Desire and Freewill

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

It seems pretty plain to me that we do things solely because we desire to.
It may seem to be the case that we frequently do things that we do not wish to, but is it not the case that we are simply desiring the lesser of 2 evils. ‘I desire to go to work, because I desire not to starve’, ‘I desire to clean the house because I desire not to live in filth’. There is never a case were we say. ‘I hate doing this and their is no benefit to anyone in me doing it, in fact it will achieve nothing at all so I’m going to do it.’ That said, I should note, doing it because you desire to prove the statement wrong doesn’t work as an argument as you are acting on desire of disproof. People who are addicted to drugs desire the drug over the pain of withdrawal.

So, if desire controls our actions, then it follows that our actions can not control our desires. The hand can not control the brain.

Now I think we all define freedom as the ability to do that which we desire, but if we are not in control of our desires then is there truly such a thing as freedom, or is it merely a trick of perception?

2

If we’re going to mix up the freewill side of things, I’d say “It seems pretty plain to me that it appears we do things solely because we desire to.” Absolute determinism (where there’s no freewill) doesn’t deny the possibility of implied freewill, i.e. every determined action is coupled with other events that make it seem like freedom exists.

Secondly, morality only exists if we have freewill. But the appearance of morality can also be faked via determinism.

3

If you are going to use the term “desire” in such a way that even when we do not desire to do something we “really” do desire to do it, I suppose you can. But if you do, then the statement that we always do what we desire to do becomes a tautology. It would be like stating that all rabbits eat lettuce, and then, if you find a rabbit that does not eat lettuce, you say it is just not a rabbit. So you are using the sentence “We always do what we desire to do” so that it would be impossible for anything to show that it was false. So the statement that whenever we do anything we desire to do it just is true by your definition of “desire” whereby even if you don’t desire it, you desire it if you do it. So it is a definitional statement and not a statement about what people do, since, as you pointed out, people often do things which they do not desire to do, but which they have to do for other reasons. No one desires to do what he is forced to do, since, the point of forcing him to do that thing is exactly that he does not [i]not desire to do it.

I think you are wrong too when we say that people cannot control their desires. Some people find it difficult to control their desires, and, of course, if they are unable to do so often enough, or if they desire bad things, they suffer for it. But many people, and, in fact, most people, do control their desire for instance to eat two helpings of ice-cream instead of one. They desire it, but they do not do it. Teaching children to control their desires is a large part of helping them grow up and socializing them.

The kind of abstract thinking that goes under the name of philosophy and which leads you to forget things we all know are true in the interests of some theory you are commited to, is what gives philosophy a bad name with many people, and which is simply bad philosophy. The great contemporary philosopher, Wittgenstein, talked about philosophers being “in the grip of a theory,” and as an antidote pointed out that philosophy is often the “assemblage of reminders for a particular purpose” as when I just reminded you that we teach children to control their desires so that they can grow up.

4

It’s a big difference being restricted from doing what “you” want and not being so. Everybody should be allowed to get experience through their own preferences and not through imposed preferences. Of course, difficulties emerge in society that makes freedom an utopia. Some people want to know how it feels living in a society without unequal distribution of material wealth and power, while others don’t. So, today freedom is restricted to a few in society, usually to those with power. Of course, they do have their desires, but who defines them and how much they have arrived to those desires solely by themselves is another thing of course. As it is, most people think they have desires, but there is nothing that proves that their “desires” truly are so. Winning a lot of money is not a desire, and feeling you expect to get from it is but a temporary one. According to many, it turns out that earning money really isn’t the big deal after all, but to achieve inner peace, which requires everything else than living in the material world and all the imaginations connected with it. To face death peacefully, in other words.

Desire is a very ambigous term. It’s very doubtful whether there really is such a thing and not just something invented. Because desire always imply the wish for fulfilling a goal, but it turns out that most “goals” are only things invented within the system. The true goals are logically beyond any system and thus something that can never be characterised completely/truly. It’s the silent knowledge we all possess of something mysterious we have to come to terms with that really is the only essential in life and lies behind all our efforts. In this perspective, most “goals” are only imaginary roads that lead nowhere and only make time pass.

All in all, there nevertheless is an essential difference between living in as little restricting conditions as possible and not doing so, despite the fact that no one really can get hold of what’s within and restrict it but only distract your mind from what’s essential.

