For many people, the idea of free will is bound up with the notion of “could have done otherwise”. By their lights, if only one future is possible for a person — that is, if the person cannot do otherwise — then free will is an illusion.
Philosopher Christian List — author of the recent book Why Free Will is Real — proposes an interesting species of free will based on the claim that while physics may be deterministic, behaviors at the agent level are not. Agents can do otherwise, according to List, and this is enough to ground free will even if physics is deterministic.
I think List is mistaken, but I’ll save my criticisms for the comment thread.
Readers can find List’s argument in this paper:
Free Will, Determinism, and the Possibility of Doing Otherwise
See you in the comment thread.
walto,
You still don’t get that “psychopathy” is the name of a specific mental disorder?
keiths,
Then why are you so afraid to answer?
walto,
No. Proximate moral responsibility is also a kind of moral responsibility.
phoodoo:
“Fear of phoodoo” is an oxymoron.
walto, to phoodoo:
Yet you’ve acknowledged (inadvertently) that your own scheme, in which all moral responsibility is proximate moral responsibility, is insufficient to capture our intuitions about mental conditions and moral responsibility.
The concept of ultimate moral responsibility fixes that problem. A psychopath isn’t ultimately responsible for their psychopathy, nor for the behaviors that stem from it.
I mean, you might summon up the effort on a slow day amirite.
Suppose a person takes medicine that prevents psychotic ideation, and while sane, chooses to stop taking the medication? This does happen. Often.
I dealt with this scenario in protective services.
I have no magic solution. But I favor looking for ways that actually limit the likelihood of bad behavior, rather than worrying about causes. Solutions are orthogonal to “responsibility.”
It’s too bad the comment plugin won’t accept html tables.
Here’s a summary for Nonlin and phoo:
1. Good logic + true premises = a valid argument, a sound argument, and a true conclusion.
2. Good logic + false premises = a valid argument, an unsound argument, and an unreliable conclusion.
3. Bad logic + true premises = an invalid argument, an unsound argument, and an unreliable conclusion.
4. Bad logic + false premises = an invalid argument, an unsound argument, and an unreliable conclusion.
Sound arguments yield true conclusions. Unsound arguments may or may not.
An argument is valid if the logic is good, whether or not the premises are true.
A sound argument requires good logic and true premises.
Oops: That was meant for the other thread.
That’s a good question for walto. In my scheme, such folks are proximately responsible but not ultimately responsible. Because they’re not ultimately responsible, they shouldn’t be a target for retributive punishment.
Being proximately responsible, they are an appropriate target for interventions, however — such as convincing them that it’s their moral duty to take their meds so as to protect the people around them.
Knowing the causes is often the first step toward limiting the bad behavior.
keiths:
OMagain:
If there are no Judge Judy reruns to watch, maybe.
Bruce,
I should add that just as non-reductive physicalism doesn’t negate the supervenience mapping, neither does the naturalistic ontological attitude.
The NOA just asks us to treat agential states as real. It doesn’t require us to treat physical states as unreal, or to pretend that the supervenience relationship no longer holds.
walto,
But the “can” you are using is the physical “can” of determinism.
That leads to absurdities like a parent saying to a child, “You should brush your teeth — but only if you’re going to.”
That isn’t what we mean when we make should statements.
Huemer, too, is using “can” and “should” that way. It’s why his premise #2 is bogus:
“You shouldn’t believe falsehoods” really means “you’d be better off if you didn’t believe falsehoods”. That doesn’t imply that it’s physically possible for you to refrain. Conditional ability is what is implied here, as in the child’s conditional ability to brush her teeth.
This is a suggestive post, but I don’t think it’s quite right either about the “should” in 1 or my use of “can.”
1 is supposed to suggest an ethical matter. Somebody might be “better off” if they believe something false or reason badly (e.g., maybe they’ll win some money or get on TV).
And for my understanding of “can,” you get that by looking back at the conditional I settled on. I don’t think that the fact that you can do something means you WILL do it. So that the child should brush her teeth if she can–doesn’t mean she should brush her teeth only if she will.
walto,
That’s not clear. Similar “shoulds” have no ethical dimension, such as “you should apply primer before paint.”
The same sort of objection applies to the ethical “should”. Here’s an example I gave to Flint a while back:
That’s a case where it’s ethical to believe a falsehood.
walto,
I know that you generally go with a compatibilist notion of “can”, but in this particular case you seem to be going with the “can” of physical possibility, due to determinism. That’s why you wrote this:
In any case, it’s clear that Huemer is going with the “physical possibility” version of “can” in his premise #3:
Applying that same version of “can” to premise #2 reveals the problem:
Together, #2 and #3 give:
…which is silly.
So in Huemer’s misbegotten deterministic world, there is no distinction between
a) what should be done,
b) what can be done, and
c) what is done.
Remove premise #2 and the problem goes away.
keiths,
1. If I offer you a choice between chocolate ice cream and vanilla ice cream and you choose chocolate, that is a free will choice.
