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Free Will
To what extent do we choose?

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Free Will

Glypt
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Posted 04/10/08 - 12:00 AM: Subject: Free Will	#1
"In practical life, our concerns with freedom normally focusses on more or less obvious impediments: on technical and physical restrictions, or on political and social sanctions. But now and then we encounter, in ourselves and others, less conspicuous constraints ^_for instance, when we come up against severe phobias, addictions, neurosis, or 'brain washing'. Here subtler kinds of freedom are at stake. Sometimes we call this free will. In the sense suggested by these examples, some people have free will and others do not. … We are sometimes struck…by the disquieting thought that free will is an illusion, that freedom of this kind eludes us quite generally. Not all of us are thoroughly phobic, or addicted, or brainwashed, in the literal sense, but that the difference between those conditions and the 'normal' predicament is of little significance" (Gary Watson, 1982, Free Will, OUP) Political and juridical deliberation entails certain assumptions about the human condition. One of these assumptions is that people choose what they do, both in everyday life and at the ballot box. To what extent can we be sure that our beliefs and desires are autonomous?

cortes
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Posted 04/10/08 - 08:02 AM:	#2
Glypt wrote: Political and juridical deliberation entails certain assumptions about the human condition. One of these assumptions is that people choose what they do, both in everyday life and at the ballot box. To what extent can we be sure that our beliefs and desires are autonomous? There are probably a hundred threads on "free will" in these forums already, you can find them using search. I doubt that we will discover anything new here but since this is a subject that interests me greatly (or, more precisely, I am fascinated by those who would try to convince others that free will is an illusion), I'll add my two cents. The first thing to note is that we cannot be sure that our beliefs and desires are autonomous. There is no logical or scientific experiment that you can construct to demonstrate either hard determinism or free will. (And soft determinism makes about as much sense as a square circle.) Fortunately, we are not left adrift by this lack of certainty for we have the option to choose to believe in free will and we can be certain at least that we cannot err in this choice. If free will is true, then we have of course made the right choice. If determinism is true and free will is but an illusion then this choice to believe in free will is an illusion and, again, no error has been made on our part at least. Blame the universe. This is not a novel argument though I have no idea who might have first put it forward. But for those interested in an more detailed consideration, I have written on this subject previously: http://www.conquistador.org/newsletterissue?newsletterIssueEntityId=800 http://www.conquistador.org/newsletterissue?newsletterIssueEntityId=1040 But I think Rush said it best in their song, "Free Will" Rush wrote: There are those who think that life Has nothing left to chance With a host of holy horrors To direct our aimless dance A planet of playthings We dance on the strings Of powers we cannot perceive The stars arent aligned --- Or the gods are malign Blame is better to give than receive You can choose a ready guide In some celestial voice If you choose not to decide You still have made a choice You can choose from phantom fears And kindness that can kill I will choose a path thats clear I will choose free will There are those who think that theyve been dealt a losing hand The cards were stacked against them --- They werent born in lotus-land All preordained A prisoner in chains A victim of venomous fate Kicked in the face You cant pray for a place In heavens unearthly estate Each of us A cell of awareness Imperfect and incomplete Genetic blends With uncertain ends On a fortune hunt Thats far too fleet... However, there is a seperate but intimately related question as to how we ought to regard the behavior of others both in terms of predicting peoples behavior (psychology) and, if it is your thing, assigning responsibility for their choices (morality).
Copyright (c) 2008 Hernan Cortes, Sociedad de los Conquistadores. cortes@conquistador.org http://www.conquistador.org

