Part of what makes for a good decision is it being made in the right way, on the basis of the right reasons. A poorly made decision might accidentally come to the right conclusion, but it would nevertheless be a decision made badly. We strive, in making good decisions, to make them on the basis of good reasons (for example, true and accurate information, good values, only those emotions that are appropriate to the situation, etc.) and on the basis of a proper relation between those reasons (for example, giving to each reason its due weight compared to the others, prioritizing values in the proper order, etc.). To the extent that a decision is made on the basis of good reasons in right relation, we think of it as a good decision; to the extent that a decision is not made on this basis, we think of it as a decision made badly. Hold that thought...
While there are many different ideas of what "freedom of the will" entails, a minority position in the literature advocates for what is sometimes called "libertarian free will." According to this view, when I make a free decision, I "could have done otherwise" in some strong sense. When a flipped coin lands heads, for example, we might say that it "could have" landed tails. We mean this only in a weak sense, though. We simply mean that we do not have knowledge of the various conditions that determine its trajectory. By contrast, we would not say that it "could have" stayed in the air spinning forever, because we think that we know enough of the relevant factors (gravity, prominently) to know what will happen. Both cases -- the coin falling at all, and it falling heads -- are governed by reasons (in this case, physical regularities) that account sufficiently for the result, and we would not expect a coin thrown in atomically identical conditions to land heads sometimes and tails other times.
By contrast, those who advocate for libertarian free will suggest that given identical conditions, different decisions may follow. In excess of all the relevant factors -- environmental conditions, psycho-physical composition and character, the reasons for or against, moral habits which I have cultivated, etc. -- there is some Ultimate, Mysterious Something that pushes things in one way or the other, such that an identical set of factors under identical conditions could have led to a different decision.
From the libertarian standpoint, my decision-making can certainly take into account many factors, ranging from the irritable color of the wallpaper in the room and my indigestion over a large breakfast to my rigorous training in the laws of formal probability analysis. Such factors, however, do not ultimately suffice to account for the decision that I make. But this means that even with pretty good reasons (information, moral values, emotional motivations, etc.) in pretty good relations (weighed, prioritized, processed, etc.), a decision is "free" precisely in the sense that there exists an additional factor ("free will") that overrides these matters and could make the decision go either way.
On the libertarian account of freedom, in other words, in order for a decision to be made freely, it must be made badly.
14 comments:
That last line seems rather uncharitable don't you think?
It seems to me the critical piece of libertarian free will is that there need not be any external determining causes to our decisions beyond oneself. Ultimately it is up to me how I choose and there is nothing external that causes my choice. The reasons I weigh in making my decisions are not causal in a determining sense. You don't need to have preceding causes to the will.
It is not required that one has the ability to choose other than one does although that is often the case. We can think of thought experiments where someone can not choose other than one does but still chooses freely (meaning their choice was not caused despite their inability to choose another option).
It seems to me that your good choices and bad choices do not matter if they were causally determined by preceding causes. I just don't agree with how compatibilism tries to reconcile free will and universal causal determinism. I still hold you responsible for this article despite the fact that it was determined. :)
Thanks for commenting! I always hope people will want to talk about the things I post.
Perhaps I made too much of the idea of whether things "could have been different" or not. I phrased it that way because that is what I have found common in the literature, but I am not overly committed to that rendition. I think my argument works equally well on your account.
You describe someone who chooses freely as one whose "choice was not caused." But good decisions are precisely those decisions that are caused, namely, by the relevant reasons structured in proper relation to each other. To whatever extent a decision is not based upon such reasons, but instead just springs into existence without cause, it is made poorly.
As for the final point, I do not see what obstacle causation is to whether something matters. If I make a bad decision to go on a murderous rampage through Visalia, that decision certainly matters, whether it has a causal history or not.
We agree that decisions are influenced by reasons. We don't agree that there is a causal connection between the reasons and the actual willing or that a causal relationship is at all required.
I will something, taking in to account reasons for a decision, make me the causal agent. There is no preceding cause. That seems to me much different then I will deterministically due to reasons/causes outside myself (ie God determined it in his sovereignty so he is the causal agent and my will is more the effect).
