is there free will?

[Rhyfelwyr]

To borrow a Calvinistic principle, and thereby undercut Rhy, Free Will should be accepted against determinism because of utility. If we truly believe our choices are pre-determined by our environment we have no reason to act morally, or act at all.

Under a genuinely dterministic philosophy a human being would be unable to make choices and would simply grind to a halt.

I object to the idea that the inevitability of our actions removes personal responsibility. Maybe you could not have done things differently, but that does not change the fact that you are what you are. If you are a sinner, you sin. If regenerated, good works should follow. The notion that in order to be responsible for something, we must make a rational choice to do it, is a very modern one based on the idea of all people being rational agents with free will. If someone gets drunk and kills a guy in a bar fight, he is still held responsible, even if he was unable to use his rational faculties, and acted purely on his animalistic instincts. If a dog bred for fighting mauls a baby, you put it down. It didn't make a reasoned decision, it was just being what it is.

To put a more theological perspective on things, "Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?" (Romans 9:20)

@Sasaki: I think maybe part of the confusion we are all having is due to what we mean by free will. When PVC and myself debate the issue, we always tend to refer to the idea of 'libertarian free will', where freedom is defined as the ability to take more than one path. I get where you are coming from in your arguments, but the issue is that with compatabilitist views, they don't tend to make allowance for the possibility of alternative time lines, or different paths through our lives.

In the reality you describe, everything is inevitable. I was always going to be here typing this post, not one detail of it could be different. This is freedom insofar as we can act according to our nature and our will, but it is not freedom in the sense that the term 'free will' has always been used in philosophical circles, since that suggests a choice. With your view of freedom, everything is inevitable. With libertarian free will, there are countless possible outcomes for the future.

[The Stranger]

I object to the idea that the inevitability of our actions removes personal responsibility. Maybe you could not have done things differently, but that does not change the fact that you are what you are. If you are a sinner, you sin. If regenerated, good works should follow. The notion that in order to be responsible for something, we must make a rational choice to do it, is a very modern one based on the idea of all people being rational agents with free will.

how can you be responsible for something you have no power over? you are not responsible for being a human, nor being a man or a woman, even though that is who you are, in the sense that that is your being. you have responsibility for being born in a certain place and time. and only if you have a choice to change your nature, (eg how you are) than you can be held accountable for that. but you have no choice about how you are, than how you are is similar to who you are. and you cannot ever be held accountable for who you are.

If someone gets drunk and kills a guy in a bar fight, he is still held responsible, even if he was unable to use his rational faculties, and acted purely on his animalistic instincts. If a dog bred for fighting mauls a baby, you put it down. It didn't make a reasoned decision, it was just being what it is.

we hold him accountable for drinking too much in the first place and therefor he knowingly put himself in a situation he could no longer hold himself in check. no one holds a lion accountable for killing a gazelle. we only put down the dog because we reasonably foresee that the dog, who is not rational might kill again because he is not capable of controlling or changing his nature.

im not sure whether that the possibilty or the illusion of free will might be enough to account for responsibility. such a situation as the descision inducer are difficult, and i have to think more about it. in a logically ordered universe with a rational omniscient and omnipotent deity i think the possibility is enough, but in a causal determined system without a rational reason but only cause and effect, i doubt that is enough. however, if that illusion or even the possibility cease to exist than there is no reason to hold people responsible for their actions.

[Rhyfelwyr]

how can you be responsible for something you have no power over? you are not responsible for being a human, nor being a man or a woman, even though that is who you are, in the sense that that is your being. you have responsibility for being born in a certain place and time. and only if you have a choice to change your nature, (eg how you are) than you can be held accountable for that. but you have no choice about how you are, than how you are is similar to who you are. and you cannot ever be held accountable for who you are.

How so? If someone is evil then they are evil, the fact they can't choose to do good doesn't make them any better. In the world of the Gnostic sects where there is one good god and one bad god, is the bad god any less evil simply because it is purely a matter of his nature, rather than him being rational and able to choose between good and evil?

we hold him accountable for drinking too much in the first place and therefor he knowingly put himself in a situation he could no longer hold himself in check.

