From lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Sat Jan 21 11:06:21 1995 Received: from bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu by ponyexpress.princeton.edu (5.65c/1.7/newPE) id AA11197; Sat, 21 Jan 1995 11:06:20 -0500 Received: from [128.146.24.43] by bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (8.6.4/4.940426) id LAA26913; Sat, 21 Jan 1995 11:04:36 -0500 Date: Sat, 21 Jan 1995 11:04:36 -0500 Message-Id: <199501211604.LAA26913@bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (ASP-Disc) Subject: Re: On Free Will 1/2 Status: R From: "Brock 'Not (P and not-P)' Sides" Bryan Caplan writes > >1. Free will, what >At the outset, it is necessary to gt a clear understanding of what >exactly "free will" is. A being has free will if given all other >causal factors in the universe (genetic and environmental, physical and >chemical are two popular current pairings) it nevertheless possesses the >ability to choose more than one thing. How about the following as a simplified version of the defintion of 'free will': S has free will if and only if S has the ability to choose more than one thing. I'm not sure what the significance of the phrase "given all other causal factors in the universe" is in your definition, especially the word "other": other than what? The agents own actions? >It is >the freedom of the mind from causal determination, not the freedom from >physical constraints or threats of violence. Here I think you have surreptitiously changed your definition, and also are going against standard philosophical usage. I believe that I, and most other human beings and probably many of the "higher" animals, have free will. But I remain agnostic on the question of universal causation, the doctrine that every event has a cause. (The most popular interpretations of QM deny this, but I don't think that physics has come to an end any more than philosophy or history has.) I do have the ability to choose between alternatives. I could have chosen to have a glass of water or milk, but instead I chose to have a nice cold beer. But I do not think that this entails that this choice was not determined by the laws of physics. I am what is known as a compatibilist: I hold that causal determination is compatible with the existence of beings with free will. What you are arguing for is known as libertarian free will. (Not to be confused with the political doctrine of libertarianism.) You, the libertarian, hold that there are certain mental events, choices, which are neither caused in the way that the movement of a billiard ball is caused (caused by previous events), but neither are they stochastic, in the way that the most popular interpretations of contemporary physical theory hold that certain microphysical events, e.g. the decay of radioactive atoms, are. One might say that they are caused in a special way, "agent causation", which differs from the ordinary sort of event causation. We compatibilists see no conflict between universal causation and free will, or "the ability to do otherwise". Why not? Because attributions of ability, such as "could have done otherwise", are context-dependent modal attributions: to say that S could have done otherwise is to say that S's doing otherwise is compossible with certain givens. Which givens depends on the context. Let me illustrate with an example of David Lewis's. "Monkeys cannot speak Finnish, for they lack the developed vocal cords human beings have, nor do they have sort of brain humans have, with a specific area devoted to linguistic ability. But I'm a human, so I *can* speak Finnish. But don't take me to Helsinki to be your interpreter, because I can't speak Finnish!" How can both these statements be true: "I can speak Finnish" and "I can't speak Finnish"? They are both true because they are uttered in different contexts. In the first context, the relevant givens are the fact that I have human vocal cords and a human brain. In the second context, the relevant givens are my education, which does not include any training in Finnish. The same thing goes for the attribution of being able to do otherwise (free will). When we take as given all a determinstic physics, we say that a person could not have done otherwise. In a more loose context, we say that the person could have done otherwise. I, as a compatibilist, hold that attributions of free will presuppose a looser context than one which considers all the laws of physics. What are the relevant givens for the attribution of free will? I'm not sure about that, and I'm not even sure that they can be specified. I do think that, in general, whenever an action is brought about "in the appropriate way" by ones beliefs and pro-attitudes (desires, feelings of obligation), the action is free. Thus anything which has beliefs and desires, and whose actions are brought about by these beliefs and desires in the appropriate way, has free will. (Specifying what "the appropriate way" is, I think, equivalent to specifying the relevant givens in attributing free will.) [More on one of your objections to determinism in another post.] Brock Sides University of Rochester From lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Sat Jan 21 11:06:38 1995 Received: from bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu by ponyexpress.princeton.edu (5.65c/1.7/newPE) id AA11212; Sat, 21 Jan 1995 11:06:38 -0500 Received: from [128.146.24.43] by bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (8.6.4/4.940426) id LAA26968; Sat, 21 Jan 1995 11:05:12 -0500 Date: Sat, 21 Jan 1995 11:05:12 -0500 Message-Id: <199501211605.LAA26968@bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (ASP-Disc) Subject: Re: On Free Will 1/2 Status: R From: "Brock 'Not (P and not-P)' Sides" Brian Caplan's arguments A, C, and D, do not support the existence of libertarian free will (see my previous post, and please do not confuse this with libertarian political philosophy) any better than they do the existence of compatibilist free will (my position). So I can accept these arguments. Argument B, however, purports to establish that the non-existence of libertarian free will entails skepticism. I agree that entailing skepticism constitutes a reductio of a thesis, so this is an argument I must contend with. >B. The Reductio Ad Absurdum to Skepticism >If the content of my mind is >determined entirely on the level of micro-particles, how >would I ever double-check my views? First, I think there is a subtle distinction to be made here. One question, irrelevant here, is whether the mental is reducible to, merely supervenes upon, or is independent of, the microphysical. (I personally hold the second position, but that is irrelevant.) The relevant question is whether our mental states are causally necessitated by previous states, or whether they come into being randomly, or whether they are brought about some third way. One could be both a determinist and a dualist: one might hold that mental states are causally determined by previous mental states, and are yet independent of the physical. (I don't know anyone who holds this, but it is a consistent position.) The libertarian must hold that mental states come into being in some third way, neither deterministic nor random. (I confess that I find this idea of a third way absurd, but I won't press this.) In answer to your rhetorical question, "How, if I am determined to believe that P, would I double-check my views?": perhaps I am determined to double-check, or even triple- or quadruple-check my views. If so, I am among the epistemically fortunate. (And I do often double-check my views, especially in doing philosophy.) > I would be >determined to believe them; and if arguments convinced >me, then they would be determined to convince me. The crucial >point is that my views -- correct and incorrect alike -- >would be the result of inexorable causal forces. >And these forces determine people to error just as inexorably as >they determine them to truth. Of course, I might be >correct by coincidence. But knowledge is _justified_ true >belief; and when we are pre-determined to believe >whatever we happen to believe no matter what, it is hard >to see what the justification of our beliefs is. Here is where I must balk at your premise. If we are determined to believe that P, then it is hard to see what our justification for believing that P consists in. But its hard to see what justification of our beliefs consists in *anyway*: if this were not the case, then epistemologists would be out of business! I do not see how an assumption or denial of libertarian free will makes epistemology any easier or more difficult to do. Perhaps I am determined to believe that P; but, if I am epistemically fortunate, I will be determined to justifiably believe that P. As far as I can tell, there is no contradiction in this. >Put succinctly, if we have knowledge we must accept beliefs >only because we understand them to be true; but if >determinism is correct, then we automatically accept >whatever beliefs that our constituent micro-particles >impose on us, since as Searle says, scientific explanation >works from the bottom up. Again, I must reiterate that determinism does not preclude dualism. But that is a minor quibble. The major quibble is this again: why couldn't we be determined not only to believe truely, but to believe justifiably? >It might be the case that those >micro-particles coincidentally make me believe true >things, but the truth would not be the ultimate causal agent >acting upon me. I'm not sure what you mean by "ultimate causal agent", but what you say here seems to contradict your libertarianism. Suppose that my justified belief that P were *caused* by the truth of P. Then, according to your libertarianism, I could not have believed otherwise, and thus the belief is not freely chosen. I personally don't think that our beliefs are freely chosen, nor do I think this keeps them from being knowledge; but you imply that a belief not freely chosen cannot be justified. But it seems quite clear that being causally connected with "the facts" (in the appropriate way) is a necessary condition of a belief's being knowledge. (At least for "empirical" or "a posteriori" beliefs.) This seems to be the lesson of the Gettier examples: My justified, true, belief that there is a sheep in the field is not knowledge, for it is not connected in the appropriate way with the fact that there is a sheep in the field: I would believe (justifiably, although not truely) that there is a sheep in the field even if there weren't one there. So it cannot be the case that our beliefs must be freely chosen (in the libertarian sense) in order to be knowledge. It is your thesis, not the thesis of determinism, that leads to skepticism. You hold that being uncaused by previous states is necessary for a belief to be justified; but a belief cannot satisfy the elusive "Gettier clause" without being causally related to the facts. If your thesis were correct, then no belief could be justified and satisfy the Gettier clause: therefore we have no knowledge. (I take this to be a reductio of your thesis that libertarian free will is required for epistemic justification.) Brock Sides University of Rochester P.S. If I may, I'd like to report on some non-philosophical news, and announce that I have just gotten engaged to Janet Coleman. We are to be married on Aug. 19 this year. [Congrats, Brock! -- Larry] From lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Sat Jan 21 11:07:17 1995 Received: from bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu by ponyexpress.princeton.edu (5.65c/1.7/newPE) id AA11233; Sat, 21 Jan 1995 11:07:14 -0500 Received: from [128.146.24.43] by bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (8.6.4/4.940426) id LAA27074; Sat, 21 Jan 1995 11:05:54 -0500 Date: Sat, 21 Jan 1995 11:05:54 -0500 Message-Id: <199501211605.LAA27074@bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (ASP-Disc) Subject: Re: On Free Will 2/2 Status: R From: Mike I have to answer Bryan's essay on free will, though he probably already knows what I am going to say (from previous experience). But other list members don't. The free will problem divides into 2 sub-issues: (1) Is there free will? Bryan and I agree the answer here is yes. (2) What is it? And is it compatible with determinism? To this latter I admit I don't know the answer, but I think Bryan's answer has some problems, to which I now turn. (comments numbered according to Bryan's sections) 1. In your definition, you use the phrase "given all other causal factors ...": Did you use the word "other" intentionally (to contrast with, say, the person himself as a causal factor), or did you just mean "given all prior causal factors..."