2. If I offer you a choice between chocolate and vanilla, and you choose vanilla, that is a free will choice.
3. If you choose both chocolate and vanilla, that is a free will choice.
4. If you choose neither, that is a free will choice.
5. If you offer chocolate or vanilla ice cream to a tree, trees have free will.
…says phoodoo, wearing his (low) IQ on his sleeve.
Talking about ice cream, here is some phood for thought inspired by this post:
Evolution is a movement from determination from without to self-determination. It progresses from a point where the actions of physical beings are determined externally to a stage where physical beings are capable of self-determination. Here I am including as physical beings, clouds, mountains, rivers, rocks and other such non-living objects.
There are three general levels of being above the beings mentioned above, These are plants, animals and humans.
In order to see the advances from one being to the next we can compare their responses to a particular event. Imagine there is a large physical object moving quickly towards each of them on a collision course. The non-living object and the plant do nothing and Newtons laws are the sole determinant, effect follows cause in a straightforward manner. Moving on to the animal, it may become aware of the object and attempt to move out of the way to avoid the collision. It has a certain inner nature which allows it to use Newtons laws for its own benefit. The human has even greater powers of self-determination. Humans can act not only as the animal does, they can also decide to remain in the path or move into the path of the object anticipating what the consequences will be.
Humans have become the most emancipated from the laws of external cause and effect. We have travelled furthest on the road to freedom, we have a high degree of forethought. Life has moved from passively obeying the laws of cause and effect in a general way to being able to manipulate these laws through the inner abilities of individuals. We are no longer in the domain of physics where the outcome is based purely on external cause and effect. We have moved from passivity as in the plant, through action based on fear as in the animal to thoughtful deliberation as in the human.
Being crushed to a rather unpleasantly looking pancake is progression?
This doesn’t follow from anything you previously said. As always, there’s a massive chasm between your vacuous narrative and your ridiculous conclusions.
I don’t understand the distinction you are making here. How/when is the compatibalist’s “can” not a “can” of physical possibility?
Oh, I think I see what you mean. Can=physically possibile vs Can=done if wanted
No. The crushing can happen to all four levels of being. Only the human has the forethought to imagine the crushing before it happens and to think about the consequences. That is the progress.
“In a series of experiments on five hand-raised ravens described by Professor Osvath and Can Kabadayi, a doctoral student at Lund, published in the journal Science on Thursday, ravens display the ability to think ahead and deliberately prepare for future events.
In one version of the experiment, Osvath and Mr. Kabadayi trained ravens to use a tool to open a box containing a piece of dog kibble, a popular treat among ravens. An hour after researchers removed the tool and the box, they presented the ravens with the tool on a tray alongside a series of nonfunctional “distractor” objects and a smaller food reward. When presented with the box containing the kibble fifteen minutes later, the ravens passed on the smaller reward 86 percent of the time, ignoring the distractors, and picking the correct tool to open the box. When the delay was extended to 17 hours, the ravens picked the right tool 89 percent of the time.
No other animal, aside from apes, is known to be able to pass this test. Even human children under age four typically struggle to get it right. In fact, one of the ravens had to be excluded from further trials after she figured out how to open the reward box using tree bark instead of the tool. She had outsmarted the human experimenters.”
I have a feeling that you’ve misunderstood what I was trying to say. The laws of physics are not broken. Human agents are able to manipulate the laws of physics to conform to their aims in ways that none of the other beings have the ability or awareness to do. We link causes and effects and act with conscious deliberation so as to alter the effects to suit our purpose. For example the average person knows the possible effects of sexual intercourse. Animals have sexual urges and act on them with no thought about the consequences of their actions.
You weren’t talking about the immaterial human mind, producing uncaused thoughts?
So would you say that there is a progression in this regard? Humans and higher animals such as some birds and primates have abilities that lower animals and plants do not possess? And these animals under study are exceptional cases when looking at the animal kingdom in general?
I am talking about plants, animals and humans in general; not the exceptions which prove the rule. And I notice that the ravens were hand reared so it is no surprise to me that these birds which are excellent mimics are able to learn such tricks.
walto,
Right.
No. I was talking about normal body-bound conscious minds.
CharlieM:
Oh dear. Etheric pancakes.
Teehee. So you were talking about humans and … you know … those other living things in general?
Well, so was newton. He was merely talking about plants, animals and ravens in general.
Correct me if I’m wrong but newton was talking about specifically trained ravens and not about ravens in general.
As you will recall, I’m not too sanguine on this issue of Can=Will do if one wants
I wouldn’t want to go any farther than this:
If S does P because she wants to then S can do P (where the “can” is physical possibility)
I don’t think the conditional works in the other direction and it’s pretty clear that there’s no synonymy relation.
To summarize my final thoughts on this stuff (and I know I haven’t been entirely consistent). I don’t think moral responsibility is identical either to what you call proximate or ultimate responsibility, and I don’t think responsibility is analyzable into “deciding cause.”
