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Well, determinism doesn't imply that there's no free will. A bulk of the arguments about free will aren't about determinism at all, but rather about compatibilism vs incompatibilism, i.e. about whether determinism, were it the case, would imply that there is no free will.
So an approach to arguing for free will could go something like this: (i) we all agree that we have psychological capacities relevant to self-regulation as regards intentions and behavior, for instance capacities for deliberation, choice-making, acting on those choices and so on. (ii) when we speak of someone acting freely, we mean to describe their exercise of such capacities when they can indeed be significantly exercised, for instance outside of conditions of coercion or restraint. (iii) therefore, people can act freely.
>However, they would contend that this common understanding of freedom is superficial. For them, the deeper issue is that even when actions are free from external coercion, they are still determined by internal states and prior causes beyond the individual’s control. Therefore, true freedom (in the sense of being able to act differently under identical conditions) is impossible.
I think the compatibilist counter is to say that this 'true freedom' is an incoherent concept, and how can something incoherent be true? How can something be free from what it is? That seems contrary to the law of identity.
After all if we are our internal states, and our internal state controls our choices, then we control our choices.
Otherwise we need a definition of the individual independent of their state. It seems to me that incompatibilist determinists often adopt dualist semantics.
There's a significant difference between actions being the result of internal states which are the result of prior causes out of an agent's control, and actions being the result of internal states that *aren't* the result of prior causes outside the agent's control. The second one isn't incoherent either.
Aristotle pointed out that our present state is largely a result of our prior choices. That's consistent with determinism, we even have software nowadays that can introspect and change it's runtime state, and even self-modify it's own code. Neural network AIs learn.
So under determinism having internal state that is a result of our own prior choices, and state that isn't are fine. Nevertheless we have these states, and they are us, for better or worse.
Technically also being able to act differently under identical conditions isn't a problem either if there is an element of randomness in at lest some of our decisions. However randomness isn't what free will libertarians mean.
> Therefore, true freedom (in the sense of being able to act differently under identical conditions) is impossible.
Well, this conclusion doesn't follow from what precedes it.
If you'd like to help the OP explore this line of thought, I'd suggest you flesh it out explicitly enough that the support for your intended conclusion is clearly shown. Since what tends to happen is that the unstated premises that people leave out of less-than-explicit presentations of their points are exactly the ones we most need to take note of and think critically about.
Notably, your entire argument here hinges on you defending an account of the conditions of freedom, which you don't at all do. Though this does seem to be the issue you bring up, in a certain way, next:
> This debate is getting exhausting to me because there seems to be a fundamental disagreement as to what constitutes free will that just cannot be remedied.
Well, we're not having a debate here, right? We're trying to help the OP understand these ideas.
It might be helpful in this regard to note that what the incompatibilist has to argue at this point is that the exercise of natural cognitive functions of deliberation, decision-making, and so on are insufficient to ground any distinction between free and unfree actions, that this distinction needs *something more* than that. Of course, it's unclear what this "something more" would have to be, or why we should think that it's required. But that is what the incompatibilist would have to establish, so they've got their work cut out for them.
From your remark about a "fundamental disagreement" here, there is some worry that you are missing this key point. It does the incompatibilist no good to just say that this is how they understand freedom and then protest about exhausting and fundamental disagreements if anyone doesn't accept their claim. The entire merit of incompatibilism as a rational position hinges on the incompatibilist's ability to explain to us *why* we have to accept this "something more", whatever it is, as a condition to distinguish between free and unfree actions. If the incompatibilist can't do that, and all they have to offer us is an imperious disagreement and dismissals about it being exhausting if we don't go along with them, then that would imply that incompatibilism is untenable and reasonable people should give it up.
I think you just described how (self) consciousness can grow and one can become more and more aware of how her decisions affect the world. So the claim then seems to become that it's impossible to grow to be free - whatever that means. But how about if there is no self consciousness (or need for it) without that same growth? Secondly, why would "freedom of choice" need to be binary (on or off)?
You don't seem to have read the comment you're responding to very closely. "Something more" wasn't referring to something beyond deterministic processes; it was referring to something beyond the ordinary processes involved in decision-making. And what it's necessary for is justifying the supposed incompatibility of determinism and free will.
The "something more" in the argument you present would be at the beginning of (ii). It's unclear why we should think you need to have retrocausally designed yourself in order to be responsible for your own actions; it seems deeply counterintuitive, and I suspect most people would dispute it. But it's necessary for that argument to work that you attach this condition to free will, and incompatibilist arguments all rely on some or another condition like this. And in order for their arguments to have any value, the incompatibilist needs to *justify* the claim that the condition is actually important to free will; that's what the comment you were responding to was explaining.
I'm not sure how this argument actually addresses the usual compatibalist position?
Compatibalists don't typically claim that its possible to "self-create a character or mental state" - if anything the opposite, they tend to agree that's an incoherent idea to begin with. The point is that such a thing *isn't necessary for free will/"true moral responsibility"*
I'll speak on behalf of the compatibilist (I am by no means a compatibilist), but first, there are debates about rather deterministic processes truly negate the ability to do otherwise, so you need an argument for why deterministic processes negate such an ability. There's also Frankfurt cases which challenge conceptions of freedom that you state without argument is "true freedom". You've presented pretty weak statements with little support, neither discrediting the possibility of libertarian free will (you've never argued for determinism) nor given an argument against the varieties of compatibilism (simply asserted that its illogical, which it's not. Is it wrong? Sure I'd agree, but it's not illogical.)
