I am not trying to be flip because this is the part where I am getting lost. You seem to be talking about the concept of free will on a different level than some of the others. The reason I say that is because everything you just proposed in the text above also requires that free will exist or we can’t do anything about your suggestions or arguments whether they are good or bad. Whatever is programmed to happen, will just happen anyway according to some of the other arguments and there isn’t anything anyone can do about it.
Correct me if I am wrong but your position seems to be that the social environment mitigates completely free choices. I don’t think anyone completely disagrees with that at the extremes but some of the other arguments went well beyond that to the point of absolute determinism for every action.
That is why I said earlier that every time this discussion comes up, it sounds like people are having many different types of arguments on top of one another and most of them aren’t very related. Some of them, like yours, are based on social psychology while others dive straight into subatomic physics. Did I understand your argument correctly?
I think you misunderstand the “free will is an illusion” argument if you think it means that a person’s behavior is inevitable and that people around them don’t have the power to change it.
The “Free will exists” argument posits that a person makes choices on their own volition, independent of other factors. The “free will is an illusion” argument posits that a person’s choices are the result of a confluence of factors, all external to that person’s “will”.
“Free will exists” argument says I choose Cheerios because I like them, and I made myself like them. No one forced or shackled my hand. I’m free!
“Free will doesn’t exist” says I choose Cheerios because my brain chooses the Cheerios, and my brain chooses them because the yellow box stimulates the release of dopamine, and this happens because my mother used to wear yellow all the time when she nursed me as a baby. So I’m not so free because my hand was forced (even if I’m not aware of it).
So to go back to my post, social welfare spending, rehab programs, and mitigated sentencing are currently society’s nod to the “free will doesn’t exist” argument. If society (the environment) has no role in the choices that individuals make, then society should be off the hook for the welfare of its people, right? Because people are just going to do what they want to do, regardless of what we, the environment, would have them do. Just like free will-having I chooses the Cheerios because I like them, not because I have been socially conditioned to like them. Free agents don’t need a nurturing environment to make good choices. All free agents need is to be endowed with morality from God (those praying nuns). Then they’re on the hook for themselves for the choices they make.
Does this clear up your confusion any? I don’t think I’ve been contradictory at any point. But I know none of this is easy to understand.
Either I am greatly confused or you are. I think that is exactly what many people are saying in this thread. I don’t have strong position on this debate but I agree with the OP when asking the question about what people are really talking about. Every time I hear anything about this topic, it is a hopeless mess of what we are talking about at all and I am fairly certain that it isn’t just me.
You are talking about social factors while other people are talking about the metaphysical impossibility of free will at all on many different levels. Those are fundamentally different topics.
As Peter Sellers said in Murder by Death: “Is confusing.”
I see three materialistic varieties of rebuttal to Free Will.
Newtonian determinism. Every grain of sand was determined, from the origin of the cosmos, to lie exactly where we see it now, and every word you speak was scripted for you, before our sun burned bright in space.
Modified determinism under Quantum Physics: Okay, not from the origin of the cosmos, but from a week ago, every atom in your body is following a physical destiny. There are tiny random variations, and they add up over long periods of time, but in the short haul, life is deterministic.
Psychological determinism. At this very moment, your choices may feel free, but are inevitable. monstro’s example – "I choose Cheerios because my brain chooses the Cheerios, and my brain chooses them because the yellow box stimulates the release of dopamine . . . " – summarizes it nicely.
(I, myself, believe in a variant of this: some decisions are a lot harder to make than others. It’s very hard for an alcoholic to stop drinking, or for nearly anyone to stop smoking, or for a father to turn his son in to the cops for stealing, etc. The brain offers obstacles to some kinds of choices, but these obstacles can be overcome.)
Just for completeness, although no one here seems to be advocating it, you also have modified Calvinistic determinism as a theological stance: God elects whom shall receive grace, and if you aren’t chosen, then you cannot become saved. No action of our own can enable us to receive Christ; only God can choose.
Never once have I argued from a “metaphysical” standpoint. I’m into that kind of jive. Nor am I a philosopher.
And yet what I’ve been arguing is entirely consistent with Pjen’s position. Or any other position that says that “free will is an illusion”.