As you can see, I’m not sanguine in general. I think “moral responsibility” and the compatiballist’s “can” are both mare’s nests that can’t likely be analyzed into anything at all. At least one of them seems to me incoherent.
I’m not personally wedded to ought implying can, but it’s widely held, and I don’t think Huemer will mind terribly if somebody attacks THAT. He’d likely take the need to lose it as being additional evidence that determinism is false.
I believe his first premise begs the question and his explication of that fallacy is no good.
walto,
Then you’re back facing the problem I described yesterday:
walto:
keiths:
Also, how can you still be a compatibilist if you’ve retreated to the “can” of physical possibility?
You are wrong. You were arguing that …
to which newton offered the raven study as a counterexample. The ravens have been trained to perform a specific task in order to enable the researchers to demonstrate that ravens in general have planning abilities.
One comment later birds and primates had been promoted to the “higher organisms”. Why are they higher organisms? Why, because they share planning abilities with us humans.
ETA: correction
Crows have been observed dropping nuts onto streets, where cars break the shells for them. The have also been observed manufacturing sticks of the right size for use as tools.
Neither of these behaviors was trained.
That’s pretty smart, but it’s no like they been observed reading Steiner, you know
To get to this:
You should brush your teeth, but only if you want to.
you’d need the conditional to go in the other direction (i.e., from can to will if one wants). I don’t think it does.
Re the “should “in 1. Again, I don’t think Huemer thinks of it as prudential value as you are suggesting. It’s ethical, but it’s sui generis: part of the so-called “ethics of belief.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics_of_belief
Ask yourself why the practice of using traffic to crack walnuts gets headline news when crows do it. Could it be because it is thought of as a remarkable skill for an animal to possess? It’s not what we would normally expect of animals but it would be no big deal for any human.to achieve such sophistication in their actions.
When a crow plants and grows a walnut tree in order to harvest the nuts in seasons to come, then that would indeed be remarkable.
You could be right but why are you so certain about this? Do you know when and where it was first practised? I would think that present day crows have learned the behaviour through observing other crows.
Are you really so amazed that people can do things that other animals can’t? I’d think most folks learn this by the time they’re six or so. Man bites dog is the interesting thing, you know?
keiths,
That ‘can” is important to compatibalism, i think. Doesn’t provide a complete definition though. As i understand compatibalism, being free means you can do some things because you want to. And it seems to me that the “can” in there involves physical possibility.
walto,
You’ve moved the goalposts. The actual target is
And since you accept “ought implies can”, plus a “can” that’s limited to physical possibility, then it follows that shoulds can only have the form I’ve given:
“You should do X — but only if you’re going to.”
You’ve said that you’re big on “ordinary language”, but that ain’t how people ordinarily use the word “should”.
I don’t see anything to suggest that it’s ethical rather than prudential, but it doesn’t really matter. The objection I raise above holds either way.
Your straitened form of “can”, together with “ought implies can”, limits “should” statements to things that are actually going to happen.
I made a similar point a couple of weeks ago:
keiths:
walto:
For most compatibilists, the notion of “could have chosen otherwise” is an important element of free will and moral responsibility. To limit “can” to physical possibility, as you do, means that one never could have chosen otherwise.
That’s on top of the “You should do X — but only if you’re going to” problem mentioned above.
Sure, but one wonders what the design explanation is for that progression.
Sure ,humans are dependent on those lower animals and plants to survive, whereas most of those lower animals and plants lack that dependence on humans for survival. It all depends on one’s point of view on the hierarchy of abilities.
And don’t forget rats.
Sure, if total numbers are considered ,everything that is not a plant or bacteria is an exceptional case.
The thing is , if you claim “ only humans” can do something exceptions may prove some rule , but it unfortunately it disproves the claim as well.
Feel the same way about humans?
I would think an human growing wings and flying would also draw some attention.
There are a few comments above that I’d like to answer, but I am going to resist the temptation because it would be going too far off topic. So I’ll stick with the one below.
And here we have a clear picture of the direction of evolution. Nature endows animals with organs such as wings which they can use to their advantage. But organs such as these only serve to keep their possessors bound within nature. By specialising in this way any further evolution on the road to overcoming nature becomes extremely difficult.
On the other hand nature has taken humans up to the point where they can move past what they have been given by nature. Through the power of individual creativity humans, although not naturally endowed with the power of flight, have been given the ability to supplement what nature has given them. Humans can fly by means of their own inventions. And this is but one example of how we advance from what nature has given us.
Human flight is an example of a process whereby living beings, through their own efforts, are freeing themselves from nature. And IMO moral freedom as described here by Steiner is the highest form of freedom we can attain on this earth.
Here is Steiner on the idea of freedom from his book, “The Philosophy of Freedom”:
Our path towards this freedom may have been determined by our physical nature, but we have the ability to instigate actions free of this nature. I become ultimately responsible for my own actions, a free spirit.