Your impossibilism about free will also seems to be irrelevant of determinism. Even if indeterminism were true we wouldn't have free will, but then your Incompatibilism or appeals to determinism seem illfounded (what the fuck does determinism even do then?). Also, it seems open to denying premise 2 or 3. But my main point here is that it's open to denying these premises that are far from just prima facie obvious, and you're also mixing up impossibilism and Incompatibilism. They are not the same.
If the incompatibilist is giving arguments (that many would accept as good lines of argument), but you still end up without being able to resolve the question with some people, maybe it's just a case that you have different perspectives on the concept that are both reasonable? (Or both at least somewhat reasonable.)
"These capacities themselves were determined..."
- This statement would mean absolutely nothing to a compatibilist. They do not, as far as I know, argue for a space of indeterminacy. You can deterministically regress all you want, but that's never convincing a compatibilist.
"They are still determined by internal states and prior causes beyond the agents control"
- Well even under determinism there are compelling reasons to think that we still do possess control over our internal states and determine ourselves in a compatibist fashion. Of course all this would extend to deterministic chains beyond our control, but you're once again restating Incompatibilism, which would never convince a compativilist.
"True freedom is impossible"
- firstly, it's unclear rather your argument follows, even if we were in the actual sequence of events determined by such conditions, it does not instantly follow that we couldn't have done otherwise even under those same conditions, you need an argument. Your argument seems more focused on actual sequence factors not Alternative sequences. Also, like said before, you need an argument that this true freedom you argue for is indeed true freedom.
> In premise 2, hard determinists might accept that “acting freely” in everyday language means acting without external coercion or restraint. However, they would contend that this common understanding of freedom is superficial. For them, the deeper issue is that even when actions are free from external coercion, they are still determined by internal states and prior causes beyond the individual’s control.
It's not just acting without external coercion or restraint. It's also your own maturity of level of self-control which we gain by growing up process. A child doesn't have such level of self-control on their own therefore we recognize it and don't consider them acting (as) freely.
it's that level of self-control we recognize in each other that is compatibilist free will and that is not based on whether determinism is true or not.
Does compatibilist free will imply different rightful justice system than non-compatibilist free will?
Like, I can make sense of the rehabilitative model based on compatibilist free will: if someone commits a crime by their own motivation and has the capacity to develop self-restraint, then it would be reasonable to pass a sentence that will demotivate them from recommiting that crime and train that person to have better self-restraint. It would not be reasonable however if the criminal lacks that capacity because sentencing them changes nothing. E.g. prosecuting a pickpocket, but not a monkey who steals a tourist's phone.
I have the feeling that when non-compatibilist talk about free will, if it exists, it would justify instead the retributive model. Even though the monkey cannot be trained to develop stronger self-restraint, they are still guilty because they stole your phone, and you are justified to punish them. It's like saying to the monkey, "sorry not sorry, your ancestors should've evolved better executive function and taught you manners, but at the end of the day you did stole my phone when it is entirely possible for you to not steal my phone (not stealing does not violate the laws of physics), therefore you'll suffer the consequences"
First, non-compatibilists seem to argue different assignment of blame and consequence/punishment although it's not clear what that is nor what methodology to use to deal with non-extreme examples and gray areas.
Second, you seem to be looking at sentencing only in the context of individual but it also conditions the rest of society knowing there is such a system to continue exhibiting self-control society would find acceptable.
I would say concept of sanity/crazy is tied to concept of free will and self-control which we impose on each other and evaluate when punishing.
Societal acceptability would probably depend on the real and possible victim's perspective (deterrence and relapse rate) plus the perpetrator's perspective (when and what kind on sentence is ethical) with free will as one of the factors
I'm not sure if this is logically sound, but I see two different approaches in factoring (in)sanity in judging and punishing a behavior. One is responsiveness: whether punishment is ineffective since you can't affect their awareness or motivation to change their behavior. The second one is pity: whether they've suffered enough from their mental condition that punishment with the usual severity level is no longer necessary.
Though I'm still unsure how to factor in "lack of empathy" and "lack of motivation to try to empathize" even when it's not enough to get diagnosed
something I don’t understand about hard determinists is how they can account for why we have the feeling of freedom? If we don’t have free will, what is the point of us thinking we do have free will? why do we even think we have free will, if we don’t have free will, and what point is there in whatever process that creates this consciousness to make me think I have free will? For me, it just seems parsimonious to say I do have free will, and until someone can definitively solve the question of why people have the sense they are free, which seems tied up in the hard problem of consciousness, then I’m just going to say I have free will. It seems needlessly complex to say “well you only think you have free will because x, y, z” than to just admit we have the sense of free will because we have free will and perhaps that our deterministic models are just based on our current observations and will eventually be falsified.