? (Not a problem really; just a need for clarification.) 2. You respond to the objection from the law of causality, by denying that law (in the form it is usually understood), but you don't argue that free will is actually incompatible with the law of causality ("Every change has a cause"). "Surely that's obvious, from how I defined it," you say. Not so. As you defined it, a person has free will if he has the ability, given the causal factors present, to do each of two (incompatible) actions. It's not obvious this means there is no cause of his subsequent action, for two reasons: (a) because it might happen sometimes that C causes act A, but the person could have avoided doing A, because he could have prevented C from causing A; and so A would have a cause, and yet the person would still have free will even by your definition. (I think you want to allow this case.) (b) because maybe a person retains an ability even in circumstances in which he is caused not to exercise it. Let me explain with an analogy: I can say of my bike, "It is capable of going 60 miles an hour." This is true of it right now, even though right now it is parked and no one is on it, and it can't start up and drive out by itself. That is: it has a certain latent capacity, even though it requires some cause to activate it, and it has it even during the times when it is not being activated. And so it might be (for all your definition of free will says) with us: We retain the ability of doing either of two incompatible actions, even when we are caused to do one of them and not the other. This is because we still have the latent capacity that would be relevant. 3. You claim that random or probabilistic origins of our actions are incompatible with freedom. Yet on your definition, they shouldn't be. For, again, your definition only speaks of the ability to do each of two or more actions. A radioactive atom that has a 50% probability of decaying in a given time period is able to decay or not decay, given all the antecedent causal factors in the universe. So according to your definition, the radioactive atom has free will, right? Of course I agree this conclusion is silly. That just means your definition has a problem. 5. Here you misquote me, I think. I think you were referring to my observation that "Judgement is something one does, whereas having a feeling is something that happens to one" (which, in case anybody is wondering, I said by way of distinguishing moral judgement from moral sentiment). 6. I pretty much agree with these arguments for free will, except for D. D. The argument is basically: if the physicists predicted you would raise your arm, you could always refute them by not raising it (just to be contrary). You think it shows that there couldn't be an equation (or set of laws) that necessarily and accurately predicts all human behavior. Actually, it only shows that either (a) if there were such laws, you couldn't know all the initial conditions. This conclusion is already believed by physicists anyway (because of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle). Or (b) the equation could not correct for the effects of your finding out about it, and for your finding out about its correction, and so on. And it's easy to see why this might be true, even if determinism is true. For the equation might predict this: "If you tell Bryan that he is determined to raise his hand, then he will (necessarily) refuse to raise his hand. If you tell Bryan that he is determined not to raise his hand, then he will (by necessity) insist on raising it." Thus, the law implies that your (Bryan's) actions are determined by external causes, so you definitely lack free will; yet it cannot categorically predict your actions, because it first needs to know which causes are going to be operating on you. You might imagine that you yourself know all the laws of nature, and you measure your own initial conditions, and you lock yourself in a room to isolate yourself from external influences. Then you should be able to predict your own behavior if determinism is true, right? Well, maybe not. Maybe you can't measure your own initial conditions with complete accuracy, for the quantum mechanical reason that the measuring device has to interact with the object, and will thereby change its state. "So you correct for the measuring device's impact." But then you first need to determine ITS initial conditions. Etc. (This is not an argument that nothing can ever be measured. In most cases, the disturbance the measuring device makes is negligible; but in the present case, it would not be.) 7. I'm not convinced you've answered the charge that your version of free will makes human action mere inexplicable happenings. You say that a person's action can be explained by his motives and reasons. But you add that this is only because he chose to go along with those motives. All right, then: what explained his choice to go along with those motives? There can't be an infinite regress, so we must come to some original choice(s) which really is, according to you, an inexplicable event. From lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Sat Jan 21 11:07:55 1995 Received: from bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu by ponyexpress.princeton.edu (5.65c/1.7/newPE) id AA11258; Sat, 21 Jan 1995 11:07:53 -0500 Received: from [128.146.24.43] by bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (8.6.4/4.940426) id LAA27167; Sat, 21 Jan 1995 11:06:26 -0500 Date: Sat, 21 Jan 1995 11:06:26 -0500 Message-Id: <199501211606.LAA27167@bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (ASP-Disc) Subject: On Free Will Status: R From: alan eaton If you had not guessed, this is in response to the short essay by Bryan Caplan. I will group my passages in the same manner he did and will use the same headings... 1. Free Will, what "A being has free will if given all other causal factors in the universe ... it nevertheless possesses the ability to choose more than one thing." A nice, short, to the point definition. I like it but as you will find out later i do not hold much hope for its realisation. 2. The Objection from the Law of Causality Bryan puts forward two formulations of the law of causality: "Every effect must have a cause; the same cause always produces the same effects" "Every _change_ must have a cause." To the first formulation Bryan says: "...it [free will] seems to violate the law of causality... The reply here is fairly simple: it simply denies that a free choice is an _effect_ of anything else." I think that this is not as simple a statement as Bryan indicates that he thinks. On the surface it is, indeed, simple but it has difficult implications. In examining free will it must be remembered that any discoveries or claims should be able to be rationalised against the vast body of scientific knowledge that already exists. Either the claim or discovery is correct and science as we know it is wrong or it fits in to the existing scientific framework somehow. It seems to me that, whilst i am completly willing to discard any scientific principle on the basis of contrary evidence, the first option here has a fairly high initial _im_plausibility (more on that latter). It also seems to be the case that it is just as simple to deny the existence of free will. Bryan says more about this form of scepticism later and so shall i (section 6.). If free will, then, is not an effect of anything else and we wish to keep the scientific principles we like to think of as established then it seems that we need to step into the realm of quantum mechanics. It is only here that we will find events that are not effects of anything else (ie quantum fluctuations - but don't quote me on this). Maybe i am wrong but i get the impression that this is not a move that Bryan would welcome even though it is a logical consequence of his previous statements (i suspect that my impression here has taken significant liberties with what is between the lines that Bryan wrote :). To the second formulation Bryan says: "Now this does indeed conflict with my notion of free will... I simply deny that this is so." It seems to me that this second formulation also conflicts with the outcomes of quantum mechanics as well (i am fairly certain of this but maybe someone who knows a little more can confirm it). The nature of quantum fluctuations seems to fly in the face of this formulation of causality as well. So there should be no argument against the denial of this formulation from the scientists among us (certainly none from me). 3. The Quantum Confusion "... But i say that free will and randomness have nothing whatever to do with each other; indeed, a probabalistic theory of choice is just as contrary to the freedom of the will as a fully deterministic one." I could not agree more with Bryan's ideas in this section. But if free will is going to be rationalised, somehow, with the sciences (and it seems that this should be the case) then it does seem that probability is going to play _some_ part if there is going to be insistence that it is not an effect of anything else (see section 2.) 