Free Will and Compatibilism

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?

Sisyphus0

Nice post.

How would you define “responsible?” I think that is a moral contract rather than a ‘metaphysical’ condition. Whether choices are truely made or determined should have no bearing on criterion for what it is to be responsible. In fact, even granting that freewill exists, being responsible really only means “prepared to negotiate with other powers concerning actions in the world.” It says nothing about obligation, and from an atheist position, consequence, punishment, reward, etc., are all contingent moral contracts. When the law says to a man “you are being held responsible,” what does that really mean? It means “submit or resist these terms.” It cannot mean “you are right or wrong.” So you see that the forces involved are not metaphysical, rational rights based on some notion of justice- they are power displays and interactions. The law is going to enforce obligation on man regardless of his ‘metaphysical conditions’ so determined or not, “responsibility” will always be an ethical infraction. That is, being held responsible without one’s consultation or approval.

I don’t think compatibalism will work because of these problems. And this matter is black and white. ‘Almost’ only works for horse-shoes and hand-grenades. One cannot be ‘almost pregnant’. One is either a freedom or they are not.

We will need an ontology for freedom. And we all know who detrop thinks is the best ontologist, don’t we kids?

Sisyphus0 wrote:

I think Hume has a wonderful idea here. From the perspective of mind, humans do have free will, for their is a choice to be made in every belief, decision, etc. These decisions do derive from previous situations that were indeed out of the individuals control. But this does not constitute that free will doesnt exist for that person, just not absolute free will. This is how I look at it. In our minds, free will exist simply because we have the choice to do whatever it is we want, but only in our minds; which ultimately are the result of previous conditioning. Its still a choice in our minds, that we have to choose from. From a larger perspective, outside of the individual mind; determinism works for the obvious support backing the position. Everything is a result of the impression of something else, so both of them exist at the same time. Just from two different standpoints or perspectives.

Make the distinction: metaphysical free will and psychological free will. Psychological free will is obviously the case, but its metaphysical free will that we are arguing about (whether our choices are caused by outside influences).

Personally, ive never found a version of compatibalism that wasnt ad hoc or simply silly.

As for moral responsibility, this is easily resolved for determinists.
Folk are responsible to the degree their personality caused the action. The fact that their personality is caused by other things does not pass the buck along (but it may affect how other people react to that responsibility).

Sisyphus0;

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?

a) On Free Will; <i>"So when Hume faced this problem, he asserted that Free Will should not be identified as ‘absolute freedom’."</i>

One could come to such a conclusion, though I believe that Free Will should be in fact identified as absolute freedom. Spontaneity in itself is unbridled and free, and so it follows that any philosophy basing itself on it must surely agree with such a principle. In terms of dealing with Free Will, no, I do not think Hume has adequately covered the issues at hand.

b) On Determinism and Compatibilism; <i>"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."</i>

I concur; every word there is true. I do not agree, however, that Free Will and Determinism are compatible. As long as we continue basing Free Will on the principle of chaos and spontaneity, it can never be philisophically aligned with a principle based on structure, actions and reactions, and so on.

“…whereby actions are undetermined but rather that actions can be determined whilst preserving Free Will.”

This is a nice concept, but unfortunately a little ungrounded without the existence of compatibility between chaos and order in a metaphysical sense.

My 2c,

~David

What is “free”?.. What is “will”?..
We are not free from our needs, we never will be,
because they make us free, because they keep us alive,
so that we can live and choose.

Will? Direction in life? Values and beliefe?
I believe in justice and peace, because humanity needs these.
The word “Free” itself has hard to define if you look from 1 angle then the other…

Metaphysical “free will” is being able to make a different choice in the exact same circumstances. It has nothing to do with anything you typed. Try here: ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/dfwIntroIndex.htm

Btw, im still curious what folk think of my solution to moral responsibility for determinists, cos it seems damned simple, so whats the problem?

the problem is simple:

“Folk are responsible to the degree their personality caused the action. The fact that their personality is caused by other things does not pass the buck along (but it may affect how other people react to that responsibility).”

it still passes the buck along… you simply changed the word “choice” with “personality” in hopes that no one would see it…

doing time for the crimes he committed…

-Imp

Eh? Not just a change of terms, personality and choice are very different.

Personality is a fundamental part of your identity, and it causes the choices that you will be held responsible for. A “choice” is output, “Personality” is the process (programming code), “circumstances” is the input.

It just so happens that your personality is generated by forces outside yourself. This doesnt make it any less your personality. Just as your foot is still your foot, even though it was your parent’s genetics which determined it.

I dont see how it could pass the buck without divorcing your personality from your identity as a whole (silly existentialists). Is this what you are claiming?

personality causes the choice?

the free choice that was not caused by anything?

or the determined (via “personality”) non choice for which you are being held responsible?

personality, personhood, psychology makes a free choice? or does it only make the choice it was determined (genetically, programmed via education or school, ect) to make? if it was determined to make the choice, regardless of what you call the programming (e.g. personality), there is no free choice.

