Actually, the traditional view of free will (the libertarian view) is markedly inferior in explanatory power. Rather than viewing someone’s choices as the outcome of deterministic factors, it presents a free choice as something ex nihilo, not determined by prior factors, be they environmental, hereditary, or whatever. So it cannot explain why certain environmental factors lead to criminal behavior, or why certain factors lead to risk-seeking behavior, or addiction, or good moral character, or etc. etc. etc. It cannot explain why disciplining your child *causes *a change in your child’s behavior, or why incentives can *determine *people’s behavior. These things can only be understood and explained on a deterministic picture, which is of course incompatible with libertarian free will.
Meh. “Libertarian free will” is a phony philosophical perspective that exists, as far as I can tell, solely to provide a jumping-off point from which to make an argument about crime and punishment and the relevance of mitigating circumstances. If that’s what you folks are arguing about, say so, and don’t disguise it as a philosophical argument about free will.
Well, in the thread you link to, you are criticizing determinism. Do you think libertarians subscribe to determinism? Because they don’t.
And I don’t see any point in accusing me and **Dio **of arguing in bad faith. Sometimes people believe theories, you know, because of the evidence in their favor. No need to accuse us of dishonesty.
Sorry, I am only accusing you of intellectual dishonesty if your reason for arguing against ‘free will’ is because you are opposed to the agenda of arguing for a “no excuses” approach to law enforcement (which is defended by references to “free will”) or are taking issue with libertarians’ claim that those who fail to do well in our social system have no one to blame but themselves because they have “free will” and could have done different, more productive, things.
I don’t think anyone in this thread has really tried to defend libertarian free will. The discussion has really become about whether it’s fair to call Combatibilistic free will “free.”
No, I reject libertarianism because (a) I think determinism is true, and (b) I think independently of the truth or falsity of determinism, libertarian notions of agency are incoherent. In fact, I think that if anything, it is often libertarians who are driven to their position for ideological reasons (primarily theological ones) unrelated to the inherent plausibility of libertarianism. Some (like Peter van Inwagen) are quite upfront about it–he all but admits he can’t make sense of the libertarian notion of free will, but that it is one of the things he has to accept to make sense of theism, so he accepts the viability of libertarianism more or less on faith. (See his well-known essay “The Mystery of Metaphysical Freedom” where he concludes that as far as he can tell, free will is incoherent whether you assume determinism or indeterminism, but that he’s pretty sure he has free will anyhow.)
And this is where I get stuck. If determinism is true, then, no, you don’t think. There ceases to be any possible meaningful definition of “you” that could think.
Be that as it may, if you wish to state a belief in the truth of determinism, I have no problem with anyone believing whatever they [del]choose to believe[/del] umm, are already overdetermined by exterior forces to [del]believe[/del] express a belief in.
Well, yes, one must ultimately hope that our brains have evolved so that they respond to evidence in the appropriate way (by forming true beliefs). But this problem isn’t solved by moving to a model in which you voluntarily choose your beliefs–you still have to hope that your cognitive apparatus’s evaluation of the evidence (on which you base your choice of what to believe) is reliable and tends toward the truth. So I don’t see how determinism helps or hurts here.
And if determinism is true, there is still thinking. It’s just that thinking is a deterministic process. Which is why it is important to get all the evidence (i.e., get the proper inputs) so that the deterministic process can produce the correct output.
If I may, how does the falsity of determinism allow for a definition of “you” that could think?
AHunter3, aren’t you describing what Sophistry and Illusion refers to as libertarian free will? A “you” that is not determined by prior factors?
I’m not suggesting any political motives. I’m just asking if you’re talking about the same thing.
I also had a few problems with some of these questions. #2 (the baseball game one) requires more facts - if someone’s totally cool with not going to the game, then it can still be fair. If not, it’s more fair for all to go to the bar.
#5 (the Einstein one) I said “no” on, but again, it really depends. If I’m referring to “Einstein’s theory of relativity” then yes, I am referring to Moynahan. But if I’m saying something like “Einstein was a really smart guy ya know, he came up with the theory of relativity” then I’m still referring to Einstein, I’m just misinformed.
#8 (grow lungs, grow heart, grow brain) is more of a “I dunno, can they?” I don’t sense much philosophy here, just a question. Maybe they can do it, maybe they can’t. I mean, I suppose it’s getting at the “is thinking a physical process of the brain like breathing is for lungs” but, I kept getting hung up on the “well maybe they just can’t grow brain cells like they can for lungs…”
Very interested in seeing the results though.
Determinism may be a useful and valid way of looking at things, just as viewing all matter as consisting in its entirety of small charges is a useful and valid way of looking at things.
There are other useful and valid ways of looking at things. The correctness of one view does not necessarily invalidate other views even when it appears, at first glance that they must. You can say to someone “OK point to any bit or piece of this here ‘reality’ that does not in fact consist of small charges”, and be quite loudly insistent that no one can do so, but that doesn’t make it true or correct that a view of reality in which you and I, as people, exist, is wrong. And a particle physicist who said “People do not exist; only charges exist” would be understood as hyperbolic at best and dismissed as nuts otherwise.
I am not in a position as of yet to state whether I am or am not referring to the same thing that Sophistry and Illusion refers to as libertarian free will. I’d rather not have an invisible preface consisting of other arguments that other folks have had elsewhere. It seems that neither he nor I are libertarians. Let’s leave it at that.
I have made some hyperbolic statements of my own in prior threads, but in this thread I have not said there is a “you” that cannot be accurately described as determined by prior factors. I have said instead that it is not true that there is not a “you” except as the deterministic outcome of prior factors. I have said that there does exist free will (which perhaps we should refer to as “volition” to avoid referencing those prior arguments of other people with yet other people).
What the heck is that one? Sounds like G I Joe’s ability to have independent cognitions in wartime conditions or something…
It’s supposed to be compatible, not combatible. At first glance I thought it said cannibalistic 
Well, I certainly agree that higher-order categories can be useful. I mean, clearly there is a sense in which the origin and interactions of all biological species are a matter of interacting subatomic particles, but you can’t reduce talk of biological species to talk about physics. There just aren’t any interesting facts about biological species that can be specified at the level of quarks and electrons.
But admitting that higher-level categories are permissible is not admitting that any higher-level category is useful. I can admit that it is useful to talk about species; I do not have to admit that the creationist story about the origin of species is true. By the same token, I agree that it is useful to describe people’s behavior in terms of volitions, actions, etc.; but it is not useful or true to characterize these volitions and actions in a non-determinist way.
Isn’t determinism pretty much proven false though? Quantum mechanics and all that.
Well, there seems to be a possibility of an underlying deterministic framework giving rise to an apparently probabilistic structure with a loss of information at the Planck scale, or at least that’s what Gerard t’Hooft appears to believe; indeed, he seems to think that it’s impossible to reconcile the quantum mechanics/general relativity schism without restoring deterministic notions in QM.
My understanding is that indeterminacies at the quantum level don’t translate, as a rule, into indeterminacies at the macro level. At any rate, the kind of indeterminism that exists at the quantum level is not the sort that gives any comfort to the advocate of free will, since it is not purposeful indeterminism of the kind required for free will. The libertarian cannot countenance determinism, but she also cannot countenance randomness or probabilistic causation.
Apparently particles have free willnow 