4., 5. nothing to say of relevance here :) 6. Four Arguments for the Existence of Free Will. A. The Argument from Observation "... the simple fact of observation. I observe that i choose freely ... there is no reason to assume that these observations are illusory, any more than there is reason to assume that vision or hearing is illusory. ... scientists declare that real science ... rests on observation ..." "I would like to see a single argument for rejecting introspective evidence in favour of the other senses because any argument against the validity of introspection might be applied, ipso facto, to sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell." I do not have an argument for rejecting introspective evidence outrightly but i think that we are at least justified in being wary of such evidence. While there is no reason to assume that introspective observations are illusory it is also the case that there is no reason to assume that they are real. As for comparing them to the other senses i believe that we are justified in making a distinction. Of all the senses introspection is the only one that is turned on itself and, as any real scientist can tell you, the results of any observation tool that is turned on itself should not be trusted. If the mechanism is faulty or consistently returns false observations how are we to know??? "But our observation of our mental freedom is not an occasional fluke, but an emperical fact as repeatedly and continuously confirmed as the existence of the external world itself." And what if our observation of our mental freedom consistently returns false information? we would not know and would be unable to discover through purely introspective means that such observations were in error. It is entirely conceivable that our will is not at all free but merely appears so because of evolutionary requirements for our well being. B. The Reductio Ad Adsurdum to Skepticism "... Determinism, then, leads to skepticism, the denial of the possibility of justified true belief. ... but i hold that skepticism is necessarily false. For suppose we affirm skepticism ... if we know that skepticism is true ... then at least one item of objective knowledge exists, which contradicts the premise. But if we don't know that skepticism is true either, why should we accept it? ... Determinism implies skepticism; Skepticism is necessarily false; Hence determinism is false." If Determinism is true and so none of our true beliefs are justified because they are all determined then we cannot know anything. If we cannot know anything then we cannot "know that skepticism is true" and to assert that we might, as part of a denial of determinism, is to beg the question. Determinism might imply skepticism (and it certainly does) but it does not imply that we _know_ that skepticism is true. For us to believe that skepticism is true or for us to believe that we know that skepticism is true is of no import. There is no logical problem with skepticism being true. If it is true then we cannot know anything, including that skepticism is true. If it is not then it is not. Both options are valid. C. Moore's Proof of the External World Extended "In order for any argument to work, it is necesary that the initial plausibility of its premises have greater initial plausibility than those of the denial of its conclusion. ... Nothing has greater initial plausibility than the premise "I have free will" ... So how is it even coherent to argue against free will?" I have no problem whatsoever with believing that i have no free will - as defined in section 1. This being the case it is also the case that the premise "I have free will" has _less or equal_ initial plausibility than any other premise. This means that it is possible that there is an argument against it that is coherent. An what of plausibility anyway. How do you measure it. Is it measured subjectively or objectively. And is it possible or relevant in a universe in which skepticism is true??? Another question is whether the initial plausibility of any premise is fixed. The answer to this is, i think, a very definite no. Consider the premise that the speed of light is a constant. To our normal, everyday, Newtonian sensibilities this is an absurd premise. Surely if you throw something at a velocity of V of the front of a train travelling at the speed of light the velocity of the object to an observer at rest will be V+C. Do we all know the answer to that? (if you don't the objects velocity will be C!). Today such a premise has high plausibility. Could not the premise "Bryan has free will" be the same kind of statement (this time in reverse). In the first example the only thing that changed over time was the range of observations people had made (someone ran an experiment that determined that the speed of light was constant). I feel that the same will happen regarding free will. I also suspect that it only makes sense to attach plausibility to a premise in a universe where determinism is the go. Whether one premise has a higher plausibility than another would be solely a product of the causal interactions you have partaken of in your past. Thus an argument via plausability is vacuous if you place it in the context of determinism. As for poor old tortured John Searle, why should he change his mind when it has been determined that he should be tortured thus???? :) D. A Thought Experiment Showing the Freedom of the Will Bryan asks us to consider some super-neurophysiologists that have an equation for predicting all of your behaviour. In the experiment the equation predicts that the next thing you will do is to raise your arm. Bryan then asks: "Do you seriously believe that you couldn't falsify this prediction by failing to raise your arm?" I imagine that if the equation does what it is supposed to then i would not be able to falsify the prediction. I might get an irresistable urge to scratch my armpit or something. Even if i did seriously believe that i could falsify the prediction the thought experiment in no way shows that i would, indeed, be able to falsify the prediction. "Surely if human behaviour were unfree, then science could in theory at least predict when i am going to raise my hand." And Chaos theory states that systems can exhibit unpredictable behaviour and yet be deterministic (even based on a simple set of rules). Even if human behaviour does turn out to be unfree is no gaurantee that science will ever be able to predict it. 7. Some Objections to and Misconceptions about the Freedom of the Will nothing to object to here. 8. Conclusion "The most telling proof for the existence of free will is that we all observe it during our every waking moment." Do we now. I have already said that i do not believe that my will is free in the way defined in section 1. I observe that i make choices but i do not observe that they _are_ free. The best i can do is observe that to me they _seem_ to be free. Does this mean that i am arbitrarily excluding "introspection as a valid source of imperical knowledge" ? Certainly not. I exclude it as such a source but only for good reasons (section 6A). "The denial of our freedom leads to the denial of virtue and vice, individual responsibility, and the value of political freedom. And ultimately, this denial of our free will leads to the dehumanization of us all." Is this at all relevant. Just because the denial of free will might have some unsavoury implications does not mean that it is the right thing to do. Actually, if it turns out that it is true that we have no free will then there is nothing we can do about it apart from pretend that we do. And so what. If we construct false visions of the universe then it is only because our causal history impells us to. ---------------------------------+----------------------------------------- Alan Eaton | May your life be filled with frustration aeaton@aeaton.lnk.powerup.com.au | From lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Sat Jan 21 16:20:29 1995 Received: from bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu by ponyexpress.princeton.edu (5.65c/1.7/newPE) id AA28653; Sat, 21 Jan 1995 16:20:28 -0500 Received: from [128.146.24.102] by bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (8.6.4/4.940426) id QAA05298; Sat, 21 Jan 1995 16:17:05 -0500 Date: Sat, 21 Jan 1995 16:17:05 -0500 Message-Id: <199501212117.QAA05298@bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (ASP-Disc) Subject: Free Will - compatibilist reply to Bryan Caplan Status: R From: William G M Adlam I disagree with several of Bryan's points: Section 1 (definition) "A being has free will if, given all other causal factors...it posesses the ability to choose more than one thing." I don't know what 'ability' means here. Usually if I say something is able to do something, I mean it will do it if it chooses to. I don't think you want to say that a being with free will will choose to do something iff it chooses to choose to do it. Or iff it freely chooses to choose (which under this definition implies an infinite causal chain of choices). So what do you mean by ability? I hope you'll excuse me for continuing to criticise your essay on free will when I don't understand what you mean by it. Section 2 (causality) "I observe uncaused changes during my every waking moment, whenever I contemplate my own choices." I believe that you observe changes whenever you contemplate your own choices, and that you believe them to be uncaused. But it looks like you are saying that you observe that the changes are uncaused. I grant that you often observe no cause, but I doubt that you ever observe that your choices have a property of 'uncausedness'. This section does not mention the argument from physical causality. This runs as follows: Every physical event is governed by the laws of physics. An action, such as pushing a button, is a physical event and so must have been caused by another physical event (such as the contraction of muscles in my arm). This event must also have a physical cause, and so on. But it appears that pressing the button was caused by a mental event (my decision to press it). Therefore, either: 1) The mental event did not really cause the physical event. ("Free will is an illusion.") or 2) The mental event was also a physical event. Therefore it had a physical cause. ("Free will exists but our actions are nevertheless determined.") It has been suggested (I think by Roger Penrose) that the quantum mechanical effects of a system observing itself cause brains to behave differently from everything else in the universe. (I don't think this is so, but it's not impossible.) I can see that this might make events on a microscopic scale in the brain follow slightly different laws, but I don't see what other effects there could be. Section 3 (randomness and quantum mechanics) Quantum indeterminacy does not affect your arguments on free will. It does, however, counter the argument "People are unpredictable, but machines/the universe/whatever aren't. Therefore people have free will but computers/ things made entirely of matter and energy/whatever can never have it." (I don't think this would be an acceptable argument even if physics were completely deterministic.) Section 4 (more causality) You assert, again without any supporting argument, that choices are uncaused. Section 5 (what we choose) I agree that we choose much of our mental and bodily behaviour. I don't think it's usual to choose one's beliefs. There are several occasions when, if I had been able to, I would have chosen to believe that I would never die. You said "thinking about free will is voluntary, but seeing what is in front of my face when my eyes are open is not." So you think that having (involuntarily) read your message, I had the choice of whether to think about free will? That's certainly not how it seemed to me! Section 6 (four arguments) 6A (observation) I agree that observation is an important, but not conclusive, argument for free will as I understand it. I observe that I made a choice, and that I acted as I intended. When this consistently happens for a particular type of choice, I conclude that I have free will i.e. that when I choose A, I then do A. There are some things I've never chosen to do, so I really don't know if, for example, I have the free will to cut my arm off with a hacksaw. (My guess is that I usually don't but perhaps might under very stressful situations.) However, you also claim that observation (or generalisation from observation) shows explicitly that choices are uncaused (and also unrandom). I have never observed this uncausedness which you think is (1) a property of all your choices and (2) amenable to direct observation, with no possibility of error. That is why I am not convinced by your argument. 