Christian List on free will

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.

756 thoughts on “Christian List on free will

  1. keiths:

    The bus might not come even if determinism is false.

    walto:

    Might not? Epistemic? Metaphysical? Physical?

    All of the above.

  2. keiths:

    I don’t know why you keep bringing morality into this. I’m just saying that if she wants to rush to her father’s side, she should fly.

    walto:

    Beause of the ‘should’ you keep using. Drop it, and I won’t talk about morality.

    Not every ‘should’ is a moral ‘should’. If someone tells you that you should convert to a Roth IRA, they aren’t implying that it’s immoral if you don’t.

  3. walto,

    Can, but not ultimately. It’s as if she actually could when she doesn’t–but, uh, only if she didn’t want to that second (maybe) and maybe could have if she’d wanted to (in a different world). It’s determinism with false teeth.

    Straw man, and a pretty mangled one at that.

  4. walto,

    Phoodoo’s not being inconsistent. He’s a libertarian. He has every right to “can.”

    Libertarians have a right to “can”, but phoodoo forfeits that right in almost all cases via the argument he’s making. You’re making a similar mistake.

    phoodoo writes:

    Let’s suppose you announce to someone, I can throw a ball. In the world of determinism, you have no idea if that is true. You only know you threw one before. You can say you can do it again, but that could be totally false and you would have no way to know it. So “can” doesn’t exist.

    Phoodoo thinks he’s arguing against determinism. What he fails to notice is that the argument works just as well (or just as poorly) if you remove the bit about determinism:

    Let’s suppose you announce to someone, I can throw a ball. In the world of determinism, You have no idea if that is true. You only know you threw one before. You can say you can do it again, but that could be totally false and you would have no way to know it. So “can” doesn’t exist.

    So by phoodoo’s logic, he, a libertarian, is not entitled to say “I can throw a ball”. No one is, whether or not determinism holds.

  5. Your “what if the bus doesn’t come” example shows that you are making a similar mistake to phoodoo’s.

  6. keiths:

    People are responsible for what they choose to do. They’re just not ultimately responsible, because the ultimate causes are outside their control (and prior to their own existence).

    walto:

    I call that quibbly. It’s like saying the ball is red because of the red glasses. Really it just looks red. In the case of responsibility, it’s you who is equivocating.

    No. Proximate responsibility and ultimate responsibility are different concepts, just as compatibilist free will and libertarian free will are.

    The concepts aren’t difficult. Suppose Smith murders Jones. Smith made the decision and carried it out. No one else did. He’s proximately responsible. Yet Smith didn’t control the kind of person he would become — the kind who would commit murder. His nature was formed by causes that preceded him and were outside of his control. He isn’t ultimately responsible.

  7. keiths,

    I think we agree on this. The moment that you make your selection from the options available to you is when you become responsible for your further actions. This, I think, is the core of what responsibility is all about.

    Whether you were always going to select the same thing, or not, doesn’t make any real-world difference as far as I can tell. Responsibility is about what one does in the actual world, not about what one might do in some alternative universe that may or may not exist.

  8. Keith,
    If something is determined, you can’t choose it, it has already been chosen. You just feel like you are choosing it, but that’s the illusion.

    You are making up concepts that don’t fit the English language. You have obliterated what the word choosing means

  9. phoodoo: If something is determined, you can’t choose it, it has already been chosen. You just feel like you are choosing it, but that’s the illusion.

    Remind me again how free will decisions are made in phoodoo world that actually are real decisions and not illusions like the rest of us have to suffer.

    Perhaps you and WJM should get together sometime and work it out. You both “know” the answer but you both seem unable to actually articular it or even notice the question being asked. I guess that’s your true free will in operation, as opposed to us robots…

  10. OMagain,

    Remind you again of what the concepts of free will and no free will mean?

    Perhaps you need to start at veg beginning.. Using English preferably, not that thing Keith is using.

  11. Determinism applies to the inorganic world. When we rise to organic nature we enter into the realm of unpredictability.

    One line of thought that I came across recently but I don’t remember the source. Kick a stone and you get the determinism of the inorganic because its trajectory can be worked out from the forces applied. Kick a dog and the results will be unpredictable.

    The actions of the dog cannot be determined in advance but neither does it have free will.

  12. phoodoo:
    OMagain,

    Remind you again of what the concepts of free will and no free will mean?

    Perhaps you need to start at veg beginning.. Using English preferably,not that thing Keith is using.

    It’s simple: keiths’ abandoning Christianity was predetermined at the big bang some 12.8 billion years ago as was mine to reject creationism…

    What can you do?

    Moreover, every letter written at TSZ had been predetermined at the big bang… possibly in some unknown laws of physics, such as the dark energy determinism…
    Your reading my post and wondering what the hell is dark energy determinism had already been determined at the big bang…

    According to this theory your reading my post was alredy predetermined but here is the catch:
    If I place you in an MRI scan, your brain will consistently show activity, or stimuli, and the MRI monitor will light up in one specific area of your brain 3-4 seconds before you read my post…

  13. phoodoo,

    If something is determined, you can’t choose it, it has already been chosen.

