An interesting thought.

I might go back and take a look at the logic of the argument again before continuing.

In Stoveian fashion (as I understand it), I would say this is likewise a bad argument, because to have free will (in everyday terms) means that we are free to choose according to our will or according to our desires. We shouldn't be expected (in philosophical terms) to "get out of them" in order to remake the will as we desire. For then we would have no desires with which to choose how to remake the will. — Luke

I think the issue is that free will in everyday terms doesn't give you the kind of agency that is necessary for moral responsibility, so it doesn't really matter for the argument whether we have that kind of free will or not. Or in other words the issue I think he raises, is that you would in fact have to be able to choose your will to retain the idea of moral responsibility. I'm not sure I entirely agree with this, but I think that is the argument anyway.

The essence of free will is to be out of the causal web and still be in it - to wish not to be an effect and yet be a cause. Free will is defined thus: to be able to make choices (we want to be causes) without these choices being themselves out of our control (we don't want to be effects). Is this possible or should I say reasonable?

There are two aspects to any individual. The physical body and the mind and causality seems to operate differently for them.

The body is affected by, well, physical stuff and there's no way we can transcend physical laws of nature - if you jump off the third floor of a building you will get hurt.

Although it's true that ideas are a matter of preferences - our belief systems adapt to our mindset - there are many times our mindset adapts to beliefs. Rationality is the primary agent that brings this about. Yet, rationality isn't in the business of offering us choices - it demands allegiance to beliefs that have been demonstrated true or else prepare to live a life of pain.

Yet, it can't be denied that not matter what reason dictates, we still can choose what to believe and what not to believe. Reminds me of someone who once said, paraphrasing, "truth is something that doesn't go away even when you choose not to believe it". Whatever truth may be, the sentence let the cat out of the bag - we're free to choose our beliefs no matter what logic or reason says.

As you can see, two forces are at play here. On one side of the ring are our preferences that have the power to influence our minds and on the other side of the ring is rationality that can exert an opposing influence. It boils down to this then: we're prisoners of our preferences but rationality is our get out of jail card but we've enough freedom to defy rationality. It's like being in a cage of our preferences, in possession of the key to the cage, rationality, and being completely free whether to use the key or not.

What's your opinion on this?

Or in other words the issue I think he raises, is that you would in fact have to be able to choose your will to retain the idea of moral responsibility. I'm not sure I entirely agree with this, but I think that is the argument anyway. — ChatteringMonkey

Yes, this is how I also understand Strawson's argument. I'm calling it a bad argument because the will is the source of our choosing between options. According to Strawson "how one acts is a result of, or explained by, “how one is, mentally speaking” (M)." To have truly free will, Strawson argues that we must be able to choose M (or how one is, mentally speaking) from scratch, whereas I would argue that one requires M in order to be able to choose anything, so one is not able to choose M without M. If "how one acts is a result of...M", then one cannot act without M (in order to choose M).

The essence of free will is to be out of the causal web and still be in it - to wish not to be an effect and yet be a cause. Free will is defined thus: to be able to make choices (we want to be causes) without these choices being themselves out of our control (we don't want to be effects). Is this possible or should I say reasonable? — TheMadFool

I was conscious before posting the OP that I had omitted any mention of determinism. However, I think the deterministic argument is of a similar form or makes similar assumptions as Strawson's argument: namely, that one needs to be able to choose M in order to be the cause of their choices in order to truly have free will. See the post above.

Yes, this is how I also understand Strawson's argument. I'm calling it a bad argument because the will is the source of our choosing between options. According to Strawson "how one acts is a result of, or explained by, “how one is, mentally speaking” (M)." To have truly free will, Strawson argues that we must be able to choose M (or how one is, mentally speaking) from scratch, whereas I would argue that one requires M in order to be able to choose anything, so one is not able to choose M without M. If "how one acts is a result of...M", then one cannot act without M (in order to choose M). — Luke

Ok, I fully agree to all of this... I think we make choices and our will determines those. In fact we need a will to be even able to make choices.

