Free Will

[danah]

Hello,
I just read this below paragraph, and I would be thankful if you explain it to me though example; what does it mean you're morally responsible even if you don't have free will? if someone is coerced to steal a car, how can he be morally responsible?


Here's the quote:
"Some philosophers do not believe that free will is required for moral responsibility. According to John Martin Fischer, human agents do not have free will, but they are still morally responsible for their choices and actions. In a nutshell, Fischer thinks that the kind of control needed for moral responsibility is weaker than the kind of control needed for free will. Furthermore, he thinks that the truth of causal determinism would preclude the kind of control needed for free will, but that it wouldn’t preclude the kind of control needed for moral responsibility. See Fischer (1994). As this example shows, virtually every issue pertaining to free will is contested by various philosophers."

Thanks

[SentimentalSlop]

To say that someone should be morally responsible even if they don't have free will strikes me as very strange. Without free will, that means we are slaves to our upbringing, environment, and DNA as human beings and that whatever decisions we make, they are merely products of those factors and not ones determined by our individual choices. The whole argument seems like bull**** to me and contradictory.

[mal4mac]

Is Fischer assuming the thief is coerced by anyone? That seems to muddy the issue!

Advocates of free will hold that you have a free choice about stealing the car. Determinists hold that your choice is entirely determined. If the determinists are correct, then the thief should still be held responsible for the theft, as fear of incarceration acts as a deterrent.

[cafolini]

To say that someone should be morally responsible even if they don't have free will strikes me as very strange. Without free will, that means we are slaves to our upbringing, environment, and DNA as human beings and that whatever decisions we make, they are merely products of those factors and not ones determined by our individual choices. The whole argument seems like bull**** to me and contradictory.

You are not talking about free will here. You are talking about choice within a set of possible ones given to you by God.
God is like a multiple choice test in that sense. You learn and choose the best answer according to your ability. You are talking about responsibility, the ability to respond best. Your multiple choices get better with time as you honestly learn God's teachings, that is, learn you, learn God. You, like God, are that you are.
You are perfect. Play no games. There is the only way you can be an author as you develop.
and...nobody gets to the father except through me. ~ C A Cafolini

[SentimentalSlop]

I am talking about free will.

And please, please don't call me perfect. I am not even close. O, but how I wish to be.

[Eman Resu]

There no such thing as a free Will; my attorneys charged me nine hundred bucks to draw mine up.

[Nick Capozzoli]

Here's the quote:
"Some philosophers do not believe that free will is required for moral responsibility. According to John Martin Fischer, human agents do not have free will, but they are still morally responsible for their choices and actions. In a nutshell, Fischer thinks that the kind of control needed for moral responsibility is weaker than the kind of control needed for free will. Furthermore, he thinks that the truth of causal determinism would preclude the kind of control needed for free will, but that it wouldn’t preclude the kind of control needed for moral responsibility. See Fischer (1994). As this example shows, virtually every issue pertaining to free will is contested by various philosophers."

I guess this means that this Fischer fellow believes: 1) that no humans have "free will" and; 2) that we are nonetheless "morally responsible" for any and all of our "choices and actions." Thus he believes that we are morally responsible for anything we decide and do, and the question of "free will" has no bearing on our "moral responsibility" for the simple reason that "free will" doesn't exist.

OK. This argument seems neat but suffers from logical circularity and begs several questions. The act of choosing between possible options and selecting a specific course of actions does depend on "will" to make a choice. The exact degree to which the chooser's will is "free" is arguable. But insofar as "choice" is concerned, an agent must be allowed a "choice" between at least two possible courses of action in order for the agent to have any sort of "will." If there is no possibility to "choose" an action, there is no will at all. This describes the behavior of very simple organisms whose behavioral repertoire is limited to reflexive responses to environmental stimuli. E.g most of the behaviors of viruses, bacteria, and most of the phyla below the advanced cephalopod mulloscs and chordates.

As regards humans, it is clear that we have the ability to choose courses of action. Philosophers can and have argued about just how "free" our will is to make choices. But even those who have the most restrictive view of the "freedom" of our will acknowledge that we do have some ability to chose one course of action over another.

"Moral Responsibility" for our choices is another matter altogether. Clearly, if we make a choice, regardless of how constrained our choices are (so long as we can choose between more than one course of action), we can be considered "responsible" for that choice, simply because we made it. The question then becomes what, exactly, is our "moral" responsibility for having made the choice?

I don't see that Fischer's formulation helps answer that question in an intellectually satisfying way. Morality invariably requires that we consider notions of "right or wrong" or "good or bad" behaviors. The right or wrong and good or bad (or their more graded distinctions, such as "better or worse") distinctions are based on some sort of agreed-upon code of moral behavior.

Just about all of the moral codes of behavior we have to date accept the idea that human beings are able to make behavioral choices, particularly to "decide" upon a "moral" course of action. Even if we agree that, say, one or another choice of action is "more moral" than another, most reasonable folk (including moral and ethical philosophers and jurists (both modern and historical) would be inclined to agree that "culpability" for "immoral behavior" decreases in proportion to the limitations of the "will" of the person who made the choice to act in such-and-such a way.

Just asserting, as Fischer seems to have done, that none of us has "free will" helps our understanding of morality or helps us, as a society, to deal with "immoral" behavior.

Fischer's argument seems to ignore the fact that there are some humans who, due to serious psychiatric or neurological disease, are severely limited in their ability to make "moral" choices. They certainly lack entirely "free" will (compared to more "normal" folk) but they are not so constrained that they must act reflexively like, say, paramecia or flatworms. They can and do make "choices." If you want a literary reference to such moral behavior, I'd recommend reading The Sound and the Fury.