5

I think perhaps I waist my time trying to arguing determinism. I think perhaps it is because in the end truth is really irrelevent to most people. It seems we tend to think about things until we hit an idea that fits well enough for us to move on with our lives. We then close our minds to all other ideas. Because if ever that fundamental idea gets disproven, our entire reality will come crashing down around us. Everything we belived to be true would turn out to be false. We would be filled with a viod of pointlessness. It is the fear of that viod, the fear of not having a soul. The fear of death that drives us away from truth. Actually, mabey what we fear most is that we are not justified in our actions. You know that feeling of telling someone off and finding out latter that mabey they were in the right. You find yourself frantically trying to see how you really were in the right, start sub-conciousely twisting the facts to make you seem justified.

Now before you let your angre take hold and take this as some kind of attack. I’m not trying to be spitefull, i’m just trying to sugest that sometimes we want something to be true so much that we blind ourselves. We stop questioning things that become important to us like love and religion. But if we are to progress, which it is inevitable that we will, we have to question that which we fear to. That which is important to us. It’s a hard thing to question weather the feelings we have towards others are valid. Wether we really love someone, or lust for them.

All this said, i should point out that i’m kind of tired, so if I cause any offence please don’t take it personaly, as I value feedback and am only intrested in truth, if you can disprove determinism I’m keen to hear it, but you should be most sckeptical of that which you wish to belive.

6

^^ Disproving determinism comes down to how you want to define “choice”. Strict determinists argue that although we may appear to make a choice, in all actuality we could not have chosen any other way - all events (personal or otherwise) preceding our choice have a cumulative and impacting influence on our being to such a degree that, really, no matter how we try to convince ourselves otherwise, the notion of choice is out of our hands. My die, so they say, was cast the second this universe came into being.

But to these people I say, given the linear nature of time, how do you know that my choice was an illusion? How do you know that I could not have chosen any other way? Even if it could be demonstrated that my choice was ultimately illusory, how do you distinguish between that “illusory choice” and “actual choice”? What is the difference? Is the difference so large that it is likely to infringe on my conduct in everyday life? Is an illusory choice no longer really a “choice” at all?

Furthermore, we needn’t make such a dichotemy out of free-will and determinism: why should they be mutually exclusive “theories”? I am the sum of my parts - I am the sum of the entirity of my biological make-up and the entirity of my experience. This composition of “self” impacts my potential for choice, directly and observably - I cannot step outside of my neurological structure, or go back in time and avoid every event I’ve been privy to, so it is only natural that these factors should, unconsciously or otherwise, greatly impact on my choice. Does that mean I didn’t really make a choice because the “I” that made the choice already has a pre-determined nature, more pre-disposed to take one path rather than another? If this “nature” of the self - at any given point in time - is “pre-determined” then, what is it determined by? Is my choice governed by my “nature”, or is my nature actually defined - in part at least - by the cumulative sum of my history of choice? Is it an issue of control, then? Is my capacity for “free” choice entirely dependant on the control I have over my circumstance? Even if my nature was strictly governed by deterministic, natural laws and forces, does that completely elliminate my capacity to choose freely from any number of a given actions and exert some control over my circumstance as a conseqence? Is a “choice” not really a “choice” if it was governed, essentially, by forces beyond my control?

Returning to the original post though:

Are you talking about desire as a natural force which compels us into action, or merely the mechanism which stimulates us into action? Note the difference: do we only act in accordance with how we fundamentally desire to act (at any level of consciousness) or does desire simply constitute preferences towards a particular action or actions that we are free to choose to engage in or not? I may desire money, or food, or sex - does that mean I am an under a compulsion to find a job, some food or a brothel? Do I have a choice to seek out these things when desire provokes the urge, or am I led along like a donkey behind a carrot inevitably towards them? How many of your desires manifest themselves through action on a daily basis? How many don’t?

Are you so sure? Presume that desires are a subset of our “will” as Schopenhauer suggested and then ask yourself: if you committed yourself to an action against your will (however you want to define that in the frame of this whole free-will/determinism argument) and repeated it indefinitely, would there not be a chance that, in time, you will come to desire undertaking this action? Have you never been forced into doing something by someone else only to come out at the other end and feel a “desire” to do it again? Would this be an example of action exerting control over our desires? Furthermore, is it not possible to supress a desire, over time, through inaction?

We may be a slave to our desires (or, to put it another way, to our will), but must that necessarily mean that we cannot have some say in the nature of our desires? Can the slave not lead the master by the very leash he is constrained by? :confused:

7

I’m not an intellectual and I won’t pretend to be, hell I’m not even that bright. :wink: But I would argue that a true choice is a decsion in which although outside influences may be considered, you (the decsion maker) are the final arbitor of your decision. That is to say that while you may be influenced by other forces you are making a decision, rather then those forces deciding for you. Really this post had no point what-so-ever, but just trying to strighten up some ideas for my own sake. Personally I go back and forth between the ideas of free-will and determinsim. Logiclly I tend to align more with determinism although I find it such a pessimistic view to have.