Where we possibly disagree, is that I wouldn't call that will free, precisely because we don't choose our will. You might say we are 'free' to make choices according to our will, but what does the word free really mean in that instance? I can see making a distinction between making choices based on our own will and being externally coerced into certain choices, but that to me isn't so much a difference between free and not free, but rather between externally or internally determined.

I will say I think of the concept of 'free will' as a religious invention to make people feel guilt with the purpose of controlling or manipulating people, so I'm biased against the idea... so maybe I'm not giving the most charitable interpretation of the concept.

You might say we are 'free' to make choices according to our will, but what does the word free really mean in that instance? — ChatteringMonkey

It could mean, as you note, that nothing outside our will is forcing us to make that choice.

It could mean, as you note, that nothing outside our will is forcing us to make that choice. — Luke

Yes, and I wouldn't have a problem with that per se. But what really matters is not so much if there is an account that would be acceptable, but if that account suffices to be able to speak about moral responsibility right? That's what really at stake it seems to me.

But what really matters is not so much if there is an account that would be acceptable, but if that account suffices to be able to speak about moral responsibility right? That's what really at stake it seems to me. — ChatteringMonkey

What's lacking, or what would such an account require in order to "suffice" in this way?

What's lacking, or what would such an account require in order to "suffice" in this way? — Luke

I'm not quite sure as I indicated in my first post. Maybe there is a problem with our conception of morality being tied to freedom in the first place. Maybe we just lack adequate or accurate psychological descriptions at this point to make relevant distinctions for the purpose of assigning moral responsibility... In law for instance we do see some attempts at this, in that we do exempt people in some cases from legal responsibility, like age, (temporal) insanity etc... but we do not exempt other things that seem otherwise pretty similar. I feel like there's something there, but it does all seem a little bit murky and arbitrary to me.

For then we would have no desires with which to choose how to remake the will. — Luke

There was a fellow who said that free will and desire are incompatible. Further, that freedom is - means - freedom to do one's duty under direction of reason. But he was Prussian.

Maybe to clarify.

If we do not choose our will, and our will determines what choices we make... you could say that that implies there is no way in which we could have chosen otherwise. Acting otherwise implies in some sense that we would have another will, which we have no control over.

Can you say someone is morally responsible if he couldn't have acted otherwise? Maybe if the ability to act otherwise is not a criterium for moral responsibility etc...

I can't see how that could be made coherent.

Even if there are causes that determine what will happen next, it remains that we do not know what that will be; the complexities are such that even a deterministic future is unpredictable.

SO even though what happens is in this sense determined, we don't know what it is we will do next.

It seems to me that we are trying to join together two disparate ways of talking. On the one hand we have physical laws that set out what will happen in something like a "bread loaf universe", on the other we have the fact of not knowing what we will do next, of being in a state of existential uncertainty, with all the consequent angst.

It's tempting to think that the determinism narrative overrides the choice narrative, so that we seem to be unwilling puppets. But that doesn't quite make sense, since we do what we will ourselves to do. It's tempting to see free will as an illusion, but again that seems to be wrong, for much the same reasons that, say, having a pain cannot be an illusion.

I'd describe these two ways of describing a situation as contrary, not contradictory.

I think the better presentation of the argument comes just after the piece you quoted - that we have eyes, and therefore we cannot see.

And that puts me in mind of the sort of analysis offered by Austin in Sense and Sensibilia. There are those who do offer the argument that since we can only see that tree over there (it's always a tree) using our eyes, we can never see the actual tree. It's an absurd argument. If you are not seeing the tree, what exactly is it that you are seeing? And how is it that what you see and what I see are the very same? And how is it that you can on occasion be mistaken as to what you see, if what you see is not in some sense seperate from what is actually out there?