keda
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Posted 04/10/08 - 05:35 PM:	#3
I would agree with Cortes here that can't know whether determinism is true or whether we have free will or not, and it is not just that we have not proved it yet, but rather that it is something in the very scientific method presupposes before any scientific investigation can take place, that the object it studies is conditioned. in other words science is limited to knowledge of the conditioned (This has been argued by Immanuel Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason, Second Analogy B233/A189, to be the case as the only way to determine the objective succession of events), and therefore free will is left an open question, the belief in which can be justified in the way Cortes is supposed. The question then whether or not what we call a choice, is really uncaused then can be replaced with a practical one, i.e. which should you presume to be true?
Free Europe Now How to fix your country The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. -Benjamin Franklin If my sons did not want wars, there would be none - Gutle Rothschild It's not the people who vote that count, it's the people who count the votes - Josef Stalin A prolonged peace favours the predominance of a mere commercial spirit, and with it a debasing self-interest, cowardice, and effeminacy, and tends to degrade the character of the nation. - Immanuel Kant

cortes
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Posted 04/10/08 - 06:00 PM:	#4
BTW, I should add that even those, like me, who believe fervently in free will do not claim that all desires are a matter of free will choice. For example, I do not choose to find women attractive but am merely responding to mother nature there, quite happily I might add. But even there I have the free will to choose whether or how to respond to that inate desire, whether to hump a particular attractive woman I might meet (or to remain faithful to Mrs. Cortes). A book I cited previously in another thread, "On Desire" by William Irvine, covers this quite well.
Copyright (c) 2008 Hernan Cortes, Sociedad de los Conquistadores. cortes@conquistador.org http://www.conquistador.org

keda
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Posted 04/10/08 - 07:10 PM:	#5
A good point, I was to point that out too but forgot it. Our desires are to a large degree dependent on nature and circumstances although we can to a degree influence them. The freedom of the will does suppose that there is some substantial choice, rather than just calculating which action is likely to best satisfy our desires, a matter which given particular ends and means could only result in the same action, free will must be something that is independent of these conditions, thereby having an ability to make a difference. Now you might say that there could be a choice where both actions are equally likely to satisfy our desires, however if this is the case then it would not matter to us if throwing dice to determine which action to take, and perhaps this is what we subconsciously do when we face such choices, and thus it is not either an example of free will, but there needs to be something more. In general we find that actions that have utility value, that is value extrinsic to the action, which is always to further our ends whereby our actions along with all else that is in our power may serve as means to achieve our ends, can be compared and sorted that leaves us no choice. Actions that have intrinsic value however (moral worth) have a value independent of the consequences of the action, but unlike the former type of actions requires choice, since after all, how can you blame someone who couldn't have done otherwise, and how can you praise someone who was just being lucky. We can recognize that the two kinds of values are not convertible from one to another, as moral worth is above all utility value. This heterogenity of values puts an end to the mechanical calculation and opens the door to free will, equipping you with the ability to decide in each morally significant choice of action which type of value to prioritize.
Free Europe Now How to fix your country The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. -Benjamin Franklin If my sons did not want wars, there would be none - Gutle Rothschild It's not the people who vote that count, it's the people who count the votes - Josef Stalin A prolonged peace favours the predominance of a mere commercial spirit, and with it a debasing self-interest, cowardice, and effeminacy, and tends to degrade the character of the nation. - Immanuel Kant

Fried Egg
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Posted 04/11/08 - 12:20 AM:	#6
My view on the matter is this: Free will only makes sense with regards to the choosing of means. It does not make sense to ask whether we choose our ends. Having ends must be logically prior to choice because it is only with respect to ends can we make choices. So then, being free, means being able to choose from our available means on how best to attain our desired ends.

litkey
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Posted 04/11/08 - 01:06 AM:	#7
My 2 pence - The environment is the major cause of all our actions. The "environment" could be the family, the office, or the wild mountains. The "sense data" (Kant) acts on us in a determined way, in such a way that if there were a super scientist, who knew all facts about our past would be able to make a good prediction, if not exact prediction on what act we would make. I think this is a Kantian view: that there exists two worlds - the empirical and the logical/rational- both interact (necessarily).
Going to trial with a lawyer who considers your whole life-style a Crime in Progress is not a happy prospect. -Hunter S T The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware. -Henry Miller

Benkei
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Posted 04/11/08 - 01:29 AM:	#8
Predictability is not the same a determinism. Just because I always buy chocolate cookies since I love them so much does not mean that I do not have a choice to buy others. Nevertheless, research into the neurobiological make up of criminals does seem to indicate that at the moment of the actual criminal act, the criminal could not have reacted any differently due to his neurobiological make-up. So the input that someone smudges your Pumas normally illicits a remark but in this case triggers deadly violence in a person, would not be a matter of choice. It throws an interesting perspective on guilt in criminal cases, although I would imagine that in general the complexity of existence itself will at least lead to indeterminism.
- How are you doing? - I'm doing good. _ No, Superman is doing Good, you're doing well. You need to brush up on your grammar.

