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.
Yes, sorry. Unintentional. I should have written “but only if you’re going to” to make the point. Which, again, is that you can’t (no pun intended) get from the use of “can” as I understand it in
You should brush your teeth if you can.
to
You should brush your teeth only if you’re going to
unless you take “can” to be EQUIVALENT to “will do it if one wants to.” I deny the equivalence, and don’t have the conditional going in the direction needed to get to that conclusion.
Again, that depends on HOW the “can” is involved. Such a derivation is fallacious as I understand “S can do p.”
Exactly. And the error comes from assuming synonymy–or at least logical equivalence–where I deny it exists.
I don’t see that.
You assumed an equivalence that I deny.
As I’ve said above, the second problem involves a misconstrual. Re the first, as I said to phoodoo, I believe the compatibalist has to take “S could have done otherwise” to be fleshed out as “S could have done otherwise if she’d wanted to.” On it’s own, I don’t think it means much of anything at all.
People might not notice but probably should note that my explication of compatibalism here is incomplete. I say, e.g., “The conditional only goes in one direction (from will-if-want to can)” Thus “can do X” is left largely unexplained. I deny that it follows from S can do X that X WILL do X, but I don’t say what DOES follow from it.
This may all be construed as philosophical gloom. As I said, I’m just not sanguine about analyses here. keiths’ position is much more definite. I think that the confidence mostly produces a bunch of stuff that’s definitely wrong, but it DOES have the benefit of at least attempting a complete explanation of what’s going on. I haven’t tried to do that and am pretty sure that I couldn’t. So, after chiding him for being mealy-mouthed above, I want to admit that my own writing on this thread has also been chickenshit, if in a different respect.
keiths:
walto:
Then you’ve reversed yourself again. Now you’re back to agreeing with my version of “can”:
keiths:
walto:
At the time I made that comment, you were still going with a “physical possibility” version of “can”. Here’s how the derivation goes:
You tell the serial killer:
You accept “ought implies can”, so that becomes
You hold to the “physical possibility” version of “can”, and under that version, the only things we can do are those we actually go on to do. Thus your exhortation becomes
The absurdity should be apparent. That’s not what people mean by “should”.
walto,
walto,
You’ve been contradicting yourself right and left in this discussion.
1) You’ve been vacillating between different versions of “can”, as explained above;
2) you’ve claimed that there is no moral responsibility under determinism, and that there is;
3) you’ve said that all moral responsibility is proximate moral responsibility, and that it isn’t; and
4) you’ve stated a criterion by which psychopaths are morally responsible for their crimes, and then denied that responsibility.
Even your insults have been inconsistent. First my position was “toothless”, “mealy-mouthed” “gobbledegook”. Now it’s “definite”, “confident”, and “definitely wrong” — though you don’t say how.
Take some time and see if you can settle on a definite position, or failing that, if you can point to something “definitely wrong” with mine.
keiths,
No. No “means” in my account. I don’t think you’re reading my posts, since I’ve said that at least 8 times.
keiths,
Again, no. “Physical possibility version of ‘can’ only in the sense i’ve explained–not in the equivalence sense you’re attributing to me.
I’ve taken all the time I’d like and pointed out all the mistakes already. Some several times. You could thank me for my trouble, but i recognize that that’s not the usual practice around here.
walto,
First you agreed with this statement:
Then you rejected that statement and changed it to this:
With that statement you rule out “could have done otherwise”.
Now you’ve reversed course again. You’re back to accepting the counterfactual conditional:
And of course it’s the middle statement that leads to absurdities like
“You should brush your teeth, but only if you’re going to.”
…and…
“You should stop killing people, unless you’re not going to.”
Yeah, that bolded statement has to go: you’re right that it provides precisely the conditional in the other direction: the one that i keep saying I don’t buy! Thanks. I can see why you wouldn’t take me at my word when i’d say “one way only for that horseshoe.”
Now you should see that my position (such as it is) is quite incomplete. Too much so to be guilty of some of the other sins being laid at its door.
walto,
Are you referring to this comment?
