View Full Version : The Unintelligibility of Free Will
1. A decision can be defined as "from a number of possible options, acting on just one of those options, for reasons."
2. "For reasons" is added because if one option from many is acted on arbitrarily or randomly, it does not fit what we mean by "to decide" in regular usage. In other words...
3. For any decision, if it is a decision, one can intelligibly ask, "Why did you do that?" Even if the person doesn't clearly know why, asking why is still intelligible if it was what we call a decision.
4. In order to select one from a number of possible options, one must stand out in some way from the others.
5. In order for one option to stand out from the others, the options must be prioritised.
6. In order to be prioritised, the options must possess varying degrees of a shared quality. We will call this shared quality "preferability".
7. The preferability of the various options having been determined, we act on the one possessing the greatest degree of preferability.
8. The criteria for evaluating the preferability of the various options must either be chosen or not chosen by the person making the decision.
9. If they are chosen, the decision of which criteria by which to evaluate the preferability of the various options is itself subject to the above steps.
10. In other words, if you choose your criteria, upon what criteria do you evaluate the preferability of the various criteria? And if you choose those criteria, how do you evaluation those options? And so on. This results in infinite regression, so ultimately one must not choose the criteria by which the preferability of the various options is evaluated.
11. If you do not choose the criteria by which the preferability of the various options is evaluated, the outcome of the decision is determined by factors outside of your control, by definition.
Therefore, for any decision, the outcome is determined by factors outside of the control of the decider, by definition.
I simplify it with the following formula: You can choose to do what you want, but you can't choose what you want to do.
seebs
12-14-2004, 01:41 AM
This is a fascinating theory.
Ultimately, even if it's true, it's totally irrelevant; it gives us absolutely no guidance, and in fact, if it's true, it wouldn't matter if it did, because we couldn't do anything about it.
However... I still don't buy it. It has a very slippery feel, and a lot of words that I don't think are adequately defined.
Hmm. Actually, an interesting question occurs to me. Perhaps a substantial portion of our freedom consists, not only of how we make decisions, or how we evaluate our priorities, but what options we conceive of. In short, my ability to think of a solution to a problem may be a kind of freedom; I would otherwise have been constrained to a smaller set of options.
But... Let's just look at a given choice. I have many inputs; data, desires, traits, and so on. In the process of combining these, I give extra weight to some, and less weight to others. Now, you could say I "decide" which of these to do, but I'm not sure that's the same class of decisions. The way in which that happens may me a different kind of thing, and thus, not entirely subject to the same rules.
Certainly, in my experience of it, there's a difference between the process of deciding, and the decision reached.
Ultimately... I treat this the way I treat a clever argument by construction proving that all angles are equal to the right angle. I may not know where it goes wrong, but the conclusion contradicts enough primary experience that I don't need to know.
Seebs, it saves a lot of time to just say, "Well, darn, THAT can't be right."
seebs
12-14-2004, 01:45 AM
Seebs, it saves a lot of time to just say, "Well, darn, THAT can't be right."
Yup.
I guess... I suspect that, if we studied it long enough, we could eventually nail down the problem with the argument. My guess is it has presuppositions about the nature of causality; I know the classic form of it is very vague on what "causes" are, and conflates "for no reason" with "for no external reason".
I guess... I suspect that, if we studied it long enough, we could eventually nail down the problem with the argument. My guess is it has presuppositions about the nature of causality; I know the classic form of it is very vague on what "causes" are, and conflates "for no reason" with "for no external reason".
It demonstrates pretty clearly that reasons must be external.
The problem is that it's initially very counter-intuitive, so you get the "well, THAT can't be right" gut reaction, and then because you're thinking, "well, I KNOW that's not right", you naturally think, "I don't know how to show that it's not right, but since I KNOW that it's not right, there must be a way to show that it isn't."
Point to a step in the progression that you don't agree with, besides the conclusion.
seebs
12-14-2004, 02:08 AM
Honestly, what I think I don't buy is the dichotomy of "externally caused or completely random". I don't see why things can't be self-caused.
seebs
12-14-2004, 02:12 AM
Actually, looking at it more, I think I disagree with about half of them; there are too many overgeneralizations.