    No, it hasn’t been chosen yet. If it had, then your participation would not be necessary. Choices only get made when someone does the choosing.

    If a person considers the alternatives, evaluates them, compares them, and then selects the one that appears the best, they are making a choice. The outcome depends on what the person does. The choice is not pre-made.

    Predetermined, but not pre-made.

  14. phoodoo,

    You are making up concepts that don’t fit the English language. You have obliterated what the word choosing means.

    Here’s what the dictionary says:

    choose
    /CHo͞oz/

    verb
    1 pick out or select (someone or something) as being the best or most appropriate of two or more alternatives.
    “he chose a seat facing the door”

    2 decide on a course of action, typically after rejecting alternatives.
    “he chose to go”

    Those definitions work just fine when the outcome of the choice is predetermined.

    Think about it, phoodoo.

  15. CharlieM,

    Determinism applies to the inorganic world. When we rise to organic nature we enter into the realm of unpredictability.

    One line of thought that I came across recently but I don’t remember the source. Kick a stone and you get the determinism of the inorganic because its trajectory can be worked out from the forces applied. Kick a dog and the results will be unpredictable.

    Determinism doesn’t imply in-practice predictability. Chaotic systems (in the technical sense of ‘chaotic’) are deterministic but unpredictable. Even self-contained computer programs, which are paragons of determinism, can surprise us. As anyone who has ever programmed will tell you.

  16. walto,

    So are people morally responsible for their choices or not?

    I’ve explained that already. They are proximately responsible, but not ultimately responsible, for what they do.

    Btw, you should rethink your “all of the above” post.

    Why?

  17. J-Mac,

    If I place you in an MRI scan, your brain will consistently show activity, or stimuli, and the MRI monitor will light up in one specific area of your brain 3-4 seconds before you read my post…

    That’s the brain gearing up to protect itself from the incoming stupidity.

  18. keiths:
    walto,

    I’ve explained that already. They are proximately responsible, but not ultimately responsible, for what they do.

    Why?

    Are moral judgements usually about ultimate or proximate responsibility. What should they be about on your view?

    Because (ignoring quantum stuff) it’s not physically possible for the bus not to come if it comes. And why do you think it’s relevant to this issue that it’s metaphysically possible that the bus not come? You were obviously talking about epistemic possibility, and i think you should explain why you think that matters

  19. The more reliable we make things like electronic devices, the less possible it becomes to predict which ones will fail, and when.

  20. walto,

    Are moral judgements usually about ultimate or proximate responsibility.

    They’re usually about proximate responsibility.

    What should they be about on your view?

    Both. When the topic is the (in)justice of retributive punishment, then ultimate responsibility is the relevant kind of responsibility. When we’re talking about how to make society better, then proximate moral responsibility is the relevant kind.

  21. walto:

    Btw, you should rethink your “all of the above” post.

    keiths:

    Why?

    walto:

    Because (ignoring quantum stuff) it’s not physically possible for the bus not to come if it comes.

    Don’t forget my qualifier:

    The bus might not come even if determinism is false.

    If determinism is false, it may be physically possible both for the bus to come and for it not to come.

    walto:

    And why do you think it’s relevant to this issue that it’s metaphysically possible that the bus not come?

    I didn’t say anything about its relevance. I was answering your question, which was

    Might not? Epistemic? Metaphysical? Physical?

  22. keiths,

    Who cares if the bus “might not come” even if determinism is false? What are you trying to say there?

  23. keiths,

    Do you also split up “morally appropriate” on ultimate and proximate lines? I.e. is it morally appropriate (not better for society) to put someone in prison for 30 years for something they (ultimately) had no control about?

  24. keiths: best or most appropriate of two or more alternatives.

    You didn’t read this part?

    Its astounding to me that you don’t understand that from a deterministic viewpoint, there are no alternatives.

    The belief that there are alternatives is simply the result of our limited knowledge of the matrix. That is what determinism means.

    Just because you are making up a new meaning for yourself (that is a logical impossibility) you still have to deal with the actual meaning when discussing with others.

  25. CharlieM: The actions of the dog cannot be determined in advance but neither does it have free will.

    I can determine in advance exactly what my dogs reaction is to the mailman.

  26. phoodoo: Its astounding to me that you don’t understand that from a deterministic viewpoint, there are no alternatives.

    It can only be determined if there is no such things as random occurrences . A random number generator is deterministic but yields a random outcome.

  27. J-Mac: According to this theory your reading my post was alredy predetermined but here is the catch:
    If I place you in an MRI scan, your brain will consistently show activity, or stimuli, and the MRI monitor will light up in one specific area of your brain 3-4 seconds before you read my post…

    You have a link to this? I would like to learn about it.

  28. phoodoo,

    I think Keiths has it that there are alternatives that one can pick in one sense (if one wants to), and one can’t pick in another (because we can’t actually control whether we can want to).

    But which version(s) of ‘can’ are we using when we say that we can’t actually control whether we can want to? Seems like that’s the one (those are the ones?) that matter(s).

    He likes his determinism (like his epistemology and his ethics) toothless.