6B (truth) "It might be the case that those micro-particles coincidentally make me believe true things, but then the truth would not be the ultimate causal agency acting on me." Firstly, why coincidentally? Is it not also possible that a collection of micro-particles might tend to believe true things due to some or all of the reasons below: 1) In the course of evolution, human ancestors which by chance had good rules for believing true things made fewer mistakes and ended up producing more offspring, and humans have inherited these good rules. 2) As people grow up, they learn by trial and error that some types of reasoning lead to conclusions that are later confirmed by observation and others do not. 3) People carefully consider what might be true or what might count as evidence that something is true. 4) People notice that some people often make statements that are later confirmed, and they ask them how they arrived at their conclusions. I don't think any of these is incompatible with determinism. If people can plausibly be caused to believe justified statements, for reasons like these, this argument is not relevant. However, if beliefs are caused by a variety of stimuli influencing an imperfect brain, this would explain why many of our beliefs are not true. Secondly, you say that the truth is the ultimate causal agency acting on your beliefs. But you denied that your choices were subject to any causal agency, and said that you chose your beliefs. And if your beliefs aren't, after all, caused by anything, there can't be any rules controlling them, including rules that increase the chances of their being justified. 6C (initial plausibility) You are saying that free will is more initially plausible than everything else. Free will in the sense that I understand it (doing what you choose) is not particularly obvious, and as I mentioned above, sometimes it is shown to exist and sometimes not to, depending largely on the difficulty of what it is you choose. Free will in the sense of uncausedness of choices is not initially plausible to me. In fact, it is very implausible: something either happens completely at random, subject to no rules, or it doesn't, and if not it must be nonrandom in some way, and that way is a rule (either stochastic or deterministic) describing its behaviour. Not only does it not seem plausible to me that choices or anything else behave like this, it doesn't even seem logically possible - certainly I can't imagine anything remotely like it. 6D (thought experiment) "The equation is so good that it even incorporates our reaction to the equation, our reaction to knowing that it incorporates our reaction, and so on" There is nothing in determinism that suggests such an equation could exist. Determinism implies that you can tell someone you are going to predict their behaviour, at least stochastically, and then succeed in doing so, but does not claim that you can control the actions of a sufficiently stubborn subject. For example, suppose you have agreed to take part in an experiment where you have lots of sensors and complicated equipment attatched to your head, leading to a very powerful, expertly programmed computer, which displays its results to one of those brilliant neurophysiologists. Determinism predicts that you could play a game of scissors, paper, stone and no matter what you did, the computer would predict your final choice and the neurophysiologist would be sure to win, at least on average. Your equation would imply the much stronger claim that the neurophysiologist could reveal his/her choice before yours, but would still win. You then ask "why should the equations be unable to compensate for the subject's knowledge of the prediction?" Because this would often cause a negative feedback loop: predicting the subject will decide to do something may then _cause_ the subject to change his/her mind, which causes the equation to give a different prediction. Presumably you think firstly that if you go through this cycle enough times the equation's prediction and the subject's choice will converge (they will agree on what the subject is going to do) and secondly that it would be possible to incorporate the whole series into a single equation without changing the subject. Neither of these follows in any direct way from determinism. The argument here about probability is a circular one referring to free will in my sense: if a choice determines an action, than once the choice has been made the action is certain to happen. Section 7 (objections) 7A (difficult choices) I partly agree with you here: saying a decision is difficult to make often means there are strong emotions involved, and this is not directly related to free will. However, some people find it 'difficult' to decide what to order in a restaurant, not because thay are agonising over dramatic economic or personal consequences of their choice but because they are trying to guess which dish will taste best. I'm not trying to be flippant, just pointing out that there are other sorts of choices which can be described as hard. 7B (is free will universal?) I remember reading in New Scientist a few years ago (a 1st April edition, in fact, but I decided it was serious) an article (rather philosophically confused, as I remember it) suggesting that at least one of the ancient Greek civilisations didn't believe in free will because in their legends the gods kept on influencing people's decisions (remember Hercules going insane and murdering people? And, come to that, Siegfried being influenced by a love potion? And even God making the Pharoah especially stubborn so he could have an excuse to plague the Egyptians?) To get back to the point, I think you'd have to be unusually dim (or unusually impotent) not to notice that your choices were affecting your actions. To be able to imagine (let alone directly perceive) the uncausedness of one's decisions is rather more difficult. At any rate, I've never managed it. 7C (regularity) How regular people's behaviour is may say something about what rules govern it, it doesn't address the question of whether behaviour is caused or not. 7D (inexplicability) I don't agree with the definition of 'choice' that you introduce at this point. And the second paragraph implies the sort of infinite regression I alluded to earlier: you have to choose what to base your choice on, but you have to choose how to make that choice, and so on. Section 8 (conclusion) You repeat, in effect, your claim that you can observe that your choices are uncaused and nonrandom, and that you are more sure of that observation than of anything else. Apart from the question of political freedom, I don't see what any of the new claims introduced in this section have to do with free will, but unfortunately I still don't know what you mean by the phrase. So I apologise if you don't think I'm properly addressing your arguments. Bill Adlam From lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Sun Jan 22 15:16:46 1995 Received: from beauty.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu by ponyexpress.princeton.edu (5.65c/1.7/newPE) id AA26172; Sun, 22 Jan 1995 15:16:45 -0500 Received: from [128.146.24.45] by beauty.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (8.6.4/4.940426) id PAA16885; Sun, 22 Jan 1995 15:14:12 -0500 Date: Sun, 22 Jan 1995 15:14:12 -0500 Message-Id: <199501222014.PAA16885@beauty.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (ASP-Disc) Subject: On behalf of freedom & against Alan Status: R From: "Mike 'P or not-P' Huemer" Bryan has gotten so many and so lengthy replies to his "free will" message that I am sorry for having added to his burden; therefore, I will now turn to defending him (as a good friend must). First, Alan, you apparently disbelieve in free will, but you don't seem to give any reason why. You start by saying that it would be very implausible that "science as we know it" is wrong (this is in discussion of the law of causality). I agree with that, and I'm sure (if I may presume so to speak for him) so does Bryan. But how does free will conflict with science as we know it? Because it conflicts with the law of causality? Yet, even supposing that to be so, you yourself later noticed that the law of causality is NOT upheld in current science (sc. quantum mechanics). So the supposed conflict with science still eludes me. By the way, my general advice is nobody should attempt to draw any philosophical lessons from quantum mechanics. The interpretation of it is highly controversial and unsettled. There are some interpretations which are deterministic, and some which are indeterministic. Second, on the 'initial plausibility' argument: If I may again speak for Bryan, I think "initial plausibility" means the extent to which something at first (i.e., prior to considering arguments) appears to you to be true. Thus, reconsider the argument: Suppose that something at first just seems true to you, prephilosophically. How could you, ever, rationally, come to overturn that initial credence? Well, someone might give you a reason to overturn it. (Though as I say, you have so far given no reason to reject the commonsense belief in freewill.) But if someone gives you a reason, do you automatically have to give up the belief? No -- not unless it's a strong reason. That is, specifically: not unless that reason he gives seems to you to be true, even more clearly than the first belief. Then you overturn the initial belief. But if someone gives you a reason which initially appears false to you, then why should you pay any attention to it? (He might give you a further reason, but then we just repeat the process.) Okay, now here's an interesting question: Is there a maximum possible level of initial plausibility? Bryan thinks there is (certainty). Suppose then that something had that level of initial plausibility. Then how could it ever be overturned? What argument would do it? Clearly nothing could do it. So in particular, no philosophical theory could do it. That, I take it, is the substance of G.E. Moore's answer to skepticism. Also, this sort of argument doesn't just apply to propositions with absolute certainty -- you can apply it to propositions which have greater initial plausibility than any philosophical theory has. The conclusion is that it is *irrational* to accept skepticism (in regard to such proposi- tions). This is a simple but highly important point. "Well," you might now be wondering, "but what reason was there ever to accept the 'initially plausible' proposition *to begin with*?" Well, it seemed to you to be true. What other reason could you want -- or could you possibly ever have, anyway? "Ah, but," you say, "it does NOT seem to me that I have free will. It seems to me that I don't." Remember that we're talking about *initial* plausbility here (how does it seem prior to considering arguments?) If you still think that it doesn't seem to you that you are free, I think that either you have poor introspection, or you don't understand the meanings of "free will" and "determinism". Consider... You make choices frequently in your life, don't you? Often you make them consciously, I'll bet. Now, when you do this, do you sometimes first deliberate? I think you do. But if you don't believe you have free will, then what are you deliberating about? If there's only one possibility open to you, then why do you deliberate? Clearly, you think you have multiple alternatives. Again, do you sometimes regret actions? Do you ever resent others' actions as wrong? Or applaud them as wise and good? Do you ever prospectively recommend anything to anyone? I suspect that you do. But again, this implies that you must think that more than one alternative is possible (you would not recommend to someone what he either could not do, or could not help, &c.) What this shows is that you are wrong to say you don't believe in free will. In fact, you believe it implicitly, and very firmly. Now what reason is there for questioning or attempting to change this belief? Finally, you suggest that if our introspection were systematically deceptive, we would have no way of knowing it. Probably true, but also, if our reason were systematically deceptive, we would have no way of knowing; and if our senses deceived us systematically, we could never find out; and if any of our natural faculties is like that, then, as Reid says, "If I am deceived, I am deceived by him that made me, and there is no remedy." There is no special charge against introspection. You say that introspection is turned upon itself, but so what? How do you verify your senses' accuracy? Only, possibly, by using them (you can take eye tests, and then ask the doctor the results; but you have to rely on what your ears tell you he is saying). From lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Sun Jan 22 15:17:24 1995 Received: from beauty.