[MD] Free Will

[david buchanan]

Steve said to dmb:
I guess name-calling is one way to deal with the fact that you've been shown to be defending an untenable position, but in case you want to man up, you big pussy, here again is our latest exchange where I pointed out a bunch of problems with your reasoning and interpretations of the MOQ...

dmb says:
Yea, I definitely had that exchange in mind when I called you a freaking weasel. Your part of the exchange struck me as disingenuous and evasive, not to mention snarky and silly. In response to James's suicidal reaction to determinism, you said...


Steve said:
I also read that as a boy, James believed in Big Foot and trusted Bush's claim that Hussein had WMD's, but that was before Pierce invented pragmatism, so it doesn't really count in defining what it means to be Jamesian. In fact, pragmatism was invented to get us out of such silly metaphysical disputes and the Cartesian anxiety that James dealt with as a young man. We also know that James had a blind spot when it comes to religion, so even later in life, he himself wasn't all that Jamesian when it comes to religious faith such as faith in free will.

dmb says:
You can't REALLY believe that Bigfoot or Bush's folly or religious faith is in any way relevant to my point. I think your response is insincere, flakey and less than flimsy.

dmb said to Steve:
...But what most people don't quite realize about James's pragmatism is that depression and suicidal feeling are among the practical consequences. In fact, James doesn't talk about pragmatism as such until the second lecture. The first one is devoted to the role that temperament and affect play in the construction of our philosophies and the rival schools that have developed as a result. As he saw it, temperament is the reason we have so many dilemmas in philosophy; empiricism and rationalism, humanism and theism, materialism and idealism, classic and romantic, determinism and free will, tough-minded and tender-minded, Aristoteleans and Platonists, etc., etc.. And how we feel about these rival visions is part of what he means by practical results.

Steve replied:
James had pointed out that cognition is not divorced from the passions, but in his Will to Believe he erred (sinned against pragmatism) in accepting his opponent's cognition/passion dichotomy, which is a big reason why that essay was a failure. What he should have said is that we only believe the things we do because we want what we want. Our desires are never divorced from reason. But our desires in the question of whether a proposition is true do NOT include what we wish were true--not if we are being intellectually honest. That is why we have such concepts as "wishful thinking" to distinguish what is good to believe with regard to leading to successful action and what is good to believe as far as giving you existential comfort.

dmb says:
My central point was that James's pragmatism begins by showing "the role that temperament and affect play in the construction of our philosophies" and you respond by saying that James SHOULD have said "our desires are never divorced from reason". But that IS what he said. That is just another way to say the same thing. You're disputing my point by making the same point. On top of that, you've tried to distort the issue by bringing up a separate, earlier essay and by bringing up wishful thinking. When this is added up, it seems very far away from any honest effort to communicate. Why does inclusion of the affective domain represent wishful thinking when I make the point but not when you do? 

Steve said to dmb:
I don't know how you could possibly reconcile the things you have said about the big omniscient omnipotent God that sung, thought, or sneezed the world into existence with what you are saying about the small god that lives in each individual willing human actions. Since when is it a good argument in favor of a metaphysical concept to say "well I just couldn't live in a world where I didn't believe that Jesus died for my personal sins"? I think we both agree in that case that such comfort is irrelevant to whether the belief is true. So how can you square this with making the same sort of argument for the small God (i.e. free will)?


dmb says:
The things I have said about the Big God and the small god? I never said anything about either of those things. You're deliberately distorting what I said about the self as a complex, embodied, culturally situated person. Neither God nor Jesus has anything to do with my point. You're being just as dishonest and evasive on this point. Shall we keep going? 


dmb said to Steve:
As a metaphysical entity, it [the will] seems to be something like the immortal soul but I think we agree this is a Modern, Cartesian, Kantian kind of thing that disappears when SOM is rejected. But then you seem to be replacing that metaphysical sense of "the will" with a sense of "will" that means preferences and desires. I'm pretty sure that's just not what the term means. In fact, I'd say "the will" derives its meaning by contrast with preferences and desires. It is defined as the power or capacity to resist one's impulses, to choose NOT to act upon our desires, to defer, delay or even deny them any satisfaction. In other words, free will is NOT the capacity to change your preference from vanilla to chocolate but the capacity to act on that preference or not. Free will is the capacity to decide which values you're going to act upon, not the power to control the preference itself. You can't choose to dislike ice cream but you can decide whether or not you're going to buy it or spoon it into your mouth. This is the ordinary dictionary definition and the common sense notion of the will, as in "it takes a lot of will power to resist my favorite dessert."