But, I think the core one is that I think that "self" is a source of its own preferabilities, not "caused", but inherent and self-chosen. Self-chosen why, you ask? According to the nature of the entity choosing. Where does this nature come from? I think we make it. And I don't think it comes from anything external to the self.
But... I don't buy any of the arguments about prioritizing and preferabilities, they seem like sanitized, simplified, versions of what actually happens when people do things.
But, I think the core one is that I think that "self" is a source of its own preferabilities, not "caused", but inherent and self-chosen. Self-chosen why, you ask? According to the nature of the entity choosing. Where does this nature come from? I think we make it. And I don't think it comes from anything external to the self.
Look closer at that. The self is the source of its own preferabilities. It chooses them. Why? According to its nature. Where does the nature come from? The self chooses it. And then you stop. So I'll continue. Why does the self choose it? If it's a choice, then surely it has reasons. Where do those reasons come from? Etc.
But... I don't buy any of the arguments about prioritizing and preferabilities, they seem like sanitized, simplified, versions of what actually happens when people do things.
They're clumsy, but accurate. Decisions are done for reasons. We don't choose our reasons. There are no influences on decisions other than reasons. Simple as that. A mild blow to the ego, but you get over it.
seebs
12-14-2004, 02:32 AM
Look closer at that. The self is the source of its own preferabilities. It chooses them. Why? According to its nature. Where does the nature come from? The self chooses it. And then you stop. So I'll continue. Why does the self choose it? If it's a choice, then surely it has reasons. Where do those reasons come from? Etc.
Well, a couple of possibilities.
1. Self is infinite regression.
2. Self is a source of direct causality, and is not dependent on an external "cause" for everything it does.
They're clumsy, but accurate. Decisions are done for reasons. We don't choose our reasons. There are no influences on decisions other than reasons. Simple as that. A mild blow to the ego, but you get over it.
And yet, obviously, we do choose our reasons. You say we choose them for meta-reasons? Perhaps, but we also choose our meta-reasons.
There is no level of meta-reason that you cannot, in fact, exercise control over.
What it comes down to is this: I can change things about the way I make decisions, and I can decide to do so even though the change hasn't happened yet.
In practice, everything works on a model that says I'm making my own decisions, and that I am the one who picked the reasons for them.
I still think there's probably a serious equivocation problem in conflating all the different kinds of "reasons".
In practice, I make decisions which affect how things turn out, and I have the option of evaluating and changing the basis on which I do so, and the basis on which I do that, as far up as anyone cares to look.
Responsibility and free will are a working model which has explanatory and predictive power. They are data; my theories about causality need to conform to the data, not the other way around.
Well, a couple of possibilities.
1. Self is infinite regression.
That really means absolutely nothing at all.
2. Self is a source of direct causality, and is not dependent on an external "cause" for everything it does.
And yet, obviously, we do choose our reasons. You say we choose them for meta-reasons? Perhaps, but we also choose our meta-reasons.
There is no level of meta-reason that you cannot, in fact, exercise control over.
Seebs, do you or do you not agree that every decision is determined by reasons? You seem to be agreeing with this, but then saying that we have decide the reasons themselves. Is that accurate?
seebs
12-14-2004, 03:11 AM
That really means absolutely nothing at all.
If we can entertain the notion of a universe without a first cause, we can entertain the notion of a self without a first cause.
Seebs, do you or do you not agree that every decision is determined by reasons?
No. I reject as a false dichotomy the split of "reasons or purely arbitrary".
You seem to be agreeing with this, but then saying that we have decide the reasons themselves. Is that accurate?
Not really.
But I do think that, even among things that are "determined by reasons", not all reasons are equal or interchangable.
Mostly, though, I think the term is too vague for us to be sure what it means.
If we can entertain the notion of a universe without a first cause, we can entertain the notion of a self without a first cause.
The problem is that in the notion of a universe without first cause, there's also infinite time. I certainly don't experience my decisions as being an infinitely long series of choosing how to choose how to choose how to choose how to choose... ad infinitum. Do you?
No. I reject as a false dichotomy the split of "reasons or purely arbitrary".
It's more "for reasons or not for reasons". Is that dichotomy false?