Have you listened to Sam Harris’s lecture yet? Because if ever get around to it, you will see that everything I have posted here is in line with his argument. We aren’t free agents. Our brains are pulling the strings. And genes+environment dictate how the brain pulls those strings. Genes + environment. Society = environment. If you want to extend this type of determinism all the way back to the Big Bang, be my guest. But you don’t have to do this to understand how free will is an illusion.
I’m not being snarky, but it seems to you really are confused. Not me.
Fair enough, but Pjen’s position is that you can be persuaded by an appeal to your decision-making calculus within an internal moral structure. It’s not an unthinking matter of heredity combining with environment; you’re someone who can pause and reflect, experiencing what it’s like to be reasoned with and reacting exactly as if you had that “free will” everybody’s been yammering on about.
You’re not very good at it when you’re drunk. You’re not very good at it when you’re sleepy, or in pain. But you are pretty terrific at it when you’re clear-headedly mulling your options and considering what’s important: capable of reasoning and being reasoned with, and all that other stuff I just said.
Some folks experience that and call it “free will”. Some experience it and – call it something else. But it’s the same experience regardless, as far as I can tell.
You are still begging the question. What is this “You” that is affecting the physical world. Please explain.
People are certainly aware of an internal experience of observing the outside world and their own internal theatre, but there is no proof that this causes anything in the world.
I can pause and reflect as much as I want to. But in the end, the final decision will be up to my brain. Not to “me”. The illusion makes me think that I exist independently of my brain–that I’m of two voices: me and my brain. But there is no evidence of a “me” separate from my brain. And it is not like I can deliberate decisions on “neutral” territory, away from my brain. It’s always there telling me what to do.
In my daily life, I don’t care enough to think about this so hard. I act as if I have free will, just like you do. But it is helpful to release myself from the ilusion when I’m trying to understand human behavior, including my own. My feelings don’t spring out of a vacuum. They are the result of something. Most times it’s not important to find out what this something is. But sometimes it’s a good question to ask.
I guess I would challenge this by saying that we don’t really know when we’re “clear-headed”.
And I would say that it’s usually when we’re NOT clear-headed when we make the worst decisions, right? The drunk guy who doesn’t know he’s drunk gets in the car and kills a whole family. The normally calm, sensitive guy becomes a raging asshole when someone cuts him off and then he recklessly chases after him. I don’t know how to grapple with these kinds of cases. The “free will” belief system would have us punish these people for choosing such horrible choices. But if we understand that these people were operating under a shackled “will”, the same as a child or a mentally ill person, then it doesn’t make as much sense to throw the book at them. However, this notion bothers me because I personally detest drunk drivers and road ragers.
What the heck are you talking about? Re-read what you copy-and-pasted: I’m not begging any questions, or mentioning a “you” that affects the physical world – except to the stipulated extent of talking about a “you” that can be persuaded with an appeal to a decision-making calculus within an internal moral structure.
I have that part on good authority from Pjen, so we know that’s unobjectionable. And I then go on to talk about a “you” that experiences all of the above, which, y’know, is also kosher as per Pjen. Where do you see me adding in anything else? I assure you: I was being, like, suuuuuper-careful not to add anything else.
I don’t follow you. If, like you say at the end, there is no “you” separate from your brain, then why are you leading off with that ‘up to my brain - not up to me’ bit at the beginning? I was maybe going to answer the initial part by coming up with the latter part, and you went and beat me to it!
Can’t help you with the latter, but isn’t the whole point for the former that we throw the book at him for making the clear-headed decision to get so drunk that he can’t make clear-headed decisions?
Because I wanted to illustrate how hard it is to talk about this without sounding nuts? I mean, I’m a relatively normal person. I don’t go around saying stuff like, “My brain wants to inform you that I will not be coming into work tomorrow.” I can think of myself as “me” and still fully recognize that “me” is the same thing as my brain. I don’t think changing how we speak is really what this argument is all about.
Does this work?
One thing we could do instead of focusing on punishment is to focus on prevention. Society can help people make good decisions instead of trusting that they will do so on their own. And we already do this with PSA and awareness campaigns and other stuff. But we could do more. Instead of expecting a first-time DUI conviction alone to scare someone straight, why not require all first time-DUI offenders to wear a monitoring device (that they pay for) that will inform authorities every time they’re drunk? If a traffic cop receives a signal there is a drunk person in the car that just flew past him, s/he has the authority to pull the car over and make sure things check out. You get caught driving drunk, your ass gets thrown in the slammer for a long time.
