Free will
The other night at philosophy club (this was weeks ago), the topic of free will came up again. And I got my mind changed. It was awesome, you should have been there (well, Jack, Michelle, and Andrew were there, but everyone else should have been, too).
We started off with "the inconsistent triad," three innocuous-seeming propositions which make sense to most people individually, but which cannot all be true. They are:1. Some actions are freely chosen.
2. Every event has a causal explanation.
3. If 2 is true, then 1 is false.
To spare you centuries of debate, I'll simply tell you right now that one of these must be rejected and which one you reject will place you in one of three philosophical camps: if you think 1 is false, you're a determinist; if you think 2 is false, you're a libertarian (this is different from the political doctrine); if you think 3 is false, you're a compatibilist.
Determinists believe that since every event has a causal explanation, then mental events have causal explanations. What's more, once we see that everything in the complex chain-reactions of our lives has a strictly causal explanation, we will be faced with the inescapable conclusion that there is no such thing as free will simply because there's no room for it. I used to be of this position (err, well, I still am in a way, but we'll get to that later). The strictly causal explanation means that if you were to (somehow) set things up exactly as they once were, they would play out again exactly as they did the first time. This is, however, impossible - we simply cannot set things up with a high-enough degree of similarity, because experiences change people and lead them to behave differently. In all the important ways (to the experiment), you are a different person than you were the first time, and the clock can't be turned back.
There's a serious problem with the debate between libertarians and determinists, , and it's a problem mainly of emphasis. On the one hand, the libertarian can say that our first-hand experiences of being ourselves make it the "default" position that we are free-willed; since the experiment that would prove or disprove determinism is impossible, the determinist’s claim is unfalsifiable and should be rejected until evidence can be gathered for it. The determinist responds that our experiences with the rest of the world show clearly that things behave in strictly causal and non-willed fashion, shifting the burden of proof onto the proposition that we have free will; since the experiment is impossible, the libertarian’s claim that we have free will is unfalsifiable and should be rejected until blah blah blah same thing. So which should hold the emphasis: our first-hand experience (that it seems like we have free will), or our experience with the rest of the world? Where does the burden of proof lie?
I think it lies on the libertarian, simply because I have yet to hear a coherent account of just what the Hell "free will" is. This sounds like nit-picking, but please, go ahead and try to define it in a way that doesn't sound mystical, magical, supernatural, or otherwise like nonsense. I believe it was Descartes (I'd be interested to know for sure, but not enough to look it up myself, so please correct me if you know off the top of your head) who pointed out that we generally wish for our decisions to be rational, and reason isn't something we "choose," it's more something we "obey," so really, a fully rational person couldn't said to be "free" because he'd behave according to the dictates of reason in every case, doing the most rational thing that he could control in light of factors which are beyond his control.
There is a second issue I take with the libertarian position, one which also must be overcome (this isn't an "either-or" thing), and it is that the alternative to "caused" is not "free," nor is it even "random," it is fucking magic. I've argued elsewhere that "chance" is an epistemological term, not a metaphysical one: the only reason we cannot accurately predict the fall of a die (or the flip of a coin) is that we cannot measure quickly or precisely enough to take all the relevant causal factors into account which would lead us to the correct outcome. Every step of the way, the die (or coin) behaves according to strict, brute, physical causality as it leaves your hand, rotates in the air, and bounces around on the table - no chance involved, strictly speaking, except to say that it's a total crapshoot for anyone trying to accurately predict it. Literally, in some cases. Everything that we have ever observed behaves causally, it appears; it is only when we are unable to sufficiently track (or determine) the relevant causal factors that we say it is a "random" or "chance" event. We even speak of ourselves and each other in deterministic terms, such as: that made me feel such-and-such, this made me think blah-blah-blah, your words caused me to realize this-and-that, and so on. Even when we say that something "has a mind of its own," what we generally mean is that something is causing it to malfunction in unpredictable ways.
So, to re-cap, the libertarian position's main problems cluster around the fact that, when you get down to brass tacks, it makes no sense. This doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong, it simply means that right now, they have no really good arguments to overcome the (currently) crushing objections to the position.