But I do think that, even among things that are "determined by reasons", not all reasons are equal or interchangable.
Mostly, though, I think the term is too vague for us to be sure what it means.
It just seems very obvious to me that I choose options for reasons, and that my reasons for choosing them are handed to me by my situation, rather than being under my control. Even in situation where I can have some influence over future reasons, such as deciding to quit smoking now so that I have less of a desire to smoke in the future, my decisions to change my desires in the future are done for reasons handed to me by my situation.
Do you not experience decisions as acting on one option from many for reasons?
seebs
12-14-2004, 03:35 AM
The problem is that in the notion of a universe without first cause, there's also infinite time. I certainly don't experience my decisions as being an infinitely long series of choosing how to choose how to choose how to choose how to choose... ad infinitum. Do you?
No, but I don't know that I experience the whole of my decision-making process. My conscious mind is comparatively simple.
It's more "for reasons or not for reasons". Is that dichotomy false?
It wouldn't be, except you make a lot of later assumptions about what "reasons" are.
It's like the argument about "good". You seem to be ignoring the possibility that the reason for something to be "good" could be "because this is the way the universe is actually structured".
The "reason" for a decision could be "because this is what the self wills". You're assuming that the self can't do something spontaneously, without it being random.
It just seems very obvious to me that I choose options for reasons, and that my reasons for choosing them are handed to me by my situation, rather than being under my control. Even in situation where I can have some influence over future reasons, such as deciding to quit smoking now so that I have less of a desire to smoke in the future, my decisions to change my desires in the future are done for reasons handed to me by my situation.
Do you not experience decisions as acting on one option from many for reasons?
Honestly, not really. I mean, there's some amount of consideration, but some of it is not "for reasons" in the sense you describe, but "because this one looks to have inherent value".
The answer I normally give is that I am gradually learning to perceive the inherent value structure. Why? Because I decided to seek it. Why? Good question.
It wouldn't be, except you make a lot of later assumptions about what "reasons" are.
It's like the argument about "good". You seem to be ignoring the possibility that the reason for something to be "good" could be "because this is the way the universe is actually structured".
The "reason" for a decision could be "because this is what the self wills". You're assuming that the self can't do something spontaneously, without it being random.
I've demonstrated that reasons for a decision - factors affecting the outcome of a decision - must by definition come from outside the control of the decider. I haven't assumed it. I've demonstrated it.
Honestly, not really. I mean, there's some amount of consideration, but some of it is not "for reasons" in the sense you describe, but "because this one looks to have inherent value".
The answer I normally give is that I am gradually learning to perceive the inherent value structure. Why? Because I decided to seek it. Why? Good question.
You don't choose how much value to perceive in a given option, do you? You perceive it and make your decision based on that. So again, your decision is determined by something you didn't choose.
Godfather
12-16-2004, 12:26 AM
A decision has two possible explanations:
1. The individual, faced with a situation, selects an option, partly based on external factors, and partly based on its own intrinsic nature.
2. The decision takes place, influenced by all relevant factors in the individual's experience, physiology and world view; the individual observes the decision and, mistakenly believing itself to be something more than an contstruct of external factors, takes credit for the decision and proudly declares that it has free will.
Option 1 is the more attractive and intuitive option, but it has the drawback of requiring a belief in the supernatural, unfortunately.
Option 2 is nasty and uncomfortable and means we don't exist in the way we think we do, but it has the drawback of conforming to what we know about our physical world, unfortunately.
1. The individual, faced with a situation, selects an option, partly based on external factors, and partly based on its own intrinsic nature.
I would add that even in a supernaturalist context, one's "own intrinsic nature" must, as with all factors that influence decision, be outside of the decider's control. I am very careful in these discussions to make clear that I'm talking about the very nature of the concept of decision itself, not any particular view of the nature of the decider.
Most free will arguments come down to one person arguing that someone can be their own "uncaused cause" of their actions, and another person arguing that everyone is subject to the same laws of determinism as everything else. I maintain this misses the point. The very nature of decision itself places all the influences outside the control of the decider, whatever its nature is.