-Imp

1 word: “Propaganda”, the masses can get lead and mislead to.
Its a complex thing… this: “free”…

Imp, i thought we were discussing a deterministic account of moral responsibility? You seem to be asking whether I am arguing from determinism, which i thought was obviously the case.

Suffice to say, to answer your questions in brief:
yes.
no such thing as a metaphysically free choice.
question begging; deterministic choice is not non-choice.
yes, if you are using “free” psychologically, and no if you mean metaphysically.
yes.

And for your last statement: there is no metaphysically free choice. I gather you find this kinda reprehensible, why?

We can argue about free will vs. determinism in a more general sense in parallel if you like, but i wanna concentrate on this moral responsibility thing. It seems to be the chief objection to determinism, and currently I’m kinda puzzling why thats the case in face of my own pretty damn obvious account.

Again, I’d like to reinforce the difference between psychological freedom (ie. negative freedom; freedom from compulsion, restraints, etc) and metaphysical freedom (ie. ability to intelligently make a different choice in the same circumstances). Determinism only has a beef with the latter, as the former is obviously the case in any conception of choice.

Dan~, 1 word: “Irrelevant”. :smiley:

I was simply replying to your answer for possible compatability (moral responsibility for determinists)…

the personality excuse is no excuse…

personality causes the choice is not a free choice…

"no such thing as a metaphysically free choice. " - we agree

"deterministic choice is not non-choice. " - yes, it is

determined anything is not a choice

and no, whatever magical category “metaphysical, psychological, personality” does not invent a choice. if the options are limited by anything, free choice is impossible. that is the definition of free choice…

if hard determinism is true there is no choice… if there is no choice, there can be no moral responsibility for one, as george carlin so eloquently says, “you gotta wanna” …

he will be executed in the morning for his crime even though he had no choice but to break the law… but the moral responsibility of that for which he is being executed is not his…

and why do I find determinism reprehensible? well I don’t find it totally reprehensible… just kinda sorta… we need to exist with the illusion of free will (even though hume has proven again and again, there is no “I” to have freewill- and I am a humean ontologically- but he contradicts himself with his soft determinism where I am an incompatablist) in order for society to function.

no society, no problem…

-Imp

More question begging. Since as a determinist I reject your definition of free choice, I will not accept any conclusion you draw from that unless you argue why your version of free choice is correct.

Fudging the distinctions I am making (especially ones which other libertarians readily accept) without perceivable reason isnt convincing. For determinism, psychologically, options are not limited, while metaphysically, having “options” is silly.

That is correct. IF there were no choice, then no responsibility could be assigned. Determinism does not forbid choice though; you are free to consider as many options as you wish, but you must accept that if you were presented with the exact same decision in the exact same circumstances then you will consider the same options over again.

Of course he had choice, but his personality made the wrong one. His personality was always going to make the wrong choice, but that doesnt change the fact that he made the choice. His personality=Him.

I dont see why. If a consistant account of determinism can have moral responsibility, then society has no problem.

So far, you have just been arguing against determinism generally (which is fine) but you have not been showing that determinism and moral responsibility are inconsistant, which is what i am interested in. Try and assume that determinism is true, and then, why cant i have moral responsibility?

[b]logically, determinism is true. that has always been my position. I prefer the illusion of freewill… notice the word “illusion”…

no choice, no responsibility
[/b]

-Imp

Determinism and freewill are completely compatible, all you need to do is bend the definition of on or the other to suit your fancy. If you are a stickler for precise definitions and clear comunication, then these things can’t really be rectified.
Personally, I find the evidence for causality to be overwhelming, and that our actions being determined (and thus predetermined) is extremely likely. Determinism, though, can only be observed in retrospect, which leaves the door open for a rather convincing illusion of freewill to exist. If we could view time from an outsiders perspective the illusion would evaporate, but being that we can only experience time in a linear, forward manner, and given also the hundreds of trillions of minute ‘causes’ to our ‘effects’ happening every second, the future always remains unknown.

In short, probably no freewill, but undeniably a convincing and useful perception of such.

The concept of freewill is an “as if” proposition that helps the legal, religious, and capitalistic systems deal with the people that both violate and cooperate with them.

Determined is not preordained. No one else has decided these decisions beforehand. Make no mistake, you are actually and literally considering the options and could consider and choose any of them. Just because your processes of consideration and choice are deterministic does not mean you did not consider and choose, and in fact, it is the only way you could have, the other option is being random and not consider things. No constraint has been placed upon you, the decision originates entirely from you (personality as a part of identity).

Why do you want the illusion that people can randomly generate responses? How does this fulfil moral responsibility?