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu by ponyexpress.princeton.edu (5.65c/1.7/newPE) id AA26192; Sun, 22 Jan 1995 15:17:23 -0500 Received: from [128.146.24.45] by beauty.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (8.6.4/4.940426) id PAA16945; Sun, 22 Jan 1995 15:14:53 -0500 Date: Sun, 22 Jan 1995 15:14:53 -0500 Message-Id: <199501222014.PAA16945@beauty.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (ASP-Disc) Subject: remarks on free will Status: R From: Thomas w Clark Free will (the libertarian variety) to me seems drastically implausible, given my naturalistic, materialist bias. The compatibilist alternatives seek to save some residual notion of free will but these don't give people what they most want from it, namely the sense that we are originative (and hence either deserving or culpable) agents. We would all be far better off, I think, if we abandoned the notion that there is something special about human beings which sets them apart from nature and endows them with the astonishing capacity to cause things without in turn being caused. There have been some good rebuttals to many points in Brian Caplan's essay, and I offer the following remarks which I believe are relevant to the discussion thus far: 1) Alan Eaton, whose comments I agree with, suggests that in evaluating the plausibility of free will we might attempt to "rationalize" it with science. I don't think this is possible, and science wins: As a follower of our social discourse related to free will, especially in legal and criminal contexts, I've noticed that there is an increasing tension between the scientist, who is interested in the genetic and environmental determinants of an agent's choice, and the lay person (e.g. a jury member or judge) who is interested in assigning moral responsibility for an action. There are two sets of motives and two cognitive domains which support different views of the same phenomenon. The scientist explains the agent, his motives, and his acts as part of the larger picture of environment and heredity, while the lay person "explains" the acts by pointing to the agent. As my scare quotes indicate, what the lay person does isn't really explanation at all, but simply a pointing out of where the acts arose. For the purposes of assigning criminal responsibility, the question of why the agent acted as he did is irrelevant as long as it can be shown that he was sane, could "conform his conduct to the requirements of the law," knew right from wrong, etc. The lay person is rarely interested in the genesis of the character and motive behind the crime. Why? Because thorough explanations would tend to show that these, like the crime itself, were a function of prior and current circumstances, in which case they cannot be thought of as _originated_ by the agent. Although the lay person uses the language of explanation, so that it _seems_ as if an explanation were being offered when responsibility is assigned, this involves a highly selective (and hence highly dubious) use of the concept of cause: the agent had the causal power to originate his acts, but the antecedents to his character and motives are not credited with the causal power to have produced the agent. Amazing! On this rather common view, persons, unique in our universe, are somehow self-created, are in some essential sense free from prior causal influences. The basic point, then, is that there are competing agendas in our approach to human behavior (especially criminal behavior), one motivated by developing an understanding of it, the other motivated by the natural desire to assign credit and blame, praise and punishment. They compete in the sense that true (scientific) explanations undercut the ordinary justification for retributive sanctions; and the successful assignment of moral responsibility, at least in the traditional, libertarian sense of a contra-causal capacity to have done otherwise, blocks scientific explanation by separating the agent from his or her causal antecedents. The question which fascinates me is whether these two agendas can continue to coexist in our increasingly scientific age, or whether, as I suspect, science will eventually expose the "explanatory" claim of originative, moral responsibility to be the sham that it is. If this happens we will be forced to recognize that the retributive impulse cannot be justified by holding the agent originatively responsible, in which case how _do_ we justify it, if at all? As a natural desire, I suppose, whose expression we permit to the extent (a rather limited extent, I would hope) that we deem wise or necessary. I think that dropping the belief in free will will reduce both the inclination to seek retribution and the punitive excesses associated with it (capital punishment, for instance). Keep in mind that there are other perfectly sound rationales for imposing sanctions for criminal wrongdoing: incapacitation, deterrence, and rehabilitation. The law will not lose its teeth. For a current, mainstream defense of this highly controversial position, see Robert Wright's latest book "The Moral Animal," chapter 17. 2) On self-regulation and the self: Most people outside the philosophical community (and some within it) suppose that they exist as mental agents independent of their character, desires, habits, motives and dispositions, and that they can choose these attributes "at will." I suggest that there is no evidence, empirical or introspective, that a person is something over and above, or independent from, his or her attributes, character, capacities, etc. If we exist _as_ our motives and dispositions, then we need not posit an internal agent who regulates behavior _in terms of_ those motives and dispositions. That is, behavior is regulated _by the motives and dispositions themselves_, not by a separate supervisory agent. And after all, to posit such an agent is to invite an infinite regress . At some point, (and why not sooner than later?) the processes underlying intelligent behavior must be self-regulating, which means there is ultimately no free, monitoring agent "in charge." I think the really crucial issue behind the free will debate is the question of the self: what are we essentially? Eventually we will come to see (as did Hume, B. F. Skinner, Dennett, Derek Parfit, among many others) that there is no internal regulator independent of desires and behavior, nor, for that matter, any internal, mental witness to our experience. Such a realization, of course, is yet another demotion from our once privileged status, and will complete the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions by putting us securely within the natural realm. 3) On "could have done otherwise": In most situations the ability and opportunity for someone to do otherwise are usually present, and it is just this (and only this) which justifies our saying that a person could have done other than what he did. If someone had wanted to act in a different way, and had the capacity and the opportunity to do so, he would have acted differently. In crimes of commission, this means the offender had the capacity and the opportunity _not_ to commit the crime. The crucial question then becomes, could the offender have wanted or desired something other than what he did? If there is no self above character, motive and disposition, the question might also be phrased "could the self have been other than what it was at the time?" In the case of _behaving_ otherwise we see that if the desire had been other than it was, then certainly other sorts of behavior (e.g., refraining from a criminal act) were possible in most situations. The case of _desiring_ otherwise is similar: if (and only if) other conditions had been different, then a different desire may well have arisen, i.e. the self would have been different. We must assent to this, unless we take the position that the self is independent of circumstances and is alone responsible for its character, motives and dispositions. (This position, I think, is where some feel forced to retreat in the rather harsh light of what follows.) So yes, the person might have desired otherwise, and therefore would have acted otherwise, _had conditions not been what they were_. But the converse is also true, that _given_ the existing conditions, the self could not have been other than it was, and so, even though he _could_ have done otherwise in the sense of having the capacity to act otherwise, he never _does_ act otherwise. Behavior, in this analysis, is always linked to prior and existing conditions (which is how the scientist sees it) and the "could have done otherwise" defense of free will amounts simply to a point about what we mean by possibility; its not a substantive rebuff to the reality of the causal embeddedness of human desire and action. I think the reason the "could have done otherwise" defense has appeal is that many people _do_ suppose that motives are under the contra-causal control of a separate regulating agent. If we believe the agent has originative responsibility for motive, then all we have to show is that he could have done otherwise in the sense of ability and opportunity. This is usually not difficult, given that most situations could be exploited differently by persons with different desires. But once we see that motives can't be chalked up to originative agents, then this strategy for showing free will becomes useless. The person is _embodied by_ desires and capacities, he creates neither. (This shows, I think, why the question of the self is prior to the question of free will.) 4) On determinism and knowledge (adding a bit to what Brock Sides and William Adlam have posted): We don't, as a matter of fact, freely _choose_ whether to believe an argument or not, or choose to believe (or not) the evidence of our senses. Arguments and evidence are _compelling_, or they are not, and indeed free will is not commonly thought to pla y a role in our evaluation of empirical claims or matters of logic. If it did then we'd be in bad shape, since our assent would be a matter of uncaused whim, not the result of argument or evidence. All that matters in forming true and effective beliefs is that we have our normal wits and senses about us, that the causal effects of the world and the logical force of arguments impinge upon us through normal channels and be processed by the standard, pragmatically useful algorithms of our neural networks. That we might, according to determinism, be _compelled_ via these channels to believe in determinism doesn't undermine its truth or the truth of other factual claims we come to believe. Determinism is self-consistent in that it can explain its appearance in our cognitive economy as a fundamental and essential component. It is the expectation of causal regularity of the world (including ourselves in all respects) which allows us to get by in it. On the other hand, those who try to account for their belief in free will would presumably say that they freely chose it, not that they were persuaded by evidence and argument. This seems to me a dubious basis for any belief. Tom Clark From lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Sun Jan 22 15:18:00 1995 Received: from beauty.