[MD] Free Will

[david buchanan]

Steve said:
It's not the we don't have free will. It's that free will probably can't even mean anything. What does it mean to say that not only are you capable of acting out your will but that on top of that your will is free? Free of what?

dmb says:
I don't get it. How is free will different from the ability to act out your will? And the last question seems a bit odd since the question of free will hardly makes sense without some kind of determinism to oppose it. I mean, when we're talking about "free" will we are talking about the absence of physical, biological, psychological, theological determinism, etc.. We're talking about the causal factors that would constrain that freedom. That's what free will would be free from, no?


Steve said:
Harris is not saying that we have no choice. The question is where do choices come from?

dmb says:
I don't get that either. Isn't the controversy all about whether or not persons are moral agents? Isn't the whole question about whether or not the choices actually come from persons - as opposed to coming from causes beyond their control?


Steve said:
Whether we like the consequences of believing in free will or denying it's coherence as a concept is beside the point of whether or not free will is intelligible.

dmb says:
I think freedom and constraint are both intelligible at the same time. I mean, experience isn't just one way or the other. The notion that we are determined and the question of freedom is traditionally generated by an all-encompasing worldview, particularly theism and materialism. But I can't quite see where Harris is coming from. He denies that his objection entails a materialistic assumption but we know that he's an atheist and a brain scientist and something like a moral realist. I just don't see how that adds up. 


I think that the MOQer would frame the issue around DQ and the four levels of static quality rather than a metaphysical premise like theism or scientific materialism per se. In the MOQ's moral framework we have all kinds of conflicting values and they each exert their pressures and demands. You want to eat Boston creme pie every night for dinner but you also want to be healthy. The question then is whether or not you really have a choice between these conflicting values or if they determine your decisions and acts. I mean, freedom is always going to be mixed in with constraints, a finite range of options. One cannot choose to jump across the Atlantic no matter how much it's desired. But people come to a fork in the road every day and, despite Yogi Berra's advice, one can't go both ways. Which ever way he goes, the determinist seems to be saying that going left or going right was already decided and the traveler didn't really have a choice. I don't get that. On what basis is this common occurrence denied? How am I not free to decide on going left, right or backwards? Why can't I choose fish instead of candy for dinner? 
If there is no free will, then there is no such thing as being responsible. If that were true, serial killers and philosophical novelists would be morally equal. How intelligible is that?