I stand by what I wrote there.
Here Steiner explains what he means by a “free spirit”:
Unfree spirits act out of a concept given to them from without. They follow a law, a commandment or an example from a previous action. The free spirit acts out of her or his own moral imagination:
In my bodily nature I am an organism with the general form of the species Homo Sapiens. I am determined by and subject to the laws of nature. In my spiritual nature I am an individual and insofar as I have moral imagination I make my own laws. In this sense I am not subject to any laws, I am free.
keiths,
That’s hardly surprising. What statement have you ever written at TSZ that you haven’t “stood by?” regardless of the criticisms that have been leveled at it. It’s kinda your thing. And we all love you for it!
Can you find the contradictions in Steiner’s remarks there? (I’m betting you can’t.)
Why do you assume you are not bound by the limitations/ regularities, of the spiritual nature? You still have finite knowledge , obviously needs (to be free), a sense of self which is either a result of experience or hardwired.
@Charlie: Or perhaps see the lovely irony in the fact that in everything you write here, you are acting out of a concept given to you by Rudolf Steiner?
Cultures and political systems tend to be rigid or permissive. Usually a mix. Leaders and politicians always claim to have found the Goldilocks mix.
I can see that you have formatted it so no one can tell which of those remarks are Steiner’s and which are mine.
Without the moral imagination we are bound both in our physical and in our spiritual natures. It is only when we act out of our own moral imagination that we can be said to act in complete freedom.
walto:
keiths:
walto:
The mistakes, of course.
What part(s) of my comment do you deny, and why? I’ve looked over it and it seems accurate.
Of course!
Also theorists. You should get a load of the concoction I’ve been stirring up.
Sorry. Just look at his stuff and see what you can find.
Could you give an example of acting freely out of moral imagination?
newton, to CharlieM:
It’s what Charlie does when he imagines, against all evidence, that Steiner had something useful to tell us about morality.
I can see an apparent contradiction in my words due to my sloppy wording, but I’d like you to point out where you see the contradiction in what Steiner said above, if you don’t mind.
I relay translations of Steiner’s words here in order to invite criticism. Moral imagination is not something that is given to us, it has to be learned and developed. It is better to follow the advice of someone with genuine moral imagination than to blindly follow a rigid set of rules laid down by our leaders or written in religious documents.
For those who wish to lead a moral life it is better to take responsibility for one’s own actions. If one’s own actions and the rules of the society are both genuinely trying to produce a moral order then they should be in accord with each other. Ideally we should do what we belive to be right and not what society dictates.
Buddha observed life and came up with the Four Noble Truths. He then formulated what we now term the Eightfold Path. IMO he did this out of his extremely well-developed moral imagination.
Unless we can see clearly the motives for someone’s actions it is very difficult to say if they are acting for the common good out of their own moral standards or more probably from a sense of duty or because it makes them feel good or some other similar cause.
Personally I would say that my actions inevitably spring from the latter.
Know thyself!
I find that if I am interested in a subject, the people with the most useful things to say are those that oppose and challenge my perspective. We learn more by listening than by talking. Constructive criticism is a good thing and sometimes you can give it.
The ability to learn and understand the lesson seems tied to the nature of the individual.
How does one determine whether it is genuine?
That seems reasonable to me. Lower animals don’t learn as individuals. The more evolutionary advanced the animal the greater its capacity for individual learning.
We look at their actions and make a judgement. I would not necessarily follow anyone who is making commandments and laying down the law. I would look at what they are saying should be done and judge if I thought it reasonable on a case by case basis.
Then ,to me , it would depend on what created the sense of duty or why it made them feel good.
Always thought meditation based philosophies , leaned toward the diminished sense of the importance of the intellectual concept of self. Achieving a kind of mindlessness, quiet.
Thanks for the example.
I’m not interested your words. I asked if you could find the contradiction in Steiner’s words, and said I didn’t think you could. At least have a go!
And what if they acted out of pure unconditional love without any expectation of how it was going to make them feel?