Dragar
03-08-2005, 10:03 PM
I thought I'd bump this thread, because there's a discussion about free-will going on here in the 'Problem of Evil' thread, and I've just finished a debate on this myself, using Zoot's argument (I hope he doesn't mind ;) ).
What I've learned:
Some people, when pressed into a corner by this argument, will resort to one of two defences. The first is accepting that the argument appears to have true premises, but deny the conclusion, maintaining there is an error in the argument but they are not able to spot it (I was compared to Zeno and the argument to his paradox at this point).
The second defence is where people begin to deny that we make decisions for reasons. This seems absurd.
Godless Wonder
03-09-2005, 05:15 AM
Zoot, I arrived at the same conclusion as your OP by the reductionist route. That is, we're all just giant piles of atoms, behaving as atoms behave, and all the "reasons" and "causes" for "us" to "do something" can be reduced ultimately to atoms and photons bouncing around in their mindless way. At least I can't see any reason to think that they cannot be so reduced, and all experimentation to date seems to jive with such a conclusion.
Seebs, your arguments appear to amount to either missing the point completely, or simply asserting that it isn't so.
I say that "we" make decisions for "reasons" but "we" are nothing but a pile of atoms and energy behaving as atoms and energy behave, and all our "reasons" are nothing but more atoms and energy interacting with the pile that is considered "us," or atoms and energy within "us" interacting with other atoms+energy within us. There isn't any evidence of anything else, certainly no evidence of any magic.
Now, you can ask "what is consciousness" and you will never ever get a satisfactory answer by discussing it. Not ever. There is probably no way anyone will ever get any answer, because you can't really get inside the head of anyone/anything else, and experience what it is like to "be" them, and this whole notion of "what it is like to be me" is pretty mysterious. Mankind can do all sorts of experiments, and probably come close to understanding it eventually, I suspect. I'm content to say "I don't know" about "consciousness," and confident enough to add, "and neither do you," but consider the assertion or acceptance of the idea of the existence of an eternal soul on the basis of only that, our ignorance, to be purely wishful thinking, and irresponsible.
Clutch Munny
03-09-2005, 03:40 PM
You can choose to do what you want, but you can't choose what you want to do.
Of course you can choose what you want to do. Much of our most careful and difficult reasoning is higher-order decision-making about the kinds of desires we want to have. Our behaviour is often driven by second-order desires aiming to change our first order desires -- going to therapy is perhaps the clearest, but by no means the sole, example.
And one can also have desires about second-order desires. This reasoning is perfectly intelligible: "I do harmful things out of my basic desires, but I feel guilty about those actions and those desires, having some higher-order conviction that it's better not to wish harm on others. I wish I didn't have that higher-order conviction. Life would be so much easier!" That's a third-order desire not to have a second-order desire.
I don't see how your argument lives up to its billing. Write "Free will is unintelligible" as the last line, and you'll have an obviously formally invalid argument.
Why do you treat free will as discrete; ie, either you have it or you don't? If there is any such thing, then presumably it will be like most cognitive capacities and come in degrees.
One way of cashing out the degrees is simply in higher-ordered terms, as Harry Frankfurt does in his influential "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person". In short, the greater one's higher-ordered abilities to reflectively evaluate and influence one's first-order desires, the more one can be said to have a will that is free. (Though HF makes some important distinctions among these concepts). The further up this meta-evaluative chain one chases the You-chose-it-or-it's-arbitrary dilemma (an old and familiar one, by the way), the less the dilemma matters, on this view. You might think of it this way: the ordinary concept of free will demands only a robustly self-determining system, and not an absolutely self-determining system.
No supernaturalism required.
Of course you can choose what you want to do. Much of our most careful and difficult reasoning is higher-order decision-making about the kinds of desires we want to have. Our behaviour is often driven by second-order desires aiming to change our first order desires -- going to therapy is perhaps the clearest, but by no means the sole, example.
Sure, or just quitting cigarettes, or starting smoking, etc. These choices alter the preferability of future options. But what were your reasons for choosing to change your later reasons? And so on. Ultimately, it's either infinite regression or some point where you didn't choose your reasons for choosing a particular way.
