[MD] Free Will

[Steven Peterson]

Hi dmb,


> 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.


Steve:
If you go looking for causes, we find that they abound. Some effects
may simply be random or otherwise unknowable, but that doesn't support
the notion that such unexplainable outcomes by default ought to be
attributed to a metaphysical entity called "the will."


> 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?

Steve:
Ok then, we are moral beings but we are not agents in the way that is
commonly supposed. The MOQ denies this as well.

dmb:
> 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.

Steve:
In the MOQ, what type of static pattern is "the will"? If "the will"
refers to DQ and not any static pattern, then it is not the possession
of any human.

Also, you keep putting up some radical determinism as the only
alternative to belief in a radically internal entity called "the
will." To deny free will is only to deny the existence of this entity.
It is not to say that everything is already determined. Most things
could just be random or just held to be of unknown cause.

dmb:
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.

Steve:
A denial of a metaphysical entity called "the will" can be regarded as
a metaphysical position I suppose in the way that atheism could be
thought of as a religion and not-collecting-stamps a hobby.

dmb:
> Did you know that about half of all adult Americans subscribe to a different religious view than the one they grew up with?

Steve:
And by this fact I am to assume that these people simply willed
themselves to hold different beliefs?


> 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.

Steve:
As soon as you ask the question about free will you are invoking the
premise that causes exist. I am willing to accept that metaphysical
premise for the sake of argument, but I am not tied to it. My point is
that once you decide to go looking for causes as explanations of
things, you'll find causes everywhere. Positing an extra-added
metaphysical ingredient called "the will" as an additional cause that
can inexplicably occasionally trump certain other causes fits nicely
with our subjective feeling of acting out intentions and what you
would like to believe about yourself but doesn't fit with what we are
learning about the brain nor with the MOQ which calls this autonomous
self a fiction.


> dmb says:
>  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.

Steve:
This is only to say that sometimes social and intellectual patterns
trump biological patterns.

dmb:
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.

Steve:
Sure, the MOQ says we are not free to the extent we are controlled by
static patterns and free to the extent that we follow DQ, but in the
MOQ, where does the traditional metaphysical entity called "the will"
come in? Nowhere that I can see. All I find are denials of it.


> 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.

Steve:
The novelist "deserves" a grant to encourage other people to do such
work and to hopefully fund more work by the novelist. The killer must
be locked up to protect everyone else. Traditional concepts of blame
and praise fall away with revenge and punishment. What we are left
with is compassion.

Best,
Steve