Compatibilism, I used to believe, was the naive position that we have free will somehow, I guess magically, despite the fact that every physical event (the operations of our brains included) has a purely causal explanation - The End. Actually, that's a straw-man (according to Stewart, anyway), and it turns out that I've been a compatibilist in secret these past three years or so. Compatibilism is the position that the first two propositions are true, but a consistent and coherent account of what it means to be "free" will dissolve the conflict that causes the third proposition to be true. In other words, like the determinist, the compatibilist holds that every action has a strictly causal explanation, but we should preserve the term "free" because we certainly feel that way, and re-define it in order to make it more consistent with the observed facts. Free will simply cannot mean "the ability to do whatever one pleases," for it may please me to fly unaided through the air and I am not free to do so - I require some rather significant assistance, in fact. We could then talk about the freedom to do whatever is logically possible, but that quickly backs us into a corner where the determinist says that logical possibility is dictated by the contingent facts of the Universe in which we currently find ourselves, and the only logically possible acts are those which we do in fact end up taking; the libertarian will simply say that that's not true and blow raspberries. To avoid that quagmire, the compatibilist chooses a more legalistic definition of "free," which could be rather easily summed up as "un-coerced."
On this view, un-coerced choices are simply those in which we engage in a deliberative process in order to arrive at a desired end after considering alternative routes to get there, causal stories notwithstanding. Just what constitutes "coercion" can be a sticky issue, but I think a rather rough-and-ready litmus test can be applied, concerning mainly whether you could legitimately argue that you "had no choice." An easy example is when a robber has a gun to your head and says, "Your money or your life." If you give him your money, he'll likely let you live; if you decline, he'll kill you and take it anyway. Really, the best thing for you to do (absent extensive martial arts training) is to fork over the dough. Even though the make-sense thing to do kind of sucks, the alternatives suck so much more that you really don't have a choice - not a good choice, anyway. Suppose, however, that you successfully disarm and capture the man, say in a solid arm-bar with him face-down on the ground. You can pull out your cell phone and call the cops; you can knock the guy out; you can kill him and claim self-defense. In these cases, the choice isn't so forcefully straightforward: the different courses of action can yield distinctly different results, without making that great of a difference in the threat-level to you: killing him reduces immediate threats, but creates long-term ones; calling the cops is the reverse; and knocking him out and walking away avoids the hassle of the police report but creates the possibility of revenge. In all cases, though, you're pretty likely to wind up safe in your own bed that night (which I'm assuming is the most immediate goal). In any event, the decision is largely "up to you," without much coercion involved - all discernible influences on the outcome of your deliberative process are largely the results of your own mental processes at the time, and nobody else's. Choosing which box of cereal to eat in the morning is another easy example of an un-coerced choice. Sure, factors out of your control are influencing your decision, many in ways you aren't even aware of, but there's no real threat to you based on whether you pick Coco Puffs or Lucky Charms.
So yeah, Stewart had me convinced that the position I was advocating was compatibilism - none of my beliefs changed, merely the description with which I labeled them. I still think that determinism is the case, but agree with the compatibilist that we need to refine our common-sense definition of "free," because it's a very useful word that we should keep. Or, "free will" is an illusion that is so persistent that it's often useful to talk about it. I mean, we still engage in deliberative processes, we still make choices, we still think about what we're going to do, and we still don't know the future; the fact that it's all on rails (rails which nobody knows where they're going) doesn't change any of that. Man is free as an un-dammed river is free. But I was talking with Chris last night, and now I’m not quite sure. I mean, about whether I’m a compatibilist or not. Basically, what Chris argued was that the version of compatibilism (and apparently, there are a lot) I was advocating was actually determinism in disguise, since they agree on how the Universe works and are arguing a semantic issue that is distracting from the debate - the referents of the words, and not the words themselves, are what’s at issue. I, for one, think that the use and meaning of words is rather important, especially to philosophers, and tried to argue that there’s a significant enough difference in emphasis to justify the break in position. Chris disagrees, arguing that we can’t really hash out what people believe if they insist on redefining their terms mid-argument: in the terms of the compatibilist, the libertarian is left without words to describe his position, since “free” no longer can mean what the libertarian wants it to mean. If we were to change the first proposition to read, “Some actions are chosen by means of the libertarian’s gypsy magic,” then the determinist would still oppose the libertarian and the compatibilist would find himself agreeing with the determinist - indistinguishable from him, in fact.