It seems to me that on determinism you were determined to believe in determinism and I was not. So neither of our beliefs are truly rational in the sense that we didn't really weigh reasons and come to our beliefs. They were simply determined.
In regards to decisions and whether they matter. I don't see how from a moral perspective that you are responsible for good or bad decisions that were determined and that was the sense in which I meant matter.
Just for clarity, you hold to compatibilism and a universal, divine, causal determinism, correct?
Good chat.
It appears there are a few different strands to the discussion.
(1) My Original Argument
While I appreciate the elucidation of your account of libertarian free will and your critiques of a non-libertarian account, it does not appear that these comments in any way undermine the original argument of the post: a commitment to a libertarian will, whatever else can be said for or against it, entails the somewhat strange conclusion that a freely made decision is also thereby a badly made decision.
(2) Your Account of Free Will
You have spoken of free decisions being ones in which "the choice was not caused," and you have spoken of willing something with "no preceding cause." I agree that this sounds much different than an causal account of decisions, and it is something to which I definitely object.
Frankly, the idea that my decisions are not caused by anything is something I find terrifying. Although these feelings obviously do not make it true or false, I want to believe that when I make a decision, that decision comes from my history, thoughts, emotions, character, etc., rather than it bursting onto the scene without any cause. I find it puzzling, furthermore, that you seem to identify "yourself" with what seem like arbitrary bursts of decision-without-cause.
(3) Alternatives to a Libertarian Account
I think a non-libertarian account of free will does just fine with respect to rationality. On a deterministic account, weighing reasons and coming to our beliefs is precisely what we do, and the question is whether such weighing was done rationally (viz., according to the proper structures) or not. It is difficult to see rationality on the libertarian account, where instead of being caused by deliberative processes that can be assessed as either rational or irrational, decisions just pop into being without cause.
As for whether decisions "matter," I misunderstood you. The relation between decision-making and moral responsibility is an important topic, of course, and we would have a lot to say. Nevertheless, we have already bitten off quite a bit to discuss; perhaps we should both leave aside defending ourselves with respect to moral responsibility for now?
(And yes, I think you have my own position right: I believe that God is the origin and end of all things and that this is the condition for, not the contrary of, freedom.)
Thank you for breaking things down. I am probably in over my head but I think that I recognize your original post accurately as not being a fair representation or logical conclusion of holding to libertarian free will.
Regarding 1) It seems that you are saying there are a string of causally related actions/events that result in an agent willing something and that on libertarian free will there is some mysterious variable that gives you a potentially nonsensical outcome. I argue that a cause is different than a reason. A truly free agent weighs reasons and then wills actions voluntarily apart from the overriding influence of causal factors external to oneself.
Further, any indeterminacy in that decision making process does not denigrate the decision and take it from being good to bad. We would be talking about a choice between two perfectly rational decisions based on reasoning. I don't agree that if a decision could go either way that would make it a bad decision once made simply because there was some indeterminate factor in the process.
Regarding 2)
I think this is where a free agent would say that we weigh reasons in making decisions but that is different than the decision being caused.
I am thinking of an 8 ball on a pool table being struck by a cue ball when thinking of a preceding cause. The 8 ball had no say/choice in the matter and anything emanating from it was caused by the cue ball which it had no control over. So I wouldn't call the action of the 8 ball free in any sense of the word. I don't identify my free agency with arbitrary burst of random decisions. I am the originating cause of the willing and this action was done rationally while weighing reasons for that willing.
Regarding 3)
We can leave the morality bit aside I suppose although that does seem a key issue. It seems to me that you downplay determinism and somehow think that on universal, divine, causal determinism you exhibit more than secondary causes (which I think are not free), and that you can somehow weigh arguments rationally when every thought you have was determined. I don't see how that type of determinism could be rationally affirmed. For you if you weigh it and find it rational and I weigh it and find it irrational, we were both determined to think that way by causal factors outside ourselves so how did we ever weigh it rationally?
