Zadok001

At the heart of a lot of philosophical theories (and almost all moral philosophy) is the relatively simple question of Free Will: Does Free Will exist?

The arguments against it are obvious:

1. Events in the universe must conform to one of two states: Either they are caused, or they are not caused.

2a. An uncaused is event is, by definition, random.

3a. Any random event is an event one can exert no control over.

4a. If we can exert no control over an event, we have no free will regarding it.

2b. A cause always precedes the event it causes.

3b. For any given caused in an individual's lifetime, one can trace the causes of that event backwards until one reaches a cause that either A) Had no cause of its own (see 2a), or B) Occurred prior to said individual's creation.

4b. If an event occurred prior to an individual's creation (birth, whatever you want to call it), that individual must have had no control over that event, and therefore no ability to alter it.

Therefore: For any event X, no living individual is capable of affecting the occurance (or failure thereof) of X, and therefore no living individual at any point in time has free will.

Conclusion: Free will cannot exist in a universe wherein all events are either caused or uncaused. Since no universe could exist wherein an event can exist in a state of being neither caused nor uncaused, this is evidence to support the idea that free will cannot exist in any rational universe.

I've never seen a counterargument or counterexample to that relatively straight-forward logical thread. Any thoughts?

(And while I'm on it, if free will does not exist, what effect does this have on society?)

Atticus_Finch

If free will does not exist what do we care what effect it has on society. It is not like we could do anything to change it.

Regards,

Finch

Zadok001

What we care about the effect is irrelevant. Allow me to rephrase: If free will does not exist, and this became common knowledge, what would you predict the result to be?

(Yes, the result would be fixed in stone. Doesn't matter. What would it be?)

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Zadok001:

"I've never seen a counterargument or counterexample to that relatively straight-forward logical thread. Any thoughts?"

I think the problem for the libertarian ("free will exists and is contracausal") is even worse than you state it. We can formulate an argument with a pair of constructive dilemmas as follows.

1. For any decision D, either D was fully caused or not fully caused.
2. If D was fully caused, then it was not free.
3. If D was not fully caused, then some of it was caused and the rest of it was uncaused, or it was all uncaused.
4. If some of D was caused and the rest of it was uncaused, then D was not free.
5. If D was completely uncaused, then D was not free.
6. Therefore, for any decision D, D is not free.

The support for (2) should be obvious, if we accept libertarian free will. Now, what if we introduce a random (qua uncaused) element into our decisions, as we mention in (4) and (5)? Well, if decisions are completely random, they couldn't be free, of course, but even if they're part random and the rest caused, it still doesn't seem as if there's any room for genuine freedom. Throw some randomness into a causal process and it's still a causal process with some mindless chance added.

When this sort of thing happens in philosophy -- that is, when one position, libertarianism, seems completely untenable -- it's usually a good idea to step back and examine what we mean by our terms. My advice is to restate free will; instead of free will being contracausal, free will can simply be the ignorance of one's future choices and the absence of strong coercion. If this is so, there is no problem of free will; some of our decisions are such that we don't know their outcome ahead of time, and that no one is using mind control or brainwashing or putting a gun to our heads.

"(And while I'm on it, if free will does not exist, what effect does this have on society?)"

I say "nothing." Responsibility can just be reconceived and punishment meted out as an antecedent cause for (what would have been free-willed) behavior change.

Autonemesis

I disagree that it is obvious.

Please substantiate this assumption, and provide some defintions. For instance, what is an "event"? What does it mean for an event to be "caused" or "uncaused"?

Now you are beginning to become confusing, rather than vague. If an uncaused event is random, and a random event is one that no one can exert control over, then an uncaused event is - by commutation - one that no one can exert control over. You can compress 2a and 3a into one assertion, and get rid of the superfluous reference to randomness (which may as well have been a reference to blueness):

2a/3a: An uncaused event is an event one can exert no control over.

We can toss out some more superfluous assertions by simple commutation. 2a, 3a, and 4a condense to this:

2a/3a/4a: An uncaused event is, by definition, one regarding which we can have no free will.

This eliminates some of the confusion I referred to earlier. It makes your argument easier to understand, and anyway, I like to cut to the chase. So according to your initial assumptions, free will is defined as causing events.