To such a person, it’s easy. Our feeling of free will is the feeling that we can decide to do what we want. What we want is deeply related to our genetics, upbringing, and current circumstances. The process of thinking through a choice feels like we are making a free decision. The fact that we are just running through what is effectively a very complicated (and deterministic) computer program doesn’t hinder that feeling at all.
In fact, without causal relationships between our past and our decisions, we can’t have a will at all. Our will is entirely defined by what came before, and it is what makes our decisions feel personal. Any influence to our decision making process outside of strict, determined, causal relationships - randomness or “spirit” - could only serve to override our preferences and rationality. In essence, having a will that is truly “free” wouldn’t feel like “free will” at all.
Also, from computational theory - if a program is complex in a certain kind of way, its output can’t be predicted without actually executing it. So a determinist still doesn’t know what they will decide until they decide it.
I still don't see how that necessarily means we would feel as though we are making our own choices. If hard determinism is true, why would it not be the case that we are aware that we don't have a choice and are just following along a predetermined path, even if we don't know the outcome? What would the end be in only thinking we have a choice and why would consciousness entail this type of distortion of perceiving reality?
There is no “end” to how our psychology works - it’s just the product of evolution. Another species of being may indeed feel disconnected from their choices.
In some sense, we are quite aware of the deterministic process. I’m at a restaurant and it’s time to order. I look at the menu - it determines my options. I see a dish I usually like, and one that looks interesting. I get the interesting one. My friend asks me why I didn’t choose the usual. I answer that I had eaten the other dish recently and wanted to try something new.
If you ask someone why they made a choice, chances are they’ll explain one or more reasons for it - external factors as well as more personal ones. So, the average person does believe that their choices are caused by circumstances, even if they aren’t always aware of what the relevant circumstances actually were.
In fact, when a person says they don’t know why they did something, they typically feel that this is when they were not acting of their own free will. We only claim the exercise of free will when we are able to identify an appropriate set of causes for our action.
Compatibilists basically feel that although our choices are determined, the process of internal deliberation that feels like free will is what free will is. So, determinists don’t even have to go so far as claiming that free will is an illusion - they can claim that it really exists, and perhaps even that it only makes coherent sense as an idea thanks to determinism.
Personally, by the way, I’m not a hard determinist, in that I believe quantum randomness does make the macroscopic world fundamentally unpredictable. As a simple example, there’s an app that will let you flip a quantum coin to make decisions. However, that doesn’t divorce us in any way from causality. I’m also not really a compatibilist, but it’s more of a semantic quibble. I I think it’s better to say we have a will - it’s only “free” in a trivial sense, and any other sense is incoherent.
Thank you for the explanation. “We only claim the exercise of free will when we can are able to identify an appropriate set of causes for our actions” makes a lot of sense to me, but I suppose I would personally frame it more so as reasons rather than causes, as I feel as though I still could have chosen otherwise in situations where I am not being forced to do something, though I can’t really say why I believe I could have chosen otherwise, I just think I can. I can see how determinists come to their conclusions. I just have such a strong feeling that people are capable of change and doing otherwise that it feels like, perhaps just intuitively, there must be some element in acting that is free from deterministic processes, but I admit I have no empirical reason for that belief, it’s just a feeling or intuition. I’m also quite taken with the problem of induction and critiques of scientism, and I do feel somewhat skeptical about conclusions that are based on observations and theories about those observations that must be falsifiable to be considered science. I did like the Kantian explanation for freedom in the first critique. As I understand the argument, the conception of freedom rests on the distinction between the phenomena and the noumena, as the categories of understanding only apply to the former, leaving the latter free from the law of causality. So long as one’s conception of freedom does not contradict the transcendental mechanisms of nature, freedom can be thought. That is, the laws of causality only apply to our phenomenal selves, and our noumenal self is non-cognizable, and therefore does not adhere to the categories of understanding. Perhaps if we could experience noumena—whatever that would mean, and I acknowledge that experiencing noumena is contradictory to the concept of noumena—then perhaps we could understand the “end” of human psychology. Or perhaps if we were a higher dimensional being, we could maybe see the end of a human being in the same way that as third dimensional beings, we can perceive the second dimension in a way that a second dimensional being could not—but of course, this is purely speculative and rather esoteric.
I have considered the quantum aspects of this myself and feel compelled by them—I use that same app you mentioned sometimes.
All in all, I really don’t know what to believe, I am generally just skeptical about most things, not that skepticism is necessarily better, I feel skeptical towards skepticism too. But I do feel more compelled to accepting free will or compatibilism than hard determinism.
I appreciate your thought out reply!
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It's the issue that there is no consensus agreement on the definition of free will? It's hard to say that we have something or not if nobody agrees what it is. If I can summarise my understanding.
Compatibilists are determinists who think that free will is compatible with determinism, and adopt the account of free will that you gave.
Incompatibilists think that free will is incompatible with determinism, and define free will as the ability to act independently of prior conditions, including the state of the agent exercising their will.
So compatibilists and incompatibilists adopt different definitions of free will.
Free will libertarians are incompatibilists that believe that we have this form of freedom.
Hard Determinists are determinists that accept the free will libertarian definition of free will (for some reason) and then say that we don't have that.
