RT,
I have to run right now but I’ve got an idea that might help us work this out. I’ll start a new thread when I get back.
PC
Okay, I see that maybe you are posting a bit tongue-in-cheek, but this is just a version of the genetic fallacy, IMO. What makes me disbelieve in (libertarian) free will is irrelevant; what matters is whether belief in that type of free will is supported by the best reasons.
And this takes us to the next point: as a determinist, I am committed to the idea that reasons can be causes of belief. And indeed, humans must have evolved so that this connection is somewhat reliable–that reasons cause beliefs that are appropriate and true–for there would be strong evolutionary pressures against a creature which consistently failed to reason correctly about its environment, the behavior of others, how to make or do various things, etc. So determinism is compatible with thinking that reasons can cause true beliefs in a manner that is recognizably rational.
ETA–And by the way, beliefs aren’t like actions–even if there is free will, you aren’t free to choose your beliefs. So the problem, if there is one, isn’t just a problem for people who believe in determinism.
What are those reasons? I know of no way to decisively settle whether or not we have free will, without at some point making an assumption that is essentially begging the question.
What seems clear to me is that we have either free will or the illusion of free will. (And by “free will” I mean, not that we are uninfluenced by outside factors, but that at some point we have the ability to make choices.) It certainly feels like I could, at this moment, choose either to post or not to post this reply, or to include the word “rhinocerous” in this sentence. And it seems impossible, at least to me, to maintain a consistent and unwavering belief in determinism on a practical level, even though I can’t prove that it isn’t true. If we have no real choice about anything, it’s unfair to reproach or criticize people for anything they do—and yet, we have no choice but to criticize, and “unfair” is meaningless.
Start with the fact that the libertarian notion of free will is incoherent. A paradigm example of a free action is an action done for a reason. But different people find different reasons plausible or appealing. Some people find appeals to design in nature good reason to believe in the existence of God; but such arguments leave me cold. Why is this set of reasons appealing to me rather than that set? Did we choose (freely!) to find this set of reasons appealing rather than those? Then on what basis did we choose this set rather than that set? For no reason? Then the choice is arbitrary. Or did we choose this set based on another reason? Then we have a regress–where did that *prior * set of reasons come from? Ultimately, anti-libertarians cannot get passed the fundamental dilemma of free will: if it is caused, then it is determined; if it is uncaused, it is random. If the former, determinism is true and libertarianism false. If the latter, then our actions (if uncaused) are random, and not free. Libertarianism is therefore judged to be false.
Am I right in saying that the only way such a thing could make sense then, is if will exists as a causal entity independent of the system in which it operates?
And this, I think, is your question-begging assumption: that “uncaused” = “random.” It seems to me that belief in free will is precisely the belief that there is an alternative to actions being determined and actions being random.
In composing this reply, I had to make lots of choices. At least, that’s certainly what it feels like. It didn’t feel like every word and punctuation mark had been determined for me, but neither did it feel as though I was typing at random. Hence, I have been exercising free will, or else at least I am under the illusion that I have been.
But the difficulty is to find some middle ground between random and determined; the only middle ground discovered so far is probabilistic causation, which doesn’t give you free will. So the libertarian wants us to swallow a type of causation which has never been observed, and which is no one (not even the libertarians) can give an account of. That’s asking a lot.
But there are so many other problems. The libertarian denies psychological determinism: he denies that our actions are caused and determined by our beliefs, desires, etc. He claims that our actions are somehow “uncaused”. But this is highly counterintuitive. If my drinking milk isn’t caused by my desire to drink milk, then why the hell am I drinking milk? Isn’t it obviously because I *want * to–because I have a *desire * to do so? And if you cut out beliefs and desires in explaining actions, then what is left? How can you explain an action which is supposed to be a reasonable and rational action when you are not permitted to refer to any of the agent’s mental states (beliefs, desires, etc.) in explaining this action? Libertarianism just doesn’t make any sense.
Calling the alternative a “middle ground” implies that all possible alternatives must exist on a one-dimensional continuum, with “random” and “determined” at either end. I don’t think this is a fair implication.
If I offer to either kick you in the shins or punch you in the stomach, and you reject both offers, you’re not going to be looking for a “middle ground” between the two. 
I observe it all the time, every time I make a conscious choice. (At least I think I do—I do grant that I can’t prove free will is not an illusion.)
But if it is caused by the desire, how can I have the desire without drinking the milk? Given the same desire, I might choose to drink, or not to drink, the milk. The desire to drink the milk is certainly one factor I weigh in making my choice, but it is not the cause of my drinking.
You certainly can refer to the agent’s mental states. I would never think to claim that they are not involved in the choice to perform the action, that they are not influencing factors—it’s just that they influence the choice, not (in every case) completely determine it.
How would you be able to know that, unless you are perfectly aware of your entire mental state? Including the subconscious parts and the workings of the self-awareness mechanisms themselves?
I’d say that it’s clear that most or all decisions that I make are functions of weighted preference analysis over a large number of factors, including ones I’m not consciously aware of. On the one hand, I don’t have any reason to think that given the same exact mix of preferences, I would ever choose differently (which is to say, I don’t have any reason to think my thinking isn’t deterministic); on the other hand, it is my analysis and mental processes that produce the result, so in that sense I am accountable for my conclusions and have “free” will - free of influences besides my mental state, anyway.
