Free Will advocates argue that actions willed by agents truly are not psychologically determined (personality, desires, beliefs) and are thus truly free and spontaneous. Determinism claims that the universe is a deterministic system and therefore all human action is determined.
If Determinism is true then we cannot hold unfree agents responsible for any moral actions, and if it is not then all actions are spontaneous and it would seem absurd to praise or punish any agents for an action that arised spontaneously.
Hume proposed a solution to this problem of free undetermined actions by suggesting that Free Will and Determinism can both be compatible, this later on came to be known as Compatibilism. So when Hume faced this problem, he asserted that Free Will should not be identified as ‘absolute freedom’ whereby actions are undetermined but rather that actions can be determined whilst preserving Free Will. This way we can hold agents morally responsible for their actions since the action stemmed from psychological characteristics.
Should we forget the traditional Free Will and Determinism positions as they both propose similar Moral responsibility problems? And has Hume really solved this metaphysical problem?
I have never been quite sure of Hume’s reasoning on Compatibilism.
Hume (initially) seems to equate free-will with indeterminism, or “randomness”, and that we cannot hold a random event morally responsible. So he then reasons that we want actions that are determined, so we can give responsibility to them. (Hence his support for compatibilism).
But this arises from a confusion, I think. Free-will is not the same as indeterminism. For free-will, indeterminism is not enough - free-will must mean that we have “mental control” over our actions. I always think of the mind as a “pilot” of the body - I think the ancient Greeks had a similar argument.
In other words, determinism vs free-will represents a false dilemma. It is possible to believe in indeterminism, but not free-will. Indeterminism is a “precondition” for free-will, but indeterminism alone is not an argument for free-will.
first of all the notion of responsibility /works/. knowledge of consequences makes people act wiser. if the universe is deterministic, responsibility is desireable for that reason, but it doesn’t matter because we have no choice about advocating or admonishing responsibility, except that we do because our discussions about determinism will deterministically cause us to go one way or another. i suppose the supposition is that it’s an intelligent gamble, just like being responsible is intelligent. although i guess you’re implying responsibility where its benefit is more obvious to the affected than the affector. which is still of course desireable. but it brings to light a differentiation between responsibility and retribution. this is why jail is arguably ethical, capital punishment is not. that’s about determinism, i believe the same for free will but that’s a different matter. i have thoughts on compatibalism but i’ll skip that becasue i don’t think it’s really relevant to responsibility. but then i don’t know hume’s version of it. not that it’s very important eitehr way because the universe isn’t deterministic. another thing i’ll refrain from going into. now… free will doesn’t annihilate responsibility. as free beings we should grow and learn. learn what is good and bad. i don’t envision the only alternative to determinism as being meaningless chance. that’s less free will than determinism would have been. temporal physical linear causality and predictability does not corner the market on meaning.
But mental control over actions must in turn be caused by something. If it isn’t then it is just as random as if we had no mental control and therefore we don’t really have any control. If it is then, well, you are back where you started.
I have a lot of trouble with compatibilism since I can’t quite get my head around it. I take it to mean that since free will is not desirable since it must be totally free and therefore random, determinism is desirable and therefore I will change my definition of free will to me determinism. But that just seems totally pointless.
In my mind, although I would love for someone to show me otherwise since other people obviously have no trouble with this concept, free will and determinism cannot be reconciled since they speak of polar opposites both of which are more likely than a middle ground.
You are also giving a false dilemma. “Universal causation” or “random events” are the options. I accept none of them.
The whole problem of the self is the problem of “self-cause” - how can this happen? It is neither a cause from another source, nor random. That is the argument of free-will, of freedom, of creativity.
The false dilemma leads to absurd conclusions. I would say that if things are part of a endless chain of causes, or just “random” things occur to explain human actions, then give up free-will. Free-will is neither of these things.