[MD] Moral Responsibility and Free Will

[david buchanan]

Steve said to dmb:
I recall thinking that you conceded something or other about a month ago, but just one week ago you complained, "Or what if I said that the notion of moral responsibility is in no way predicated on free will?" as though I just said the craziest thing you ever heard. That didn't sound to me like you were conceding the point that moral responsibility does not depend on free will, but if that is what you are now saying, fine.

dmb says:
To deny that there is a logical necessity is very different from saying morality is in no way predicated on free will. And yes, the latter comment does strike me as pretty crazy or at least very mixed-up. We've been talking about this for weeks and weeks and you still haven't answered the most basic question. How can anyone be held morally responsible if they are not free to act? The answer is that they can't, obviously. Your man Parfit begins by stating that obvious point. "For some act of ours to be wrong, because we ought to have acted differently, it must be true that we could have acted differently." But, like I said, then he then goes on to say, "It is irrelevant whether ..it was causally inevitable that you did not choose to act in this way." That's a bogus move and I'm not buying it for a second.


Steve quoted Einstein and Schopenhauer:

Einstein: "What is behind the act of willing to light the pipe? Another act of willing?"

Schopenhauer: "Man can do what he will but he cannot will what he wills."


dmb says:

Yea, that reminds me. You still haven't answered the question about your "something else". Why does free will have to be free will "plus something else" for it to count as free will. What possible reason could there be for this redundancy? Is it the metaphysical equivalent of a spare tire, or what? I really don't know what you're talking about. How is this not a fake problem?
By the way, tobacco is addictive and Schopenhauer believed the entire world was composed of Will.


Steve said:

You seem to be now insisting on what you said previously was silly and what no one means by free will. To have enough freedom for moral responsibility you seem to be saying that not only must man be free to do what he wills, he must also be free to be able to will himself to will whatever he wants to will.


dmb says:
I'm NOT only NOT saying that. I'm mocking it as convoluted nonsense. Man must will himself to will his wants? Like I said, that old dog Suzie used to chase her tail round and round. That dog was not smart. We laughed at her. That's why I keep asking what the heck you're talking about. It's a fake formula and ridiculous redundancy. 


Steve said:
Parfit is saying that we don't need to be able to say that we can will ourselves to will anything we want to have enough freedom for moral responsibility. All we need to do is be able to will our choices. Whether or not our motivations for making these choices are determined by forces beyond our control is an issue that can be held as separate. "Could have acted differently" means we would have if we had wanted to. We don't need to insist that could change what we want as a matter of free will. We don't will ourselves to have our values, we ARE our values.


dmb says:
We don't need to say we can will ourselves to will? Okay, then Parfit is knocking down an idea that sounds like ridiculous drivel to me, one that I never asserted. As I understand it, if you "could have acted differently, then you have free will. Period. I have no idea why anyone thinks this free will also has to have "something else". And may I remind you that we are talking about free will in the MOQ, not Kant's version or Descartes' version or whatever. I suspect your "something else" comes from some irrelevant source like that.

Steve replied:
All I'm saying is that will is not the same as "free will." There is a qualifier, "free," that needs to be unpacked for anyone insisting on the existence of free will to explain what they mean by free will. That is the something extra or something less. It is the "particular sort" of willing or choosing rather than simply willing or choosing that SEP says is what all the fuss has been about over the past couple thousand years. For you, apparently, it is not merely the freedom of choosing one thing over another because you wanted to. It also requires that your wanting to do it was not determined by causal forces. That is your "something else" on top of will that qualifies as "free will."



dmb says:

For me, freedom requires that our wanting is not determined by causal forces? Well, I'd say that your inclusion of "causal forces" is very strong evidence that you are indeed importing all sorts of irrelevancies from OTHER PEOPLE'S position. Causal forces have nothing to do with my position on this issue because the MOQ reformulates freedom in a different metaphysical framework in which there are no causal forces as such. The classic dilemma is predicated on these forces but, despite Einstein's objections, the MOQ starts with chemistry professors freely choosing to smoke their pipes and it then reasons downward so that atoms must be able to make choices as well.

There is quite a huge difference between qualifying free will and adding something to free will. In the former case, you are narrowing down on the exact shape of the idea or getting more specific about your particular version of the concept. Adding something to free will is introducing a second thing, a additional thing that somehow makes the first thing work. This is not a philosophical point. I'm just saying that your repeated point was so carelessly put that it was misleading and confusing. We all make mistakes, but come on. That's way too sloppy by anyone's standards.

But most importantly, the fuss should be about what particular kind of free will we're talking about. Are we not talking about the MOQ's particular version of free will? Isn't that the sort that should interest us? I have narrowed and qualified that version in some detail. That's the main part and it's the part that apparently has you baffled most. Doesn't that bother you? That would bug the hell me and I wouldn't be able to relax until I fixed that problem.