Arguments against determinsim/ pro free will

CursedSkeptic

I, and many others, find it extremely difficult to put forward a meaningful argument against determinism, or in favor of the existence of free will. I am aware of the quantum physics line of argument, but I find this unconvincing, as the fact that indeterminism exists at a quantum level does not necessarily mean that it exists when things are scaled up to the levels we deal with. There are other arguments, but none I have encountered have really stood up to much scrutiny.

Joe1919

There is a middle position known as "compatabilism" that acknowledges both freedom and responsibility, but also acknowledges that when we make a choice, that choice is determined by factors such as our character, dispositions, habits etc.

CursedSkeptic

Joe1919 wrote: »

There is a middle position known as "compatabilism" that acknowledges both freedom and responsibility, but also acknowledges that when we make a choice, that choice is determined by factors such as our character, dispositions, habits etc.

Where is the room for free will if there choice is determined by ones character, dispositions and habits etc

Joe1919

It depends on what you mean by 'free will'. Some compatibilists (also known as soft determinists) may argue that freedom means that I can make a conscious choice.i.e. I am a free agent. However, my conscious choice will be determined by my desires, my dispositions, my habits but, of course, these in turn are determined by my genetic makeup, enviorment, nourturing etc. which again are determined. In this way, they could argue that freedom of will really means been determined by my own consciousness, but of course, my consciousness, although it appears free, is also determined.

This position is different to fatalism .(hard determinism).but is, nevertheless deterministic.

Some philosophers (e.g. John Searle) argue that we will never fully understand free will until we fully understand the workings of consciousness. If we forget about science and just look inwards to ourselves, we do experience the feeling of freedom. In this way , it could be argued that we are subjectively free but objectively determined. Of course this argument has similaraties to the whole science versus culture (fact versus value) thing.

One further and important argument put forward by some compatibilists, is that ideas of responsibility and retribution (from a secular viewpoint) can be made independent of our ideas of free will and we can leave the worry about whether we have free will or not to religious followers.

DadaKopf

Daniel Dennett reckons that, while the mind is a physical thing, a machine as it were, it's so complex that for all we should care, it is as if we have free will, and who's to know any different anyway?

This idea of a determinable, clockwork universe derives from scientism; its logic seems to neccessitate the idea that everything can be measured and predicted, leaving no room for chance and freedom. It's an argument of infinite regress that is so absurd as to be not worth thinking about!

ChocolateSauce

Joe1919 wrote: »

It depends on what you mean by 'free will'. Some compatibilists (also known as soft determinists) may argue that freedom means that I can make a conscious choice.i.e. I am a free agent. However, my conscious choice will be determined by my desires, my dispositions, my habits but, of course, these in turn are determined by my genetic makeup, enviorment, nourturing etc. which again are determined. In this way, they could argue that freedom of will really means been determined by my own consciousness, but of course, my consciousness, although it appears free, is also determined.

This is definitely my opinion on the matter. Couldn't have said it better.

dissident

CursedSkeptic wrote: »

I, and many others, find it extremely difficult to put forward a meaningful argument against determinism, or in favor of the existence of free will. I am aware of the quantum physics line of argument, but I find this unconvincing, as the fact that indeterminism exists at a quantum level does not necessarily mean that it exists when things are scaled up to the levels we deal with. There are other arguments, but none I have encountered have really stood up to much scrutiny.

All you've done is defined yourself as a incompatibilist...

Joe1919 wrote: »

my consciousness, although it appears free, is also determined.

Care to elaborate?

Joe1919

My point is that the idea of free will is very intuitive. When we make a choice, we feel that we are in control; we feel that we are free to act or not to act. This idea of freedom is very important and also gives us the idea of responsibility and also the drive to pursue goals and not take a fatalistic attitude towards life.


My consciousness (in my opinion) which consists of my thoughts, intentions, and awareness is made up and determined from my inherited dispositions, my experiences and memories, which have in turn been influenced by my history and my own and others previous choices, all of which have been determined.

CursedSkeptic

Joe1919 wrote: »

My point is that the idea of free will is very intuitive. When we make a choice, we feel that we are in control; we feel that we are free to act or not to act. This idea of freedom is very important and also gives us the idea of responsibility and also the drive to pursue goals and not take a fatalistic attitude towards life.


My consciousness (in my opinion) which consists of my thoughts, intentions, and awareness is made up and determined from my inherited dispositions, my experiences and memories, which have in turn been influenced by my history and my own and others previous choices, all of which have been determined.

I am unsure as to whether or not you are a free will skeptic, in your second paragraph it seems you certainly are, but in the first this is not the case.

The fact that we feel we are in control and have free will does not mean that this is in any way true. We feel like we are seeing the world exactly as it is, as if our eyes are passively taking in the world around us, when in reality our brains create the world we see in using the information we receive through the retina, very much an active process. That is a long winded way of saying that an intuitive feeling that we are in control is not something to be trusted

raah!