I’m not talking about what became of the Buddha’s teaching. He was morally productive in that he perceived the world around him, selected certain concepts from his sphere of concepts, chose a path for himself using his moral imagination, and then followed that path.
Those who try to follow his path and wish to perform,say, the right action, should not be asking, “what would the Buddha have done”? They will eventually come to the stage where they ask, “what is the right course of action for me to take in this particular situation”. Freedom is not given it has to be developed in the right way. The Buddha chose a path that was right for him. Each one of us should follow a path that is right for us as individuals.
Thanks for asking.
Steiner ia writing here from the position of objective idealism where concepts have an objective reality.
We gain our knowledge from two sources, the outer perceived world and the inner world of concepts. These two sources are actually a unity and it is only due to our makeup that they appear as separate in the first place. Thinking is the spiritual activity which reunites these two poles.
Through experience we have gained knowledge of a multitude of concepts and of the perceived world. Free spirits use their moral intuition to select from thier world of concepts that which can best form a mental picture of the action to be taken in each particular circumstance. They do this using their moral imagination.
Through moral imagination we act out of love and not out of duty.
And being morally productive need not entail acting alone. A person who has awell developed moral imagination can work with others who are not so well developed but have the skills to turn the imagination into positive action. Each person works to their strengths.
Please can you tell me where I am missing the contradictions that you say are there?
He says that the free person can’t be impelled by general concepts. Does the determinist suggest that anybody is impelled by general concepts? He says the free person will always “translate a concept into a mental picture” before acting. Does the determinist suggest that anybody acts before such “translation”? On Steiner’s view, the free person acts through his “moral imagination” (whatever the hell that is). If there is such a thing as a moral imagination that is effective as a spur to action (in various high-minded people like yourself), has anybody ever suggested that that whatever acts as a motive in a free action it cannot be a moral imagination?
Again, it’s all windy oratory masquerading as (bad) argument. You like it, find it comforting: that’s nice. But please don’t think there’s any actual there there.
Tell me more about this love that doesn’t make you feel good. It is very different kind of love from the one I usually experience.
You have this bizarre idea that an act of good is somehow diminished by the fact that it made the actor feel good about themselves. How on earth did you get this strange idea? I bet it wasn’t from your personal moral imagination.
So when you asked me to find the contradiction in Steiner’s quoted words, you weren’t talking about him making self-contradictory statements. Now I realise why I couldn’t fathom what you were talking about.
I don’t see how you can make any pronouncements about moral imagination if you don’t even know what Steiner means by the term.
You admit that you don’t fully understand the basic terms he uses but you still feel able to judge it as bad argument. IMO it is best to try to understand a position before making any judgements about it.
I didn’t say that the act will not make someone feel good. I am saying that the feel good factor has nothing to do with the motive behind their action. Do you see the difference?
If someone lays down their life for another person do you think that this is a case of love that will make the giver feel good?
So the act does make you feel good, but that should not be your motivation for doing it? That still doesn’t make any sense. Why does that even make a difference?
Yes. Why would you be laying down your life if you are indifferent about your love for this person (that sentence doesn’t make sense either, but I am following your lead).
It makes a difference if we are trying to determine if it’s a free act. If you act expecting a reward then obviously it is not given freely. It would be the same as the difference between giving away or selling one of your possessions.
There are multiple examples of people risking their lives for strangers.
You’re quite wrong about this matter (as most others). Whether or not an argument is good or bad, often has nothing whatever to do with the meanings of the terms involved. Put in “orange cupcake” or anything else you’d like for “moral imagination” and the argument will still be bad.
I’m sorry you still can’t see the self-contradictions in these Steiner comments. But I understand that we all do only what we can.
Just aping nonsense there.
True enough. But in order for someone to judge whether a statement is true or false they do need to know what the terms mean.
1. I offer you a choice between chocolate ice cream and liquorice ice cream. You prefer and choose chocolate. This is not a free will choice.
2. I offer you a choice between chocolate and liquorice, and you choose liquorice, which you loathe. This is a free will choice.
Are those decisions morally superior to people giving their lives for loved ones?