Libertarian incompatibilism
Various definitions of free will that have been proposed, for both Compatibilism [14], and Incompatibilism (Hard Determinism [35], Hard Incompatibilism [24], Libertarianism Traditional [36], and Libertarianism Volition [37]).
Metaphysical libertarianism is one philosophical view point under that of incompatiblism. Libertarianism holds onto a concept of free will that requires the individual to be able to take more than one possible course of action under a given set of circumstances.
Accounts of libertarianism subdivide into non-physical theories and physical or naturalistic theories. Non-physical theories hold that a non-physical mind overrides physical causality, so that physical events in the brain that lead to the performance of actions do not have an entirely physical explanation. This approach is allied to mind-body dualism in philosophy. According to this view, the world is not believed to be closed under Physics. An extra-physical will is believed to play a part in the decision making process. According to a somewhat related theological explanation, a soul is said to make decisions and override physical causality.
Explanations of libertarianism, which do not involve dispensing with physicalism, require physical indeterminism. This is because physical determinism under the assumption of physicalism implies that there is only one possible future which is not compatible with libertarian free will. Some explanations involve invoking panpsychism, the theory that a quality of mind is associated with all particles, and pervades the entire universe, in both sentient and non-sentient entities. Other approaches do not require free will to be a fundamental constituent of the universe; ordinary randomness is appealed to as supplying the “elbow room” believed to be necessary by libertarians. Free volition is regarded as a particular kind of complex, high-level process with an element of indeterminism. An example of this kind of approach has been developed by Robert Kane. Although at the time C. S. Lewis wrote Miracles[37], Quantum Mechanics (and physical indeterminism) was only in the initial stages of acceptance, he stated the logical possibility that if the physical world was proved to be indeterministic this would provide an entry (interaction) point into the traditionally viewed closed system, where a scientifically described physically probable/improbable event could be philosophically described as an action of a non physical entity on physical reality (noting that under a reductive physicalist point of view the non physical entity must be independent of the self identity or mental processing of the sentient being).
[edit] Free Will As a Combination of Chance and Determination
Since William James in 1884 described a two-stage model of free will - in the first stage the mind develops random alternative possibilities for action, in the second an adequately determined will selects one option - a number of other thinkers have refined the idea, including Henri Poincaré, Arthur Holly Compton, Karl Popper, Henry Margenau, Daniel Dennett, Robert Kane, Alfred Mele, and Martin Heisenberg.
Each of these models tries to reconcile libertarian free will with the existence of irreducible chance (today in the form of quantum indeterminacy), which threatens to make an agent’s decision random, thus denying the control needed for responsibility.
If a single event is caused by chance, then logically indeterminism would be “true.” For centuries, philosophers have said this would undermine the very possibility of certain knowledge. Some go to the extreme of saying that real chance would make the whole state of the world totally independent of any earlier states.
The Stoic Chrysippus said that a single uncaused cause could destroy the universe (cosmos),
"Everything that happens is followed by something else which depends on it by causal necessity. Likewise, everything that happens is preceded by something with which it is causally connected. For nothing exists or has come into being in the cosmos without a cause. The universe will be disrupted and disintegrate into pieces and cease to be a unity functioning as a single system, if any uncaused movement is introduced into it."[38]
James said most philosophers have an “antipathy to chance.”[39] His contemporary John Fiske described the absurd decisions that would be made if chance were real,
"If volitions arise without cause, it necessarily follows that we cannot infer from them the character of the antecedent states of feeling. .. . The mother may strangle her first-born child, the miser may cast his long-treasured gold into the sea, the sculptor may break in pieces his lately-finished statue, in the presence of no other feelings than those which before led them to cherish, to hoard, and to create."[40]
In modern times, J. J. C. Smart has described the problem of admitting indeterminism,
"Indeterminism does not confer freedom on us: I would feel that my freedom was impaired if I thought that a quantum mechanical trigger in my brain might cause me to leap into the garden and eat a slug." [41]
The challenge for two-stage models is to admit some indeterminism but not permit it to produce random actions, as determinists fear. And of course a model must limit determinism but not eliminate it as some libertarians think necessary.
Two-stage models limit the contribution of random chance to the generation of alternative possibilities for action. But note that, in recent years, compatibilist analytic philosophers following Harry Frankfurt have denied the existence of alternative possibilities. They develop “Frankfurt-type examples” (thought experiments) in which they argue an agent is free even though no alternative possibilities exist, or the agent is prevented at the last moment by neuroscientific demons from “doing otherwise.”[42]
I am a free will nihilist, there is no definition and the question is meaningless etc, etc…