If that was the case, shoudln't there just be a blanket legal punishment for being drunk, regardless of what the person does afterwards? If being drunk is the only thing we are held accountable for when a crime follows, why should someone who drink drives and kills someone get a longer sentence than someone who smashes a window on a night out or whatever?

[The Stranger]

How so? If someone is evil then they are evil, the fact they can't choose to do good doesn't make them any better.

it does not make them any better. you mistake good and evil for free and unfree. im not talking about that. if he is evil he is evil, but he is NOT RESPONSIBLE for being evil. and thus cannot be held ACCOUNTABLE for what he does in the way that we do now.

In the world of the Gnostic sects where there is one good god and one bad god, is the bad god any less evil simply because it is purely a matter of his nature, rather than him being rational and able to choose between good and evil?

you cannot treat gods in the way you treat men and you cannot treat men in the way you treat god. but again if the god has no ability to change his nature than he cannot be responsible for how he is. and if how is is the same as what he does than in that sense he is also not responsible for what he does. but even so it is irrelevent because there is no one to hold him responsible or anyone he has to account his deeds to.

If that was the case, shoudln't there just be a blanket legal punishment for being drunk, regardless of what the person does afterwards? If being drunk is the only thing we are held accountable for when a crime follows, why should someone who drink drives and kills someone get a longer sentence than someone who smashes a window on a night out or whatever?

that is a very good question. and i think being drunk irresponsible is always a "crime". its just very hard to determine those boundaries.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Thanks, that does indeed seem to be the argument. But, the libertarian view and the compatibilist view can't both be correct, yes? I think the libertarian view has a lot to answer, and that if you can get your head around the compatibilist view you can see that determinism is no threat at all to free will.

Indeed, they both can't be correct, the libertarian view is grounded on the idea that compatiblism is impossible. As for the libertarian view, I agree there are issues with the mechanics of it. For choice to exist in the libertarian sense, we must have a soul, or something that allows for decision making to take place above the purely scientific/biological view of how our brains work (well I'm pretty ignorant of the biological side, but I would guess it supports determinism with our brains working by signals with one inevitably determining the next, I could of course be completely, embrassingly wrong).

But I think PVC's argument here in defense of the libertarian view is more on the grounds of its necessity from a philosophical perspective with its relation to morality and responsibility etc, as opposed to laying out the actual mechanics of how it works.

In other words, I have my definition of free will, but I can't just claim that it is the correct one. Whether the definition is correct is a viable (and essential) source for argument.

I agree, that this dispute is best resolved now, since otherwise it's going to be impossible for people to understand each other. I agree that your definition of free will is the sum of the freedom which our will's possess in reality btw, but I see this as supporting purely determinsim and not free will (since I hold to the libertarian defintion of the term, which is how it has been traditionally used). I think we have the same ideas, but are just using different words for them.

it does not make them any better. you mistake good and evil for free and unfree. im not talking about that. if he is evil he is evil, but he is NOT RESPONSIBLE for being evil. and thus cannot be held ACCOUNTABLE for what he does in the way that we do now.

you cannot treat gods in the way you treat men and you cannot treat men in the way you treat god. but again if the god has no ability to change his nature than he cannot be responsible for how he is. and if how is is the same as what he does than in that sense he is also not responsible for what he does. but even so it is irrelevent because there is no one to hold him responsible or anyone he has to account his deeds to.

But does responsbility require the subjection of lesser beings to greater realities? Can only a follower of evil be responsible for his actions, as opposed to the source of the evil itself?

This is why I think your response to the Gnostic god issue is quite unusual. If one god is the source of all evil, the self-evident, self-perpetuating root of all evil - why should it be looked upon more kindly than one of its followers?

[The Stranger]

But does responsbility require the subjection of lesser beings to greater realities? Can only a follower of evil be responsible for his actions, as opposed to the source of the evil itself?