Good thread here. I was also quite troubled by this whole determinism business when I first ran across it. I always thought that you couldn't have free will without some kind of dualism with respect to the mind. Or that you would have to assume magic things like "soul" or "spirit", which were able to make decisions and affect your brain without being subject to physical influences. Of course that sounds silly.

Could you perhaps give me some kind of link to the quantum physics argument?.

@scientism: in modern physics the unified field theorey could be such as theorey as to make everything measurable and predictable. And most physicists today think that they are close to finding such a theorey.

I don't think everything needs to be measurable and predictable however, to do away with free will. It comes down to the mind being a physical body, subject to influnces, and a long line of causes and effects. So I don't think things need to be "determined", or even that you need to go back a very long time, there simply needs to be a consistant causality from when you were born to eliminate free will.


Francis Crick says in his book that quantum physics is very important when it comes to the brain as it is electrical impulses and what have you. So maybe this makes whatever this "quantum physics argument" is alot more valuable.

But... in the same way as the spontaneous decay argument doesn't give us to the power to influence our brains, this quantum physics argument would only make our 'wills' less predictable. (based on what I'm guessing this argument is :P)

Joe1919

Or that you would have to assume magic things like "soul" or "spirit", which were able to make decisions and affect your brain without being subject to physical influences. Of course that sounds silly."


The problem of free will could traditionally be accounted for by the body/soul or dualism. The body was material and was subject to the laws of causation and was determined. The soul, which contained the will, was of a different substance and was free and not subjest to any laws of nature.

As far as I know, cognitive science has its own version of this, called functionalism. As material beings, we are determined. But we do have consciousness, which is a 'function' of our mind. In this way, freedom and free will may be seen as a function of our mind and have a kind of unreal existence.

A comparison can be made to the hardware/software idea in computers. One does not open the cover of a computer and hope to find the web browser or word processor under there, because browsers and word processors have no hardware or real existence (as such). They are merely functions or processes that lie dormant as magnetic imprints on the drive and are activated when necessary. The functions and concepts of the mind are similarly seen to be some type of neural process.

Of course, there are objections to this idea of reducing all conscious processes to material neural processes (as it does not explain the subjectivety of consciousness) but some think its the best we can do. (Google 'Chinese room argument' for good argument against this)

Finally think about this little formula, you may see that there is at least some case to be made that freedom is compatible with determinism.

Freedom = Self Determination ?

raah!

hmm, I had a look about on wiki and the philosophy encyclopedia for the chinese room argument and it doesn't mention causality or determinism anywhere. On stanford the site one of the first parts of it are "brains cause minds". Brains being material and all that, I don't understand how this refutes determinism.

I agree that Freedom= Self Determination, but I thoughth determinism meant that all our actions were determined by a long line of causes and effects, and not self determined.

Joe1919

Searle's Chinese Room argument is one of many arguments put forward to argue the difficulty of trying to reduce the subjective conscious experiences that we experience to objective mechanical or physical processes (e.g. the problem of comparing humans to programmed digital computers). (Philosophy of Mind problem) The argument doesn't specifically deal with free will.
The point can be made that a 'Gap' exists between the subjective conscious feeling of freedom and the objective scientific approach of determinism. If you accept this, then the free will vs. determinism problem can be seen as part of the problem of generally explaining consciousnesses and feelings (such as freedom). This argument he further elaborates in Searle's book 'Mind'. http://books.google.ie/books?id=oSm8JUHJXqcC&pg=PA36&dq=searle+free+will&sig=ACfU3U2uogleqzTn9QbfYF_AOSUnYcA7nQ

The possibility I am arguing here (in this case) is that of freedom being more of a feeling than anything else. But how can we explain 'feelings' in objective terms. We may envisage a computer possibly powerful enough in the future to be as intelligent as humans but will the computer ever be able to feel sensations such as pain or thoughts such as boredom or freedom? Are feelings (such as freedom) always rational or subject to the laws of causation? I don't know.

Finally, if we see freedom in terms of Self-determination, we are still in the dark unless we can answer the question 'what is the self'. Do only humans have a 'self'?

To some extent then, all these philosophical problems to do with the human person are linked.

Kama

Often feel much of the free will issue, like the problem of evil, is a theological dualist hangover; it seems an evident brute fact that choice is constrained by factors (I cannot 'choose' to fly right now) but the existence of impediments does not refute choice as such, but brute determinism sounds too much like a theoretical relic of a all-controlling god and goes firmly against lived experience, where we appear to be exercising choices. Obviously, you can say consciousness is epiphenomenal, and a consequence of material reality, but substantiating that in any way is hella difficult. There's a reason consciousness is called the 'Hard Problem'.

On a practical level (in a philosophy board? sacrilege!) I'm quite a fan of Gurdjieff on free will; he told his students that they didn't have a soul or free will, that they were automatons, robots, but that with this self-realization came the ability to attempt to build free will, by difficult exercise. Take a concrete example, smoking. I smoke, and it is heavily loaded probabilitically that I will have a cigarette inside of the next 10 minutes; however, I can kick against habitual likelihood and act differently.

