[MD] Free Will

[david buchanan]

Steve said:
Free will is not generally understood to be the ability to act on one's will. Any animal can do that. Free will goes a step further than that to propose an extra-added ingredient that humans posses and animals do not. It says that the will is not determined by anything other than the soul or some "something extra" with which the self can be identified that exists beyond our biology and socialization and even our unique set of experiences. ...And once you subtract a person's physical, biological, psychological, personal historical, and all other circumstantial aspects, what is left to refer to as the person? What could possibly determine what one wills if not these sorts of things? But none of these aspects of our past and present circumstances are within our control at the instant we make a decision.

dmb says:
Are you telling me that Harris and/or philosophers take psychological and historical factors cause our "decisions" in some law-like way, that they determine our will? That hardly seems plausible. Wouldn't one have to subscribe to worst kind of scientism and reductionism to believe that? Causal relations make sense within the fields of physics and engineering and such but it's not appropriate to extend causality into history, biography or psychology. 

dmb says:

...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:
Humans are moral agents because our actions have moral consequences, not because we can control our static patterns. We are our static patterns.

dmb says:
OH, come on. Agency doesn't imply control? My dictionary says "agent" is a noun meaning "a person or thing that takes an active role or produces a specified effect."  Isn't that exactly the opposite of what a determined person or thing would be?
You seem to be saying that our will is determined by virtue of the fact that we are a complex forrest of migrating static patterns. Of course that would only be true if static patterns were determinative and that is exactly what I find so implausible. I mean, there are constraints and influences, impulses and desires to be sure. But this is just the context in which we make choices, this is what we make choices about. But to say we have no free will seems a rather drastic metaphysical position in which every factor exerts an irresistible causal force. If static patterns determine what we are and there are four levels of conflicting static patterns - plus DQ - then we are always being pulled in five directions at once. If all these conflicting demands HAD to followed like law of cause and effect, I suppose we'd explode or something. 
Did you know that about half of all adult Americans subscribe to a different religious view than the one they grew up with? 

Steve said:
Playing the causation game doesn't depend on any particular metaphysics. But once you start looking for explanations in terms of causes, the serpent of causation is found to run over everything. To try to say the buck stops at the will fails since we then want to know what caused someone to will what she wills. There is an unavoidable regress once you go looking for causes.

dmb says:
I think every empiricist since Hume would tell you that "causation" is a metaphysical concept. If it's a serpent that run's over everything then it's still a metaphysical concept. And I'm not sure what the question even means. Why are we assuming the will has been caused by something in particular? The final cause of the will? We're supposed to trace the causes of our will back to the first cause? Sounds like bad theology.


dmb said:
...In the MOQ's moral framework we have all kinds of conflicting values and they each exert their pressures and demands...

Steve replied:
True, but this is a denial of the traditional concept of free will.

dmb says:
Is it? Isn't will power the capacity to resist the demands of our "lower" impulses? We have free will in the sense that we can choose NOT to act on such impulses, to resist the pressure exerted by our instincts. The MOQ says we are not free to the extent that we follow static patterns. I think this is part of what Pirsig means by that. Social level morality comes with its own set of restraints but, as Pirsig says, they free you from the laws of the jungle and civilized life has done a fabulous job in moving us beyond mere biological necessity. The intellectual level, in turn, provides freedom from social constraints. The growth and development of each person is like climbing up through the whole history of evolutionary and both continue to be driven by DQ, by those little spur of the moment decisions.

dmb:
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?

Steve:
This is the fear that people seem to have about giving up the notion of free will, but it is nonsense. All it means is that it makes more sense to focus on prevention, restitution, and rehabilitation than on punishment and revenge.

dmb says:
I agree that our justice system should not be about punishment or revenge. I think prisons are supposed to protect the rest of us from criminals, not hurt criminals. But I also think that is beside the point. To say there is no such thing as free will is to say that everyone only does what they MUST do and then nothing is blame-worthy or praise-worthy. The philosophical novelist does not deserve a genius grant and the killer does not deserve to be locked up. It's all just mechanical fate, or something. I reckon that's just plumb crazy.