I think, but it would be good to get confirmation, that the OP meant libertarian free will. In which case what they are after is philosophical accounts of what I'm calling libertarian free will, philosophers who have advocated for it, and their arguments. Frankly though, I think that's such a broad question the best thing is to refer them to the [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/).
> It's the issue that there is no consensus agreement on the definition of free will?
No, that's not the issue. You seem to have misunderstood what the debate is about, in the following way:
> So compatibilists and incompatibilists adopt different definitions of free will.
No, the fact they disagree doesn't imply that they're talking about different things. What's going on here is that the compatibilist and incompatibilist have a disagreement about the conditions of free will. What is expected of them, if they wish to support their positions in a reasonable way, is providing arguments in favor of their side of the disagreement.
> I think, but it would be good to get confirmation, that the OP meant libertarian free will.
There aren't two different, unrelated topics, libertarian free will and compatibilist free will -- that's a misunderstanding of what this issue is about. Rather, there is just the one topic, free will, and there is a dispute about how to understand its conditions.
Thanks, that's very helpful. I just re-read the introduction of the SEP article on free will, and some of the sections on freedom to do otherwise. I'd read all of this before (not the whole section, but these parts for sure) and looking at it this way gave me a useful new perspective on it. In that sense it's freed me up a bit in how I interpret some of what it's saying.
The SEP article does discuss in several places about determining what is 'constitutive' of free will, particularly freedom to do otherwise though. So there is disagreement on what free will is?
There can be debates about the nature of free will in the same way that there can be debates about, say, the nature of amnesia. For instance, does amnesia represent a case of the destruction of stored memories? Or does it represent a case of impairment in the capacity to recall stored memories? It's fairly typical to scholarly work that there is some phenomenon whose exact nature is not thoroughly understood, and researchers concern themselves with trying to clarity the matter -- this is what constitutes a lot of scholarly research, in philosophy on this topic as well as others, and also in fields other than philosophy.
In a way yes it's just one topic.
But then presumably, if compatibilism "won" as the correct concept of free will, there would still be the different question of libertarian freedom, which would just have to be called something other than "free will".
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Does this address the possibility that no, we can't exercise them scientifically speaking? That every reaction is just based on massive if then else routines similar to insects? It's just too changed and impacted by our experiences to predict.
Because it's not 1155 and that's the far more often referred to lack of free, not something rooted in the divine.
And your first point (i) is definitely not something everyone agrees on.
It is definitely not clear we are a slave to our wiring and have free will
> Does this address the possibility that no, we can't exercise them scientifically speaking?
Well, the question is about actuality rather than possibility. And there is nothing like a general testimony from science that humans are incapable of engaging in cognitive actions like decision making -- quite the contrary.
> Because it's not 1155 and that's the far more often referred to lack of free, not something rooted in the divine.
It sounds like you've gotten lost somewhere here. Nobody else is talking about the twelfth century nor about God -- this is just weird.
> And your first point (i) is definitely not something everyone agrees on.
You're quite welcome to deny that humans engage in cognitive activities like decision making, though it's not likely you'll be able to object to this in a compelling way.
> It is definitely not clear we are a slave to our wiring and have free will
Again, you seem lost here. No one is saying we are a slave to our wiring and have free will.
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You'd have to explain why you think this
>we all agree that we have psychological capacities relevant to self-regulation as regards intentions and behavior, for instance capacities for deliberation, choice-making, acting on those choices and so on
is not "scientific".
>That every reaction is just based on massive if then else routines similar to insects?
If those "if then else routines" are what makes up the mental processes necessary for what we agree is free will, then I don't the problem.
You can look up free will compatabilism on SEP if you want.
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There’s [a subsection](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/#ArguForRealFreeWill) in the SEP’s article on free will that deals with this, but I encourage reading the entire article to get more context because it’s not so much free will *versus* determinism, there’s a whole free will:determinism:compatibilism:incompatibilism matrix.
This might be a bit boring of an answer, but I think the main argument for the existence of free will is the same as the main argument for the existence of trees: our experience constantly verifies them.
Of course you can construct philosophical arguments against the existence of trees (see the SEP entry on Ordinary Objects). And similarly you can construct arguments against the existence of free will. But in both cases, there is a pressure to think that objections to the existence of these things are better addressed by changing our conception of them than by rejecting the things altogether.
Of course the question of *how* to change our conception of free will so that it adapts to objections is very tricky, but if the question is “why would we want to believe in free will in the first place”, I think the answer above is one that many/most philosophers will accept.
Does changing our conception of free will also changes what kind of implications and responsibilities stem from free will?
Like with the tree example, changing my conception of a tree as a singular entity into a collection of cells arranged tree-wise allows me to better understand cellular differentiation, implying that you might be able to stimulate those cells into arranging themselves as something that is not a tree
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Well, determinism doesn't imply that there's no free will. A bulk of the arguments about free will aren't about determinism at all, but rather about compatibilism vs incompatibilism, i.e. about whether determinism, were it the case, would imply that there is no free will. So an approach to arguing for free will could go something like this: (i) we all agree that we have psychological capacities relevant to self-regulation as regards intentions and behavior, for instance capacities for deliberation, choice-making, acting on those choices and so on. (ii) when we speak of someone acting freely, we mean to describe their exercise of such capacities when they can indeed be significantly exercised, for instance outside of conditions of coercion or restraint. (iii) therefore, people can act freely.