While it is true that anyone who "makes a choice" can be held "responsible" for his behavior, any moral philosophy that fails to acknowledge that some humans, due to mental incapacity, should be judged differently from "normal" humans who make "immoral" behavioral choices. Fischer may well argue that none of us have "free will" and all of us are "responsible" for our behaviors. That's fine, but insofar as he fails to address the fact that some humans suffer from neurological pathology that limits their choices, I think that his argument breaks down as a practical moral philosophy.

[cafolini]

I am talking about free will.

And please, please don't call me perfect. I am not even close. O, but how I wish to be.

If you wish it so much, you can pray that God make you more perfect so that you can tell us what God's next move is going to be. ROFLMAO

[russellb]

does it help to say that he rejects freewill viz a viz the doctrine of 'origination' but holds a 'compatablist' view whereby people may be held responsible for their actions?

[YesNo]

If I understand the arguments so far, I think I would agree with SentimentalSlop and Nick Capozolli.

The "compatibilists" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism), like Fischer, are trying to rationalize the conflict between the evidence of our own social lives in which recognizing free will is necessary with a metaphysical belief system that everything is determined. I think that attempt fails. The best Fischer can do is assert what he is trying to prove as an assumption. If he thinks he is doing more than that his position is irrational.

The "incompatibilist" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incompatibilism) position does not accept that determinism and free will are compatible with each other. If determinism is true, we have no free will. If we have free will determinism is false. I would take the positon that free will is real, even if it is limited, and determinism is false. The evidence for that would come from our own lives and from quantum physics.

[mal4mac]

Just listened to the In Our Time on Free Will, again, voted one of the ten best programmes in that best of BBC radio programmes. Definitely worth a listen, in the context of this thread.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00z5y9z

Galen Strawson pointed out that the indeterminism of quantum mechanics makes absolutely no difference to the argument against free will, and Simon Blackburn agreed with him. Strawson pointed out that it's still not certain that quantum mechanics is determinate, he leans to the idea that Einstein might have been right in declaring "God did not play dice". Blackburn pointed out that either way, Bohr or Einstein, doesn't impact on the argument against free will. Strawson agreed.
I agree with Strawson and Blackburn.

[YesNo]

There's an interesting chart in the Wikipedia article on the argument against free will: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standar...inst_free_will

The chart shows these four mutually exclusive options to pick from regarding free will and determinism:

A. Hard Determinism: no free will, physical determinism is true
B. Compatibilism: free will, physical determinism is true
C. Hard Incompabitilism: no free will, physical determinism is false
D. Libertarianism: free will, physical determimism is false

If one holds the metaphysics that we are machines rather than organisms, none of the four options are satisfactory and the problem of free will is difficult. The reason it is difficult is because there are few, if any, agents recognized by this metaphysics who are able to make a choice.

However, if we look at our own experiences as organisms with the ability to choose, unburdened by the machine metaphor, it is easy to see which of the four options is correct:

A. Hard Determinism: Unscientific, our personal experience falsifies it
B. Compatibilism: Irrational, because it claims contradictory things are true
C. Hard Incompatibilism: Unscientific for the same reason as A
D. Libertarianism: True

It makes one wonder how anyone could choose A, B or C, and yet they do. A lot of this has to do with their philosophical approaches to quantum physics.

Those who choose A or B, don't believe that quantum indeterminism is real or maybe it will be overcome in the future. They can be dismissed as unscientific. They refuse to look at evidence.

Those who pick C, accept this indeterminism, but claim that what indeterminism implies is that "chance" or "randomness" is involved and a machine is not free just because there is randomness. Well, first of all, we are not machines. Second, quantum indeterminism is not "random" with a uniform distribution. The probabilities for different events to occur are not all the same. This non-random indeterminism doesn't help a machine get free will, but it does make this quantum indeterminism look more interesting, almost as if we could use an organism model even at the quantum level.

[mal4mac]

Those who choose A or B, in some way don't believe that quantum indeterminism is real or maybe it will be overcome in some way. They can be dismissed as unscientific. They refuse to look at evidence.

There maybe "hidden variables" that determine quantum events. It may be that it only appears that things proceed in a merely probabilistically determinative way. In actuality, they proceed in an absolutely deterministic way. These matters continue to be subject to some dispute. (Notice I say "probabilistically determinative", which is more accurate than saying "indeterminate".) This is not being unscientific, keeping the options open in such a contentious area is being scientific.

[YesNo]

There maybe "hidden variables" that determine quantum events. It may be that it only appears that things proceed in a merely probabilistically determinative way. In actuality, they proceed in an absolutely deterministic way. These matters continue to be subject to some dispute. (Notice I say "probabilistically determinative", which is more accurate than saying "indeterminate".) This is not being unscientific, keeping the options open in such a contentious area is being scientific.

I think the only way to get to determinism is through some form of many worlds, but if you have a link to some other alternative I would be interested in looking at it. The problem with many worlds is that it can't even derive the Born probabilities and so has an initial hurdle to overcome before it can even be considered.

It might be more useful to drop strict, absolute determinism altogether since it has failed at the quantum level, and look at science as a study of trends that are repetitive. The value in doing this is that we would no longer be conceptually boxed in by that constraint.

As far as the label "unscientific" goes, I don't mind calling these people "scientific" if you don't mind calling Young Earth Creationists "scientific" because they want to keep their options open as well. However, I don't think either will be shown by future science to be true, but who knows?

[mal4mac]

As far as the label "unscientific" goes, I don't mind calling these people [determinists] "scientific" if you don't mind calling Young Earth Creationists "scientific" because they want to keep their options open as well. However, I don't think either will be shown by future science to be true, but who knows?

There is a mass of evidence against "Young Earth Creationism" - fossils, half-life,... but there is no mass of evidence for or against any particular interpretation of quantum mechanics.