This is why I think your response to the Gnostic god issue is quite unusual. If one god is the source of all evil, the self-evident, self-perpetuating root of all evil - why should it be looked upon more kindly than one of its followers?

he should not be looked more kindly upon. if one chooses freely for evil, whatever that may be, (i dont believe in objective evil or good, but that is besides the matter) he is responsible for that evil and the evil he does. if he has the ability to change than also the actions that come forth from his nature are his responsibility. this makes him not more or less "evil" than that evil god, would he exist, who is the root of all evil in the world. he is only more responsible for his actions. because the evil god is not responsible at all. you cannot apply the same cause and effect, names etc to gods as you do to men.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Well, if you are going to use smileys to be rude I could just leave, you know.

I just felt like I was repeating myself.

Causation is required to reasonably determine the outcome of a proposed course of action, but in order for someone to be held responsible they must have a choice, i.e. at least two options.

But this depends on how you define choice and options. If I leave the bar drunk, I do have the option of calling a cab instead of driving home. That's very easy and very doable--I am capable of it, and in fact with a minor change (say, having been told recently about the legal penalties) I might have made the right choice. Doing that is an option for my personality. It may be that, given my personality, I was always going to choose to drive home. But that doesn't mean I didn't have the option not to. I only didn't have the option if you see the laws that "govern" human behavior as proscriptive rather than descriptive.

No.

Do you see why I think they are compatible?

Fatalism is the directing of events by an outside force, i.e. God. Determinism assumes the system directs itself. Your "causal determinism" is absolute and its results are therefore the saem as a fatalistic system.

Fatalism assumes that that, for example, I don't need to wear my seatbelt because the date of my death is already set in stone. But of course, not wearing a seatbelt might be what kills you. Determinism says "I'll wear my seatbelt out of habit".

In the UK there is a defence against murder called "autonomy" where the accused's faculties and decision making are deemed to have been bypassed by an outside agent. In your system:

"determinism says that under circumstances X, what will happen is that you will do A"

So, under the correct circumstance Harry will murder his wife, and under those exact circumstances Harry would always muder his wife. Therefore he cannot be held responsible because he is subject to the external circumstance.

So Free Will in your system merely appears to exist because you cannot accurately measure all the variables and therefore accurately predict the outcome of a situation.

But what I was disputing is that he was "subject" to anything. The laws don't govern us, they describe us. In the Greshem's law example, people aren't forced to hoard gold because of greshem's law, remember?

You can hold him responsible for his character by the way. Someone who has the character to murder someone in an argument or for money etc can be deemed immoral, even with determism, don't you think?

I object to the idea that the inevitability of our actions removes personal responsibility. Maybe you could not have done things differently, but that does not change the fact that you are what you are. If you are a sinner, you sin. If regenerated, good works should follow. The notion that in order to be responsible for something, we must make a rational choice to do it, is a very modern one based on the idea of all people being rational agents with free will. If someone gets drunk and kills a guy in a bar fight, he is still held responsible, even if he was unable to use his rational faculties, and acted purely on his animalistic instincts. If a dog bred for fighting mauls a baby, you put it down. It didn't make a reasoned decision, it was just being what it is.

I agree

That's what I was trying to get at with "holding people responsible for their character".

@Sasaki: I think maybe part of the confusion we are all having is due to what we mean by free will. When PVC and myself debate the issue, we always tend to refer to the idea of 'libertarian free will', where freedom is defined as the ability to take more than one path. I get where you are coming from in your arguments, but the issue is that with compatabilitist views, they don't tend to make allowance for the possibility of alternative time lines, or different paths through our lives.

In the reality you describe, everything is inevitable. I was always going to be here typing this post, not one detail of it could be different. This is freedom insofar as we can act according to our nature and our will, but it is not freedom in the sense that the term 'free will' has always been used in philosophical circles, since that suggests a choice. With your view of freedom, everything is inevitable. With libertarian free will, there are countless possible outcomes for the future.

Thanks, that does indeed seem to be the argument. But, the libertarian view and the compatibilist view can't both be correct, yes? I think the libertarian view has a lot to answer, and that if you can get your head around the compatibilist view you can see that determinism is no threat at all to free will.

In other words, I have my definition of free will, but I can't just claim that it is the correct one. Whether the definition is correct is a viable (and essential) source for argument.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I just felt like I was repeating myself.

That's no need to get personal. If you feel that way you can either conclude I am stupid, that I am being deliberately obstructive, or that you are not explainging yourself so that I can understand you. In option 1 and 2 I should be ignored, option 3 behoves you to either explain better or concede the point as unsupportabe.