I don’t know how effective this would be. I’m guessing that some people are just hard-headed and won’t learn no matter what you do. But some portion of habitual offenders may respond positively. A monitoring device that provides instant feedback could help someone learn how to gauge their sobriety better. Another group of people will be especially sensitive to the fear of constant surveillance and will behave just because of that. And for the more conscientious, simply having a monitoring device staring at them all the time could be the reminder they need to think twice about what they’re doing. We are all compelled by different triggers to make certain choices.
We all grew up with a kid who seemed “hard-headed” and always seemed to get in trouble. This kid wasn’t bad as much as he was impulsive and/or slow-witted. These tendencies in people don’t just magically go away once they reach 21. Right now, we hold bad-behaving adults to the same standard, as if they’re all equally “free”. If our criminal justice system is going to call itself “fair”, though, it shouldn’t be doing this.
Heck, you follow up with intriguing suggestions about how to reduce drunk driving; if they genuinely work, do you really think people who believe in free will are going to claim your solutions don’t work?
Don’t you think, instead, that they’ll react just like folks who don’t believe in free will: by granting that your ideas might in fact work?
Some people who experience a particular phenomenon call it “free will”. Other people who experience the same phenomenon call it something else. Do those groups make differing predictions about what decisions people will make? Do they reach different conclusions about whether the like of your proposals will succeed?
Well, my ideas would have to be sold to law-makers first. If the law-makers believe that bad people are just going to do bad things, so might as well lock 'em up for a long time, then they AREN’T going to vote for my proposal. Especially if there are high costs involved. To show that a plan works, you have to get people to sign off on it.
Assuming they buy into the program, yes. But as I said, the problem is getting them to consider the idea in the first place. If law-makers (and their constituents) think I’m a namby-pamby bed-wetting atheist commie-pinko just because I think the environment helps to explain a large percentage of the bad choices people make, then they won’t grant my ideas anything. Because they won’t even listen.
Do you think the OP is listening right now? No. Because to him, I’m an evil atheist robot who wants to commit suicide.
Yes, they do. The people who talk the most about “individual responsibility” and say judgmental shit like “we all make choices” are the main ones who vote for extra funding for prisons over schools and who blame poor people for their poverty. They praise the guy who was born at third base for making it to the finish plate all “on his own”, while they refuse to help the guy who can’t get out of the dugout because they think external help will keep him there. We hear these arguments all the time. Do you really think the people who say this stuff secretly understand their beliefs are based on nonsense? Because it sure doesn’t seem that way to me.
So I disagree vehemently that people who are staunch believers in free will are the same as people who don’t buy into it (or who at least don’t think about it that much). They tend to be very different, at least in their politics.
But I’m asking you to come at it the other way around: if any of your preventative ideas were put into practice – and worked like a charm – would those who now refer to “free will” suddenly say “oh, gosh; oh, golly; this proves ‘free will’ does not exist; why did we ever think it did?”
Or would they say – truthfully – “uh, isn’t that entirely consistent with free will?”
And, by the same token: if your proposals all fail, and the Individual Responsibility types who go on and on about how We All Make Choices score successes – or, really, fill in the blank for any such outcome – would you and yours say “and so free will is proven true, to my great surprise; this behavior was incompatible with what we’d believed; why, oh, why, did we ever doubt free will exists?”
Or would you say “no, that doesn’t prove free will; why do you think it does?”
No, not unless someone who is patient and a good teacher sits them down and explains to them what “free will is an illusion” really means. And then cites the success of my preventative program and a myriad of other things as supportive evidence. And maybe even this won’t change the Free Willers’ minds. But maybe they will become a little less judgmental and a little more compassionate.
I mean, I don’t care what people say they believe. I care about what they do. If you still believe in free will, and yet you act as if you don’t when it comes to matters of policy, then why should I care? And I agree that there are plenty of people who can do the cognitive dissonance thing quite well. But there also plenty of people who are dangerously consistent in their belief system. Those are the people I’m worried about.
Well, no. As a scientist, I don’t think a single study is enough to refute or prove a hypothesis, especially if there is reason to believe the study was poorly conducted.