The problem here is that to carry out this line of argument, you must totally ignore the fact that an individual can cause events that had no prior cause. If I suddenly blurt out "BOO!" I am the cause of my neighbor becoming startled. Or do you wish to assert that there is some prior cause to my blurting out "BOO!", over which I had no control? I'll entertain that argument, if you wish to make it.

The rest of your argument succeeds or fails on this point, I think. For by your definitions, which I helpfully condensed for you into something sensible, if I can cause an event, I have free will. You must therefore show, by your own defintions, that it is impossible for me to cause any event, in order to show that I have no free will. Whether or not I cause or can exert control over any event that happens to me is irelevant to determining whether I have free will. All I need to do to show that I have free will - as you have defined it - is to cause one event.

[ November 22, 2002: Message edited by: Kind Bud ]

[ November 22, 2002: Message edited by: Kind Bud ]</p>

spishack

The question is how do you define Free will. If God exists and he is omnipotent, etc, etc, than by default we do not have a true free will because if our will were to pit itself against His will than obviously His will would win. But obviously, I can sit down and choose to write this post so I obviously have a will. For me to have a truly Free-will is the ability to do whatever I desire without any limitations. Therefore, I belive, no human has a truly free will.

Zadok001

Thomas Metcalf:

That's basically a different way of saying what I said.

Kind Bud:

I wouldn't call that clean, I would call that shortened. And honestly, I'm not sure what good it does the argument, other than to make individual elements less separable. (Since attacking an argument requires individual premises to be attacked on many occassions, it makes sense to seperate premises into individual clauses to allow people to more cleanly approach the argument in opposition. I'm not trying to convince, I'm trying to present. I want people to argue against those statements, so I think breaking them down as much as possible is important. In particular, the use of randomness is important because it is the only way to confirm that uncaused events cannot be directly controlled.)

Setting aside sematic issues, the argument I present is this: You say "Boo!" That event was either caused or uncaused. If you DECIDED to say "Boo!" (which I presume you did), then that decision is itself an event. Was it caused or uncaused? Etc. Eventually, you either hit an uncaused (random) event, or you hit something that occurred prior to your birth, and therefore something you could not have controlled. Thus, you couldn't possibly have exerted free will over your urge to say "Boo!"

Back to Thomas Metcalf. Your final point, about the nature of free will, is a good one. I question the clause "the absence of strong coercion." It seems to me that a 'strong coercion' could arguably be causal events, which leads us right back into the initial problem. Thus, should we simply reduce free will to being an ignorance as to the consequences of one's actions?

If so, what of situations where the consequences can be fully known? (Do such situations exist?) Say, perhaps, one 'knows' that by pushing a button, a light will go on. No other consequences exist. Can you have free will to push the button?

Autonemesis

Handwaving! You haven't demonstrated any chain of events going back to before my birth. You haven't even demonstrated a chain of events back to three minutes ago. Nor have you demonstrated that my decision to shout "BOO!" was caused or uncaused. This is handwaving, not an argument.

Furthermore, I asked earlier for a definition of "event", and you haven't provided one. I do not think a mental event is at all equivalent to a physical event when talking about the causes of events. You'll need to definre "event" such that the mental event we are calling my decision to shout "BOO!" is equivalent to the physical event of the sound waves striking my neighbor's eardrum. Otherwise your argument falls apart.

Bull!

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Kind Bud:

"...you must totally ignore the fact that an individual can cause events that had no prior cause. If I suddenly blurt out 'BOO!' I am the cause of my neighbor becoming startled. Or do you wish to assert that there is some prior cause to my blurting out 'BOO!', over which I had no control? I'll entertain that argument, if you wish to make it."

I'll assert that if there isn't a prior cause, you didn't freely choose to try to scare your neighbor, and if there is, then your choice wasn't libertarian-free. The idea that agents (rather than events) are the ultimate causes of events is not intelligible to me.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Zadok001:

"I question the clause 'the absence of strong coercion.' It seems to me that a 'strong coercion' could arguably be causal events, which leads us right back into the initial problem."

Strong coercion would be through the actions of other agents. I think this will solve the problem. If other agents "decide" to cause you to do something, and succeed, and you wouldn't have "decided" it otherwise, your "decision" wasn't free.

"Thus, should we simply reduce free will to being an ignorance as to the consequences of one's actions?"

A requirement for the ignorance of the causes of one's actions would be my position.