Free-Will and Causality - Can there be both?

If I punch 10 different people in the face they are going to react in 10 distinctly different ways. Their reactions/responses may have some similarities but even the similarities will vary in degree, and in chronology. Our environment is the greatest external determinant factor of the choices we make and its is constantly changing and we are actively involved with its being changed.

Practical difficulties that accompany determinism are not sufficient reason to disbelieve in determinism.

This is easy to say for someone who believes whole heartedly in determinism. But for people who believe in free-will it is not a telling argument. Taking the position that free-will is something people experience all of the time and something that is acknowledged within the language of all cultures, I would claim that it is proponents of determinism who have the less plausible position, and must provide sufficient reason to give up belief in free-will -- not the other way around.

About the "blame' argument:

If you extend the extenuating circumstances to stuff you cannot possibly know about, the blameworthiness disappears. You may still feel angry with the person who wronged you but intellectually you know that both you and she do what you are both caused to do by circumstances.

Restate this as "what you are both pressured to do by circumstances" or even "what you are both tempted to do by circumstances", and blame can also countered in an environment that allows for the concept of free-will. In fact, the fact that an erstwhile blamer who has free-will now accepts the possibility that he/she might have done the same as the person he/she blamed, seems more compassionate, forgiving, and charitable than if that realization was simply caused deterministically by the appropriate amount of education. Also, the blamee in this situation still bears personal responsibility even though the wronged person has offered foregiveness -- again I view this as closer to perceived reality, and a morally superior outcome.

More on personal responsibility:

Both reason and sympathy give the wrongdoer the choice of whether or not to repeat the bad action, so she is more free, that is to say,she would be better able to assume personal responsibility than some wrongdoer who is unable to appreciate why what she did was wrong.

Your argument here acknowledges that the potential wrongdoer has freedom to change his/her behavior. This sounds like backing off from determinism. Yes, you define this freedom as enabled by liberty rather than by free-will -- but whatever you call it, it suggests that the choice is not totally determined by the past -- a present impulse seems to be one of the factors affecting the decision to repeat or not to repeat the action.

Finally, on absolute free-will:

Any amount of reasoning ability and sympathy does not make a person absolutely free to be personally responsible for decisions. ... Uncaused choices, as in 'Free Will' are not to be desired anyway, as such choices would not be caused by reason and sympathy but by a random process.

I'm in accord with McDoodle's response to this:

[In what way, for what reasons, must I believe in something 'absolute' about the nature of free will?

By defining free-will as an absolute idea that would only inhabit "area C" as I earlier defined it, and by asserting that your concept of liberty is totally distinct from this, you can of course attack the concept as leading to an essentially random process. But this seems to me a misdefinition. To me your concept of liberty is very close to what I'm describing as free-will, especially if you can accept what I suggested above, that liberty is not totally determined by the past; and I would claim that area C contains just the extreme case of liberty, where we can visualize it as operating with little pressure from the primitive urges etc. we have described as dwelling in area A.

In answer to a question in McDoodle's post about greater (or less) freedom, I view this apparent "strength factor" not as something inherent in the free-will phenomenon, but as a situational measure of the free-will's ability to influence whatever urges etc. are also operating at the time. But I'm also not averse to Belinda's suggestion that education in reasoning and compassion can make the free-will freer.

Mcdoodle wrote:[In what way, for what reasons, must I believe in something 'absolute' about the nature of free will?

This is the definition of 'Free Will' that philosophical determinists deal with .Voluntarism as the explanation of compatibilism is not a sound argument because my will is caused to be whatever it is.

It is important that Free Will is understood as absolute cause of itself, because if Free Will is not the cause of itself nothing remains for it but to be random choice. If true randomness existed the world would be completely and utterly unpredictable and to rational people such a world would feel horribly mad.

For a determinist the world is an 'Is' , not a 'maybe'.

In what way, for what reasons, must I believe in something 'absolute' about the nature of free will?

This is the definition of 'Free Will' that philosophical determinists deal with .Voluntarism as the explanation of compatibilism is not a sound argument because my will is caused to be whatever it is.

It is important that Free Will is understood as absolute cause of itself, because if Free Will is not the cause of itself nothing remains for it but to be random choice. If true randomness existed the world would be completely and utterly unpredictable and to rational people such a world would feel horribly mad.