At this point, I’d have to see mind-blowing evidence to be shaken from my position. If I saw data that shows that childhood abuse isn’t correlated with criminal/anti-social behavior, I might be moved. If I saw data that shows that some people aren’t given to certain impulsive behaviors or addictions due to genetics or brain abnormalities, I might be moved. If a series of studies show that people aren’t suggestible through hypnosis or that they don’t ever make mistakes while operating on “automatic”, I might convinced that I’m wrong. But a single failed program? No. It wouldn’t change my mind about anything.
I have to be honest. I don’t know what bigger point you’re making. I’ve tried to answer your questions to the best of my ability, but I feel like I’m not getting anywhere.
I would personally say: “no, that doesn’t prove free will; why do you think it does?” Except that I might put it in much stronger terms.
If you go all-in on 7-2 off-suit and win, then it was still a stupid decision. A good outcome doesn’t validate irrational thinking.
It’s within the realm of possibility that irrational and incoherent beliefs about law and punishment can result in positive outcomes, just as it’s within the realm of possibility that someone with no sense of the odds might score four-of-a-kind and win the hand. But just because a strange belief that 2+2 equals 5 leads to success in one particular case is not an indication that this general methodology is sound and should be emulated.
This might be a strange case where the more reasonable approach to criminal behavior leads to less ideal outcomes. This might be the hand that flops three sevens. Life is strange like that. The smart play doesn’t always win. But it remains in our best interest to keep playing smart, because long term, the people who think clearly and rationally about these sorts of issues are going to get many more cases right.
But that’s where you lose me: folks who believe in free will can play smart – if by “smart” we mean following monstro’s suggestions about emphasizing prevention and providing think-twice reminders, and so on – sure as folks who believe there’s no such thing as free will can simply declare for harsher punishments.
And either side can declare for persuading a man via appeals to a decision-making calculus within an internal moral structure, you understand.
And the bolding is where you lose me. Where is your evidence that people who believe that free will is an illusion are so cognitively dissonant that they’ll advocate harsher sentences? Am I supposed to think this will happen just because it’s possible? This kind of argumentation isn’t compelling enough for me, sorry.
Why shouldn’t someone view the current problems in society as stemming directly from the widespread belief that people have free will? Maybe society would be a much more productive, happier place if we weren’t all raised to be judgmental holier-than-thous.
Except that the person who believes free will is an illusion won’t judge the man’s character if appeals to his “decision-making calculus” don’t work. They will instead wonder if he’s mentally handicapped or disordered, abused as a child, or all of the above, and then they’ll come up with ways he can be rehabilitated, if possible. Whatever they do, they won’t say, “That man is evil. He deserves to be kept in solitary confinement for the rest of his life!” Because they will know better.
People who believe in free will aren’t moved by the opposite; they can look at the correlation and tell a story about how (a) kids who grew up getting treated nicely by the folks they trusted became – well, polite and friendly adults who kept doing what worked, after learning from experience that things work out just fine if you play by the rules while bad guys are punished; and (b) kids who grew up learning a different lesson in the most horrifyingly graphic manner – well, they reacted accordingly.
As far as I can tell, I act as if I have free will: making decisions by reasoning and being reasoned with, learning from experience, and et cetera. As far as I can tell, that’s also how I’d act if I don’t actually have free will. I look at people around me, and think to myself “that’s how they’d act if they had free will, and also how they’d act if they don’t.” I ponder how best to get someone to act differently, and think to myself: “what would work on someone with free will, and what would work on someone who lacks it, and – huh, guess that’s the same thing.”
Why wouldn’t they? Why wouldn’t I? If you say harsher punishments will succeed, I’ll ask you for the evidence. If you say prevention in general and think-twice reminders in particular will succeed, I’ll ask you for the evidence. If you start talking about free will or its absence, I’ll – tell you to skip the irrelevant aside and get back to the evidence that punishment works better than prevention, or vice versa.
Well, free-will types can certainly wonder about whether he’s mentally handicapped or disordered, so I think you’re already pretty far off the mark.
And I don’t see why they can’t believe in rehabilitation; if they couldn’t, then surely they’d lose their belief in free will as soon as they saw someone get rehabilitated.
But as for this:
Can they say “Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it,” and lock him away for the rest of his life – or simply execute him – upon concluding that he’s a menace to society who, as it happens, doesn’t respond well to rehabilitative treatment?