Is free will real?

[Radagast]

To keep it tidy, I think we should distinguish between will and choice.

To keep it tidy, you should distinguish between compatibilist free will, PAP free will, your definition of free will, and others.

 

[Carl Emerson]

Paul, for example, talks about sinners being what they are by birth and not really by (free) choice. They're slaves to sin and can't really not sin. IMHO the entire bible makes much more sense if you read it without supposing man's free will but instead God's sovereignty.

My conclusion as well...

 

[Radagast]

Haha, I guess you're right about that. It seems to me that when a choice is determined by a desire (to be saved or get drunk or whatever), the question becomes where that desire came from.

Exactly.

If it's true that free will doesn't really exist, then we can truly not condemn each other for anything.

Your variety of free will might not exist, but the other varieties still can. In particular, compatibilist free will certainly exists.

That is to say, we are free in the sense that we take the action that we want to take.

 

[holo]

Your variety of free will might not exist, but the other varieties still can. In particular compatibilist free will certainly exists.

That is to say, we are free in the sense that we take the action that we want to take.

I don't think it's right to call compatibilism a form of free will. As some philosopher has probably said much more eloquently than me, we can choose what we want, but we can't choose to want something.

When we condemn someone (not something) there's the underlying assumption that they could have done different. But could they really?

 

[reformed05]

The concept of free will popped up in a discussion I have with @Sanoy. I think it should have its own thread to keep things a little tidy.

Is free will real? Can it be real, given what we know about natural laws? Is it truly possible, philosophically speaking?

There are different conceptions of what free will means. What I mean by it is something like this: the ability to make a choice (or think of something) without that choice being determined by something else. For example, you can use your will to choose pizza over tacos, but is it a free choice? Do you pick one over the other for no reason? Or is it in fact determined by, say, that you just don't happen to like the taste of one of them (which obviously isn't something you freely chose)?

What would be an example of truly free will being exercised?

(Posted in this subforum because it has implications for how we think about morality.)

The only examples of absolute free will are Adam and Eve. And that may only apply to the will to o be or disobey God's command. And of course Jesus because as God incarnate, born of a virgin as son of man (human) He was not born with our sin nature. As th whether He could have sinned that is still a mystery to me.
Anyway, you have touched on something the people who defend free will, either ignore or do not realize. Aside from the fact that the Bible tells us our will is in bondage, there is a completely secular aspect of the human will.

It is treated in the free will Christian community as the same thing as the will. It is a made u term really used to explain things in the Bible they don't like.
Anyway. It is treated like it's own independent part of us. Our mind or our body. As though it went about doing things independantly. The will us ALWAYS acted upon as you say. Something make us will to make one choice over another. If someone points a gun at us and demands our money, we don't want to give them our money. However the stronger persuasion of the gun causes us to choose to give them our money. We choose blue shoe over green because it goes better with our clothes. Even Adam and Eve were deciding no doubt "Do I want something sweet or savory for lunch?" Our will bends always to our greatest need, or desire or the greatest force applied to it.

 

[reformed05]

I personally believe that free will is real........
but that belief has me inclined toward Multiverse Theory being equal to one possible fulfillment of Ezekiel 37


Could the prophet Elijah have altered history if he had NOT........

Here is an idea! Maybe we should stop trying to explain God and all that He does s though He were a created being. As though He is human like us.

 

[zippy2006]

Haha, I guess you're right about that. It seems to me that when a choice is determined by a desire (to be saved or get drunk or whatever), the question becomes where that desire came from. And I don't think we can pick or choose desires. We can decide to cultivate one desire and starve another, but that itself comes from a desire.

This thread will go in circles until you give a definition of free will that can be analyzed. As others have noted, the definition by which free will is the ability to act without a reason is vacuous. No one holds that.

The general libertarian view holds to agent causation, the idea that free agents are the cause of their own actions in a certain sense. That is to say, when the cosmological causal nexus aligns to bring a new human being into the world, that human being introduces a level of causality that flows from the agent themselves. Therefore, understanding that person as a cause is not exhausted by beliefs, desires, upbringing, genetics, etc. All these things play a role, but they do not offer a full account. To arrive at a full account we would need to identify the person themselves as a free, rational being.

 

[Radagast]

I don't think it's right to call compatibilism a form of free will.

Well, in my view, it's the only kind of free will you've got.

When we condemn someone (not something) there's the underlying assumption that they could have done different.

And that's an argument traditionally used for PAP free will. But I think it's wrong. If you do what you want to do, that's sufficient grounds for condemnation.