Same for the notion of conceptual schemes, as used here: we can never understand except by using our conceptual schemes, and hence we never understand what is actually going on. But if your understand is not, rightly or wrongly, about what is actually going on, then what is it about? And if your understanding is restricted just to you, how is it that we can agree, or even disagree, as to the facts? And how could you be wrong, if all you ever understand is what you want to understand?

(I reject the notion of conceptual schemes on other grounds as well - See Davidson's On the very idea of a conceptual scheme.)

So does this, as @Luke suggests, work for free will?

That the will (brain) is free to operate seems to be all the 'free' that one can have.

Strawson is saying that we are not responsible for what we've become.

What we've become is our will.

Banno, I think I agree that they are two ways of description on a different level or from a different perspective, but I don't think I'm pitting free will against determinism here. It's more an argument at the conceptual level I think, and I don't know if that necessarily has a lot to do with determinism. Maybe it does, I'm not entirely sure...

We make choices. What is that we that is making the choices? I'd say we are our will, by and large. That's still not really all that illuminating maybe... Let's say our will is a compound of different forces competing with eachother, maybe mediated by reason, maybe influenced by external sources etc... Whatever it is, my question would be, where does the freedom come in? What kind of, or what degree of freedom is it, if there is any? And what kind of freedom do we need or expect for moral responsibility?

Maybe reason could play a role there, but it still seems like you need some pre-existing volition to make a decision ultimately, logic on it's own can't tell you that. So it seems even only at the conceptual level, free will doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Therefor i'm tempted to say, we have a will [period]. It's not really free because we (our will) do not choose our will.

If free will is only the claim that we make choices, then yes I have no qualms with that, that seems (maybe trivially) true to me.

In Stoveian fashion (as I understand it), I would say this is likewise a bad argument, because to have free will (in everyday terms) means that we are free to choose according to our will or according to our desires. We shouldn't be expected (in philosophical terms) to "get out of them" in order to remake the will as we desire. For then we would have no desires with which to choose how to remake the will. — Luke

So instead of "we have eyes, therefore we cannot see", it would be "we have desires, therefore we cannot choose"...

At first blush this looks pretty good. A close analogue.

A few issues to iron out, though. The tree, in the sight example, and the reality described by our conceptual scheme in the second example, are in a sense external, outside of and hence distinct from the seeing and the thinking. Are our desires external, in a suitably analogous way? And is this a fair representation of what Strawson has argued?

Good OP...

Sure, you have a will. I am a lot more than just my will. I am also my desires, feelings, pains, endeavours, failings, hunger, property, friends, cat...

I just don't think that will, despite its philosophical credentials, is any where near adequate to a description of the self.

And I would add to that, in descriptions of the self in the psychology I have read and in cognitive science, the will, while it might sometimes feature, does not dominate in the way that would be expected if Schopie and the moustachioed one were right.

@Isaac knows his psychology. Perhaps he will chime in.

Right, I will admit that I don't exactly know what's going on there, I used it mostly as a container-term, not necessarily as an exact one to one representation of something that goes one in our minds.

But then again, I don't think I'm the only one that doesn't know. And maybe that's part of the problem with morality and free will that it just assumes a kind of agency without really knowing what is going on.

:smile:

On the contrary, that we don't know is at the very heart of the matter. In that regard, I take Sartre as presenting a clearer view of the situation than Nietzsche. The fact of not knowing is what sets up the existential crisis of choice.

It would be insincere, and confused, and indeed disingenuous, to claim our choices are determined by our will, yet still maintain that our choices are free.

Well, I may not know exactly what's going on, but probably just enough to know that Sartre's idea of radical freedom is maybe a bit to radical :-).

Anyway, I do like the Moustace, but I take your point that his idea of will is probably a bit outdated by now.

