For those interested in the free will debate, Eric Rundquist at Book Battles compares "the two most recent, comprehensive and, crucially, the most scientific arguments on each side of this debate: Robert Sapolsky’s Determined: Life without Free Will and Kevin Mitchell’s Free Agents: How Evolution Gave us Free Will." Right away he is trying to get us to the central point:
When you make a choice, are you in control of that choice, as an independent causal agent in the universe (even if just a little bit), or are your decisions always fully determined by other things outside of your control? Or, to put it another way: Do your conscious decisions interfere in the unfolding causal chain of the universe, or are they just a part of that chain, like everything else that happens around you in the material world?
Science has to do with things you can measure. I'm not sure how to put a tape measure on free will.
ReplyDeleteKant takes no position on the question, but he does point out that you can't act except on the presumption of free will. He does give a kind of test, though, which is to try and do what you ought to do even though you don't want to do it. If you can forgo the pleasure because you will instead to do your duty, it seems as if the forces that would be pushing you -- say towards a donut or another drink -- can be resisted by will. If that's true, it suggests freedom (or at least that it's possible, sometimes, for some people).
ReplyDeleteThe argument against free will presented in the link is not very good. To argue that free will requires instantaneous, out of time action is to set up an impossible condition; no human action is done outside of time.
ReplyDeleteBut consider the long reading of Aristotle we did this fall. Let’s say I decided— for whatever reason— that I wanted to be braver or stronger. I take a step, join a skydiving group or a gymnasium. I put in effort, train regularly, etc.
Then the time comes to make a decision or perform a feat, and I find that I do make the brave decision or can lift the heavy weight. For sake of the argument, say I have almost no time to consider it; perhaps the unconscious mind chooses before the consciousness mind becomes aware of it, as the author proposes.
Yet free will has still played the crucial role. I’m brave enough or strong enough in the instant because I chose to pursue a life that created those capabilities. Yes, perhaps I didn’t have time to think about it; but that’s just what Aristotle said would be true. The proof that you have developed the virtue is that you do it habitually, no longer needing to consider it. It’s a character you developed on purpose, just so it can be there when you don’t have time to think.
"it’s either libertarian free will or determinism, nothing in between"
ReplyDeleteThen... I reject both as merely intellectual and academic posturing. My example is the "gag" reflex. It's not controllable if I should bite into liver, but I can reject eating liver. I can exercise free will to overcome determinism in that instance.
There are times when determinism is huge -- no child exercises free will in deciding to have celiac disease or Type I diabetes. However, the option to exercise free will in treating/living with diseases has been quite successful. A deterministic stance would be to say 'well, that's that' and leave no room for free will choices to treat symptoms and look for better ways to cope.
The main thing going for free will is the ability or option to define good and bad and make a choice to do one or the other... or compromise.
Depends. Married? With children? Mortgage?
ReplyDeleteRelativism beats theory
Grim, what would be a good argument against free will? This seems to me to be one of those (cleaning up the metaphor a bit) poison in ice cream situations. If you admit there is the least bit of intentionality in human decisions you seem to be giving away the game. It does seem to me that most internet level arguments wind up being essentially the claim that since we have learned or instinctual reactions that we don't have free will.
ReplyDeleteContradictions like this in the universe are proof are theories are incomplete.
ReplyDeleteAll numbers are ratios of whole numbers. No, wait, all numbers are either ratios of whole numbers or are irrational, repeating endlessly. No, wait, there are transcendental numbers. No, wait, -1 does have a square root, and all numbers are imaginary. No, wait,—
What do you mean there is more than one kind of infinity?!?
Since the free will v determinism argument dates from the time of “all numbers are ratios of integers” then perhaps it is equally correct. We’re missing something.
Both arguments rest on “we know everything we need to know now” and “if we don’t, we are smart enough to figure it all out.” Well, well. Faith has its place, I suppose.