I can't accept an argument that depends on an arbitrary definition of free-will, and then uses that definition to declare that free-will impossible. Please consider an alternative definition such as the one I have been forwarding (that free-will is very much the same as what you are calling liberty) and review the argument that this is voluntarily influenced by reasons rather than deterministically caused to be whatever it is. I think this takes away the randomness you object to, and allows instead for degrees of freedom in its operation: the mind -- at the behest of free-will -- is generating reasonable options as well recognizing instinctive urges (which may also be reasonable in some circumstances); and then the free-will does its best to select an action.

On my side, I'm very interested to learn more about the thinking behind your position. Can you argue in detail against what I am suggesting, or refer me to a reading (ideally available on the web) which has impressed you as stating your argument fully and clearly.

Thanks.

Mcdoodle wrote:[In what way, for what reasons, must I believe in something 'absolute' about the nature of free will?

This is the definition of 'Free Will' that philosophical determinists deal with .Voluntarism as the explanation of compatibilism is not a sound argument because my will is caused to be whatever it is.

It is important that Free Will is understood as absolute cause of itself, because if Free Will is not the cause of itself nothing remains for it but to be random choice. If true randomness existed the world would be completely and utterly unpredictable and to rational people such a world would feel horribly mad.

For a determinist the world is an 'Is' , not a 'maybe'.

I've been over the hills of West Yorkshire today reflecting on this

For myself, I am godless. Being godless, I don't use the word 'absolute' about anything but vodka. To me there are various narratives of truth and no absolutes. Every truth-narrative contains the possibility of doubt, even this sentence. it's very hard to find a common language if others insist on speaking of absolutes.

Interestingly, I've been wondering if I do believe free will has a (general) cause: in the evolution of consciousness. I believe that at some point humans, and to a much lesser extent certain other animals, evolved to an emergent state where they became capable of ruminating, at a functional level, on future possible courses of action, and choosing between them. From then on various possible worlds could have existed, but only the one we now live in came about because of a myriad of choices.

Then each free choice wouldn't necessarily be random, but could be regarded as considered.

Well, that's how I see it today. I've been reading Honderich, just online, he seems to have a tragic view in favour of determinism: that it involves a terrible giving-up, but then an affirmation. But his core argument seems to depend on this persistent myth (as I see it) that every event is an effect of causes, 'explanations' as he puts it: I don't see how anyone can arrive at that conclusion without sometimes ascribing an explanation to human agency and therefore to freewill. But there you go, that's me.

I think that 'tragic' is a good description of Honderich's view. Strong determinism has also been treated as comic depending upon the mood. According to how McDoodle defines 'Free Will' but not according to how Honderich, and I, define it, I agree with McDoodle when he says

Interestingly, I've been wondering if I do believe free will has a (general) cause: in the evolution of consciousness. I believe that at some point humans, and to a much lesser extent certain other animals, evolved to an emergent state where they became capable of ruminating, at a functional level, on future possible courses of action, and choosing between them. From then on various possible worlds could have existed, but only the one we now live in came about because of a myriad of choices.

Then each free choice wouldn't necessarily be random, but could be regarded as considered.

I simply don't see any evolved stuff, such as what McDoodle is suggesting free will may be,as uncaused, and I don't see any usefulness accrues in that case from adding 'free' to 'will'.

What I often try to explain is how some people's wills are relatively freer than other people's wills.But absolute Free Will, never! Not even a dash of it for extra spirit.In the scenario by McDoodle , above, then the more evolved would be the more free, generally speaking, and this I agree with.

I fancy you taking me and H2ouse not to mention Honderich , to the hills of west Yorkshire. Thanks

What I often try to explain is how some people's wills are relatively freer than other people's wills.But absolute Free Will, never! Not even a dash of it for extra spirit.In the scenario by McDoodle , above, then the more evolved would be the more free, generally speaking, and this I agree with.

I fancy you taking me and H2ouse not to mention Honderich , to the hills of west Yorkshire. Thanks

But, firstly, only you are using the word 'absolute', not I. You are putting it into my mouth when I don't use it. That's one thing I don't understand. Why do you think that's a satisfactory explanation, to people who wouldn't use a word you use? In what way do you believe I should be compelled to use it?