Glypt
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Posted 04/11/08 - 03:04 AM:	#9
Systems theory essentially relies upon an "autopoietic", autogenic, understanding of institutional and social systems and how they interrelate and reform contingently. Agents and their social self-interpretations are regarded as psychologically systemic entities and but one element in an environment of multiple other systems, whether political, economic, educational, scientific, humanitarian, etc. Systems theory asserts an anonymous interaction of interdependent parts as a methodological model; in so doing it recognises the basic fact of social organisation, many systems surreptitiously occur regardless of social actors - they are not voluntary productions of intentional beings (Habermas, 1996, xxii). { BTW... Therefore, in contrasting Rawls (neutral/ anti-perfectionist liberal) and Luhmann (systems theorist) , Habermas notes the "sociological emptiness" of Rawls’s theory and the "normative blindness" of Luhmann’s and concludes a twofold perspective as necessary for modern law that normatively validates juridical issues with relevance to sociological observation (Habermas, 1996, xxiii).}

litkey
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Posted 04/11/08 - 03:23 AM:	#10
My beef with the so called Libertarians (not to be confused with 'Libertian free will') is that they use the word "choice" when it comes to explaining and understanding Individuals inter-acting within the political and economic sphere: If a person is working in a sweatshop, then it is said that the person "chooses" to work in the sweatshop; the person has "free choice." This completely does away with everything we think and know about an Individual, and how real economics work, and how circumstances dictate the actions of the Individual. In reality, it is the corporation that is doing the thinking, the calculating, and the 'choosing'. The word "choice" is out of place. To say "well, the Individual is not coerced." Is to say something very empty of meaning, because if people did have a choice they would not choose to work in a sweatshop. Would you? -see Rawls.
Going to trial with a lawyer who considers your whole life-style a Crime in Progress is not a happy prospect. -Hunter S T The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware. -Henry Miller

Fried Egg
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Posted 04/11/08 - 04:07 AM:	#11
litkey y beef with the so called Libertarians (not to be confused with 'Libertian free will') is that they use the word "choice" when it comes to explaining and understanding Individuals inter-acting within the political and economic sphere: If a person is working in a sweatshop, then it is said that the person "chooses" to work in the sweatshop; the person has "free choice." You'll note that this notion of free choice is entirely consistant with the way I defined it above: So then, being free, means being able to choose from our available means on how best to attain our desired ends. This completely does away with everything we think and know about an Individual, and how real economics work, and how circumstances dictate the actions of the Individual. Actually, any notion that being "free" requires being free of one's circumstances is meaningless. The word "choice" is out of place. To say "well, the Individual is not coerced." Is to say something very empty of meaning, because if people did have a choice they would not choose to work in a sweatshop. Would you? This line of reasoning ties in with your notion above that being free means being free of one's circumstances. In every choice anyone makes, it is always true that if one had a better option available at the time, they would have not chosen the option they did in it's absense. It is always true that one's options are limited by circumstance. This cannot mean that freedom is therefore never present because then you are using a non-sensical notion of freedom.