On the libertarian view, all the mechanics of weighing reasons and rationally deliberating before willing are the same I think except there is no external cause determining the willing so I don't see how that would at all be irrational.
I don't want to hijack your blog so we can take this offline or to email if you want.
Isaac, it was good to talk (if briefly) about this in person on Sunday. After reflecting on that discussion, I propose the following course for our continued treatment of the issue.
-- First, we get clear on what the other thinks. We obviously do not understand each other's positions very well yet, and that seems to be the prerequisite for any adjudication.
-- Second, we discuss reasons for preferring one position over the other (or rejecting both in favor of a third, for that matter). This is the sense in which I suggested postponing the discussion of morality, and I will postpone the critique articulated in my opening post in the same sense.
Therefore...
Isaac's View
It seems like it isn't enough for you that some decision be internally caused (e.g., by my character) in order for it to be libertarian; rather, a libertarian choice must not be caused by anything. As you know, I am having a difficult time both imagining what on earth this could be and how on earth it could work, so to speak.
(Also, there may be some confusion: at times you talk about the choice being uncaused, but at other times you talk about it being caused by some aspect of the person that is itself uncaused. I am not sure how much of a difference that distinction makes, but if it matters to you, perhaps you could clarify.)
Joshua's View
Since we discussed this Sunday, I suppose the best idea would be for you to give a short summary of what you take my view to be; we might be relatively clear on this side of things.
Hey Josh,
I came across an article by Plantinga that captures the essence of my viewpoint. Look under section IV.
http://www.leaderu.com/truth/1truth10.html
I wasn't satisfied by something being internally caused on a deterministic view as an explanation of it being "free". I was arguing that if you attributed your will to primarily internal causes rather than external causes that ultimately the will was still determined and not truly free on determinism.
I don't think of my volition as needing a prior cause. I think of myself as the originator of my willing. This does not mean that it was random in any way in the same sense that God's willing something prior to creation free of antecedents was random or any willing He does now post creation with antecedent events is determined.
On your view, I think I came to understand that you believe God has a "pure" free will that we do not share which seems consistent with compatibilism and a universal, divine, causal determinism.
I think of that pure free will as being a property of people as creatures created in God's image. It occurs to me that my largest obstacles to determinism center around the implications related to free will, morality, the rationality of holding a view that was determined and some potential conflicts with scripture.
I know, that you seem to object to libertarian free will due to a lack of a satisfactory explanation in a framework of event causation. I am curious if you have other objections to the position of libertarian free will as it relates to morality, the rationality of holding the view, and how it meshes with scripture.
That all is to say, I think the thing that concerns me the least regarding libertarian free will is what concerns you the most and perhaps the reverse is true in regards to determinism.
Enjoying the conversation.
Thanks for the article. I had enjoyed reading it a while back, but I had forgotten that it addressed this issue. It seems to me that where your presentation (thus far) differs from his, the divergences are to your credit rather than his. Accordingly, I will address your statements, but feel free to quote him in any cases where you think doing so would be helpful.
I have two remarks to make concerning the role of key terms in this discussion. Neither of these are specific critiques of anything you have said, just guideposts to a fruitful discussion.
The Concept "Freedom"
As you have noticed, you and I are using the term "freedom" pretty differently. In my case, "freedom" refers to the relative degree in which a thing's cause is internal to it. In created things, this is always a matter of degree; "pure freedom" could obviously only exist for a necessary being. In your case, "freedom" refers to the degree to which a thing has no causal antecedents.
It does not seem to me that one of us is right and one wrong about what freedom "really means." We might have a discussion about the extent to which either approach captures what what we typically mean when we use the word in an everyday sense, but even then we could not assume the priority of everyday usage. Rather, it seems the issue is what is at stake for each concept of freedom. (For example, you think that moral responsibility is at stake, and in such a way that only libertarian freedom is adequate to it.) But this is just redundant with respect to the conversation to begin with.
Thus, there seems little point in saying, "but on determinism, you are not really free." If what we mean is that "on determinism, you are determined," we can say that. If what we mean is that "on determinism, you are not morally responsible," we can say that. Likewise, we need not argue, "on a libertarian account, you are not free."