Secondly, a question of praxis - yes I was once almost a Marxist and I have been wondering if this question should come down from the high hills of theory to the vales of praxis. That is to say, what practical difference does our difference in opinion have? To my mind, the rational conclusion of your argument is an absurdity: because the rational conclusion is Honderich's tragic vision, that freedom of choice, however evolved, is utterly illusory. To me the rational thing for you to do is to give up applying reason to a problem because it won't make any difference. If it were to make a difference, then there would have been free will, for something other than what has transpired might have transpired instead.

To me the fallacy in this is present in Honderich's modernised version of your causation views as 'explanations': it's easy to have a retrospective 'explanation' for an action. All that shows is that we're an animal that likes to have an explanation. That's one of our favoured narratives. It doesn't make the explanation an accurate record of the process of causation. As far as I can see there can't conceivably (dangerously absolutist I know) - let's say it's very unlikely there can ever be an empirical record of the causation of any conscious act that would rule out the individual agent's decision between options, one of which might have happened but didn't. Yet you seem to be ruling out the notion that the world could ever have been different, as the result of a human agent's decision, from the way it's turned out. I'm convinced you don't actually live your life that way even though I don't know you. That's where I'm stuck, even down here in the valleys!

Forgive me that I am having difficulty in learning how to use the quote function.

Belinda.

You are correct in your statement that:"Both reason and sympathy give the wrongdoer the choice of whether or not to repeat the bad action".

However it is only through Empathy that the wrongdoer fully appreciates the wrongness in their action(s), and is thus more apt to take full responsibility for their action(s), and less likely to repeat their bad action(s).

If a "wrongdoer" values doing wrong as a means to an end because they were taught that what might be considered doing wrong is indeed not doing wrong at all but is an excepted practice then they are highly unlikely to be either sympathetic or have any empathy of the consequences of said wrong doing towards the wrong. There is no way to measure which emotion might be felt a greater amount of times(sympathy or empathy) because there are to many subjective factors that would need to be calculated that can never be known.

It is those same undetermined factors though along with an individual's personality -(a concept that needs to be addressed more by philosophy IMO) that do provide individuals with an opportunity to make a choice.

As far as I can see there can't conceivably (dangerously absolutist I know) - let's say it's very unlikely there can ever be an empirical record of the causation of any conscious act that would rule out the individual agent's decision between options, one of which might have happened but didn't. Yet you seem to be ruling out the notion that the world could ever have been different, as the result of a human agent's decision, from the way it's turned out. I'm convinced you don't actually live your life that way even though I don't know you. That's where I'm stuck, even down here in the valleys!

Belinda, I'm reading between the lines that if you were to accept McDoodle's and my own watered down definition of free-will, as something like liberty as you define it, then you could go along with much that we are arguing, including that human decisions CAN affect the future -- but only in limited way because our freedom to be reasonable and empathic is not absolute. I don't think either of us would disagree with this compromise position that I have just put into your mouth!

Perhaps we are guilty of trying to cast you as an 'absolute' determinist, when you do in fact accept that 'liberty' can change the progress of history, to some extent. I still don't quite know your beliefs on this.

McDoodle, in an earlier posting on this site you did characterize yourself as a determinist also; but by my own reckoning you too are not an 'absolute' determinist. In that case, we are all three flailing in the middle ground but disagreeing because the terms we use are different. For my part I know that for me, determinism DOES signify something absolute --causality with no input from "free intelligences" in the present; but I'm willing to use the term in a relative way if this helps to get past unnecessary disagreement. However, you may both really believe that determinism is an absolute scientific principle -- in which case I'll continue to beg to differ, call for your best arguments, and argue back until you persuade me otherwise, or vice versa, or just get tired of the exercise.

But please continue, this may not be pragmatic but it IS intellectually stimulating. And I've never been to the West Yorkshire hills and dales, though I do know the Lake District quite well from my childhood.

An everyone else, please join in, especially if you are hard determinists. I think that I'm the closest to a true dualist here - and I'm ready to duel to the death

H2ouse wrote:

Belinda, I'm reading between the lines that if you were to accept McDoodle's and my own watered down definition of free-will, as something like liberty as you define it, then you could go along with much that we are arguing, including that human decisions CAN affect the future -- but only in limited way because our freedom to be reasonable and empathic is not absolute. I don't think either of us would disagree with this compromise position that I have just put into your mouth!