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Posted 04/11/08 - 07:22 AM:	#12
Actually, any notion that being "free" requires being free of one's circumstances is meaningless. I think it's not about being free of one's circumstances but changing circumstances to increase freedom. Does not the absence of interference of the government enlarge your number of choices (for instance no tax gives you more choice to spend your money in different ways) and is that not considered as being more free? The manipulation of a person's circumstances leading to more choices necessarily entails more freedom, regardless of whether such additional choice comes about due to abstaining from acts diminishing choice or acts promoting choice. It's clear that choice is contingent to the available means and freedom to choose then contingent to circumstances. So a minimum freedom is normally present (barring ridiculous extreme theoretical cases). Oh well, that has nothing to do with free will actually.
- How are you doing? - I'm doing good. _ No, Superman is doing Good, you're doing well. You need to brush up on your grammar.

Fried Egg
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Posted 04/11/08 - 07:33 AM:	#13
Benkei I think we need to be clear about terminology here. Increasing choice has nothing to do with increasing freedom (not as I have defined it anyway). Freedom is about being able to use the means at your disposal to towards staisfying your desired ends. Increasing the means at one's disposal does not make someone more free. It may indeed allow them to satisfy their more of their ends but that is different. Reducing the degree of governmental interference increases freedom, not because it increases the means at my disposal, but because it removes restrainsts about the way I might choose to employ the means at my disposal in order to achieve my ends.

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Posted 04/11/08 - 07:25 PM:	#14
We are not talking about government here, we are talking about individual free will and the inherent constraints people face. While government does have some bearing on this, it is perhipheral. Personal constraint is mostly due to social conditioning and that is a generally very local circumstance since the memes of social behavior are usually imprinted before most people are exposed to large scale unintermediated interaction with total strangers. I think that free will activation comes about when an individual is palced in a situation that demands conflicting reactions due to the inherent contradictions of social memes. Faced with these contraditory social demands the individual seeks a new compass for guidance. Many seek a new authority to tell them what to do through religion or politics or AA. Others will eschew all authority as disingenuous and seek a new way, a path that will guide them with consistency. A path that will not betray them with contradictions. A path they walk alone. These are the practioners of free will. Of course many people will never find themselves is such a circumstance and so will not have any idea that these things happen.

litkey
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Posted 04/14/08 - 06:53 AM:	#15
I believe in free will, however I think our choices are dependent on our pasts -I think this may come under the rubric of "compatibilism" Irrespective of the past, of History, of conditioning -I think there is a will, and the will seems to be at odds with what we might call 'circumstance' - and it is the will that does not have to bend to circumtance. The thing that moves men is fear, fear to do this, fear to do that - that's the one truth; fear of death motivates most actions - but we mask this fear with hobbies, with jobs, with romance - but the fear is always there, and so is death... The worms eating out the eye socket have the final word.
Going to trial with a lawyer who considers your whole life-style a Crime in Progress is not a happy prospect. -Hunter S T The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware. -Henry Miller

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Posted 04/14/08 - 07:10 AM:	#16
Fried Egg wrote: Benkei I think we need to be clear about terminology here. Increasing choice has nothing to do with increasing freedom (not as I have defined it anyway). Freedom is about being able to use the means at your disposal to towards staisfying your desired ends. Increasing the means at one's disposal does not make someone more free. It may indeed allow them to satisfy their more of their ends but that is different. Reducing the degree of governmental interference increases freedom, not because it increases the means at my disposal, but because it removes restrainsts about the way I might choose to employ the means at my disposal in order to achieve my ends. That seems like a particularly narrow way to define the word, and one that fails to reflect much common usage (a person in prison is typically considered less free than a person who is not... Hamlet allusions aside). Why should we adopt this narrow definition? Why do you select this narrow definition?
Vivian Jaffe: Have you ever transcended space and time? Albert Markovski: Yes... No... Uh, time, not space... No, I don't know what you're talking about. I Heart Huckabees (2004)