And one can also have desires about second-order desires. This reasoning is perfectly intelligible: "I do harmful things out of my basic desires, but I feel guilty about those actions and those desires, having some higher-order conviction that it's better not to wish harm on others. I wish I didn't have that higher-order conviction. Life would be so much easier!" That's a third-order desire not to have a second-order desire.
And is that desire under your control or out of your control?
I don't see how your argument lives up to its billing. Write "Free will is unintelligible" as the last line, and you'll have an obviously formally invalid argument.
Not if I throw in, "By 'free will' I mean the position that involves the denial of the following statement: decisions are determined by factors outside of the control of the decider."
Why do you treat free will as discrete; ie, either you have it or you don't? If there is any such thing, then presumably it will be like most cognitive capacities and come in degrees.
I treat it as something not intelligible enough to have it or not. It's not a coherent concept. (Again, assuming the definition just above, which I really should have put into the OP.
One way of cashing out the degrees is simply in higher-ordered terms, as Harry Frankfurt does in his influential "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person". In short, the greater one's higher-ordered abilities to reflectively evaluate and influence one's first-order desires, the more one can be said to have a will that is free. (Though HF makes some important distinctions among these concepts). The further up this meta-evaluative chain one chases the You-chose-it-or-it's-arbitrary dilemma (an old and familiar one, by the way), the less the dilemma matters, on this view. You might think of it this way: the ordinary concept of free will demands only a robustly self-determining system, and not an absolutely self-determining system.
In other words, the matter is obscure enough for our choices to be more or less under our control. The point of the OP is to demonstrate that ultimately decisions must be determined by factors outside of the control of the decider. While I'm aware that we do exercise some control over our future reasons for doing things (such as therapy, as you mentioned, or quitting cigarettes or taking an aphrodisiac)...
gotta go.
Not if I throw in, "By 'free will' I mean the position that involves the denial of the following statement: decisions are determined by factors outside of the control of the decider."
Two comments:
First, and I believe this may have been what Clutch was getting at when he asked your reasons for treating free will as discrete, is it possible, in your view to deny that these determining factors are completely out of the control of the deciding agent without slipping into your supposed infinite regress? Much of my reaction to external stimuli is determined (yes, I'm a determinist) by cognitive systems that, for all intents and purposes, are part of "me", so it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me to say that all determing factors are out of my control. This ties closely into my second comment...
Second, a large part of how you determine whether a factor is under "my" control or not depends upon how you're distinguishing between "me" and "everything else". As I said, some of the deterministic systems that factor into "my" decision making process are cognitive machinery that I would consider part of "me". WOuld you agree or disagree with that assessment?
First, and I believe this may have been what Clutch was getting at when he asked your reasons for treating free will as discrete, is it possible, in your view to deny that these determining factors are completely out of the control of the deciding agent without slipping into your supposed infinite regress? Much of my reaction to external stimuli is determined (yes, I'm a determinist) by cognitive systems that, for all intents and purposes, are part of "me", so it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me to say that all determing factors are out of my control. This ties closely into my second comment...
Second, a large part of how you determine whether a factor is under "my" control or not depends upon how you're distinguishing between "me" and "everything else". As I said, some of the deterministic systems that factor into "my" decision making process are cognitive machinery that I would consider part of "me". WOuld you agree or disagree with that assessment?
I see what you're saying. But considering I'm happy to include my psychological make-up, however we're defining "me", in the list of factors outside of my control, I don't think it ultimately changes anything. I didn't necessarily say they were external factors. Just that they were outside the control of the decider, by definition. Do you see what I mean?
Completing earlier post...
In other words, the matter is obscure enough for our choices to be more or less under our control. The point of the OP is to demonstrate that ultimately decisions must be determined by factors outside of the control of the decider. While I'm aware that we do exercise some control over our future reasons for doing things (such as therapy, as you mentioned, or quitting cigarettes or taking an aphrodisiac)...
...I find it to be a logical necessity that, in the end, reasons must be provided to us rather than chosen by us.
Clutch, my little summary sentence "we choose to do what we want, but we don't choose what we want to do" trades some accuracy for quotability. It just doesn't sound as pretty when you throw "ultimately" in there. But you're quite right that without the "ultimately", it isn't accurate. And you're also quite right that we have an "unultimate" amount of control over our own reasons for doing things.