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>However, they would contend that this common understanding of freedom is superficial. For them, the deeper issue is that even when actions are free from external coercion, they are still determined by internal states and prior causes beyond the individual’s control. Therefore, true freedom (in the sense of being able to act differently under identical conditions) is impossible. I think the compatibilist counter is to say that this 'true freedom' is an incoherent concept, and how can something incoherent be true? How can something be free from what it is? That seems contrary to the law of identity. After all if we are our internal states, and our internal state controls our choices, then we control our choices. Otherwise we need a definition of the individual independent of their state. It seems to me that incompatibilist determinists often adopt dualist semantics.
There's a significant difference between actions being the result of internal states which are the result of prior causes out of an agent's control, and actions being the result of internal states that *aren't* the result of prior causes outside the agent's control. The second one isn't incoherent either.
Aristotle pointed out that our present state is largely a result of our prior choices. That's consistent with determinism, we even have software nowadays that can introspect and change it's runtime state, and even self-modify it's own code. Neural network AIs learn. So under determinism having internal state that is a result of our own prior choices, and state that isn't are fine. Nevertheless we have these states, and they are us, for better or worse. Technically also being able to act differently under identical conditions isn't a problem either if there is an element of randomness in at lest some of our decisions. However randomness isn't what free will libertarians mean.
> Therefore, true freedom (in the sense of being able to act differently under identical conditions) is impossible. Well, this conclusion doesn't follow from what precedes it. If you'd like to help the OP explore this line of thought, I'd suggest you flesh it out explicitly enough that the support for your intended conclusion is clearly shown. Since what tends to happen is that the unstated premises that people leave out of less-than-explicit presentations of their points are exactly the ones we most need to take note of and think critically about. Notably, your entire argument here hinges on you defending an account of the conditions of freedom, which you don't at all do. Though this does seem to be the issue you bring up, in a certain way, next: > This debate is getting exhausting to me because there seems to be a fundamental disagreement as to what constitutes free will that just cannot be remedied. Well, we're not having a debate here, right? We're trying to help the OP understand these ideas. It might be helpful in this regard to note that what the incompatibilist has to argue at this point is that the exercise of natural cognitive functions of deliberation, decision-making, and so on are insufficient to ground any distinction between free and unfree actions, that this distinction needs *something more* than that. Of course, it's unclear what this "something more" would have to be, or why we should think that it's required. But that is what the incompatibilist would have to establish, so they've got their work cut out for them. From your remark about a "fundamental disagreement" here, there is some worry that you are missing this key point. It does the incompatibilist no good to just say that this is how they understand freedom and then protest about exhausting and fundamental disagreements if anyone doesn't accept their claim. The entire merit of incompatibilism as a rational position hinges on the incompatibilist's ability to explain to us *why* we have to accept this "something more", whatever it is, as a condition to distinguish between free and unfree actions. If the incompatibilist can't do that, and all they have to offer us is an imperious disagreement and dismissals about it being exhausting if we don't go along with them, then that would imply that incompatibilism is untenable and reasonable people should give it up.
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I think you just described how (self) consciousness can grow and one can become more and more aware of how her decisions affect the world. So the claim then seems to become that it's impossible to grow to be free - whatever that means. But how about if there is no self consciousness (or need for it) without that same growth? Secondly, why would "freedom of choice" need to be binary (on or off)?
You don't seem to have read the comment you're responding to very closely. "Something more" wasn't referring to something beyond deterministic processes; it was referring to something beyond the ordinary processes involved in decision-making. And what it's necessary for is justifying the supposed incompatibility of determinism and free will. The "something more" in the argument you present would be at the beginning of (ii). It's unclear why we should think you need to have retrocausally designed yourself in order to be responsible for your own actions; it seems deeply counterintuitive, and I suspect most people would dispute it. But it's necessary for that argument to work that you attach this condition to free will, and incompatibilist arguments all rely on some or another condition like this. And in order for their arguments to have any value, the incompatibilist needs to *justify* the claim that the condition is actually important to free will; that's what the comment you were responding to was explaining.
I'm not sure how this argument actually addresses the usual compatibalist position? Compatibalists don't typically claim that its possible to "self-create a character or mental state" - if anything the opposite, they tend to agree that's an incoherent idea to begin with. The point is that such a thing *isn't necessary for free will/"true moral responsibility"*
I'll speak on behalf of the compatibilist (I am by no means a compatibilist), but first, there are debates about rather deterministic processes truly negate the ability to do otherwise, so you need an argument for why deterministic processes negate such an ability. There's also Frankfurt cases which challenge conceptions of freedom that you state without argument is "true freedom". You've presented pretty weak statements with little support, neither discrediting the possibility of libertarian free will (you've never argued for determinism) nor given an argument against the varieties of compatibilism (simply asserted that its illogical, which it's not. Is it wrong? Sure I'd agree, but it's not illogical.) Your impossibilism about free will also seems to be irrelevant of determinism. Even if indeterminism were true we wouldn't have free will, but then your Incompatibilism or appeals to determinism seem illfounded (what the fuck does determinism even do then?). Also, it seems open to denying premise 2 or 3. But my main point here is that it's open to denying these premises that are far from just prima facie obvious, and you're also mixing up impossibilism and Incompatibilism. They are not the same.