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Posted 04/14/08 - 07:27 AM:	#17
Glypt wrote: To what extent can we be sure that our beliefs and desires are autonomous? Autonomous is an interesting choice of words. It has two senses. One implies independence from external factors. Complete independence from external factors means that we are cut off from the world and fellow humans. The other sense is based in the notion of freedom, which when looked at under a microscope starts to loose its descriptive value. The literal etymology is fairly close to "self-ruled", and when speaking of the ruling of humans, we are usually referring to the social and political realm (rather than the psychological or physical realm). In the macrocosm of the social and political, the notion of self-ruling can be considered more clearly. A nation may be autonomous, but it citizens are only semi-autonomous (their government to some extent rule them... part of the deal with being governed). So I guess I am asking for some clarification here. Are you asking if we are socially and politically autonomous or if we are [hysically and psychologically autonomous. I am not free to believe that the sky is yellow, I can't help but to believe it is blue. I am not free to defy the physical laws of the universe, gavity works on me no matter what I may "choose". Socially and politically, I am reasonably free to do most of the things I would like to, including voting for various candidates.
Vivian Jaffe: Have you ever transcended space and time? Albert Markovski: Yes... No... Uh, time, not space... No, I don't know what you're talking about. I Heart Huckabees (2004)

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Posted 04/14/08 - 07:47 AM:	#18
Reformed Nihilist I think that my definition was given with the concept of free will in mind rather than freedom as such. A person in prison having as much free will as any other person. Going back to what litkey said, in that someone who "chooses" to work in a sweatshop cannot be said to be making a "free" choice, my definition of free-will implies that this choice is every bit as "free" as any other choice. But I think you are right to pull me up here because I have started to conflate different concepts of freedom inappropriately.

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Posted 04/14/08 - 07:49 AM:	#19
I always wondered why people bother to call it free will. If one has will, isn't it always free? Isn't the term redundant?
Vivian Jaffe: Have you ever transcended space and time? Albert Markovski: Yes... No... Uh, time, not space... No, I don't know what you're talking about. I Heart Huckabees (2004)

Glypt
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Posted 04/15/08 - 12:00 AM:	#20
Reformed Nihilist wrote: I always wondered why people bother to call it free will. If one has will, isn't it always free? Isn't the term redundant? Essentially if you accept that there are 'two directions of fit' with regard to our will. Desire and belief: On the one hand, the desire-direction starts from our intentions towards the world, for instance, "I desire/want that chocolate bar/glass of whiskey etc". On the other hand, our belief is informed by the world through our senses/culture/social norms and "Chocolate/whiskey tastes good etc" and "Chocolate/whiskey is bad for my health, or good for my mood or self-indulgent or potentially addictive etc". Similarly there are other complicated moral questions or facts, regarding our intentions towards the world and our attentions to the world, that inform our will. Therefore one aspect of our will is that our desires are either liberated or constrained by information. If we lack information are we choosing freely(?). If someone cannot read or write, if they are addicted, brainwahed by political propaganda or slick advertising campaigns for the lastest gadgets etc...the freedom of their intention and attention could be said to be compromised. There is more to this, but you get the general idea. A final example, with regard to morality, you could ask yourself whether your convictions about whether it is right or wrong, good or bad, to pay your taxes if your government is fighting a war with which you do/don't agree; but the information you have to inform your deliberations, and thereby the psychological stance you take, comes from the world (newspaper/radio/internet/TV ...reports and images...the threat of punitive legal action etc)...and indeed many of the norms that qualify your intuitions 'thou shalt not kill" or "an eye for an eye" or belief/disbelief in a soul ... all such interelated contingencies may be said to cast doubt as to whether the reality is ever truly mirrored in ones 'glassy essence' (pace William Shakespeare). Edited by Glypt on 04/15/08 - 12:06 AM