In other words, we both have accounts of freedom, but the term seems like it obfuscates, rather than illuminates. I think we would be best served to largely avoid it, instead referring directly to what we mean (i.e., whether there is a causal account of something, whether one is morally responsible, whether one suffered external compulsion, etc.).
The Concept "I"
I think a tremendous amount of confusion is being generated here. When you use the terms "I," "me," "myself," etc. (e.g., "I think of myself as the originator of my willing"), I have an extremely difficult time figuring out what you are referring to. I suspect that you might have the same difficulty when I use the term.
Thus, I would suggest, if we cannot avoid the term, that we at least specify the more specific referent when we use the it. So, for example, I might say, "a decision to eat that is caused by hunger is internal, not external, because it is determined by me (viz., by my somatic constitution as a metabolic being)." In this way, we can identify where slippages of language are occurring.
Other Matters
...will come later. I just wanted to get these suggestions out there; I will reply to what you actually said sometime soon.
On Freedom
I think we would need to explore your idea of freedom further. It seems to me that both in common language and for the purpose of this discussion, the "pure" freedom you reference would be the default understanding of freedom and the freedom that most beings believe they have.
I am probably missing something but I do not see why God could not create us with this freedom. I am guessing on your view this is some sort of logical impossibility like a circle square? I hesitate to get in to degrees of freedom or lesser or greater freedoms. This seems to be a push by the compatibilist to redefine freedom in such a way that it fits the theory.
Do you have any references I could read regarding God having a "pure" freedom that man does not have or the degrees of freedom of a necessary being vs a created creature? It sounds interesting and probably something I should be aware of.
On "I"
We could explore this further as well. I am guessing your broader grasp of vocabulary is making my references to I confusing. I suppose I believe that I am a soul/body composite of some sort with the soul being primary. I believe while the soul is meant to be joined to the body we see at least one example in scripture of the soul going to be with God until the body is raised after death. So I believe this soul component is the core of who I am. I imagine it is made up of my mind, the will and whatever makes me, me. That may not be as clear as it should be and I haven't studied it in depth so I am not necessarily committed to that view.
This is so fun. :-)
You wondered what problems I have with a libertarian account. I suppose I would group them into a few rough categories. First, I worry that the libertarian account is simply incoherent -- that one cannot really make sense of it. (This explains why most of our conversations have revolved around me trying to understand your position.) Second, a libertarian account seems superfluous, in the sense that it introduces an element that does no work toward understanding the phenomena, making it more difficult, rather than simpler, to adequately account for things. (This is essentially an "Ockham's Razor" objection, I suppose.) Third, a libertarian account seems to undermine moral responsibility. Fourth, a libertarian account seems fundamentally at odds with contemporary science. Fifth, a libertarian account seems to be deeply problematic with respect to Christian theology.
That is nothing more than a laundry list, of course, and I don't expect you to take any of those ideas seriously until we get around to discussing them. But yes, I have some difficulties with the libertarian account.
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You mentioned three objections to a deterministic account: implications for rationality, implications for morality, and implications for understanding Scripture. I intend to go ahead and address the first, since I think we can get it out of the way quickly.
Rationality
There does not seem to be any connection between rationality and freedom of the will. To call a decision "rational" is to identify in that decision a certain sort of structure. One can even program a computer to make decisions rationally or irrationally. For example, suppose a goal of maximizing expected cash value and a choice between two bets, one at 3:4 odds for $4,000 and the other at 2:4 odds for $4,000. If the computer is programmed something like, "if rnd(1) = 0 then bet_a; else bet_b," its decision is not rational, whichever it picks. If the computer is programmed something like, "if (0.75*4000) > (0.5*4000) then bet_a; else bet_b," then its decision is rational. (All this is highly simplified, of course.) So rationality describes a structure that does not depend upon one's conception of freedom.
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One of the things I would like to discuss next is your analogy between your own will and that of God, since right now that is the critical element in your making sense of a "will without antecedent." I have already written plenty for now, though, and would like to see your next set of thoughts.