8

I think my initial post was a bit frustrated unfortunately. Though I think a slightly arrogant approach does make people come up with some good ideas to work with. I like to think of myself as a bit of a practical philosopher. In that I like to put my energies into thoughts and ideas that will have some kind of productive outcome. Though I understand the necessity for debate, I do find it at times frustrating as much time appears to be used for little gain. The reason for me wanting people to accept determinism is that it will allow us to look at what is really important to us. The perception or the truth. I would think most people, if not all would choose perception. It is in perception that lies our notions of god, the soul, freedom and creativity. Now I think what we really want out of life is an enhancement of the perception of these values. It is the spectacular not the normal that we crave. Determinism tells us that all things happen for a reason. We can use this to find those reasons for what which causes us to perceive the world, perceive happiness. We can then use this knowledge to enhance or perception of what we wish to perceive. I think perhaps one of the things we fear most is being manipulated, but if we accept the fact that we can not avoid manipulation, why not manipulate ourselves into being happy. Rather than manipulating ourselves to hate our enemies as seems so often to be the case. Well I hope people are still reading this thread as I love to hear what people think?

9

My problem with determinism is not a fear of manipulation, I mean even if determinism was false and free will exsisted no decision would be completly objective thus we would still be subject to some minor form of manipulation. Rather my distaste for determinism stems from what it would mean to responsability. I personally would like to think that people who hurt other people should face some sort of consequence. If determinism were true they couldn’t be held responsable for their actions, which means it would be wrong to punish or even to demand some sort of reperation from them. However as I said above determinism seems the most Logiclly sound at least to me, and I hate that fact.

BTW could anyone outline some sort of basic arguement for free-will that doesn’t involve the idea of god? Never really seen one.

10

That’s just it though, is punishment something that really helps us achieve the kind of world we want. Or is it merely an indulgence of revenge. What if it where possible to cure someone of their desire to murder. I know it sounds a bit clockwork orange but I’m sure there is a way of correcting these kinds of behaviors, in a more ‘human’ way. Well in my opinion the only behavior that should be curbed is murder. As we understand the human mind more and more I think we will learn how to show even the darkest of minds that there is joy to be found in this world. But while we continue to hate those that displease us, they are going to hate us right back. Action, reaction. Soon we will have a choice, a choice that will not go away until we make the right one. Continue to kill and torture those that do wrong by us, or learn to understand them and be educated. We are all susceptible to the same influences. Anyone is capable of anything, some day I think this will be widely accepted. For the moment though it appears most would rather hate than think. Murder is a tragedy not a crime.

11

I don’t think that morailty becomes immediately obsolete once a convincing case for determinism is made.

If we say that a man commits murder and that, as determinists, we suggest he had no say in it (because he was influenced by his state of mind, his history, his unavoidable circumstance etc. rather than by autonomous “choice”) it does not mean we cannot hold him responsible - after all, one of the major defences of the criminal system is the concept of “reformation”. If a man commits murder and cannot be held responsible, does that automatically mean that we cannot lock him away (he is no danger to society in prison) and hope that he can change his ways? You needn’t have any moral spectrum to be dissuaded from murder. Does a dog stop peeing on the carpet because it realises that it’s morally wrong, or because it wants to avoid getting belted on the head with a newspaper, the deterministic consequence of it peeing on the carpet?

Same too with the murderer. Do people abstain from committing crime because they have autonomous moral choice, or because they merely wish to avoid the negative repercussions?

Determinism and morality are not incompatible concepts, it just requires a rethinking of what morality actually “is”.

12

I know I didn’t do it successfully but in my post I tried to use the term consquences rather then punishment because of course I would advocate reformation rather then stright punshiment. However even justifying reformation of an individual under determinism is impossiable, if a person is not responsaible for their actions I personally don’t see how you can force them to face the consaquences of said actions. As for JP’s dog analogy I can honestly say I don’t have any logical reason to refute it, but it just doesn’t sit well with me. I think it may be that most of us view a dog as a lower life form and thus do not treat them with the same respect that we treat other humans (sad but true). I mean if we stick with the dog analogy of what basiclly amounts a sort of forced reformation of classical association (you do an action you get hurt, thus you cease the action) your telling me that your gonna beat or otherwise cause harm to another person whom you know had absolutly no control over their actions? As for some sort of pacifistic reformation, I honestly have no real refutation of it other then the whole clockwork orange feel it would bring. Although the arguement of “a man who chooses evil is somehow better then the man who is forced to do good” doesnt really hold the same weight if we allow for determinism. So anyways after all this rambling I think under determinism any use of forceful reformation (including long term imprisonment) is ethiclly wrong. Pacifistic reformation on the other hand I have no real logical problem with, it just leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