Steve replied:
Defining free will as the ability to override your desires is a nonsensical notion in the MOQ. Sure desires get overridden, but the only thing that could override a value is another value. This "ability to choose among competing values" is nothing more than another value asserting itself. And this deciding value is NOT chosen any more than the values it rules on are.  This forest of values does not bottom out anywhere that could be called "the will." The common sense notion of "it takes a lot of will power" in the MOQ means that there is substantial conflict between value patterns in the dessert scenario. It doesn't mean that there is a small God with this special "power" called will.


dmb says:
My central point here - repeated twice in a row for emphasis - is that "free will is NOT the capacity to change your preference from vanilla to chocolate but the capacity to act on that preference or not. Free will is the capacity to decide which values you're going to act upon, not the power to control the preference itself". And your response? "Sure desires get overridden, but the only thing that could override a value is another value. This "ability to choose among competing values" is nothing more than another value asserting itself." Again, you have responded to my point by repeating my point. Not only that, but you're tripping all over yourself in a desperate effort to disagree. In two consecutive sentences you say "the ability to override your desires is a nonsensical notion" AND "Sure, desires get overridden". Which is it? Is it "sure" or is it "nonsense"? You can't have it both ways. And then there is the small god thing again too. You made that up. I never said the will was any such thing. Quite the opposite. In fact, here is where I mention the small self and the Big Self and anyone can see that I presented it in contrast to and in opposition to the autonomous Cartesian self, etc.. Apparently, this is where you got the small god, Big God thing but anyone can see that's just a dishonest fabrication on your part. 

dmb said to Steve:
I think the MOQ's slogan wherein we don't have values so much as values have us is a way of saying persons are not autonomous or independent or singular. In the same way that James denies the existence of consciousness as a thing or an entity but does not go so far as to deny its existence as a process and a function, so it is with Lila or any other person. To say Lila is a complex forest of static patterns is not to say she is a ridiculous fiction or that she does not exist at all. Instead, that description says that Lila and everyone else is engaged in a battle against the static patterns of her own life and she is not separable from those patterns because that's what she is, as opposed to the Cartesian self, the substantial, autonomous subjective self. It's that metaphysical notion of a distinct, singular entity that is rejected by the MOQ's slogan but there is still room for the small self and Big Self and living beings who care. In this picture, the idea of moral responsibility is infinitely expanded and tremendously enriched. In this picture, freedom is the highest good, the most moral goal of all - but this aim depends on the stability of the so-called determining factors, the static, stable features of life.  I think this is the sense in which the MOQ's self is dependent rather than independent and a complex living system rather than a singular entity. You see? I mean, we don't have to posit a metaphysical self or an immortal soul to believe in the self or in personal responsibility, to believe this life is a real fight and that it matters what we do.

Steve replied:
If you want to say that free will is a process--the process of adjudicating between conflicting value patterns based on nothing other than more and more value patterns which also dynamically evolve--then we are in agreement, but that doesn't sound like any definition of free will that I have ever heard. It is not what Craig or Ham mean, for example.  When people use the term "free will," it is commonly used to specify a bottoming out of this sort of conflict in a location called the soul which is the ultimate arbitrator of value conflicts that can be held responsible for valuing the wrong thing since it makes a free choice between values. In the MOQ, "you" don't freely choose among values, your other values choose among your values and on and on with no bottoming out in a "soul."


dmb says:
IF I WANT to say that free will is the process of adjudicating between conflicting value patterns based on nothing other than more and more value patterns, then we agree? IF I want. There is no "IF" or "WANTING" about it. That's what I DID say. Repeatedly. And so what if you haven't heard that definition before? If you agree with it, then what's the problem? Novelty and freshness is a bummer for you? You can't be surprised that I'm not lining up with Ham or Craig, can you? Have I ever agreed with either of them about anything? Not that I recall. And there you go again with the theological additions. I never said anything about the soul or any ultimate arbitrator. In fact, that would be the autonomous subjective self that I EXPLICITLY reject in the sentences you're allegedly responding to. That's just one more distorted and dishonest portrayal of what I said. 
I think I've clearly shown that this is your tactic on every single point and I sincerely believe it's perfectly valid to say you are being a weasel. 

Originally, I thought I'd just ignore this response of yours because it doesn't really merit any serious engagement. At first, I just scratched my head and said to myself, "Well, he's obviously hanging on to a grudge and the kindest thing to do would be to just delete it and forget it". Which is what I did. But then you literally asked for it. So there you go. If you want to park the bullshit and have a civilized conversation, I'd be happy to go along with that. Otherwise it's just a pointless pissing contest.