Sartre's idea of radical freedom is maybe a bit to radical — ChatteringMonkey

Indeed...

precisely because we don't choose our will. — ChatteringMonkey

As far as I understand your opposition then I don't understand how a will can ever be "free". If you can choose between food item A or B, you need some sort of will to be able to choose. If you have to choose between will A or B you still need some sort of will to be able to choose. Having a will is required in order to make a choice. So by necessitating that a will must be chosen in order to be called "free" you create a sort of infinite regression because in order for a will to be free it must have been chosen by another will which must have been chosen by another will which must have.......

I feel it's a bit unfair when you define "free will" as an inconceivable concept and then proceed to say "free will doesn't exist". Sounds like "A square circle doesn't exist" to me. It's not a meaningful definition and is not what most people refer to when they think "free will" (though probably many people don't know what they refer to when they say it)

Can you say someone is morally responsible if he couldn't have acted otherwise? — ChatteringMonkey

There is no proof that people couldn't have acted otherwise even given what you say. Determinism is very difficult to swallow not only because of recent advnces in quantum physics but also because it is completely untestable. After something happens you can't go and test if something else could have happened.

As far as I understand your opposition then I don't understand how a will can ever be "free". If you can choose between food item A or B, you need some sort of will to be able to choose. If you have to choose between will A or B you still need some sort of will to be able to choose. Having a will is required in order to make a choice. So by necessitating that a will must be chosen in order to be called "free" you create a sort of infinite regression because in order for a will to be free it must have been chosen by another will which must have been chosen by another will which must have.......

I feel it's a bit unfair when you define "free will" as an inconceivable concept and then proceed to say "free will doesn't exist". Sounds like "A square circle doesn't exist" to me. It's not a meaningful definition and is not what most people refer to when they think "free will" (though probably many people don't know what they refer to when they say it) — khaled

I don't see how will never being free is a problem really. I would be a bit like saying that it's unfair to define water as wet because we happen to have a concept like "dry water". We don't have a right to a will that is free just because a concept like free will exists.

And yeah I think you're right that most people don't really know what they mean with it, other than some vague reference to the fact that we make choices. We experience ourselves making choices, yes, but I don't think you need free will to explain making choices, "will" would be enough it seems to me. So my question remains, what does the word free do there?

I think it's a religious concept to talk people into guilt... and it seems reasonable enough to me to question concepts we get from those kind of sources. It's not because we have inherited a concept like say "orginal sin" or "souls" that we absolutely need to find a meaning for it so that it makes sense right? We can also say, yeah no it doesn't make sense, let's just do away with the whole concept.

There is no proof that people couldn't have acted otherwise even given what you say. Determinism is very difficult to swallow not only because of recent advnces in quantum physics but also because it is completely untestable. After something happens you can't go and test if something else could have happened. — khaled

There is no proof right, but then again nothing ever really gets proven in science, that's the purvue
of logic and math only.

On a macro-level things do seem to behave according to deterministic laws, by and large . Brains then would be an exception to the rest of the world, which would be a bit odd it seems to me.

And although I'm no expert, I don't think quantum indeterminacy really plays at the macro level.

We don't have a right to a will that is free just because a concept like free will exists. — ChatteringMonkey

I'm not mourning the non existence of something that can't exist by definition. It's just that when philosophers use the word there is usaully a conceivable meaning behind it.

what does the word free do there? — ChatteringMonkey

Some say it is a substitute for "uncoerced" for one. That's what it means in the legal sense at least. I can't think of anything else but there are probably other wackier definitions

On a macro-level things do seem to behave according to deterministic laws, by and large — ChatteringMonkey

But you can't consider decisions in the brain "macro level things" I think. I remember reading Synapses and microtubles are small enough for quantum effects to actually matter.

It's just that when philosophers use the word there is usaully a conceivable meaning behind it. — khaled

Well, I'd say that's a bit of a contentious claim since philosophy has been the handmaiden of religion for a couple of millennia.

Some say it is a substitute for "uncoerced" for one. That's what it means in the legal sense at least. I can't think of anything else but there are probably other wackier definitions — khaled

Right, so maybe there is a problem with the concept since it isn't really clear what it means? Like, for how long have we been having these discussions... that seems like a clear indication that there is a problem with it.