13

Whether you desire to do something or if u desire not to do it, it is still a desire. Even if it goes against your instincts or sense or morals, the final decision is based on what is desired most after weighing things out, thoroughly or on a whim. And thus you always do what you desire. However u have several desires in most situations, and just choose one action that fulfills the most desired desire or a combination of the ‘best’ desires. And in that sense you have free-will.

Even if you were ordered to do an action that went against any of your preferences, u still choose to either do it or not do it. Desire → choice. There is no way you can choose without desiring.

Morality is what you feel you should desire to do according to what society wants you to do. It is learnt by being taught/copied and knowing that disobedience is punished.
Sense is what you feel you should desire to do according to what you think might happen as a consequence to you and others. It is learnt by suffering or logically determining possible consequences.
Instinct is what you desire to do as a primary survival instruction. It is innate but altered by morality and sense.

I believe they relate closely to super-ego, ego and id respectively. Correct me if I’m wrong.

14

I have thought about this forever. SOmething that always strikes me as odd is the shape and affect freewill takes when you consider time.

My belief is that there is no freewill because we can not see into the future; here is why.

When you think about freewill you think of choice. a person is presented with a choice to do one thing or another, or nothing at all. To make a choice a person must be informed as to what the choices are, otherwise its just guessing or whatever. Now, to be informed of a choice, the person must “know” what the options are. I could offer you a box, and tell you that one has a million dollars in it and the other a ham sandwich, but without “knowing” what is in the box you can not actually make a choice. You could assume, or anticipate, but never make a knowledgable choice. So how does one make a knowledgable choice? Its impossible. You could make a choice to pick up a glass off a table so you could have a drink of water. But, and this is all theoretical, you do not “know” for sure that when you try and reach for the glass you will be able to. An earthquake could hit, you could have a nervous reaction, someone may knock at the door and you would loose interest, either way, theres no way to “know” what the choices are and if they will exist when you go to implement. Therefore, how could a person “theoretically” make a choice? And without choice, is there freewill?
My line of thought on this goes on and on, however, the basis of it is that there is no freewill because we can not know the future, we can not interact with the past, and the present is impossible to act on. You can anticipate, encourage, argue for one choice or another, but you can not know.

rhish

15

Surely a knowledgable decision and a guessing decision are both equally valid as being choices, whether you know what the outcome of the choice is or not?

You choose the course of action by considering the preferable outcome of your decision - you don’t choose the decision in one step. You aim towards achieving what you’ve decided you want to achieve by making what you think is the appropriate choice.

16

ahh, but i was hoping you would argue the time issue. Knowledgable choice versus a guessing choice. Knowledgable decisions denotes a lot of things, first and foremost that the person making the decision, or whatever it is making the decision, “knows” there is a decision to make, knows the options, knows the outcome, and makes one choice or the other. I have yet to see any actions of anyone or anything qualify. To “know” something, i assume means that it is true and real. I can not “know” that the earth is made completely of bunny rabbits because my present observation proves otherwise. I really cant know much because my “present” is always changing and i have know idea what the exact future after the present will be like.
Sure, i could guess, but this is an admittance of not knowing. And without knowing how is it that i have selected something. What did i select? i may have reasoned, and mixed impressions and ideas together to understand the possible outcomes, but i do not know, therefore i guess.
Without knowing the outcome of a possible choice, they are all guessing decisions.
If it were possible to choose a course of action by considering the preferable outcomes of a decision, and “know” the circumstances, you would be a psychic, or better yet, a holy man.

17

So there is no such thing as a knowledgable choice unless you can see into the future? I agree with that. So it seems the only decisions we make are guessing choices, decisions of what courses of actions would best get us to fulfilling a desire. We don’t make a choice to have what we desire. We choose how we want to go about getting it.

Seeing into the future doesn’t seem so unreasonable though. We’ve already developed a way of seeing into the past with our memory…
I think a memory of the future is slowly evolving though with our aniticipation and logical assumption skills. I think this could go a lot further and eventually become a memory of the future.

It would be interesting if we could have a memory, or its equivalent, of the future. But I think if our memory was of the future and not of the past and we went back in time, I think the world could be exactly the same, just going in reverse.