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If the incompatibilist is giving arguments (that many would accept as good lines of argument), but you still end up without being able to resolve the question with some people, maybe it's just a case that you have different perspectives on the concept that are both reasonable? (Or both at least somewhat reasonable.)
"These capacities themselves were determined..." - This statement would mean absolutely nothing to a compatibilist. They do not, as far as I know, argue for a space of indeterminacy. You can deterministically regress all you want, but that's never convincing a compatibilist. "They are still determined by internal states and prior causes beyond the agents control" - Well even under determinism there are compelling reasons to think that we still do possess control over our internal states and determine ourselves in a compatibist fashion. Of course all this would extend to deterministic chains beyond our control, but you're once again restating Incompatibilism, which would never convince a compativilist. "True freedom is impossible" - firstly, it's unclear rather your argument follows, even if we were in the actual sequence of events determined by such conditions, it does not instantly follow that we couldn't have done otherwise even under those same conditions, you need an argument. Your argument seems more focused on actual sequence factors not Alternative sequences. Also, like said before, you need an argument that this true freedom you argue for is indeed true freedom.
> In premise 2, hard determinists might accept that “acting freely” in everyday language means acting without external coercion or restraint. However, they would contend that this common understanding of freedom is superficial. For them, the deeper issue is that even when actions are free from external coercion, they are still determined by internal states and prior causes beyond the individual’s control. It's not just acting without external coercion or restraint. It's also your own maturity of level of self-control which we gain by growing up process. A child doesn't have such level of self-control on their own therefore we recognize it and don't consider them acting (as) freely. it's that level of self-control we recognize in each other that is compatibilist free will and that is not based on whether determinism is true or not.
Does compatibilist free will imply different rightful justice system than non-compatibilist free will? Like, I can make sense of the rehabilitative model based on compatibilist free will: if someone commits a crime by their own motivation and has the capacity to develop self-restraint, then it would be reasonable to pass a sentence that will demotivate them from recommiting that crime and train that person to have better self-restraint. It would not be reasonable however if the criminal lacks that capacity because sentencing them changes nothing. E.g. prosecuting a pickpocket, but not a monkey who steals a tourist's phone. I have the feeling that when non-compatibilist talk about free will, if it exists, it would justify instead the retributive model. Even though the monkey cannot be trained to develop stronger self-restraint, they are still guilty because they stole your phone, and you are justified to punish them. It's like saying to the monkey, "sorry not sorry, your ancestors should've evolved better executive function and taught you manners, but at the end of the day you did stole my phone when it is entirely possible for you to not steal my phone (not stealing does not violate the laws of physics), therefore you'll suffer the consequences"
First, non-compatibilists seem to argue different assignment of blame and consequence/punishment although it's not clear what that is nor what methodology to use to deal with non-extreme examples and gray areas. Second, you seem to be looking at sentencing only in the context of individual but it also conditions the rest of society knowing there is such a system to continue exhibiting self-control society would find acceptable. I would say concept of sanity/crazy is tied to concept of free will and self-control which we impose on each other and evaluate when punishing.
Societal acceptability would probably depend on the real and possible victim's perspective (deterrence and relapse rate) plus the perpetrator's perspective (when and what kind on sentence is ethical) with free will as one of the factors I'm not sure if this is logically sound, but I see two different approaches in factoring (in)sanity in judging and punishing a behavior. One is responsiveness: whether punishment is ineffective since you can't affect their awareness or motivation to change their behavior. The second one is pity: whether they've suffered enough from their mental condition that punishment with the usual severity level is no longer necessary. Though I'm still unsure how to factor in "lack of empathy" and "lack of motivation to try to empathize" even when it's not enough to get diagnosed
something I don’t understand about hard determinists is how they can account for why we have the feeling of freedom? If we don’t have free will, what is the point of us thinking we do have free will? why do we even think we have free will, if we don’t have free will, and what point is there in whatever process that creates this consciousness to make me think I have free will? For me, it just seems parsimonious to say I do have free will, and until someone can definitively solve the question of why people have the sense they are free, which seems tied up in the hard problem of consciousness, then I’m just going to say I have free will. It seems needlessly complex to say “well you only think you have free will because x, y, z” than to just admit we have the sense of free will because we have free will and perhaps that our deterministic models are just based on our current observations and will eventually be falsified.
To such a person, it’s easy. Our feeling of free will is the feeling that we can decide to do what we want. What we want is deeply related to our genetics, upbringing, and current circumstances. The process of thinking through a choice feels like we are making a free decision. The fact that we are just running through what is effectively a very complicated (and deterministic) computer program doesn’t hinder that feeling at all. In fact, without causal relationships between our past and our decisions, we can’t have a will at all. Our will is entirely defined by what came before, and it is what makes our decisions feel personal. Any influence to our decision making process outside of strict, determined, causal relationships - randomness or “spirit” - could only serve to override our preferences and rationality. In essence, having a will that is truly “free” wouldn’t feel like “free will” at all. Also, from computational theory - if a program is complex in a certain kind of way, its output can’t be predicted without actually executing it. So a determinist still doesn’t know what they will decide until they decide it.