Those firing neurons WERE me considering the alternatives. Could I have considered alternatives that didnt occur to me at the time? Of course, but I would have had to be a different person, that is to say, my personality would have to be different.

It seems you want your metaphysics to hold a view from no where. Obviously, an observers view of my will and my own view will be different, but that doesnt ‘invalidate’ either. I believe I can consider alternatives, and I do, and the observer (depending on the extent of their knowledge) will note that I will follow predictable patterns based on my personality, and I do. There is no conflict here that I can see.
Psychological free will is not an illusion just because metaphysical free will is bollocks.

Now you are being silly.
:unamused:

Fine, fine, fine.
Given this, try a thought experiment:

  1. if you accept the existence of personality,
  2. and you accept that personality influences decisions (not mystical “choices” just entirely mechanistic processes influenced entirely deterministically by a nice solid piece of grey matter),
  3. and you decide that purely as a social/legal construct, you will attribute responsibility to the degree in which these mechanistic decisions were influenced by the personalities of the people involved,
  4. and you ignore the illusion of free will for just a little while, and any conception of free choice that you had,
  5. could you think of a common sense or legal example where responsibility is applied that could not be accounted for by this system?
  6. If not, then I’ll say that moral responsibility is consistant with determinism (ie. that our intuitive acts of assigning praise and blame are entirely explainable within determinism, and do not require any conception of free will, illusion or otherwise).

I do notice, so why not dispell it and replace it with something thats not illusiory?

Ive posted it lots before, but this website is awesome btw:
ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/dfwIntroIndex.htm

been there… I particularily enjoyed these:

ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/ted12.htm

ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/dfwVariou … Searle.htm

-Imp

Not at all. I skim read the thread, but nothing particularly struck me. What relevance does it have? How is your concept of identity or empiricism, Hume’s view from no where, his ontology, etc important for this? You are presenting a large picture from what seems disjunctive parts at the min.

This is an odd statement. Moral responsibility is created by the actions of people, and so, if people are using it then it does exist. Of course, it doesnt exist independant of people using it or owt.
Is that what your definition of illusiory is? Is ethics in general, for example, illusiory too?

Silly. Those firing neurons WERE my choice, and they were determined by previous neurological activity just as my choice was determined by previous mental activity.

You would make just as much sense if you reversed the causality; my mental activity caused the neuron firing, as to say neuron firing caused my mental activity.

My choice was a process not ‘determined’ by those neurons in the sense that they caused my choice, but ‘determined’ in the sense that the choice and the neuron firing are one and the same event (just from two different perspectives). Why is one perspective illusiory, but not the other?

So, is your brand of compatabilism determinism which wants to hold mental activity as seperate but causally related to neurological activity or some such?

No seriously, I can write down the options ive considered in recent decisions if you like. For example I seriously considered going to bed rather than posting. From a psychological perspective, this really could have happened. I was under no serious restraint. My will was completely free to choose as it pleases. Nothing compelled me, no physical laws forced my will to do anything it didnt want to.

Of course, since my psyche is mechanistic, my current post was bound to happen. (But that doesnt mean the process is pointless or something. Sartre’s point that determinists would never agonise over decisions is ludicrous; as it is that very agonising that will determine the decision. You’re asking the computer to tell you the answer without actually calculating it)

not at all :confused:
I really dont see why believing an illusion makes any sense, never mind making it actually true. My belief on the matter makes no difference to how my mental life goes about its business (i could easily have no beliefs about it at all).

Clearly you missed the idea of what a thought experiment is. :smiley:

Let me phrase it better.

  1. imagine personality exists

  2. that is to say, the aspect to your current mental activity which determines the decisions you will make. You can substitute the word personality with “neurological configuration” or some such if you prefer.

  3. as a practical exercise, Bob is required to assign responsibility to a group of criminals, terrorists and care bear eaters for their crimes. Bob decides that a good criterion for determining responsibility is simply to determine how much a change of personality could have changed the criminal action.

  4. Bob doesnt assume that these criminals could have acted otherwise, but Bob finds that this is irrelevant in determining if they are responsible. Indeed, their various personality dysfunctions have specific and identifiable causes, and Bob accepts a mechanistic account of mental activity, but it is clearly ‘they’, that is to say, their personalities, which made the decisions that caused the criminal acts.

  5. Now, you can stop imagining things and get back to believing illusiory things again. Could Bob make an error in assigning moral responsibility when compared to how you would assign it? If you wouldnt assign it, how would the criminals and care bear eaters be treated?

Obviously. But since their personality was a large factor in making the choice, they could have chosen to be not responsible if their personalities were different.

I’ll have a perusal. I like Peter Van Inwagen’s stuff myself (though i disagree with his answer, he states the problem well).

And now, though i was caused to do so, I am indeed choosing, of my own free will, to go to bed,
Cheers!