But you can't consider decisions in the brain "macro level things" I think. I remember reading Synapses and microtubles are small enough for quantum effects to actually matter. — khaled

I'll refrain from making any claims about this, because I don't know enough about it.

Maybe there is a problem with our conception of morality being tied to freedom in the first place. Maybe we just lack adequate or accurate psychological descriptions at this point to make relevant distinctions for the purpose of assigning moral responsibility... In law for instance we do see some attempts at this, in that we do exempt people in some cases from legal responsibility, like age, (temporal) insanity etc... but we do not exempt other things that seem otherwise pretty similar. — ChatteringMonkey

Yes, I see. If free will is the ability to choose, then what is relevant to moral responsibility is the ability to choose actions which are socially/morally appropriate, or the ability to choose against actions which are socially/morally inappropriate.

I think that the meaning of "free will" does involve the view that statistically normal adults have the ability to choose to act (or refrain from acting) in appropriate way(s). The law may therefore view (e.g.) children and the insane to be deficient in this ability, and so exempt them from the same penalties that get applied to statistically normal adults for breaking the law.

Moral choices may have more serious implications, but I don't find it necessary to restrict the ability to choose only to the subset of moral choices.

If we do not choose our will, and our will determines what choices we make... you could say that that implies there is no way in which we could have chosen otherwise. — ChatteringMonkey

I assume that our will is what allows each of us to choose between two or more available options, and that that choice is made in accordance with one's will and/or desires (or, per Strawson, in accordance with "how one is, mentally speaking"). This gives the appearance that one is in control of the choice, or that the choice is, at least, ours. This is what I take "our will determines what choices we make" to mean.

If this control or ownership of making a choice is illusory, then so is the control or ownership of one's own will. If making a choice is illusory, then it is not our will, or "us", that determines what choices we make, but something external to oneself. It would not be "our" will that determines what choices we make, or "our" will at all.

As for the conceptual problem of "choosing our will", I have already addressed this.

Acting otherwise implies in some sense that we would have another will, which we have no control over. — ChatteringMonkey

"Acting otherwise" would seem to require having another will and another body. But that's not the same as the ability to choose (or the ability to have chosen otherwise, which I take to mean no more than having genuine options available to choose from).

There was a fellow who said that free will and desire are incompatible. Further, that freedom is - means - freedom to do one's duty under direction of reason. But he was Prussian. — tim wood

I assume you mean Kant. I'm surprised that he would say that free will and desire are incompatible. In what sense incompatible? Do you have a reference?

I think the better presentation of the argument comes just after the piece you quoted - that we have eyes, and therefore we cannot see. — Banno

Yes, I agree. A presentation of the argument from the article which is even more relevant to free will might be:

We cannot know ethical truths (if there are any) except through the urgings of our back-of-brain plumbing, therefore, we cannot know ethical truths at all.

Simply replace "cannot know ethical truths" with "cannot have the ability to choose".

A few issues to iron out, though. The tree, in the sight example, and the reality described by our conceptual scheme in the second example, are in a sense external, outside of and hence distinct from the seeing and the thinking. Are our desires external, in a suitably analogous way? — Banno

I didn't think that the issue with Stove's Gem was externality, but perhaps I've misunderstood the argument. The analogy I had in mind was something more along these lines (again from the article):

But why does she believe that it is cognitively limiting? Why, for no other reason in the world, except this one: that it is ours. Everyone really understands, too, that this is the only reason. But since this reason is also generally accepted as a sufficient one, no other is felt to be needed.

And just as "all there is to them as arguments is: our conceptual schemes are our conceptual schemes, so, we cannot get out of them (to know things as they are in themselves)", so too, our will and our ability to choose is ours, so we cannot get out of it (to choose "in itself", or to be able to choose our ability to choose, i.e., the choice from nowhere).