Clutch Munny
03-09-2005, 08:50 PM
Of course you can choose what you want to do. Much of our most careful and difficult reasoning is higher-order decision-making about the kinds of desires we want to have. Our behaviour is often driven by second-order desires aiming to change our first order desires -- going to therapy is perhaps the clearest, but by no means the sole, example.
Sure, or just quitting cigarettes, or starting smoking, etc. These choices alter the preferability of future options. But what were your reasons for choosing to change your later reasons? And so on. Ultimately, it's either infinite regression or some point where you didn't choose your reasons for choosing a particular way.
Yes, I explicitly granted the basic idea here. But, first, it's too simplistic as you cash it out. No doubt at every stage -- first-order included -- one's reasons are partially co-determined by "purely" environmental factors. It's just that there's also a highly relevant co-determination by reflective practices. As we consider a regress through either higher-order levels of reflection, or just look back in time at the development of one's character, the self-determinative aspects plausibly become less salient and external aspects more so.
And second, this misses my point: Why should it make no difference where in the reflective or temporal ordering the "some point" is? If free will is a vague concept, in the technical sense of vagueness meaning Admitting Sorites-style reasoning, then the fact that at some point along a series the term no longer applies does not entail that it applies nowhere. Compare redness. Moving along a colour spectrum from the red end, at some point the term fails to apply. But the precise point dividing red from non-red is not identifiable in any principled fashion. Still, it is manifestly intelligible to say that some points on the spectrum are red, and that the points grow less red as we move along the spectrum. If one starts with the conviction that redness is all-or-nothing, one can tie oneself in knots about how to characterize even these apparently innocuous statements. But why assume that? But if free will is a matter of degree, then its being a Sorites concept is unsurprising.
I don't see how your argument lives up to its billing. Write "Free will is unintelligible" as the last line, and you'll have an obviously formally invalid argument.
Not if I throw in, "By 'free will' I mean the position that involves the denial of the following statement: decisions are determined by factors outside of the control of the decider."
First, this still wouldn't make it valid. You'd need a less naive formulation, something like, "the denial of the view that decisions are to any extent or at any level of analysis determined by factors outside of the control of the decider".
Second, on what grounds do you stipulate that the ordinary concept of free will means that? Suppose I say to my father, "Jeez, Dad, you mean you voted for Harper of your own free will?", and he replies, "Yes." Why on earth -- besides the rather underwhelming reason of wanting your argument to be valid -- would you ascribe to him a commitment to the view "I deny that my decision was to any extent or at any level of analysis determined by factors outside of the control of the decider"?
Why do you treat free will as discrete; ie, either you have it or you don't? If there is any such thing, then presumably it will be like most cognitive capacities and come in degrees.
I treat it as something not intelligible enough to have it or not. It's not a coherent concept. (Again, assuming the definition just above, which I really should have put into the OP.
No. That free will is unintelligible is supposed to be the conclusion of your argument. But that it's all or nothing ends up functioning as a suppressed premise. That a premise is justified by the conclusion you use it to reach is a principle that would make all manner of remarkable arguments possible.
One way of cashing out the degrees is simply in higher-ordered terms, as Harry Frankfurt does in his influential "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person". In short, the greater one's higher-ordered abilities to reflectively evaluate and influence one's first-order desires, the more one can be said to have a will that is free. (Though HF makes some important distinctions among these concepts). The further up this meta-evaluative chain one chases the You-chose-it-or-it's-arbitrary dilemma (an old and familiar one, by the way), the less the dilemma matters, on this view. You might think of it this way: the ordinary concept of free will demands only a robustly self-determining system, and not an absolutely self-determining system.
In other words, the matter is obscure enough for our choices to be more or less under our control.
Not obscure. Nuanced. If the concept of free will requires only that it is a property of widely and flexibly self-determining systems, but not that it is necessarily limited to absolutely self-determining systems, then your argument simply doesn't work.
Clutch,
Please provide your definition of "free will".
Clutch Munny
03-11-2005, 01:47 PM
Clutch,
Please provide your definition of "free will".
