[MD] Free Will (causation and the problem of induction)

[david buchanan]

Steve said:
I think whether the issue with regard to causation or determinism comes up as problematic is whether one thinks of causation as an epistemological issue (certainty/uncertainty) or as somehow ontological/metaphysical (things actually follow laws that can be spelled out or are otherwise written into the fabric of the cosmos). When the "law-like" issue comes up it is because someone is thinking of causation as a universal obligation rather than a causal law being merely descriptive and therefore innocuous as far as stealing our humanity in some metaphysical way. In the MOQ, causality is an intellectual pattern concerned with predicting and controlling our world. It has epistemological rather than ontological standing. How could getting better at predicting and controlling the world make us less human? But if causality is thought to be a metaphysical reality then we may worry about really being nothing but meat puppets.

dmb says:
Right, leaving the theistic versions aside, determinism rests on the notion that everything is determined by causes. It says that ll events flow mechanically from previous events and even the dictionary makes note of the implications of this for morality. "Meat puppets". Yep. If all events are determined by causes beyond our will, including our own actions, then of course there can be no moral responsibility. Having free will means your actions were not the result of external causes and you could have done otherwise.


determinism |diˈtərməˌnizəm|noun Philosophythe doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will. Some philosophers have taken determinism to imply that individual human beings have no free will and cannot be held morally responsible for their actions. 


That's what I meant by saying that determinism RESTS on the notion of causality and that's what it means to say causality precludes moral responsibility. Wouldn't you have to be a scientific reductionist of the worst kind to believe that casual chains obtain in the sphere of human action? Wouldn't we say such a determinist was guilty of scientism on a very grand scale? You'd have to subscribe to a metaphysical naturalism wherein nothing is real except physical objects and processes. You'd have be to a hard-core materialist on steroids to believe in reality as a perfect chain of causality. 


In the MOQ, causality is just a pretty good idea when you're doing physics or building a sand castle. It's not the fabric of the cosmos.

 
The problem of induction:
How can we know that the past is any guide to the future? In the past it has been, but to use that as justification for expecting it to be in the future is begging the question.


dmb says:
I guess this is one of the classics that I never heard. 
Seems to me that the question demands an unreasonable level of certainty. If we use the past as a guide to the future and it's been working effectively then this knowledge is justified empirically, as a practical matter, and that's about all we can ever squeeze out of the word "know".