Perhaps we are guilty of trying to cast you as an 'absolute' determinist, when you do in fact accept that 'liberty' can change the progress of history, to some extent. I still don't quite know your beliefs on this.

I agree with the above from H2ouse. As for liberty,humans are more agents of change than are , say, cows so humans have more liberty than cows. Those human individuals who can view their own and others' emotional reactions objectively and compassionately are even less like cattle and are more able to be agents of change than the other human individuals who are enthralled by their own unrefined emotions.It is sort of like stoicism except that I believe that emotions of one sort or another are inevitable as long as life persists. However the emotions of reason and sympathy free a person up to experience more liberty than ,say, the emotion of jealousy.As an absolute determinist I think that all events even the tiniest events change the progress of history, and that humans who are liberated to prefer the emotions of reason and of sympathy change the course of course of history faster than humans who are reactionary and reactive, clinging to old ways. The progress of history can be good or bad, but my loyalty is to that historical change that is led by reason and sympathy acting together.

I want to add that I think that the Free Will versus determinism dispute is a good one and even a moral dispute when one considers the ethical implications of free will or of determinism.

I agree with McDoodle who wrote(#247 paragraph 3) , as I understand him, that humans and other intelligent animals evolved to view the world through a veil of causes and effects , so causes and effects is a genetic predisposition. And, a genetic predisposition to hold any model of reality is not at all proof that the model corresponds to reality. I have said before that my deterministic beliefs are a matter of faith, in the end. Also I argue that pragmatically determinism is a sounder ethical and moral base than Free Will.

I am Marxist insofar as I think that historical change is materially , not idealogically, caused so that historical change is based upon economic needs for the basics of survival.

Analytical1-10, Isn't empathy the product of reason and sympathy ?

Grecorivera wrote:

There is no way to measure which emotion might be felt a greater amount of times(sympathy or empathy) because there are to many subjective factors that would need to be calculated that can never be known.

While it is true that human emotions are especially complex this is not an absolute bar to understanding and analysing them. Pavlov for instance identified and measured to some extent dogs' emotions by observing changes in their stomachs, and changes in the behavioural effects of the physiological changes. Same can be done for humans.I can identify and measure to some extent my own emotions by my responses of fear or of pleasure, by my various rationalisations of my emotions, and by the real effects of any of my emotions.

I would think in two options: (1) An absolute conditioning (2) Consciousness is not fully conditioned. Certainly we can calculate the disorder, but this does not imply any decision of any development from a perfect calculability of an "ideal conditions of possibility." A probability is not a decision, only is a probability. The analogy of man-machine is very useful here. I admit that there are only machines (including us) but the concept of "machine" does not necessary make us to think in a purely mechanical or symmetrical way. Instead we should think the question like as the decision does not just happen in conditions of possibility or probability of x program (the problem of undecidability). The decision breaks with the indecision of any structure - for example the verification that an algorithm is correct is never automatic. It is something like to say that an axiom is radically undefined, meaning that this axiom is not included factually and completely in a hypothetical syllogism and modus tollens, ie, cannot have a formal (mechanically) proof. It is undecidable (as choice´s axiom) and will not correct unless an intuitionism (like a pragmatist one) made the decision. All this can be summed up in one thought: The machine starts with an improbable decision. If the undecidability resides in the structure (like causality) as such, in this case any decision to develop one of its possibilities will be contingent or external to the structure. I.e, the effect always overflows the cause.

McDoodle, in an earlier posting on this site you did characterize yourself as a determinist also; but by my own reckoning you too are not an 'absolute' determinist.

Did I really? I can't find it, and don't remember it. If I did, I've certainly shifted

I agree with McDoodle who wrote(#247 paragraph 3) , as I understand him, that humans and other intelligent animals evolved to view the world through a veil of causes and effects , so causes and effects is a genetic predisposition. And, a genetic predisposition to hold any model of reality is not at all proof that the model corresponds to reality. I have said before that my deterministic beliefs are a matter of faith, in the end. Also I argue that pragmatically determinism is a sounder ethical and moral base than Free Will.

I am Marxist insofar as I think that historical change is materially , not idealogically, caused so that historical change is based upon economic needs for the basics of survival.

Perhaps we've reached some point of honourable agreement and agreement-to-disagree, I don't know.