You joined a teenage gang and they forced you to beat up an innocent old man... but you enjoyed every minute of beating the old man up. That, in my view, is enough to make you guilty.

"Our least acquiescence signs a pact with force," as Dante says.

 

[Radagast]

This thread will go in circles until you give a definition of free will that can be analyzed.

So true.

And that holds for every single "free will" thread on CF.

 

[durangodawood]

This thread will go in circles until you give a definition of free will that can be analyzed. As others have noted, the definition by which free will is the ability to act without a reason is vacuous. No one holds that.

The general libertarian view holds to agent causation, the idea that free agents are the cause of their own actions in a certain sense. That is to say, when the cosmological causal nexus aligns to bring a new human being into the world, that human being introduces a level of causality that flows from the agent themselves. Therefore, understanding that person as a cause is not exhausted by beliefs, desires, upbringing, genetics, etc. All these things play a role, but they do not offer a full account. To arrive at a full account we would need to identify the person themselves as a free, rational being.

Nice.

The only thing I dislike about this is the monniker "libertarian" free will, just because of the political taint. But not a huge deal.

Oh. And I presume that we have libertarian free will, for these reasons.
1. It feels like we do.
2. I want us to
3. I cannot a find a solid reason why we cant.

 

[Silmarien]

To keep it tidy, I think we should distinguish between will and choice. Computers make choices, but in those cases it's usually obvious to us why the choice is made and how it couldn't have been different. The question is if there's something to our minds that could allow us to make choices that couldn't even in principle be predicted. As in input X and Y will necessarily produce outcome Z under conditions A + B. Or to use an example from Sam Harris: if you could rewind time for, say, a minute, the exact same thing would happen every time even if you did it a million times, because the conditions that made it happen would still be the same.

I wouldn't make this sort of distinction, since to me the underlying issue is agency, not the question of whether choices can be predicted. Computers are not actually making choices--there is no agency at play when a computer runs a program. If a computer developed the ability to consciously make decisions and take itself off of autopilot, then we would be able to talk about will with regards to computers as well.

Again, I don't think that free will requires being able to replay the same moment a million times and end up with different results. If that happened, that would destroy free will, since you would be making different decisions for no logical reason whatsoever. Indeterminancy and freedom are not the same thing.

I see I have a bit of reading to do (I know very little about Aristotle's thinking apart from everything having four causes, the "final" one being the intention or purpose of the thing, if I remember correctly).

Yeah, more or less.

I'm a bit familiar with the idea that consciousness may be fundamental, which sounds crazy at first but that people like David Chalmers and Donald Hoffman (they're on several podcasts if that's your thing) makes sound a little less crazy.

Oh, I've read David Chalmers, though Donald Hoffman is a new name to me. It looks like he leans in a strictly idealistic direction, with serious Vedantic influences? I think that's much more promising than the standard materialistic approach.

I don't agree it denies responsibility, but I think it would be right to say that it denies the possibility of guilt in a true sense (it will of course exist as an emotion and a cultural concept regardless). If we know exactly why someone did something wrong, we would see that they didn't in fact have a free choice. We already apply this kind of reasoning to excuse what people do in life-threatening situations for example, or when a kid who's been bullied for years finally snaps and beats his oppressor to the ground and stomps on him. It boils down to how much we know about why people do things. If we knew everything, I believe we wouldn't pass moral judgment on anyone. BUT, that's not to say there's no place for law or punishment. It still makes sense to hold people accountable, not to mention to deter harmful behaviour and protect the innocent. But we couldn't truly condemn anyone. Whatever they did was the only thing they could possibly do. It would remove the foundation for revenge for revenge's sake.

Yeah, like I said. If you think that choices are ultimately free, this entire line of argument is just denying responsibility for one's own actions. There are underlying reasons why people snap and shoot up shopping malls, but unless they are not in physical control of themselves, they are still operating as agents. The choice to pull the trigger is internal, not external.

I think it's self-evident that agents exist--in fact, that is really the only thing that is self-evident about reality. I don't think a legal system which denied that agency was real would be of much practical use to anyone.

 

[durangodawood]

....I don't think a legal system which denied that agency was real would be of much practical use to anyone.

Really?

I think a rehabilitate and repair model of justice might be of more use to everyone than a judge and punish model.

 

[Silmarien]

Really?

I think a rehabilitate and repair model of justice might be of more use to everyone than a judge and punish model.