But this depends on how you define choice and options. If I leave the bar drunk, I do have the option of calling a cab instead of driving home. That's very easy and very doable--I am capable of it, and in fact with a minor change (say, having been told recently about the legal penalties) I might have made the right choice. Doing that is an option for my personality. It may be that, given my personality, I was always going to choose to drive home. But that doesn't mean I didn't have the option not to. I only didn't have the option if you see the laws that "govern" human behavior as proscriptive rather than descriptive.

"Choice" implies options and the ability to choose between them, "options" implies multiple available paths. If one says "you have no choice" that indicates only one option. Ergo, it is fair for me to say, "In a truly detministic system you have no choice". Even if theoretically there are multiple possible outcomes, or multiple decisions, the total causality inherrent in the system dictates that the same choice will always be made under the same circumstances.

So there is no actual choice, only a theoretical system. In this I think your philosophy shows a flaw, it imagines a system for its morality that it claims does no factually exist.

Do you see why I think they are compatible?

No, not in a pruely deterministic system, which is why I replied with a flat rejection last time. You claim appears non-sensical to me.

Fatalism assumes that that, for example, I don't need to wear my seatbelt because the date of my death is already set in stone. But of course, not wearing a seatbelt might be what kills you. Determinism says "I'll wear my seatbelt out of habit".

No, actually fatalism says, "I will wear my seatbelt until the day I decide not to and it kills me", while determinism says, "I will wear my seatbelt unless X conditions are met". The reason that determinism produces the same result as fatalism is that in a purely deterministic system whether or not X conditions would ever be met was predetermined long before you were born by the causality of the universe; whether X condictions would ultimately lead to your death was ultimately also already predetmined.

If you want to see how fatalism works, I suggest you look at Greek Myths, they are the best education in the subject; Oedipus is an excellent example.

Crucially, mortals cannot detect either Fate or Predeterminism.

But what I was disputing is that he was "subject" to anything. The laws don't govern us, they describe us. In the Greshem's law example, people aren't forced to hoard gold because of greshem's law, remember?

Well Greshem's Law demonstrates the problem, because not everyone hoards Gold. So, either the universe is not truly deterministic, or your laws refuse to take account of its interlocking complexity. In any case, it is not a question of being "subject" to these Laws, but to the system they seek to explain. If we are subject to a deterministic universe which (pre)determines our actions then we have no choice, and thence to Free Will.

You can hold him responsible for his character by the way. Someone who has the character to murder someone in an argument or for money etc can be deemed immoral, even with determism, don't you think?

No, because in your system his character is determined by his genetics and environment, he can be no more blamed for it than for his gender. This raises another problem with your system; why the system dictates that some beings punish others to begin with. This is where Calvinism picks up Augustinianism and argues that some beings are ordained to punish others for their Sins in the name of God.

Still, I digress.

Thanks, that does indeed seem to be the argument. But, the libertarian view and the compatibilist view can't both be correct, yes? I think the libertarian view has a lot to answer, and that if you can get your head around the compatibilist view you can see that determinism is no threat at all to free will.

In other words, I have my definition of free will, but I can't just claim that it is the correct one. Whether the definition is correct is a viable (and essential) source for argument.

the only way for Determinism to be compatable with Free Will is if the two are held in constant opposition, i.e. they oppose each other like the poles of a magnet. Even so, determinism is THE threat to Free Will, and to personal choice.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

That's no need to get personal. If you feel that way you can either conclude I am stupid, that I am being deliberately obstructive, or that you are not explainging yourself so that I can understand you. In option 1 and 2 I should be ignored, option 3 behoves you to either explain better or concede the point as unsupportabe.

I think you are drawing too much from some smileys :/

"Choice" implies options and the ability to choose between them, "options" implies multiple available paths. If one says "you have no choice" that indicates only one option. Ergo, it is fair for me to say, "In a truly detministic system you have no choice". Even if theoretically there are multiple possible outcomes, or multiple decisions, the total causality inherrent in the system dictates that the same choice will always be made under the same circumstances.

