biochemical events - potassium and calcium ions moving around in your brain, cholines and biogenic amines, bioelectrical pulses firing according to strict (bio)physical laws. or non-physical events occuring according to strict spiritual laws.

just like the electrons wiggling back and forth in the wires of in your house, propagating the electromagnetic energy that causes your appliances to turn on and spin and heat up and whatever.*

Consciousness baffles me as much as anyone; but I don’t see how libertarian theory helps to unravel this mystery. I’m certainly not **denying **consciousness; I see it as just as incredible and REAL as you do. It deserves to be distinguished from wiring because it is really different from wiring (unless wiring is conscious, unbeknownst to us). I know this because I happen to be conscious!

i’m pretty sure that we’re just not going to get anywhere with these various disagreements…

Fair enough; thank you for discussing this at such length.

Michael