  29. newton: It can only be determined if there is no such things as random occurrences . A random number generator is deterministic but yields a random outcome.

    What random generator? No such thing exists.

    It only seems random because we don’t have the skill and brain power to follow the mechanism.

  30. walto: I think Keiths has it that there are alternatives that one can pick in one sense (if one wants to),

    But this is his fatal flaw. What is a “want” in determinism? It is nothing more that one specific alignment of the chemicals that we are. If the chemicals are in one position, in one space and time, then there will be one output, if it is in another , then the outcome becomes that.

    Want is simply what the chemicals are doing. This is what determinism means. The is no underlying magic, that gets to chose and want and decide (those are mystical properties that determinism pulls the veil off of and exposes as fake.)

  31. phoodoo,

    You shouldn’t conflate determinism and physicalism. Dualists can be deterministic. Even believe in paralellism. There’s Spinoza for example…and FMM. Both determinists, but neither think that wants are chemicals or chemical reactions.

  32. And, i suppose, what with quantum weirdness, physicalists don’t have to be determinists.

    Anyhow, they’re two different things. I don’t deny that they usually go together, but they don’t have to.

  33. walto:
    phoodoo,

    I think Keiths has it that there are alternatives that one can pick in one sense (if one wants to), and one can’t pick in another (because we can’t actually control whether we can want to).

    But which version(s) of ‘can’ are we using when we say that we can’t actually control whether we can want to? Seems like that’s the one (those are the ones?) that matter(s).

    He likes his determinism (like his epistemology and his ethics) toothless.

    What could it possibly mean to control what we want? What is the entity that wants to control what we want, and what controls it? Seems like a monumentally stupid infinite regress.

    Perhaps “we” have contradictory wants. We want to eat lots, and we want to stay healthy.

  34. Btw, i don’t like the comments according to which animals don’t have free will. I’m guessing they were made by people (like Descartes) who never had pets. Completely absurd.

  35. keiths:
    J-Mac,

    That’s the brain gearing up to protect itself from the incoming stupidity.

    You forgot to mention that the gearing up by the brain had already been predetermined as well as the stupidity…unless of course stupidity can happen before it’s cause…😉

  36. phoodoo: It only seems random because we don’t have the skill and brain power to follow the mechanism.

    You are assuming that.

  37. walto,

    Btw, i don’t like the comments according to which animals don’t have free will. I’m guessing they were made by people (like Descartes) who never had pets.

    There’s a horrible story — hopefully apocryphal — about Descartes vivisecting his wife’s dog after nailing it to a table. Animals are just automata, after all, according to Descartes. They don’t feel pain.

  38. phoodoo,

    Its astounding to me that you don’t understand that from a deterministic viewpoint, there are no alternatives.

    I understand the point you’re trying to make, but it simply isn’t true that there are no alternatives under determinism. Everyone sitting down in a restaurant has alternatives, and they are spelled out on the menu. The fact that you’ll inevitably choose one of them doesn’t mean that the other alternatives don’t exist.

    You consider the alternatives and select one based on your own tastes, desires, and thought processes. That’s called “deciding”, and it’s a real decision even if the outcome was predetermined.

  39. walto,

    Who cares if the bus “might not come” even if determinism is false? What are you trying to say there?

    I’m saying that you and phoodoo are making the same mistake regarding “can”. Reread this comment, substituting bus taking for ball throwing.

  40. keiths:
    phoodoo,

    I understand the point you’re trying to make, but it simply isn’t true that there are no alternatives under determinism.Everyone sitting down in a restaurant has alternatives, and they are spelled out on the menu.The fact that you’ll inevitably choose one of them doesn’t mean that the other alternatives don’t exist.

    You consider the alternatives and select one based on your own tastes, desires, and thought processes.That’s called “deciding”, and it’s a real decision even if the outcome was predetermined.

    How does bag of chemicals decide? Based on what? Are you, as Walto is suggesting, removing materialism from the equation? If that’s really what you doing, then as far as I am concerned, that’s not determinism. because if you are also removing materialism, then the whole morality discussion can longer be had, because we have now invoked a higher authority.

  41. newton: You are assuming that.

    Then tell about the random number generator you are talking about? You are the one assuming its random, because you assume it exists. What random number generator?

  42. walto,

    Do you also split up “morally appropriate” on ultimate and proximate lines? I.e. is it morally appropriate (not better for society) to put someone in prison for 30 years for something they (ultimately) had no control about?

    Not for retributive purposes. It’s only the other functions of incarceration (deterrence, rehabilitation, etc.) that can make it morally appropriate, and those are primarily societal benefits.

    It’s a tradeoff. All else equal, it’s morally appropriate to minimize punishment. But all else isn’t equal, not by a long shot. The inmate’s interests have to be weighed against those of society.

  43. walto:
    So are people morally responsible for their choices or not?

    If you are throwing away materialism, and allowing people to chose, then what’s left in your determinism game? Now you are just entering the realm of philosophy word nonsense. There can be all kinds of crazy philosophers who end up in Encyclopaedias because they said something crazy just before they entered the mental ward, like Cantor, but that doesn’t really mean there are different infinities.

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