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu by ponyexpress.princeton.edu (5.65c/1.7/newPE) id AA26235; Sun, 22 Jan 1995 15:18:00 -0500 Received: from [128.146.24.45] by beauty.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (8.6.4/4.940426) id PAA17127; Sun, 22 Jan 1995 15:16:14 -0500 Date: Sun, 22 Jan 1995 15:16:14 -0500 Message-Id: <199501222016.PAA17127@beauty.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (ASP-Disc) Subject: question to Caplan Status: R From: Ben Fischer What is your philosophy of mind? I'm guessing you deny that what we call "mind," or what you might call "free will," is a physical process in the brain, because then you'd have to hold that these physical processes don't submit to physical laws. It sounds like your argue for some kind of interactionist dualism, that the mind exists outside of time and space, but exists in a two-way relationship (i.e., the mind effects the physical world and the physical world effects the mind) with temporal and spatial events. I think a lot of confusions would be cleared up with your answer to this question. ***************************************************************************** * Ben Fischer 617 1/2 Walnut Ave. * * bdfische@mailbox.syr.edu Syracuse, NY 13210 * * Our main objective should be the stiffening and widening * * of the penal net. * * -criminal law text * ***************************************************************************** From lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Wed Jan 25 10:14:04 1995 Received: from beauty.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu by ponyexpress.princeton.edu (8.6.9/1.7/newPE) id KAA17357; Wed, 25 Jan 1995 10:14:03 -0500 Received: from [128.146.24.22] by beauty.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (8.6.4/4.940426) id KAA29418; Wed, 25 Jan 1995 10:11:36 -0500 Date: Wed, 25 Jan 1995 10:11:36 -0500 Message-Id: <199501251511.KAA29418@beauty.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (ASP-Disc) Subject: Determinism precludes knowledge Status: RO From: Mike Continuing my defense of Bryan, let me try to explain the knowledge argument against determinism, since I think I caused Bryan to give it to begin with. As we know, knowledge requires more than true belief. Your beliefs have to be true non-accidentally, or non-coicidentally. (Some people would cash this out as 'reliability'; others as 'justification'.) The argument is that if physical determinism were true, your beliefs would only get to be true accidentally. Note: by "physical determinism" I mean the proposition that all changes are determined in accordance with the laws of nature, by physical causes. I don't apply the argument in case there are mental (but non-physical) causes, or we can interact with abstract objects. Now we need an intuition pump, to congeal our understanding of this sense of non-accidentalness. Suppose subtle scientists are implanting beliefs into you by hypnotic suggestion and/or injection of chemicals (I don't know whether this is possible, but you get the idea). Then do these beliefs constitute knowledge? No. What if they only implant true beliefs into you? Still, no. What if they carefully find out if each proposition is true, and decide only to implant true beliefs into you? Still, you do not know these things -- even though *in a sense* the truth of the propositions causes you to believe them, still, your process of arriving at them is non-rational. You might imagine, though, that these determined scientists decide to implant in you, in succession, beliefs corresponding to the steps of a valid (and sound) proof of some proposition (we must assume they also implant the starting premises). Again, I don't think this gives you knowledge. I view this situation as being comparable to what would always be happening to us if determinism were true. The above case, in fact, gives you the most that you can get from determinism -- it gives you the true beliefs, the beliefs that justify them, and the causal connection between your belief and the corresponding fact. What's missing? As far as I can see, the only thing that's missing, is that the process by which the belief is *immediately* formed is non-rational; the proximate causes are blind forces. But, you might say, perhaps, per the mind/brain identity theory, the physical states that proximately cause your beliefs are really, at the same time, identical with some conscious reasoning & reflection. In that case, would the belief be determined by irrational forces, or by rational ones? I think we should still say the former, on this ground: it is only the purely physical, non-rational description of us & our brains that, according to any good physicalist, is causally relevant. The laws of physics are only going to mention what I call 'blind forces' as such, and these laws are supposed to be the fundamental explanation of all changes that happen; so the mentalistic description of what's happening in our brains is (in a sense) epiphenomenal -- it has no explanatory function. So I view this case as still being like the hynotically- implanted beliefs. Admittedly this is a somewhat esoteric argument. Has this made it clearer? Of course, if any of this makes sense, it would be a misunder- standing to suggest that, if determinism is true, perhaps we are determined to have our beliefs be justified; that would be hypothesizing that we may be determined to have our beliefs be formed in a manner incompatible with determinism (Cf. the supposition that we might be determined to make free choices). From lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Mon Jan 30 22:00:47 1995 Received: from bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu by ponyexpress.princeton.edu (8.6.9/1.7/newPE) id WAA23221; Mon, 30 Jan 1995 22:00:46 -0500 Received: from [128.146.70.93] by bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (8.6.4/4.940426) id VAA17358; Mon, 30 Jan 1995 21:58:03 -0500 Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 21:58:03 -0500 Message-Id: <199501310258.VAA17358@bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (ASP-Disc) Subject: Mike on My Thought Experiment Status: R From: Bryan Douglas Caplan Just two points on Mike's critique. 1. Well, you're right that my view implies that there is no fact of the matter about my future behavior. That is, at time t it is not yet a fact that I will do A at time t+1 -- even if I wind up doing A. It isn't merely that we can't know; the fact just isn't in existence yet. This would seem to apply to any substantive theory of free will. My short answer is that it's violation of the law of the excluded middle isn't a problem because claims about my future behavior have a false presupposition which renders the proposition defective. (More strictly, a claim that it is now a fact that I am going to do A later contains a false presupposition. I'm not sure how to distinguish this from a common-sense prediction about my behavior, but perhaps you can see the difference?) 2. I don't think that my economics background makes me assume away the problem of initial conditions; it just seems to be a feature of all thought experiments to freely make assumptions to prove a point. I don't buy this whole feedback problem; but anyway, suppose we are physical determinists. We can get a deterministic theory of matter and energy, right? And mental properties just supervene on physical ones, right? So if our equations could predict the behavior of the physical parts of our bodies, and our mental activity is just so much froth on the waves, why should mental feedback loops be a problem? I can see how the dualist determinist might buy your rebuttal; but I don't see how the hard-core physical determinist could. --Bryan From lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Sun Feb 5 20:27:02 1995 Received: from bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu by ponyexpress.princeton.edu (8.6.9/1.7/newPE) id UAA01565; Sun, 5 Feb 1995 20:26:59 -0500 Received: from [128.146.24.92] by bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (8.6.4/4.940426) id UAA16255; Sun, 5 Feb 1995 20:24:18 -0500 Date: Sun, 5 Feb 1995 20:24:18 -0500 Message-Id: <199502060124.UAA16255@bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (ASP-Disc) Subject: Compatibilism Status: R From: Ben "Top o' the Food Chain" Kovitz Bryan Caplan wrote: > I think it's pretty > clear that the compatibilist is just a hard-core determinist who > doesn't like having to admit that he doesn't believe in free will, > so he re-defines "free will" to mean something very different from the > ordinary meaning of the term. Here's why I am willing to take seriously the possibility that, even though we clearly have free will, we might still be fully deterministic automatons at the micro-level. (I assume that's what "compatibilism" means, but it sure helps a lot to say this stuff clearly and explicitly.) The evidence for free will--or, at least the evidence that convinces me-- is primarily introspective, or at least at the everyday level of people doing stuff, talking to each other, lying to each other, suing each other, selling each other shoddy furniture, etc. And as I understand free will, it is a distinct sort of causation: I cause myself to make certain choices from among certain sets of alternatives, and my choice is not caused by anything else--as opposed to, say, the motions of a billiard ball, which moves only when smacked by another billiard ball, and moves in a way fully determined by that other billiard ball. This conception of free will, if I understand you correctly, Bryan, is exactly the same as yours. (I found it *very* refreshing to see someone point out that quantum- mechanical unpredictability or even metaphysical randomness is still nothing like free will.) So, basically, the evidence for free will is all at the everyday level, not the micro-level, and *so is the conclusion*. None of the everyday entities that we can, under normal conditions, suspect even as candidate causes for our actions--beach balls, parents, lawyers, shoddy furniture, lawn ornaments, provocative clothing, etc.