So there is no actual choice, only a theoretical system. In this I think your philosophy shows a flaw, it imagines a system for its morality that it claims does no factually exist.

I think you are viewing the mind abstractly here, which is very counter-intuitive*. If you present options to me, and I go over them in my mind, consider things, think about it etc and pick one because of my thoughts and feelings, I have made a choice. That's what making a choice is. The fact that I was always going to make that choice doesn't mean that I didn't have a choice.

It seems like partly a language problem. Look at the following argument:

If Paul has two sons and a daughter, then he has to have at least two children.
Paul has two sons and a daughter.

Therefore: Paul has to have at least two children.

This conclusion is a false statement. He does not have to have any amount of children. He just happens to in this case. A better way to phrase it would be:

"It has to be that (if Paul has two sons and a daughter, then he has at least two children)."
Paul has two sons and a daughter

Therefore: Paul has at least two children

And that's what determinism is saying. And the conclusion now allows for free will. The conclusion is no longer that Paul had to have two children, and thus had no choice. For human choices it would go:

It must be that (if certain conditions are met, then you will do A).
not:
If certain conditions are met, then you must do A.

*And I think in your own beliefs you don't view it that way (since you reject determinism)

No, actually fatalism says, "I will wear my seatbelt until the day I decide not to and it kills me", while determinism says, "I will wear my seatbelt unless X conditions are met". The reason that determinism produces the same result as fatalism is that in a purely deterministic system whether or not X conditions would ever be met was predetermined long before you were born by the causality of the universe; whether X condictions would ultimately lead to your death was ultimately also already predetmined.

But you are leaving out the key difference. Fatalism assumes that it doesn't matter what we do--that is patently false. What I do does effect when I will die. Fatalism says that determinism is a reason to act a certain way.

Well Greshem's Law demonstrates the problem, because not everyone hoards Gold. So, either the universe is not truly deterministic, or your laws refuse to take account of its interlocking complexity. In any case, it is not a question of being "subject" to these Laws, but to the system they seek to explain.

I don't understand what you mean with this bit. Not everyone hoards gold because Greshem's law describes a tendency on a certain scale. It's a different level of description than cause and effect on the atomic level.

No, because in your system his character is determined by his genetics and environment, he can be no more blamed for it than for his gender.

Well, I agree this is a digression from the free will argument. It has more to do with what morality is for.

I agree, that this dispute is best resolved now, since otherwise it's going to be impossible for people to understand each other. I agree that your definition of free will is the sum of the freedom which our will's possess in reality btw, but I see this as supporting purely determinsim and not free will (since I hold to the libertarian defintion of the term, which is how it has been traditionally used). I think we have the same ideas, but are just using different words for them.

I don't mind using different words if the ideas are the same

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I think you are viewing the mind abstractly here, which is very counter-intuitive*. If you present options to me, and I go over them in my mind, consider things, think about it etc and pick one because of my thoughts and feelings, I have made a choice. That's what making a choice is. The fact that I was always going to make that choice doesn't mean that I didn't have a choice.

No, if you only have one choice, there is NO choice. You only have the illusion of choice, the outcome was always inevitable. I don't see anything abstract about that.

It seems like partly a language problem. Look at the following argument:

If Paul has two sons and a daughter, then he has to have at least two children.
Paul has two sons and a daughter.

Therefore: Paul has to have at least two children.

This conclusion is a false statement. He does not have to have any amount of children. He just happens to in this case. A better way to phrase it would be:

"It has to be that (if Paul has two sons and a daughter, then he has at least two children)."
Paul has two sons and a daughter

Therefore: Paul has at least two children

And that's what determinism is saying. And the conclusion now allows for free will. The conclusion is no longer that Paul had to have two children, and thus had no choice. For human choices it would go:

It must be that (if certain conditions are met, then you will do A).
not:
If certain conditions are met, then you must do A.

*And I think in your own beliefs you don't view it that way (since you reject determinism)

I fail to see the point, you are using the concrete to try to describe the conceptual. Paul's children were born to him, three were born to him, that is more than two. Paul's children are already born when you say "he has at least two." However, that bears not at all on the question of determinism because it describes the present, not the future.