How is this relevant to your argument? I'm not presupposing "my" definition; I'm pointing out invalid moves and dubious premises in the reasoning you've offered.
It's not like I want to keep my views on free will close to my chest for copyright reasons or anything! I just don't want to change the topic from the soundness of your argument to the content of my own views.
I ask because you asked, "Second, on what grounds do you stipulate that the ordinary concept of free will means that?"
So I would like to know what, in contrast, you think the ordinary concept of free will entails.
Clutch Munny
03-12-2005, 08:22 PM
I ask because you asked, "Second, on what grounds do you stipulate that the ordinary concept of free will means that?"
So I would like to know what, in contrast, you think the ordinary concept of free will entails.
Well, maybe on another thread, or later, I'll put something together on it.
But for now we're talking about your argument. It's invalid in the OP.
You propose to make it valid by stipulating, in effect, that when my dear old dad says he did something of his own free will, he implicitly assents to: "I deny that my decision was to any extent or at any level of analysis determined by factors outside of the control of the decider".
So it's important to your argument that there be some reason to think that this is true. Is there?
Götterdämmerung
03-17-2005, 12:35 AM
Taking a look at the free will concept- doesn't it by definition indicate that there is no human nature, that human volition is unknownable?
Let me play devil's advocate for a bit: Recently I came across something of Schopenhauer where I was unable to find a sufficient and a powerful response to: In the great masterpiece World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer demonstrates that all versions of the free will doctrine are incoherent and fundamentally opposed to the basic presuppositions of human comprehension. His argument is based on the simple idea that human willing contains certain elements that allow us to judge other people's character, and that in the absence of these elements, it would make no sense to hold anybody responsible for what they have done. If human beings really had free will in the traditional sense of the concept, their behavior would be inextricably unfathomable. Is it?
Schopenhauer, as one of the few philosophers to really explicate what is at issue in the whole debate, since Will is the centerpiece of his philosophy, shows that, under the assumption of freedom of the will, a man's "character must be from the very beginning a tabula rasa...and cannot have any inborn inclination to one side or the other." This point of view, however, would utterly destroy the conception of human nature illustrated by the classics of Literature and the researches of social scientists. Under the free will premise, individuals would have no set character at all, and men in general would have no common nature. It would be useless to study the humanities or the social sciences in order to learn about human beings, because there would be no common human nature. Either human beings would be the products of pure chance, or they would be spontaneous "self-creators," devising their personalities ex nihilo, out of nothing.
xavierOnassis
03-30-2005, 08:16 PM
1. A decision can be defined as "from a number of possible options, acting on just one of those options, for reasons."
2. "For reasons" is added because if one option from many is acted on arbitrarily or randomly, it does not fit what we mean by "to decide" in regular usage. In other words...
3. For any decision, if it is a decision, one can intelligibly ask, "Why did you do that?" Even if the person doesn't clearly know why, asking why is still intelligible if it was what we call a decision.
4. In order to select one from a number of possible options, one must stand out in some way from the others.
5. In order for one option to stand out from the others, the options must be prioritised.
6. In order to be prioritised, the options must possess varying degrees of a shared quality. We will call this shared quality "preferability".
7. The preferability of the various options having been determined, we act on the one possessing the greatest degree of preferability.
8. The criteria for evaluating the preferability of the various options must either be chosen or not chosen by the person making the decision.
9. If they are chosen, the decision of which criteria by which to evaluate the preferability of the various options is itself subject to the above steps.
10. In other words, if you choose your criteria, upon what criteria do you evaluate the preferability of the various criteria? And if you choose those criteria, how do you evaluation those options? And so on. This results in infinite regression, so ultimately one must not choose the criteria by which the preferability of the various options is evaluated.
11. If you do not choose the criteria by which the preferability of the various options is evaluated, the outcome of the decision is determined by factors outside of your control, by definition.
Therefore, for any decision, the outcome is determined by factors outside of the control of the decider, by definition.
I simplify it with the following formula: You can choose to do what you want, but you can't choose what you want to do.
Yes, theoretically one goes through those steps but in a very quick moment, mostly leaping over several or all of them either by drawing on past experience (established preferences so to speak) or by discarding the process in favor of more subjective "preferences"
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