--ever pushes our conscious decisions around in the manner that billard balls get pushed around. In fact, about that proposition, no reasonable disagreement is possible. Anyone who says that, contrary to all appearances, lawn ornaments make them decide what to buy and at what quantities is simply being silly. BUT, the big question is: what about, say, the atoms that we are made of? Our introspective and everyday evidence tells us nothing about them, not even that they exist. Our introspective evidence tells us nothing about how our brains work, or what, if anything, brains have to do with mental states, or, for that matter, even that we have brains. I once spent about forty-five minutes talking with a woman who insisted that her introspective experiences with painting verified the popular theories about which mental functions are performed by the right side of the brain and which are performed by the left. No, no, no: you can't tell jack-diddly about what's going on in your brain by noticing how happy you are or how clearly you can remember what horses look like or any other sort of introspection. If you want to know about brains, you have to get out the electrodes and physically play with some real brains. If we are made of absolutely nothing but atoms, and atoms are essentially billard balls, pushing each other about and never giving each other any alternatives to choose between, then it follows that we are indeed deterministic automatons--and without conflicting in the slightest with any of our everyday or introspective experience. We would still need to deliberate. We would still choose from among alternatives. We would still sometimes get knowledge and sometimes be deluded and sometimes remain ignorant. The notion of 'blame' would still make sense. Facts about what we should and should not do would still be worth learning, because, once learned, they would give us the ability to act more wisely. We should still sue purveyors of shoddy furniture misrepresented as of non-termite-laden quality. Lawn ornaments and provocative clothing would still not make our decisions for us. Rather, our deliberations and decisions would themselves *be* complicated motions of atoms. Viewed in the network of everyday objects and the effects they exert on each other, there would still be no causal laws relating everyday properties to our volitional actions. But, viewed at the atomic level, there would be such laws. It would be atoms pushing atoms, which together make up minds; not social mores or advertising or poddy-training or upbringing or socioeconomic background pushing minds--which is all the doctrine of free will seeks to establish, amd mainly what the deniers of free will wish to deny. Now, I find it rather hard to believe that any sort of mental phenomenon, volitional or otherwise, could *be* any amount of motions of atoms. But that is another matter. The point is: given that we *are* nothing but atoms, it does not follow that we would experience anything differently than we do, including the experiences that you rightly point to as justifying our belief in free will. Lastly, if you want to argue that indeed things would be very different for us were we deterministic automatons at the micro-level, I am eager to listen and you might even convince me. But notice, then, that you'd be arguing something substantive: for this is no mere semantic dispute, born only of cleverly redefining the term "free will". From lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Sun Feb 5 20:27:03 1995 Received: from bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu by ponyexpress.princeton.edu (8.6.9/1.7/newPE) id UAA01566; Sun, 5 Feb 1995 20:27:02 -0500 Received: from [128.146.24.92] by bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (8.6.4/4.940426) id UAA16280; Sun, 5 Feb 1995 20:24:49 -0500 Date: Sun, 5 Feb 1995 20:24:49 -0500 Message-Id: <199502060124.UAA16280@bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (ASP-Disc) Subject: free will and compatibilism Status: R From: "Brock 'Not (P and not-P)' Sides" Brian Caplan stated recently (in a reply to Paul Torek) that his use of the term "free will" precludes the possibility of causal determinism. That is to say, he has *stipulated* that if the Principle of Universal Causation ("Every event has a cause") is true, then no one ever acts freely. Caplan has further claimed that this use of the term "free will" is used in ordinary, non-philosophical contexts, and that the compatibilist's use of the term "free will" is inconsistent with ordinary use of the term. Brian, of course, is free to use the term "free will" however he pleases, as long as he makes it clear how he is using the term. And perhaps he is right that the compatibilists use of the term is inconsistent with the ordinary use of the term. (Why else would so many people find incompatibilism an initially compelling position? How else could the issue even have arisen?) [I personally never found incompatibilism particularly compelling, but perhaps I'm just aberrant.] But if Brian is right about this, then incompatibilism is a mere "analytic" truth -- boring and unworthy of any serious philosophical consideration. The only interesting question about free will then is "Do we have it?", i.e. is there some sort of way in which certain events, "free choices", can be brought about by a person, without being either causally necessitated or merely random. But then the compatibilist may formulate his position in light of Brian's stipulative use of the term "free will" as follows: It is possible for a person to be morally responsible for an action, even though she was causally determined to perform it. Thi is the position that the compatibilist is commited to. We might put the matter as follows. There are two sorts of pre-philosophical beliefs that govern our use of the term "free will": one is the belief that if one's actions are causally determined, then one's actions are not free; the other is the belief that if an action is not freely performed, one is not morally responsible for that action. Now, one may take either of these as "analytically" true, i.e. as governing legitimate use of the term "free will": but one may not take both as "analytically" true without begging important philosophical questions. Brian focuses on the first of these pre-philosophical beliefs, and rules compatibilism out by fiat. As Brian uses the term "free will" then, I don't think there is such a thing: the very idea I find metaphysically incoherent. Anyone who calls herself a compatibilist about free will is focusing on this second use of the term. The compatibilist holds that causal determination is compatible with moral responsibility, and since free will is a necessary condition for having moral responsibility, it follows that free will is compatible with moral responsibility. Is the compatibilist's use of the term "free will" more in line with the pre-philosophical use of the term than is Brian's? I don't see any substantial philosophical point that rests on the answer to this question. I do think, however, that Brian's stipulative use of the term is out of line with standard usage in the philsophical community, for most philosophers consider incompatilbilism to be a substantial thesis, and not a mere analytic truth. Would Peter van Inwagen have bothered writing an entire book to argue for a trivial analytic truth? Would David Lewis have bothered to respond to van Inwagen's argument if the conclusion were analytic? I have too much respect for both men to think that they would expend so much effort fighting over a uninteresting thesis. (Nothing philosophically interesting rests on this point either, but I do think that it deserves to be pointed out, lest the compatibilist be accused of blatant inconsistency, as Brian has implied.) Brock Sides University of Rochester From lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Tue Feb 7 19:18:27 1995 Received: from beauty.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu by ponyexpress.princeton.edu (8.6.9/1.7/newPE) id TAA07564; Tue, 7 Feb 1995 19:18:26 -0500 Received: from [128.146.24.28] by beauty.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (8.6.4/4.940426) id TAA16986; Tue, 7 Feb 1995 19:17:05 -0500 Date: Tue, 7 Feb 1995 19:17:05 -0500 Message-Id: <199502080017.TAA16986@beauty.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (ASP-Disc) X-Sender: lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Unverified) Subject: Torek's Computer Status: R From: Bryan Douglas Caplan I don't see how Torek's fiendish computer program is supposed to be a counter-example. Because of course the scientist _does_ have a deterministic law for the computer -- if you input A, it does B, and if you input B, it does A. That seems completely deterministic. But let the scientist say: if I say "raise your right arm, you will raise your left, and vice versa," I can still falsify that. The computer is always going to have to follow some causal rule, however complex and self-referential. And I think that my thought experiment shows that I can always go a step beyond that. Let me attack this from another angle. As Searle explains it, scientific explanations work from the bottom up. Macro behavior gets explained in terms of micro behavior. Now do you agree that the behavior of my micro particles could be described by the equations I imagined? Why not? If such micro laws are possible, then they should be able to predict my macro behavior as well. If I can contradict them, then we have a case of macro things not behaving according to the laws of their constituent particles. At the very least, one of the most popular "arguments from science" against free will crumbles. --Bryan From lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Tue Feb 7 19:18:37 1995 Received: from beauty.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu by ponyexpress.princeton.edu (8.6.9/1.7/newPE) id TAA07599; Tue, 7 Feb 1995 19:18:36 -0500 Received: from [128.146.24.28] by beauty.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (8.6.4/4.940426) id TAA16879; Tue, 7 Feb 1995 19:16:38 -0500 Date: Tue, 7 Feb 1995 19:16:38 -0500 Message-Id: <199502080016.TAA16879@beauty.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (ASP-Disc) X-Sender: lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Unverified) Subject: Free Will and Moral Judgment Status: R From: Bryan Douglas Caplan I neglected to reply to one of Brock's challenges, so I shall do so now. What is the relationship between ("libertarian") free will and moral judgment? At the outset, I am puzzled. I would assume that the compatibilist, like most determinists, would deny the existence of moral properties in the first place, since moral properties are obviously not physical. (That is, you cannot smell goodness, weigh justice, etc.) So it seems that the compatibilist will have to agree that moral judgment (praise/blame) is rationally impossible, because it is a judgment about non-existent properties. Of course, they might deny that moral judgments are assertive at all, and are instead commands, expressions of emotion, or whatever. (Maybe they are _incentives_ for behavior of certain kinds?) In which case, since moral judgments aren't rational anyway, we aren't rationally compelled to abandon them because we don't believe in ("libertarian") free will. But suppose that I find a compatibilist who embraces moral realism, and wants me to explain why free will is a necessary supposition of moral realism. At the outset, it seems that _some_ moral judgments remain rationally possible, such as judgments about the goodness of different states of affairs. But as soon as we tread into the very different moral properties of rightness and virtue, the relevance of ("libertarian") free will becomes apparent. Why? Well, suppose that I am completely paralyzed. It is physically impossible for me to move. Does it then make sense to say that I ought to save my daughter from being murdered by beating up the murderer? Does it make sense to say that I am a vicious person for failing to do so? It may make sense to say that it would be _good_ if my daughter were not murdered, but given my paralysis, it makes no sense to say that it is right or virtuous for me to save her. I take this as a basic fact about morality; doesn't it make sense? Now at least according to Brock's version of compatibilism, if a non-paralyzed person fails to save his daughter, he is "free" to do so in a sense. What sense? A sense looser than one which takes all of the laws of physics into account. But if we do take them into account -- then of course I couldn't have done otherwise. It was physically impossible to do so. Impossible, I say. Now if this action is impossible (taking _all_ facts into account), why should I be held more blamable than the paralyzed man, for whom saving his daughter is equally physically impossible? Surely just _talking_ in a loose sense doesn't create moral responsibility to do the impossible. Now of course the compatibilist might still make judgments in order to give incentives, but these are no longer real judgments. They are reduced to the level of throwing fish as seals to make them do their tricks. Rationally speaking, the compatibilist is just wrong to judge someone vicious because of their actions. And once word of this gets around, perhaps the incentive effect of moral judgment will fade as well. --Bryan From lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Thu Feb 9 23:14:11 1995 Received: from top.