I actually think a purely rehabilitative system is a travesty, since it lacks empathy for the victim. As a society, we already could care less about rape and sexual abuse, so there is clearly a need to focus upon justice for the victim rather than seeking only to rehabilitate the poor (white, male) perpetrator and his dashed future.

We already see hints of what it looks like to not hold people responsible for their actions. "Boys will just be boys" rhetoric exists, and it normalizes all types of sexual misconduct. If we get rid of the notion of responsibility, guilt, and punishment, I don't think we end up with a rehabilitative model. We end up erasing victims and overlooking criminal behavior altogether.

There is also the issue that if the state doesn't bother to provide justice for the wronged party, we won't end up with a rehabilitative and repair model. We'll end up with vendettas and vigilantes.

[I would also wonder how a society would go about rehabilitating someone by telling them that they have no responsibility for their actions and ought not feel any guilt for anything they've done. Unless you're going to go Clockwork Orange on someone, I suppose.]

 

[Robban]

The concept of free will popped up in a discussion I have with @Sanoy. I think it should have its own thread to keep things a little tidy.

Is free will real? Can it be real, given what we know about natural laws? Is it truly possible, philosophically speaking?

There are different conceptions of what free will means. What I mean by it is something like this: the ability to make a choice (or think of something) without that choice being determined by something else. For example, you can use your will to choose pizza over tacos, but is it a free choice? Do you pick one over the other for no reason? Or is it in fact determined by, say, that you just don't happen to like the taste of one of them (which obviously isn't something you freely chose)?

What would be an example of truly free will being exercised?

(Posted in this subforum because it has implications for how we think about morality.)

No one should think of themselves so important that no one can fill their place.

Free will or no free will.

Example;

Esther 4:12-17.

Consider Mordekai,s answer

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I grant that science seems divided on the issue.

Not really. It's possible that a biologist was trying to give a simplified description and described it as 'like a mini brain', or some such, meaning that it dynamically controls the activity of the heart. This kind of description ('a second brain') is often used for the complex of neural ganglia that manage the digestive system, but it describes a complex control system, not something capable of abstract thought.

 

[durangodawood]

I actually think a purely rehabilitative system is a travesty, since it lacks empathy for the victim. As a society, we already could care less about rape and sexual abuse, so there is clearly a need to focus upon justice for the victim rather than seeking only to rehabilitate the poor (white, male) perpetrator and his dashed future.

We already see hints of what it looks like to not hold people responsible for their actions. "Boys will just be boys" rhetoric exists, and it normalizes all types of sexual misconduct. If we get rid of the notion of responsibility, guilt, and punishment, I don't think we end up with a rehabilitative model. We end up erasing victims and overlooking criminal behavior altogether.

There is also the issue that if the state doesn't bother to provide justice for the wronged party, we won't end up with a rehabilitative and repair model. We'll end up with vendettas and vigilantes.

[I would also wonder how a society would go about rehabilitating someone by telling them that they have no responsibility for their actions and ought not feel any guilt for anything they've done. Unless you're going to go Clockwork Orange on someone, I suppose.]

Ok, well what is justice for the victim if we're stipulating that free will is not real?

The justice youre talking about makes sense to the victim if we have agency. But you were asking about how justice would work if we dont.

 

[Silmarien]

Ok, well what is justice for the victim if we're stipulating that free will is not real?

The justice youre talking about makes sense to the victim if we have agency. But you were asking about how justice would work if we dont.

No, I wasn't. I was never stipulating that free will wasn't real, though I don't think it would eliminate the need for retributive justice if it were not.

People still feel wronged when they are victims of a crime, for obvious reasons. This is true regardless of whether or not someone believes in free will, so it's something that a society has to take into consideration. Even from a purely utilitarian perspective, a state that holds people responsible for their actions and punishes them accordingly--no more or less--is going to have much less instability than one that chooses to forego with punishment. We see this as it is in the many ways our criminal system fails--look at the issue of police shootings, for example. Black communities are rightly more concerned with institutional violence against them being recognized and punished by the state than they are with the rehabilitation of the guilty police officer. Forego with retributative justice and you will eventually have people going after blood themselves.

Honestly, I think the very notion of justice relies upon the (fairly self-evident) assumption that agency is real. That is the deepest intuition of human existence, and all our ideas of justice and redress are built upon it in the first place. To build a legal system that denied agency would require being a different species, and in that scenario, there's really no reason to expect that rehabilitation would be much of a concern either. After all, you're unlikely to put much of any emphasis on the value of the individual if there's no underlying belief in agency or personhood. Liquidating the non-compliant would be much more cost-effective than rehabilitating them. Cold, but true in a world without free will. (And we already saw hints of this in that most infamous of deterministic societies, the Soviet Union.)

