Impossibility of free will

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ASimon said:
Willing may imply that an individual chooses to perform some action, but it doesn’t insist on it. You can be willed to do something by other means. Now, you can split hairs and say that, in determinism, that that causal factors that will you to choose X are themselves choosing X. But to avoid a conversation about this that isn’t hopelessly abstract, I think we have to personalize this, at least superficially. After all, a lack of free will doesn’t negate the general concept of morality, or moral truth, or even moral responsibility. I’m not even certain it’s truly that incoherent to blame anybody for their bad behavior - given that they could not have chosen otherwise. After all, a blame response can act as negative reinforcement and an experience that may, in some cases, influence future behavior.
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ASimon,

Willing is necessarily personal and individual. I cannot will you to do something you do not choose to do.

I cannot even exercise such power over irrational objects, let alone inanimate ones, by a simple act of my will. Can I, by a simple act of the will, make a flower grow? Or by another simple act of will, make a rock move?

If either of these things are to be done, I need to move my body into certain actions. I do that by a command of the will. In order to get you (or any other rational creature) to do something, you need to be either 1) actively receptive, or 2) completely passive to my wishes. In number 1, I would have to persuade you (through reason) or coerce you (by force, or bribery of some kind) to actively receive and obey my will commands. In number 2, you must have lost all control over your own will and reason in order to blindly follow my commands without ever exercising your own will.

Are puppets responsible for their actions? They have no free will. Without free will, are we any better than marionettes?

God love you,
sandomenico
 
sandomenico said:
ASimon,

Willing is necessarily personal and individual. I cannot will you to do something you do not choose to do.

I cannot even exercise such power over irrational objects, let alone inanimate ones, by a simple act of my will. Can I, by a simple act of the will, make a flower grow? Or by another simple act of will, make a rock move?

If either of these things are to be done, I need to move my body into certain actions. I do that by a command of the will. In order to get you (or any other rational creature) to do something, you need to be either 1) actively receptive, or 2) completely passive to my wishes. In number 1, I would have to persuade you (through reason) or coerce you (by force, or bribery of some kind) to actively receive and obey my will commands. In number 2, you must have lost all control over your own will and reason in order to blindly follow my commands without ever exercising your own will.

Are puppets responsible for their actions? They have no free will. Without free will, are we any better than marionettes?
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“Will” is a verb, not a noun. You do not have “a will.” You can only “be willed.” And by what? Well, everything you are today is a result of your DNA (which you didn’t choose), your upbringing (which you didn’t choose), and every other experience you’ve ever had (none of which you’ve ever chosen). To my eyes, there is nothing else to govern your choices, no “Will” that let’s you choose things independent of your genetics, upbringing, and experience. And it would have to be independent of those things if you’re going to call it “Free.”

And God giving you “free will” doesn’t solve the problem either. If you assert that you are the way you are because God made you that way, then that’s not free will. And if you assert that you chose to be the way you are, then God really didn’t give you anything. We revert back to the three operational factors - DNA, Upbringing, and Experience.

I think we’re at least as good as marionettes, and marionettes aren’t that bad to begin with.
 
tonyrey said:
I have pointed out that your regress is based on an arbitrary separation of the intention from the person. An intention to have an intention is nonsense. We either have an intention or we don’t!
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I have not separated the intention from the person. And my argument doesn’t rely on a regress of intentions. It just says that if it is possible to have an intention to make an intention then there is a regress. If it is impossible then our intentions are not intended and therefore the act of making an intention is unintended and thus not an act of free will.
 
glowingembers said:
I have not separated the intention from the person. And my argument doesn’t rely on a regress of intentions. It just says that if it is possible to have an intention to make an intention then there is a regress. If it is impossible then our intentions are not intended and therefore the act of making an intention is unintended and thus not an act of free will.
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When do you have an intention to make an intention?

Is it possible to have an intention to have an intention to make an intention?
 
tonyrey said:
When do you have an intention to make an intention?

Is it possible to have an intention to have an intention to make an intention?
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I doubt it. It seems more plausible that intentions emerge without being intended.
 
glowingembers said:
*When do you have an intention to make an intention?

Is it possible to have an intention to have an intention to make an intention?*
I doubt it. It seems more plausible that intentions emerge without being intended.
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Then you don’t have an intention to make an intention!

It is more plausible that some intentions emerge without being intended but most are the result of a choice, e.g. to take an umbrella when it is raining. But we can also choose to be unreasonable! We can decide to be foolish and get wet. 🙂

Not all our choices are rational but it doesn’t follow that all our choices are determined by previous events.
 
tonyrey said:
Then you don’t have an intention to make an intention!
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No problem.
tonyrey said:
It is more plausible that some intentions emerge without being intended but most are the result of a choice, e.g. to take an umbrella when it is raining.
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An act of free will should be intended. Unintended acts, including unintended intentions, are not acts of free will.
 