litkey
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Posted 04/15/08 - 02:36 AM:	#21
FriedEgg, Fried Egg wrote: litkey You'll note that this notion of free choice is entirely consistant with the way I defined it above: So then, being free, means being able to choose from our available means on how best to attain our desired ends. Actually, any notion that being "free" requires being free of one's circumstances is meaningless. This line of reasoning ties in with your notion above that being free means being free of one's circumstances. In every choice anyone makes, it is always true that if one had a better option available at the time, they would have not chosen the option they did in it's absense. It is always true that one's options are limited by circumstance. This cannot mean that freedom is therefore never present because then you are using a non-sensical notion of freedom. Yes, but what you need to keep in mind in the idea that context will dictate what is understood. Imagine the scenario where a corporate executive is questioned and harassed on his sweatshops/factories in other parts of world, and one of his answers may be as follows: "The person chooses to work in my sweatshop." It is most unlikely that such an Individual would use such words. Apart from the disagreement over the word "sweatshop", there is the term "choice" that does not fit and work with the reality on the ground, with the people that actually work in the "sweatshop." So, the word "choice" is completely, let's us say, out of place. ? This is true intuitively, it is true on how we use the word "choice", and most importantly you would not hear a person working in the sweatshop say: "I choose to be here." Thus, the word creates the non-starter. Sure, we can bring in the definition of "freedom" to mean lack of choices, or the potentiality to choice from a number of options X,Y,Z yadayada, but this wouldn't be speaking about the same thing. Speaking of the sweatshop we might need the word "necessary"; and "necessary choice" makes "freedom" a redundancy.
Going to trial with a lawyer who considers your whole life-style a Crime in Progress is not a happy prospect. -Hunter S T The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware. -Henry Miller

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Posted 04/15/08 - 08:16 AM:	#22
Reformed Nihilist wrote: I always wondered why people bother to call it free will. If one has will, isn't it always free? Isn't the term redundant? As Voltaire points out in the P. Dictionary: "[sic] It doesn't make sense to say that you are free to want what you want". People must mean something else by "free will" for it to be meaningful. Personally I agree with Fried Egg's line of reasoning here. Quite a lot of our ends are determined through necessity but we are often free to choose the way we go about attaining them. Oh! ye'll take the high road and I'll take the low road, And I'll be in Scotland afore ye; But me and my true love Will never meet again On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond.
For the winner there was a big three-legged cauldron to stand over a fire - it was worth a dozen oxen by the Greek's reckoning - and for the loser he brought forward a woman thoroughly trained in domestic work whom they valued at four oxen. -Homer's The Illiad Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? -Mark 9:50

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Posted 04/17/08 - 03:40 PM:	#23
Free will has been done to death. However since this is the politics and law forum lets approach it from this angle. Most of our most cherished principles are premiced on the assumption of free will. *So IF strong free will* is an illusion does that necessarily mean a change in our law and society?** This does seem to be a pressing problem since it is quite possible that within a few years there will be strong evidence that this is indeed the case: Regardless of the truth of the matter there will be a gradual trickle of papers into the popular press which suggest that free will is illusionary. This will then lead to a political and societal shift as paternalistic authoritarians use it as justification for the intrusion of the state into the lives of 'vunerable' people in order to "ensure they make 'correct decisions' and overcome the flaws in their programming" meanwhile individual hedonists and criminals will use it as an excuse to avoid responsibility for their behaviour. From a political point of view the likely result of the idea that free will is an illusion gaining credance seems unavoidably negative. So let me pose the question. Assuming that true free will is an illusion how can we defend the principles of self determination and responsibility from attack?
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . "Everything that exists is born for no reason, carries on living through weakness, and dies by accident" -Sartre

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Posted 04/18/08 - 12:06 AM:	#24
With regard to self-determination, quite easily by pointing out that the absence of free will has no bearing on the morality of an act. Merely the level of guilt. It does not answer what is a moral life and therefore still does not justify deciding for other people how to live their lives, especially if it would be contrary to their deterministic nature, that seems rather cruel. Also, the complexity of society and existence might well make it entirely impossible to ascertain in what way people are pre-determined, making the fact that there is no free will meaningless in this context. The second point I would want you to clarify, because I do not understand what you mean with the "principle of responsibility from attack".
- How are you doing? - I'm doing good. _ No, Superman is doing Good, you're doing well. You need to brush up on your grammar.

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Posted 04/18/08 - 05:07 AM:	#25
I just meant: "defend the principles of self determination and personal responsibility" Sorry for my bad grammar.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . "Everything that exists is born for no reason, carries on living through weakness, and dies by accident" -Sartre

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