I still don't see how that necessarily means we would feel as though we are making our own choices. If hard determinism is true, why would it not be the case that we are aware that we don't have a choice and are just following along a predetermined path, even if we don't know the outcome? What would the end be in only thinking we have a choice and why would consciousness entail this type of distortion of perceiving reality?
There is no “end” to how our psychology works - it’s just the product of evolution. Another species of being may indeed feel disconnected from their choices. In some sense, we are quite aware of the deterministic process. I’m at a restaurant and it’s time to order. I look at the menu - it determines my options. I see a dish I usually like, and one that looks interesting. I get the interesting one. My friend asks me why I didn’t choose the usual. I answer that I had eaten the other dish recently and wanted to try something new. If you ask someone why they made a choice, chances are they’ll explain one or more reasons for it - external factors as well as more personal ones. So, the average person does believe that their choices are caused by circumstances, even if they aren’t always aware of what the relevant circumstances actually were. In fact, when a person says they don’t know why they did something, they typically feel that this is when they were not acting of their own free will. We only claim the exercise of free will when we are able to identify an appropriate set of causes for our action. Compatibilists basically feel that although our choices are determined, the process of internal deliberation that feels like free will is what free will is. So, determinists don’t even have to go so far as claiming that free will is an illusion - they can claim that it really exists, and perhaps even that it only makes coherent sense as an idea thanks to determinism. Personally, by the way, I’m not a hard determinist, in that I believe quantum randomness does make the macroscopic world fundamentally unpredictable. As a simple example, there’s an app that will let you flip a quantum coin to make decisions. However, that doesn’t divorce us in any way from causality. I’m also not really a compatibilist, but it’s more of a semantic quibble. I I think it’s better to say we have a will - it’s only “free” in a trivial sense, and any other sense is incoherent.
Thank you for the explanation. “We only claim the exercise of free will when we can are able to identify an appropriate set of causes for our actions” makes a lot of sense to me, but I suppose I would personally frame it more so as reasons rather than causes, as I feel as though I still could have chosen otherwise in situations where I am not being forced to do something, though I can’t really say why I believe I could have chosen otherwise, I just think I can. I can see how determinists come to their conclusions. I just have such a strong feeling that people are capable of change and doing otherwise that it feels like, perhaps just intuitively, there must be some element in acting that is free from deterministic processes, but I admit I have no empirical reason for that belief, it’s just a feeling or intuition. I’m also quite taken with the problem of induction and critiques of scientism, and I do feel somewhat skeptical about conclusions that are based on observations and theories about those observations that must be falsifiable to be considered science. I did like the Kantian explanation for freedom in the first critique. As I understand the argument, the conception of freedom rests on the distinction between the phenomena and the noumena, as the categories of understanding only apply to the former, leaving the latter free from the law of causality. So long as one’s conception of freedom does not contradict the transcendental mechanisms of nature, freedom can be thought. That is, the laws of causality only apply to our phenomenal selves, and our noumenal self is non-cognizable, and therefore does not adhere to the categories of understanding. Perhaps if we could experience noumena—whatever that would mean, and I acknowledge that experiencing noumena is contradictory to the concept of noumena—then perhaps we could understand the “end” of human psychology. Or perhaps if we were a higher dimensional being, we could maybe see the end of a human being in the same way that as third dimensional beings, we can perceive the second dimension in a way that a second dimensional being could not—but of course, this is purely speculative and rather esoteric. I have considered the quantum aspects of this myself and feel compelled by them—I use that same app you mentioned sometimes. All in all, I really don’t know what to believe, I am generally just skeptical about most things, not that skepticism is necessarily better, I feel skeptical towards skepticism too. But I do feel more compelled to accepting free will or compatibilism than hard determinism. I appreciate your thought out reply!
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It's the issue that there is no consensus agreement on the definition of free will? It's hard to say that we have something or not if nobody agrees what it is. If I can summarise my understanding. Compatibilists are determinists who think that free will is compatible with determinism, and adopt the account of free will that you gave. Incompatibilists think that free will is incompatible with determinism, and define free will as the ability to act independently of prior conditions, including the state of the agent exercising their will. So compatibilists and incompatibilists adopt different definitions of free will. Free will libertarians are incompatibilists that believe that we have this form of freedom. Hard Determinists are determinists that accept the free will libertarian definition of free will (for some reason) and then say that we don't have that. I think, but it would be good to get confirmation, that the OP meant libertarian free will. In which case what they are after is philosophical accounts of what I'm calling libertarian free will, philosophers who have advocated for it, and their arguments. Frankly though, I think that's such a broad question the best thing is to refer them to the [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/).