So now, I’m torn. I was going to talk about the appeals of each side of the debate, but I think I’m just going to talk to Stewart at my next available opportunity, unless Andrew or Michelle can clear this up for me sooner.
We started off with "the inconsistent triad," three innocuous-seeming propositions which make sense to most people individually, but which cannot all be true. They are:1. Some actions are freely chosen.
2. Every event has a causal explanation.
3. If 2 is true, then 1 is false.
To spare you centuries of debate, I'll simply tell you right now that one of these must be rejected and which one you reject will place you in one of three philosophical camps: if you think 1 is false, you're a determinist; if you think 2 is false, you're a libertarian (this is different from the political doctrine); if you think 3 is false, you're a compatibilist.
Determinists believe that since every event has a causal explanation, then mental events have causal explanations. What's more, once we see that everything in the complex chain-reactions of our lives has a strictly causal explanation, we will be faced with the inescapable conclusion that there is no such thing as free will simply because there's no room for it. I used to be of this position (err, well, I still am in a way, but we'll get to that later). The strictly causal explanation means that if you were to (somehow) set things up exactly as they once were, they would play out again exactly as they did the first time. This is, however, impossible - we simply cannot set things up with a high-enough degree of similarity, because experiences change people and lead them to behave differently. In all the important ways (to the experiment), you are a different person than you were the first time, and the clock can't be turned back.
There's a serious problem with the debate between libertarians and determinists, , and it's a problem mainly of emphasis. On the one hand, the libertarian can say that our first-hand experiences of being ourselves make it the "default" position that we are free-willed; since the experiment that would prove or disprove determinism is impossible, the determinist’s claim is unfalsifiable and should be rejected until evidence can be gathered for it. The determinist responds that our experiences with the rest of the world show clearly that things behave in strictly causal and non-willed fashion, shifting the burden of proof onto the proposition that we have free will; since the experiment is impossible, the libertarian’s claim that we have free will is unfalsifiable and should be rejected until blah blah blah same thing. So which should hold the emphasis: our first-hand experience (that it seems like we have free will), or our experience with the rest of the world? Where does the burden of proof lie?
I think it lies on the libertarian, simply because I have yet to hear a coherent account of just what the Hell "free will" is. This sounds like nit-picking, but please, go ahead and try to define it in a way that doesn't sound mystical, magical, supernatural, or otherwise like nonsense. I believe it was Descartes (I'd be interested to know for sure, but not enough to look it up myself, so please correct me if you know off the top of your head) who pointed out that we generally wish for our decisions to be rational, and reason isn't something we "choose," it's more something we "obey," so really, a fully rational person couldn't said to be "free" because he'd behave according to the dictates of reason in every case, doing the most rational thing that he could control in light of factors which are beyond his control.
There is a second issue I take with the libertarian position, one which also must be overcome (this isn't an "either-or" thing), and it is that the alternative to "caused" is not "free," nor is it even "random," it is fucking magic. I've argued elsewhere that "chance" is an epistemological term, not a metaphysical one: the only reason we cannot accurately predict the fall of a die (or the flip of a coin) is that we cannot measure quickly or precisely enough to take all the relevant causal factors into account which would lead us to the correct outcome. Every step of the way, the die (or coin) behaves according to strict, brute, physical causality as it leaves your hand, rotates in the air, and bounces around on the table - no chance involved, strictly speaking, except to say that it's a total crapshoot for anyone trying to accurately predict it. Literally, in some cases. Everything that we have ever observed behaves causally, it appears; it is only when we are unable to sufficiently track (or determine) the relevant causal factors that we say it is a "random" or "chance" event. We even speak of ourselves and each other in deterministic terms, such as: that made me feel such-and-such, this made me think blah-blah-blah, your words caused me to realize this-and-that, and so on. Even when we say that something "has a mind of its own," what we generally mean is that something is causing it to malfunction in unpredictable ways.
So, to re-cap, the libertarian position's main problems cluster around the fact that, when you get down to brass tacks, it makes no sense. This doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong, it simply means that right now, they have no really good arguments to overcome the (currently) crushing objections to the position.