Time has always puzzled me. I only ever seem to be able to argue why it does or doesn’t exist by using time vocabulary and ideas though. But I think time is just a mental illusion, after all if we had no memory at all, time would be inconceivable. We would always be in the present, and the present would always be where everything happened.

So is time based on our mental perceptions or our mental perceptions based on time? If our mental perceptions can change, then does time change accordingly, or is it always there and we just sometimes notice it or not?

18

I think this discussion is a fudging of what we talk about when we talking of knowing something, it all sounds very Lockean, with the entire probability thing. However, if I remember rightly, this would all count as knowledge as well, if I say “I know the sun’s going to rise tomorrow”, surely I’m demonstrating knowledge that the most probable event (by far) is that the sun is going to rise and thus I know that it will.

I don’t know, that’s all a strange question and I don’t feel qualified to answer it. What I would ponder is that if you believe knowledge is definied by some sort of justified true belief or the like, would you claim that someone who said the sun was going to rise didn’t know that until the sun had risen? Can you not say he was justified in believing that? If you don’t I think you’re in danger of trivializing the concept of knowledge, there still has to be a distinction between a belief and an instance of knowledge, and in the end yo’d just be inventing a whole new concept call it boledge. Boledge would be when you good reason to predict a future event based on sound reasoning. Take the following example:

  1. Man says the stone in his hand will fall to the ground when he lets go because of gravity, etc. and knows all the relevant immediate facts.

  2. Man says the stone in his hand will fall to the ground when he lets go because the spirits of the earth call it to them.

Both their predictions will come true, but surely the 1st instance is a demonstration of something more than belief, boledge?

19

Time, for me, is the most intriguing issue to speak of. Yet one i am most ignorant of. I do not see a connection between myself or my conscienceness and time. I do not see either one dependent on the other. In a physical sense maybe, in that physics has proven that time is altered with the speed at which things travel. Since we are on this ball of dirt, flying around a ball of fire, this same ball of fire flying around a circle of other balls of fire, it is reasonable to assume, although i am sitting down right now motionless, i am moving very very quickly.

Einstein used a model known as a “light cone” i believe which depicted this and showed limits which time must abide by.

As far as my own perceptions i see it analogous with a persons perceptions of religion. Are they dependent on one another. If i believe something is so, does it exist. If nobody believes in something, does it cease to exist? If all human beings were to go extinct like the dinasaurs, would the universe persevere. Reason would lead me to believe it would. I do not see the earth, stars, and universe as being dependent on my survival.

If there are objects which exist independently of my approval, and these objects are interactive within the same reality as my own, may i conclude that the physical laws associated with the objects other then me are also independent. And if they are independent, they will function with or without my consent, or perceptions thereof?

As far as seeing into the future. It is a topic i like to think of as i do of the possibility of a god. I want it to be true, theres no proof otherwise, yet theres no proof it exists.

Hume wrote a lot about impressions and ideas, and how our memory works and retains information. Our sense interaction with the physical world around us. How would these same impressions and ideas come to be without them actually taking place? Or is it that all things have taken place and we are merely along for the ride? a perpetual history lesson?

As far as the Belief versus Knowledge question. I think a bit of semantics is involved. I assume the word knowledge would dictate the absence of belief. It indicates an absolute truth and grasp of an actual real thing. A belief is the opposite, its an admittance of not knowing. I thought over and over on this same idea untill i realized i was making a mistake. I was forcing the conclusion that if something happens the way i predict, then it must be knowledge and not belief, but that is not so. Belief versus knowledge is determined at different times and with different critiria. Belief can be determined at any time and with any amount of proof or understanding. Whereas Knowledge is independent of my beliefs or intentions and is unchanged, and can never be proven false.

The two examples of the stone falling to the ground are both instances of guessing or belief as you will. It is not until the stone falls and hits the earth, and becomes a part of the past, does it become knowledge. While the stone sits in the hand, it is impossible to know what will happen when it is released, i can predict, with great certainty, but never know. A great gust of wind could come, a bird could swoop down and snatch it before it hits the ground, sure this may never happen, even after a million succesful experiments, but without the millionth and one, and the one after that, there is no way of knowing, just believing. And belief… has no rules.

Great discussion! I greatly enjoy hearing what you all have to say, sometimes i come off as “less then” tolerant of other ideas, please dont take it the wrong way. The only way to learn something new is in disagreement. It is only my desire to learn that i mentally attack everything. All in the sake of learning more! :smiley:

20

Yes I agree. There are different certainties of a belief. But none are ever 100% knowing until they have already happened.