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu by ponyexpress.princeton.edu (8.6.9/1.7/newPE) id XAA03704; Thu, 9 Feb 1995 23:14:10 -0500 Received: from [128.146.24.60] by top.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (8.6.4/4.940426) id XAA29859; Thu, 9 Feb 1995 23:07:16 -0500 Date: Thu, 9 Feb 1995 23:07:16 -0500 Message-Id: <199502100407.XAA29859@top.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (ASP-Disc) Subject: Re: A Compatibilism Primer Status: R From: Bryan Douglas Caplan Well, Brock is free to use "compatibilism" however he likes, but isn't the standard definition simply "the view that free will and determinism are compatible"? (Coupled perhaps with the view that both exist?) One problem with his definition is that it appears to imply that a moral subjectivist could not be a compatibilist, because as such as believes that moral judgment (in the sense of a judgment about real, existing things) is impossible. But I would warrant a guess that almost all compatibilists are not moral realists. I am rather puzzled by Brock's reply to my counter-example. Of course the non-paralyzed guy lacks the desire to save his daughter, whereas the paralyzed guy has it. And so to common sense it appears that the former is blamable and the latter is not. But the whole point is that on further analysis we learn that it is not the non-paralyzed guy's fault that he lacks the desire, because (by assumption) his desires are determined by physical laws over which he has no control. Try another thought experiment. The non-paralyzed guy gets drugged so that he hates all life madly. And he fails to save his daughter. Is he blamable? What if the drug messed up his brain so much that he couldn't want to save her? Is he blamable? He lacks the desire, but it isn't his fault that he lacks it. Now if determinism is true, then _everyone_ who lacks the desire is just like our drugged- out example -- it is physically impossible for them to act other than they do. How can they be blamed for that? --Bryan From lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Sun Feb 12 19:09:57 1995 Received: from bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu by ponyexpress.princeton.edu (8.6.9/1.7/newPE) id TAA12896; Sun, 12 Feb 1995 19:09:56 -0500 Received: from [128.146.70.120] by bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (8.6.4/4.940426) id TAA01379; Sun, 12 Feb 1995 19:08:43 -0500 Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 19:08:43 -0500 Message-Id: <199502130008.TAA01379@bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (ASP-Disc) Subject: Two Thought Experiments Defended Status: RO From: Bryan Douglas Caplan Ben has given a rather uncharitable interpretation of two thought experiments that I think are very good indeed. The first one is the thought experiment of a color-blind neurologist who acquires knowledge of color later in life. And the result is supposed to be that there is something that she didn't know about color. Is this just an argument in which the argument consists in denying the premise? Not unless it was told poorly. The argument is supposed to be that Sally knows everything _physical_ about sight; but there is (thought experiment time) something she didn't know; therefore there are non-physical facts. QED. Similarly, my argument is not (unless I told is in a sloppy fashion, which is possible) just a stupid case of contradicting the premise. Again, let's say that the scientists have equations for the behavior of fundamental particles. And yet even if they have that equation, I can contradict their predictions. Therefore my behavior is not determined by the laws governing my constituent, physical particles. Again, QED. Why should "thought experiment" be an oxymoron? Only if you think that experience is the only source of knowledge of the real world. Some of us, however, believe that pure thought is a second and powerful conduit to insight into the real world. Even if you disagree, where is the oxymoron in that? --Bryan From lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Mon Feb 13 09:56:56 1995 Received: from bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu by ponyexpress.princeton.edu (8.6.9/1.7/newPE) id JAA24943; Mon, 13 Feb 1995 09:56:55 -0500 Received: from [128.146.24.21] by bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (8.6.4/4.940426) id JAA05142; Mon, 13 Feb 1995 09:55:27 -0500 Date: Mon, 13 Feb 1995 09:55:27 -0500 Message-Id: <199502131455.JAA05142@bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (ASP-Disc) Subject: Re: Thought Experiments Status: RO From: Mike the mental experimenter Ben, Your responses to Bryan's thought experiment and the Mary-the- neurologist thought experiment are pretty ridiculous. First, you seem to accuse Bryan of contradicting his own stipulations, because in the TE, he first supposes that we have deterministic laws for predicting your behavior, but then he says that you could still falsify the prediction. But this is no flaw in Bryan's reasoning; it's just the way any reductio ad absurdum argument goes. You say that given the stipulation, it follows that you couldn't falsify the scientists' prediction but would act as predicted. That's right. That's why it's a reductio ad absurdum. The assumptions we make entail that you could not falsify the prediction. But that's absurd. Of course you could. Next, you claim -- and maybe this is really what the first point was getting at -- that you don't know whether or not you could falsify the scientists' prediction, because you can't clearly imagine the situation. You make a similar claim that you don't know whether Mary the expert neurophysiologist would recognize a blue bananna because you can't imagine her situation either. Similarly, some people respond to Searle's Chinese Room by saying they don't know whether they would understand Chinese in the imaginary situation. Come on. You can tell some things about situations you haven't been in, and this is not the place to raise skeptical doubts about such judgements in general. You know that eating a fortune cookie would not give you an understanding of Chinese; you know swimming in the Yangtze River wouldn't give you an understanding of Chinese; and now isn't the time to question how you can possibly know such things (since you've never swum in the Yangtze). And unless you're going to question those judgements as well, I would see no reason to doubt the equally obvious sense that manipulating a bunch of Chinese symbols according to a rule book wouldn't give you an understanding of Chinese. These sort of thought experiments just bring out our basic understanding of how certain things in the world work. Again, you know that a color-blind person can't learn what the sensation of blue is like by looking at the sky. You know he can't learn it by reading a description in a dictionary. It's equally obvious that he can't learn it by studying the physiology of the brain. I don't see what the big problem with imagining the last situation is supposed to be. If you don't think you can imagine it, just read a couple pages from a brain science text. Moreover, your claimed lack of imaginative powers isn't really relevant. I think you know that eating a live squid wouldn't give someone an awareness of what the sensation of blue is like, even if you can't imagine what it's like to eat a live squid. You know that solving the Schrodinger equation for an NH3 molecule wouldn't give it to her either, even if that procedure is much too complicated for you to clearly imagine. The point is just that you have some latent understanding of how things work, which thought experiments bring out. It is beside the point that the complete description of the brain is unknown to us now, since going through the TE shows we know that that *sort* of information is irrelevant for understanding the sensation of blue. Finally, I think you know that if I said to you, "You will now raise your left arm," you would be able to refuse. You also know that if I told you to raise your left arm and I simultaneously balanced a basketball on my head, you would still be able to refuse. You know this even though the situation has never happened. Now, however it is that you know that, is how you know all similar facts, such as the fact that if I did a bunch of mathematical calculations and measurements on you first, you could still refuse to raise your arm. I don't see how your knowledge of what would happen in Bryan's thought-experimental situation is supposed to be any more problematic than your knowledge of any counter-factual conditionals. What thought experiments do for you is show you when you have let your philosophical theories get disconnected from your common sense understanding of how the world works. From lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Fri Feb 17 21:02:36 1995 Received: from bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu by ponyexpress.princeton.edu (8.6.9/1.7/newPE) id VAA21737; Fri, 17 Feb 1995 21:02:34 -0500 Received: from [128.146.24.62] by bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (8.6.4/4.940426) id VAA28213; Fri, 17 Feb 1995 21:00:46 -0500 Date: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 21:00:46 -0500 Message-Id: <199502180200.VAA28213@bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: lsanger@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (ASP-Disc) Subject: Re: Assigning Responsibility Status: R From: Bryan Douglas Caplan I have to say that I am very puzzled by Jeremy's doubts about linking free will to responsibility. A free will (by definition) is uncaused by anything else; but this doesn't mean that I am at the mercy of my capricious will. For that will is one and the same as me! I am not caused to do such and such by my will; I AM the will causing by body to do such and such. I can't blame my bad behavior on my will, because that would be like blaming by bad behavior on Bryan Caplan -- if I happen to be Bryan Caplan, then the alleged "external cause" is just me by another name. --Bryan