ASimon said:
“Will” is a verb, not a noun. You do not have “a will.” You can only “be willed.”
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AS:

:will: noun, verb, willed, will·ing.
noun
  1. the faculty of conscious and especially of deliberate action; the power of control the mind has over its own actions: the freedom of the will.
  2. power of choosing one’s own actions: to have a strong or a weak will.
  3. the act or process of using or asserting one’s choice; volition: *My hands are obedient to my will *
  4. wish or desire: to submit against one’s will.
  5. purpose or determination, often hearty or stubborn determination; willfulness: to have the will to succeed. - Dictionary.com
Whew! I didn’t want to be the one that had to break it to all of those lawyers! :eek:

God bless,
jd
 
glowingembers said:
here
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Thank you for pointing this out.
You stated:
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glowingembers:
Free will as it is usually understood is the ability of an agent to do an intentional action
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This invalidates your argument because this is not the definition free will used in Catholic teaching.
CCC 1704:
The human person participates in the light and power of the divine Spirit. By his reason, he is capable of understanding the order of things established by the Creator. By free will, he is capable of directing himself toward his true good. He finds his perfection "in seeking and loving what is true and good."7
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Notice here the word capable. Man is capable of choosing good. It is quite obvious that he often does not.
 
glowingembers said:
An act of free will should be intended. Unintended acts, including unintended intentions, are not acts of free will.
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I agree but intended acts are! The source of the intention is not an impersonal object but a person.
 
ASimon said:
“Will” is a verb, not a noun. You do not have “a will.” You can only “be willed.” And by what? Well, everything you are today is a result of your DNA (which you didn’t choose), your upbringing (which you didn’t choose), and every other experience you’ve ever had (none of which you’ve ever chosen). To my eyes, there is nothing else to govern your choices, no “Will” that let’s you choose things independent of your genetics, upbringing, and experience. And it would have to be independent of those things if you’re going to call it “Free.”

And God giving you “free will” doesn’t solve the problem either. If you assert that you are the way you are because God made you that way, then that’s not free will. And if you assert that you chose to be the way you are, then God really didn’t give you anything. We revert back to the three operational factors - DNA, Upbringing, and Experience.

I think we’re at least as good as marionettes, and marionettes aren’t that bad to begin with.
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I refer you to JDaniel’s earlier post on “will” being a noun.

However, I would add, as a grammatical side note, that a verb has two senses: passive and active. (There are obviously some exceptions, but they prove the rule). You only mentioned “to be willed,” which is passive. I don’t think you overlooked the second sense – “to will” – which is an action on the part of a subject.

It seems, rather, that you have relegated the passive sense of the word to us, and the active sense to what makes us up (DNA, upbringing, and experience). We are rendered incapable of willing for ourselves, because what makes us up, has already determined all our actions. Is that a fair assessment?

God love you,
sandomenico
 
sandomenico said:
I refer you to JDaniel’s earlier post on “will” being a noun.

However, I would add, as a grammatical side note, that a verb has two senses: passive and active. (There are obviously some exceptions, but they prove the rule). You only mentioned “to be willed,” which is passive. I don’t think you overlooked the second sense – “to will” – which is an action on the part of a subject.

It seems, rather, that you have relegated the passive sense of the word to us, and the active sense to what makes us up (DNA, upbringing, and experience). We are rendered incapable of willing for ourselves, because what makes us up, has already determined all our actions. Is that a fair assessment?
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JDaniel’s post was irrelevant. The word “D’oh” - as in, the word that Homer Simpson uses to connote frustration, also appears in the dictionary. The dictionary is only a written record of how words are used and what they mean when they are used. It is not meant to be the ultimate repository of absolute knowledge of all things in this Universe. Just because people use the word “will” as a noun in conversation does not make it an actual thing.

In any event, yes, your assessment was correct. We cannot will for ourselves. That is, we cannot author our own intentions.
 
tonyrey said:
Try giving that as an excuse for a plea of not guilty in a court of law!
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Non sequitur. Even though we don’t have free will, a person who stalks and kills another person is still a person with the DNA, upbringing, and experience that lead them to kill somebody, and may again, even if they didn’t self-author the intention to do it. So the state still has an interest in locking that person up.
 
ASimon said:
Non sequitur. Even though we don’t have free will, a person who stalks and kills another person is still a person with the DNA, upbringing, and experience that lead them to kill somebody, and may again, even if they didn’t self-author the intention to do it. So the state still has an interest in locking that person up.
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On a false charge! In that case the verdict should be “**Not guilty **but punishable in spite of all the circumstances - even though they are universally assumed to be mitigating”…

Is this your concept of justice? No doubt you believe justice is merely a human convention that can be ignored when convenient and when there is little risk of detection!
 
tonyrey said:
On a false charge! In that case the verdict should be “**Not guilty **but punishable in spite of all the circumstances - even though they are universally assumed to be mitigating”…

Is this your concept of justice? No doubt you believe justice is merely a human convention that can be ignored when convenient and when there is little risk of detection!
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There is no false charge. If you stalk and kill somebody, then you’ve stalked and killed somebody. I won’t say that determinism has no implications at all for jurisprudence, but there isn’t very much that we would need to jettison. If you’ve stalked and killed somebody, regardless of whether you authored the intention to do it, the state has an interest in locking you up (to keep you from doing it again).Trying to finangle the wording of the verdict into something like “Guilty, but not really” or “Not guilty, but still” only muddies the waters unnecessarily.

The only people who find this thinking unacceptable are people who think the justice system is designed to only be a tool for emotionally-based retribution.
 
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