Fine; but nobody has convincingly described a notion of causation that is useful to the libertarian. I don’t want to employ the argument from ignorance, but at some point you have to ask yourself if maybe it’s because there is no such notion of causation to be described.
But your introspection tells you little about what is going on inside your head. You may think that you are experiencing indeterministic causation in your head, but how could introspection possibly provide evidence for that?
Of course there are other factors–my desire not to consume a fatty substance, my guilt at cheating on my diet, my desire to increase my calcium intake. Nobody ever said mental causation was straightforward. The mind is a fantastically complex machine. But what are they other factors, and where do they come from? Are they other desires? If so, then why do you have those desires? Did you choose them? If so, then on what basis? If they are not desires, what are they, what role do they play in choice, and where did they come from? Did you choose them? All the libertarian can do is wave his hands. They never give an account of the actual mechanism, or an account of the type of causation that is supposed to be at work here. It is a foundering research project in philosophy; it hasn’t gone anywhere in decades.
Here it is…
Just a bit. 
But there’s a serious underdone hidden therein, however facetiously rendered.
There may be an external vantage point from which free will appears not to exist. There may be an external vantage point from which it appears that it does. You can choose to be a sociologist or a psychologist and examine human behavior from an external vantage point.
What you have no choice about is is your situation as a Behaver. You can opt to not study human behavior externally but you pretty much are stuck with the internal perspective.
And you cannot pursue it except from the standpoint of assuming yourself to have free will.
Therefore you cannot, except as a theoretical exercise, entertain the notion that we lack it.
I disagree. How does the internal standpoint require that you assume you have free will? For example, you can deliberate while still thinking that you have no free will. In this case, the point of deliberation is to figure out the course of action that will produce the best satisfaction of your desires, or whatever. That you will deliberate, and the outcome of your deliberation are both determined. But if you didn’t deliberate, you would be much less happy and you would achieve your ends much less often; so deliberation serves a purpose even if you don’t have free will. So why do I need to think I have free will when I consider myself, internally, as a behaver?
We are just meat-machines; our brains are just organic computers, calculating things deterministically in their squishy way. That I am able to do crude self-diagnostics in the midst of my continuous calculations in no way disabuses me of this belief; in fact it reinforces it. (Whether this theory allows me to have free will or not, of course, depends on which definition of it you’re using.)
It requires YOU to assume that YOU have free will. To act under the assumption that you possess it. To process your various sensory input params & etc from the presumption thereof. Express it however you like, you’re operating from that framework right now.
Yeah, I know: paradox. You have no CHOICE but to act from the perspective of a person who has free will.
Perhaps you believe that there exists an objective reality here? That there is an objectively correct answer to the question “Does free will exist” ?
There’s not. There is only an answer that, while not precisly subjective, does necessarily involve your experience in its meaning. (That’s true of all meaning: meaning is TO SOMEONE, or FOR SOMEONE. Meaning is an interactive phenomenon).
And that kind of nails it. Subjectively you’re stuck with free will. It’s the only you that you can bring to the party.
I think one thing missing from the overall philosophical discussion… is why the illusion (or not) is necessary. Why are we like this?
But the point is (and please forgive me, if arriving late to this party, I’m just repeating something that has laboriously been covered already) if it’s deterministic, you had no choice but to come to exactly this conclusion, then post on this message board to talk about it, in fact you didn’t do any of the thinking, your meat-machine brain did it for you - if you congratulated yourself for coming to the conclusion, you did so also because that was an inevitable outcome of the deterministic process, and so on. It could never have been otherwise.
For there to be such a thing as free will, I think there would have to be some sense in which volition could be held as an independent cause - so that the entity called ‘I’ can choose peanuts or popcorn not purely because of some complex mechanical calculation of weighing of values (although not unaffected by them), but ultimately because it wants to - but not random - merely answerable only to itself.
I don’t think such a thing can be argued without introducing some kind of spiritual duality though
It’s undeniable that we do things thinking we carefully chose them, and they were just the outcome of some reflex or prejudice, but has it been established that all of our choice works in that way, at every level?
In the absence of free will, there’s no ‘why’, only ‘how’ - it’s like this because this is the way things turned out - it could not have been otherwise.
I’m talking about from a Evolutionary Psychology standpoint… weaker forms of cognition will tend to be weeded out. Why THIS survived is a viable question, imo.
I, in shorthand, gave my answer. It’s necessary for social animals… and conditioned from an early point in history.
But, I am my meat-machine brain; to say that it did something for me borders on nonsense. Similarly, I consider it extremely probably that some complex mechanical calculation of weighing of values is how I want things. This doesn’t mean I don’t want things; it is answerable only to myself, since the meat machine and the calculations are myself.
To me it sounds like you’re saying, “My car isn’t powered by cylinders pushed around by countained gas explosions; it’s powered by an engine.” You’re trying to introduce a hard dichotomy between the mechanism and the resulting action that just doesn’t seem to be there. And that false dichotomy is what forces you to consider spiritual stuff, not the actual reality of the situation.