On Rationality
It seems to me that for some idea to be weighed, considered and to be rationally affirmed the agent must be able to reason freely.
An argument could be made that someone could be determined to rationally hold a view and therefore it is rational. But then I think the agent is a secondary cause and not the one doing the reasoning (as they were determined). Much like a parrot repeating a rational statement. The statement may be well reasoned and rational but the parrot didn't do the reasoning.
So how does one rationally affirm that determinism is true on determinism? Now this is not to say that determinism would necessarily be false, just that it could not be rationally affirmed by an agent wholly determined.
Ran out of time...
Sticking just to this concept of rationality for the moment...
You: "It seems to me that for some idea to be weighed, considered and to be rationally affirmed the agent must be able to reason freely."
Me: Why? This is not at all obvious or immediately apparent; I am wondering what argument or analysis justifies it.
You: "An argument could be made that someone could be determined to rationally hold a view and therefore it is rational."
Me: That is not my argument. I am claiming that it is the structure of a view, not the way in which it came to have that structure, that makes it rational or not. To cite the earlier example, what matters is not whether Johnny or Suzy programmed the computer, but whether the program's decision functions are rationally structured.
You: "So how does one rationally affirm that determinism is true on determinism? [...] it could not be rationally affirmed by an agent wholly determined."
Me: So far as I see, you have given no warrant for this assertion. One rationally affirms the truth of determinism the way one rationally affirms anything -- through a structure of thought that is of the type we call rational. One could irrationally affirm determinism by, say, flipping a coin and affirming determinism if it comes up heads. One could rationally affirm determinism by properly weighing the relevant evidence and affirming determinism if (and to the extent that) the evidence demands it. If we suppose a libertarian world, both are possible (excepting, perhaps, that the evidence would indeed point to determinism); if we suppose a deterministic world, both are likewise possible. Rationality works just fine either way.
At the risk of merely repeating myself, I want to briefly add another thought, in order to make this as concrete as possible.
Take a classical example in logic:
AvB
~A
.: B
Given the premises, the conclusion is rational.
Notice that the conclusion follows rationally from the premises without any need for libertarian decisions. A computer could be programmed to come to such a rational conclusion given the premises; a person who has studied logic may immediately come to the rational conclusion with no deliberation whatsoever.
We cannot say that the determination of the conclusion by the premises is irrational; in fact, it is precisely because the premises determine the conclusion that the logic is rational.
We had a productive time talking about this issue when we were camping this weekend.
To summarize:
(1) We discussed the rationality issue. I think we decided that, on the libertarian account, a deterministic decision may indeed be rational, but it is not mine. This is analogous to the libertarian critique of deterministic moral behavior: my actions may be moral, but they are not my actions.
The issue, then, is not really "rationality" as much as it is...
(2) Personal identity. It seems that your most fundamental worry, Isaac, is that without a libertarian will nothing is really "me," in the sense that it can all be traced back to something that is not me. This, then, appears to be the fundamental element of the discussion.
Likewise, my worry is that if there is such a thing as a libertarian will, it could not possibly be "me" in any significant sense, and thus I can no longer say that I determine my actions, etc.
(3) In an attempt to articulate what a libertarian will might look like and why it would be associated with personal identity, you...
(a) advanced an analogy to the divine will as a model for dealing with the principle issue of identity in favor of libertarianism (I do not think the analogy works), and...
(b) proposed a metaphysics of substance dualism, where the "body" and "soul" are two substances, both with causal power over the other (I questioned this in relation to the conservation of energy, and you wanted to know what non-dualistic approach I take to the human person, but both of these inquiries were interrupted).
(4) There was also some talk about the intuitions with which we approach the topic of libertarianism, including whether explanations need to repeat the term which they are trying to explain and whether or not we have a subjective experience of libertarian willing.
I hope that's fair. I imagine you'll have a busy couple of weeks, but I'll keep going with a new blog post or two. The topic does not exactly have an expiration date, after all, so whenever you find yourself thinking about this more, post away.
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