But you are leaving out the key difference. Fatalism assumes that it doesn't matter what we do--that is patently false. What I do does effect when I will die. Fatalism says that determinism is a reason to act a certain way.

I think you're confusing fatalism and prophecy, which is the expression of fatalism. To borrow you example, "Paul will have two children" is a prophetic statement, when he then has three the prophecy was fulfilled, even though he has an extra child. Fatalism is not detectable from within the system.

I don't understand what you mean with this bit. Not everyone hoards gold because Greshem's law describes a tendency on a certain scale. It's a different level of description than cause and effect on the atomic level.

Not everyone reacts in a given way to a given situation, this is either because A: they are different parts of the deterministic system and therefore function differently or B: because they have Free Will and make different choices.

The crucial point is this, a "Free" Will is unbound, it is not subject to any outside force, though it may take such forces into account. What you are describing is a "Will" which is merely an intellectual expression of a predetermined desire for a predetermined outcome.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

No, if you only have one choice, there is NO choice. You only have the illusion of choice, the outcome was always inevitable. I don't see anything abstract about that.

But the word "choice" has always referred to what I described and what you call the illusion of choice. It seems abstract to me because it doesn't acknowledge the complexity of the mind. Would you admire a van gogh, or say that he didn't really paint it, his arm was forced to?

It's essentially a semantic disagreement, but I don't get your insistence that free will must be unbound. That would require omnipotence, yes? And presumably no sense of right and wrong, else our will would be bound by our conscience. It seems to me like you add up all the external forces that push us around, and say that despite them, we have free will. But that if our brain has a definite process by which it decides things, we don't. The freedom in my free will comes from our ability to do what our psychological selves want--and your description of that as unfree boils down to "we have to do what we want, so we don't choose it".

I think you're confusing fatalism and prophecy, which is the expression of fatalism.

Isn't that how it was described originally? "I don't need to work because it's all determined anyway" is an expression of fatalism right? Because it can matter if you work.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

But the word "choice" has always referred to what I described and what you call the illusion of choice. It seems abstract to me because it doesn't acknowledge the complexity of the mind. Would you admire a van gogh, or say that he didn't really paint it, his arm was forced to?

I don't think so.... Generally the mind has been considered a discerning faculty which performs a decision making process, choosing between multiple options.

It's essentially a semantic disagreement, but I don't get your insistence that free will must be unbound. That would require omnipotence, yes? And presumably no sense of right and wrong, else our will would be bound by our conscience. It seems to me like you add up all the external forces that push us around, and say that despite them, we have free will. But that if our brain has a definite process by which it decides things, we don't. The freedom in my free will comes from our ability to do what our psychological selves want--and your description of that as unfree boils down to "we have to do what we want, so we don't choose it".

I think you are mistaking the ability to express our Will, and its Freedom. Let us be clear, "Freedom" in any context means "to be unfettered" To be free is to be unconstrained. Now, the Will if it is truly Free must be uncontrained and able to make choices in spite of external pressure. Now, the expression of the Will is something else, I can exercise my Free Will and decide I want to fly, but I can't carry through that Will because I don't have wings. Of course, man continued to Will this, wholly against his nature, and thence built himself wings.

So the Will is Free but the Action isn't. Freedom of Action is a preserve of the Divine, whether man has Free Will within himself is a seperate question. Is the distinction I am making clear, now?

Now, the Will can allow itself to be bound by, for example, morality and be held accountable for such a decision. However, because the Will is Free such notionally binding, or rather submission, is voluntary.

Now, if the decisions the Will makes are actually bound by the environment, rather than influenced by it, then the Will is un-Free because its choices are make independent of it. Essentially, the Will is commanded by the system to want a certain thing. With Free Will the Will merely aquiences, it is never commanded.

My complaint with your system is that it boils down to, "We have to want what we want" rather than, "we choose what we want".

Isn't that how it was described originally? "I don't need to work because it's all determined anyway" is an expression of fatalism right? Because it can matter if you work.

Not really, its more like, "whether I work or not has been determined, so I don't have to think about it". Such a situation as you describe happens when someone who actually has Free Will gives up and becomes fatalistic. Remember, all my objections to the way Determinism impacts society come from a Free Will perspective.