 

[Nithavela]

Nah, it's just an illusion. Science has shown that our brains first make an automatic decision and then create the illusion of us choosing. It's just a magic trick to keep you from going insane.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

No, I wasn't. I was never stipulating that free will wasn't real, though I don't think it would eliminate the need for retributive justice if it were not.

People still feel wronged when they are victims of a crime, for obvious reasons. This is true regardless of whether or not someone believes in free will, so it's something that a society has to take into consideration. Even from a purely utilitarian perspective, a state that holds people responsible for their actions and punishes them accordingly--no more or less--is going to have much less instability than one that chooses to forego with punishment. We see this as it is in the many ways our criminal system fails--look at the issue of police shootings, for example. Black communities are rightly more concerned with institutional violence against them being recognized and punished by the state than they are with the rehabilitation of the guilty police officer. Forego with retributative justice and you will eventually have people going after blood themselves.

Honestly, I think the very notion of justice relies upon the (fairly self-evident) assumption that agency is real. That is the deepest intuition of human existence, and all our ideas of justice and redress are built upon it in the first place. To build a legal system that denied agency would require being a different species, and in that scenario, there's really no reason to expect that rehabilitation would be much of a concern either. After all, you're unlikely to put much of any emphasis on the value of the individual if there's no underlying belief in agency or personhood. Liquidating the non-compliant would be much more cost-effective than rehabilitating them. Cold, but true in a world without free will. (And we already saw hints of this in that most infamous of deterministic societies, the Soviet Union.)

Systems that are rehabilitative and have a restorative component, rather than being punitive or retributive, can be far more successful than traditional punitive systems. When crimes are treated as health problems on a spectrum from social health (e.g. maladjustment) to mental health (e.g. criminal psychopathy), rehabilitation into society is the objective, and reparation is part of rehabilitation for both criminal and victim, it is possible achieve humane and effective results with low levels of crime and recidivism. Even small scale trials have shown how having victims of petty crime meet their offenders in person can change the views of both, from seeing the other as a stereotype or cypher to seeing each other as people with understandable emotions and motivations.

A good, though not perfect, example of such a system is Norway's justice system; contrast their levels of crime, incarceration, and recidivism with those in the USA (or the UK).

 

[Silmarien]

Systems that are rehabilitative and have a restorative component, rather than being punitive or retributive, can be far more successful than traditional punitive systems. When crimes are treated as health problems on a spectrum from social health (e.g. maladjustment) to mental health (e.g. criminal psychopathy), rehabilitation into society is the objective, and reparation is part of rehabilitation for both criminal and victim, it is possible achieve humane and effective results with low levels of crime and recidivism. Even small scale trials have shown how having victims of petty crime meet their offenders in person can change the views of both, from seeing the other as a stereotype or cypher to seeing each other as people with understandable emotions and motivations.

A good, though not perfect, example of such a system is Norway's justice system; contrast their levels of crime, incarceration, and recidivism with those in the USA (or the UK).

As an attorney, I'm very critical of this view. It is entirely possible for a legal system to incorporate both elements of retributive and rehabilitative justice, and I think focusing on either aspect to the exclusion of the other is a miscarriage of justice. Honestly, I think that rehabilitation requires an element of retribution as well--if the criminal does not recognize that there's a debt to be paid, how can they correct course in any meaningful way? This doesn't require draconian retributative measures, but we cannot jettison an entire element of legal theory altogether.

I also think it's problematic to suddenly focus on petty crime when I have exclusively been talking about rape and murder, specifically in the context of situations where the perpetrator has an institutionalized advantage over the victim. Sexual abuse by the wealthy, police brutality against marginalized communities. As long as these problems exist--and they will likely always exist, simply because of the nature of power--you cannot expect those who are suffering from a degree of institutional abuse to be satisfied if society is unwilling to admit that there is more going on than "understandable emotions and motivations."

Refusing to hold people in power accountable for their crimes doesn't lead to their victims passively accepting that there are reasons why they do the things they do. Eventually it leads to a public lynching disguised as justice. This is what happens when society reneges upon its responsibility to actually punish people in a reasonable fashion.

I also don't think that Norway is a paragon of criminal justice. There are significant problems with sexual abuse there: Women in Nordic nations deal with high levels of rape and abuse even as the countries lead in gender equality