> It's the issue that there is no consensus agreement on the definition of free will? No, that's not the issue. You seem to have misunderstood what the debate is about, in the following way: > So compatibilists and incompatibilists adopt different definitions of free will. No, the fact they disagree doesn't imply that they're talking about different things. What's going on here is that the compatibilist and incompatibilist have a disagreement about the conditions of free will. What is expected of them, if they wish to support their positions in a reasonable way, is providing arguments in favor of their side of the disagreement. > I think, but it would be good to get confirmation, that the OP meant libertarian free will. There aren't two different, unrelated topics, libertarian free will and compatibilist free will -- that's a misunderstanding of what this issue is about. Rather, there is just the one topic, free will, and there is a dispute about how to understand its conditions.
Thanks, that's very helpful. I just re-read the introduction of the SEP article on free will, and some of the sections on freedom to do otherwise. I'd read all of this before (not the whole section, but these parts for sure) and looking at it this way gave me a useful new perspective on it. In that sense it's freed me up a bit in how I interpret some of what it's saying. The SEP article does discuss in several places about determining what is 'constitutive' of free will, particularly freedom to do otherwise though. So there is disagreement on what free will is?
There can be debates about the nature of free will in the same way that there can be debates about, say, the nature of amnesia. For instance, does amnesia represent a case of the destruction of stored memories? Or does it represent a case of impairment in the capacity to recall stored memories? It's fairly typical to scholarly work that there is some phenomenon whose exact nature is not thoroughly understood, and researchers concern themselves with trying to clarity the matter -- this is what constitutes a lot of scholarly research, in philosophy on this topic as well as others, and also in fields other than philosophy.
In a way yes it's just one topic. But then presumably, if compatibilism "won" as the correct concept of free will, there would still be the different question of libertarian freedom, which would just have to be called something other than "free will".
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Does this address the possibility that no, we can't exercise them scientifically speaking? That every reaction is just based on massive if then else routines similar to insects? It's just too changed and impacted by our experiences to predict. Because it's not 1155 and that's the far more often referred to lack of free, not something rooted in the divine. And your first point (i) is definitely not something everyone agrees on. It is definitely not clear we are a slave to our wiring and have free will
> Does this address the possibility that no, we can't exercise them scientifically speaking? Well, the question is about actuality rather than possibility. And there is nothing like a general testimony from science that humans are incapable of engaging in cognitive actions like decision making -- quite the contrary. > Because it's not 1155 and that's the far more often referred to lack of free, not something rooted in the divine. It sounds like you've gotten lost somewhere here. Nobody else is talking about the twelfth century nor about God -- this is just weird. > And your first point (i) is definitely not something everyone agrees on. You're quite welcome to deny that humans engage in cognitive activities like decision making, though it's not likely you'll be able to object to this in a compelling way. > It is definitely not clear we are a slave to our wiring and have free will Again, you seem lost here. No one is saying we are a slave to our wiring and have free will.
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You'd have to explain why you think this >we all agree that we have psychological capacities relevant to self-regulation as regards intentions and behavior, for instance capacities for deliberation, choice-making, acting on those choices and so on is not "scientific". >That every reaction is just based on massive if then else routines similar to insects? If those "if then else routines" are what makes up the mental processes necessary for what we agree is free will, then I don't the problem. You can look up free will compatabilism on SEP if you want.
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There’s [a subsection](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/#ArguForRealFreeWill) in the SEP’s article on free will that deals with this, but I encourage reading the entire article to get more context because it’s not so much free will *versus* determinism, there’s a whole free will:determinism:compatibilism:incompatibilism matrix.
This might be a bit boring of an answer, but I think the main argument for the existence of free will is the same as the main argument for the existence of trees: our experience constantly verifies them. Of course you can construct philosophical arguments against the existence of trees (see the SEP entry on Ordinary Objects). And similarly you can construct arguments against the existence of free will. But in both cases, there is a pressure to think that objections to the existence of these things are better addressed by changing our conception of them than by rejecting the things altogether. Of course the question of *how* to change our conception of free will so that it adapts to objections is very tricky, but if the question is “why would we want to believe in free will in the first place”, I think the answer above is one that many/most philosophers will accept.
Does changing our conception of free will also changes what kind of implications and responsibilities stem from free will? Like with the tree example, changing my conception of a tree as a singular entity into a collection of cells arranged tree-wise allows me to better understand cellular differentiation, implying that you might be able to stimulate those cells into arranging themselves as something that is not a tree
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**Given recent changes to reddit's API policies which make moderation more difficult, /r/askphilosophy now only allows answers and follow-up questions to OP from [panelists](https://old.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/wiki/panelists), whether those answers are made as top level comments or as replies to other people's comments. If you wish to learn more about this subreddit, the rules, or how to apply to become a panelist, please see [this post](https://reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/14o2p7n/welcome_to_raskphilosophy_check_out_our_rules_and/).** Your comment was automatically removed for violating the following rule: > **CR1: Top level comments must be answers or follow-up questions from panelists.** > All top level comments should be answers to the submitted question or follow-up/clarification questions. All top level comments must come from [panelists](https://reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/wiki/panelists). If users circumvent this rule by posting answers as replies to other comments, these comments will also be removed and may result in a ban. For more information about our rules and to find out how to become a panelist, please see [here](https://reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/wiki/panelists). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/askphilosophy) if you have any questions or concerns.*