Compatibilism, I used to believe, was the naive position that we have free will somehow, I guess magically, despite the fact that every physical event (the operations of our brains included) has a purely causal explanation - The End. Actually, that's a straw-man (according to Stewart, anyway), and it turns out that I've been a compatibilist in secret these past three years or so. Compatibilism is the position that the first two propositions are true, but a consistent and coherent account of what it means to be "free" will dissolve the conflict that causes the third proposition to be true. In other words, like the determinist, the compatibilist holds that every action has a strictly causal explanation, but we should preserve the term "free" because we certainly feel that way, and re-define it in order to make it more consistent with the observed facts. Free will simply cannot mean "the ability to do whatever one pleases," for it may please me to fly unaided through the air and I am not free to do so - I require some rather significant assistance, in fact. We could then talk about the freedom to do whatever is logically possible, but that quickly backs us into a corner where the determinist says that logical possibility is dictated by the contingent facts of the Universe in which we currently find ourselves, and the only logically possible acts are those which we do in fact end up taking; the libertarian will simply say that that's not true and blow raspberries. To avoid that quagmire, the compatibilist chooses a more legalistic definition of "free," which could be rather easily summed up as "un-coerced."
On this view, un-coerced choices are simply those in which we engage in a deliberative process in order to arrive at a desired end after considering alternative routes to get there, causal stories notwithstanding. Just what constitutes "coercion" can be a sticky issue, but I think a rather rough-and-ready litmus test can be applied, concerning mainly whether you could legitimately argue that you "had no choice." An easy example is when a robber has a gun to your head and says, "Your money or your life." If you give him your money, he'll likely let you live; if you decline, he'll kill you and take it anyway. Really, the best thing for you to do (absent extensive martial arts training) is to fork over the dough. Even though the make-sense thing to do kind of sucks, the alternatives suck so much more that you really don't have a choice - not a good choice, anyway. Suppose, however, that you successfully disarm and capture the man, say in a solid arm-bar with him face-down on the ground. You can pull out your cell phone and call the cops; you can knock the guy out; you can kill him and claim self-defense. In these cases, the choice isn't so forcefully straightforward: the different courses of action can yield distinctly different results, without making that great of a difference in the threat-level to you: killing him reduces immediate threats, but creates long-term ones; calling the cops is the reverse; and knocking him out and walking away avoids the hassle of the police report but creates the possibility of revenge. In all cases, though, you're pretty likely to wind up safe in your own bed that night (which I'm assuming is the most immediate goal). In any event, the decision is largely "up to you," without much coercion involved - all discernible influences on the outcome of your deliberative process are largely the results of your own mental processes at the time, and nobody else's. Choosing which box of cereal to eat in the morning is another easy example of an un-coerced choice. Sure, factors out of your control are influencing your decision, many in ways you aren't even aware of, but there's no real threat to you based on whether you pick Coco Puffs or Lucky Charms.
So yeah, Stewart had me convinced that the position I was advocating was compatibilism - none of my beliefs changed, merely the description with which I labeled them. I still think that determinism is the case, but agree with the compatibilist that we need to refine our common-sense definition of "free," because it's a very useful word that we should keep. Or, "free will" is an illusion that is so persistent that it's often useful to talk about it. I mean, we still engage in deliberative processes, we still make choices, we still think about what we're going to do, and we still don't know the future; the fact that it's all on rails (rails which nobody knows where they're going) doesn't change any of that. Man is free as an un-dammed river is free. But I was talking with Chris last night, and now I’m not quite sure. I mean, about whether I’m a compatibilist or not. Basically, what Chris argued was that the version of compatibilism (and apparently, there are a lot) I was advocating was actually determinism in disguise, since they agree on how the Universe works and are arguing a semantic issue that is distracting from the debate - the referents of the words, and not the words themselves, are what’s at issue. I, for one, think that the use and meaning of words is rather important, especially to philosophers, and tried to argue that there’s a significant enough difference in emphasis to justify the break in position. Chris disagrees, arguing that we can’t really hash out what people believe if they insist on redefining their terms mid-argument: in the terms of the compatibilist, the libertarian is left without words to describe his position, since “free” no longer can mean what the libertarian wants it to mean. If we were to change the first proposition to read, “Some actions are chosen by means of the libertarian’s gypsy magic,” then the determinist would still oppose the libertarian and the compatibilist would find himself agreeing with the determinist - indistinguishable from him, in fact.
So now, I’m torn. I was going to talk about the appeals of each side of the debate, but I think I’m just going to talk to Stewart at my next available opportunity, unless Andrew or Michelle can clear this up for me sooner.