I do feel in my lifetime I've moved from somewhere near an anti-Communist Marxism to a more cultural basis for change: e.g. Foucault.

In my own mind I'm focused for the present on praxis. I finished Sam Harris on 'Free Will' and found it very unsatisfactory. He now has a PhD in neuroscience. He makes a very big leap from (a) observations that brain activity happens in certain narrow mechancial circumstances before subjects press a button to say that they've consciously initiated the change associated with the brain activity to (b) therefore freewill is a fallacy.

The praxis to me is that in biography and history we - freewillingers and determinists alike - speak both of wider forces at work on people, and of the influence of individuals, whom we sometimes describe as having made important 'decisions' or 'choices' when other possible courses of action might have been possible. I'm not clear if there is a correlation between theoretical views about freewill, and actual descriptions of past human events; I'd be interested in them if so.

No determinist, to the best of my knowledge, has proposed any work of history or biography, or as Foucault would call it, genealogy or archaeology, that traces human affairs back to the operations of specific neurons. There are generalisations about 'dna' and human beings, but nothing more specific than that. So to my mind, in the meaning-as-use sense, determinists often describe the actions of humans as if they had been free actions, and always describe the effects of human actions, in anything beyond trivial mechanical tasks, at a functional level, not at a neuroscientific level. In these senses then there isn't a fundamental difference between people of superficially opposing views.

This is to me taking the debate into a different area. What is a belief in freewill for? What is a belief in determinism for?

Sympathy and empathy are highly context driven emotions . When I spoke of the factors involved i was talking about the entirety of an individuals socialization and psychological development. I was also talking about the "wrongdoer" in the terms of normative behavior- someone who might be considered a sociopath or a psychopath. If we are going to try and conduct tests with this control group expecting some potential empathetic or sympathetic response due a stimuli meant to illicit such a response because it was similar to some traumatic experience the subject may have had we would just as likely get instantaneous violent outbursts as reactions or signs of complete withdrawal or apathy as well. I can not defer to behavior experiments on dogs as being useful when dealing with individual human intellects. If I wanted to learn about dog behavior separate from their interactions with humans I certainly would not apply assertions from tests that were done on humans. You can measure your emotional response because you have insight that outside intellects do no have but have to be able to learn from you through observation and psychoanalysis .

McDoodle, in an earlier posting on this site you did characterize yourself as a determinist also; but by my own reckoning you too are not an 'absolute' determinist.

Did I really? I can't find it, and don't remember it. If I did, I've certainly shifted

I swear I saw it, but I just reviewed your posts and can't find it again. (I will admit it surprised me greatly at the time.)

Perhaps we've reached some point of honourable agreement and agreement-to-disagree, I don't know.

I agree, -ish. If Belinda accepts the position. I feel there may be more arguments to the left of her (epstemologically, that is, with 'left' being, by her definition, the more determinist end. In a way, I'm a little disappointed -- I wanted understand the determinist position better (absolute determinist, that is).

As an absolute determinist I think that all events even the tiniest events change the progress of history, and that humans who are liberated to prefer the emotions of reason and of sympathy change the course of course of history faster than humans who are reactionary and reactive, clinging to old ways.

Belinda, if this is your position I agree with it wholeheartedly. But for me, absolute determinism has always described the position that all events past and future stemmed and will stem from fixed causes, and that therefore the future is already as clearly determined as the past ,if only we could see it. This is the position that I find difficult -- your own version sounds much more acceptable -- and I think that most people now on the site are agreeing with you in their different ways. I was sorry that we lost RJG, who really seemed to be arguing the extreme position. I still don't understand how a person can believe this extreme position, but it has been taken recently by many very respectable thinkers.

So to my mind, in the meaning-as-use sense, determinists often describe the actions of humans as if they had been free actions, and always describe the effects of human actions, in anything beyond trivial mechanical tasks, at a functional level, not at a neuroscientific level. In these senses then there isn't a fundamental difference between people of superficially opposing views.

Agreed, except when we get down to the hardest nosed, down to the wire, absolute determinist.

This is to me taking the debate into a different area. What is a belief in freewill for? What is a belief in determinism for?

Just to be argumentative -- this sounds like a teleological question. My position is that history merely unfolds; it isn't directed towards an end, it just 'becomes'. Question for Scott -- should these types of questions be raised in another forum, or can they continue in this one?