[MD] Free Will

[Ham Priday]

Hi Marsha, Steve, [Matt quoted] --



 On Sun, Jun 26, 2011 at 12:09 AM, MarshaV <valkyr at att.net> asked:

> How about neither accepting free will, nor rejecting freewill.

[Steve replied]:
> I think that is somewhat what Pirsig does in Lila. He raises the issue
> of free will but doesn't accept either horn of the dilemma as
> traditionally posed. But isn't that the same as denying both horns?
> I'm wondering how one does what you say in conversation. Most
> people would probably say that if you don't accept it you reject it.
> But if the question is one of those "do you still beat your wife?" kind
> of questions,  you can't answer it directly. You either need to back up
> and reconstruct the problem on different terms or change the subject.
> I think Pirsig kind of does both.  He resolves the issue by talking
> about freedom instead of free will since he doesn't want to accept the
> metaphysical premise of an independent agent that could be the
> possessor of this free will.

Pirsig resolves the issue by rejecting the independent agent that makes free 
will arguable.  For Pirsig, there is no such issue because he has posited 
Quality as the determinant agency.  All we humans have to do is align our 
"quality patterns" to its evolutionary program.

I think Matt was getting at the agency problem when he talked about 
"responsible actors":

[Matt on 6/21]:
> For moral reasoning to occur, for us to be able to blame or laud
> certain actions for their occurrence, it seems to me that we need
> to be able to track back the action to an actor ("actor" itself having
> the wide sense of "whatever picks out the thing responsible for the 
> action").

How can free will exist without an independent agent?
How can we be morally responsible if our values (and consequent actions) are 
predetermined?

Experiential existence hinges on autonomous value-sensibility.  It makes no 
sense to argue for or against free will unless you acknowledge that choice 
is the option of a free agent.

Valuistically speaking,
Ham