Now, this is nothing like a refutation of 'hard' determinism; but I don't think hard determinism is provable or refutable, as Dada says its infinite regress, so it's a moot point. But on a practical level, rather than academic, its imo a far more fertile position to take towards yourself and the world.

DadaKopf

Now, this is nothing like a refutation of 'hard' determinism; but I don't think hard determinism is provable or refutable, so it's a moot point.

Yeah, totally agree.

Kama

Heh but where would philosophy be without unanswerable questions?

But yeh, that's why I think its a somewhat theological issue, a metaphysical hangover from Christian free will conceptions. Determinism in science is kinda dated too, with the quantum turn probabilistic statements became as good as it gets, and hard mono-prediction goes out the window.

But in honesty, as a recovering fatalist, the psychological consequences of the respective beliefs are what decides my practical position, hehe.

Joe1919

Its hard to get away totally from some kind of Dualism. Even Richard Dawkins has his Gene/Meme type dualism to explain the transmission of 'ideas' or mental (non-material) concepts.

I would imagine that there is a good case for accepting free will from a practical or pragmatic point of view. For example, if you are trying to give up smoking, then perhaps you should tell yourself that 'I do have free will and I have the choice to smoke or not to smoke'.

I think it was Sartre that said something like 'everyone has choice but one can choose not to choose

Kama

Totally agree on dualism, whther its a linguistic or more hardwired.

Also agree on the pragmatic-existential position; I doubt skeptic is satisfied with it, but I don't think a for or against at the level wanted exists or is possible. Possibly if he supplied the actual arguments and reasons from which he finds a hard determinist position so strong? Never found it a terribly robust argument myself, infinite regress and a ontologically privileged materialism aren't that strong a foundation imo.

What I find interesting, and widely applicable, about the smoking example is the emphasis on habit. Tbh I find habit a stronger force than gravity hehe. Habit is highly determining, heavily loads dice, but is amenable to change and breaks, both from external factors (the shops are closed) and internal factors (decide to quit etc). Squares the circle for me anyway...

raah!

Well, according to Crick feelings are well within the scope of scientific investigation. Here's a quote: 'You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules'

In his book when talking about free will he seems to be of a different opinion to Searle, and he speaks about people as machines quite frequently. eg. 'Then, such a machine will appear to itself to have Free Will, provided it can personify it's behaviour - that is, it has an image of "itself" '

To me, Crick's views seem to reflect the opinions of the scientific community as a whole more accuratly.

And is the final opinion of all of ye that ye reject free will on theoretical terms but accept it on practical ones?

Joe1919

The quote from Crick ("our sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules") is interesting in that it is exactly the kind of 'reductionism' that some philosophers, such as Searle disagree with. Almost everything can be reduced to their 'associated molecules'. But sometimes this gets us nowhere e.g. Try explaining the present economic crisis in terms of 'associated molecules'.

Indeed, in the study of economics, you have a sort of dualism. Economics can be studied from the top down (Macroeconomics) or from the bottom up (Microeconomics). Sometimes complex systems have to be studied from different perspectives. The human has to be studied not only from a scientific viewpoint but also from a cultural point as well.

Kama

Yeh, my hackles tend to raise when I see rhetoric on those 'are in fact no more than' lines, utterly unsupported ontological claim. I'm not kneejerk against reductionism, frankly reality seems pretty damn complex and reducing it a necessity to understand, but to make the leap from there to claiming your reduction is the entire reality seems a bit of a leap of faith.

Mind you, as with Dawkins, its a leap of faith that makes great rhetoric that sells lots of books....

raah!

Mind you those aren't my views, I was just presenting them there as an example of what I thought the opinion of the scientific community in general was. Since these days everyone (apparantly) values the opinions of scientists so highly.

And I'd hardly say that looking at things on a molecular level was 'reducing' the complexity, it increases it if anything. It makes it impossibly complex, I suppose no different to the whole soul/spirit thing. But I'm sure you are all familiar with the scientific optimism of our age.

4Xcut

Did Hume not show that determinism was in fact needed for free will? In that he said that if all things are completely indeermined, then they must be random. If all things are random then that will not allow free will as free will implies a conscious choice that is not random.

Slightly off topic: With regard to free will and culpibility. Are there any well founded arguments put forward that deal with the issue of reponsibility for actions in the absence of free will?

Joe1919

There are a number of arguments that I immediately think of that support the idea of responsibility, irrespective of whether free will exists or not.
1. Guilt and shame and bad conscience seem to be common emotions and this would seem to support the idea that responsibility is a normal part of been human.
2. The idea of vengeance (revenge) is universal . We do hold others responsible.
3. We teach responsibility to our children , so even if responsibility is not innate, it appears to be a necessary social construct.
4.Its hard to envisage how a world would work without the idea of responsibility. Everyone would be irresponsible!

However, whereas I would accept the necessity of a worldly idea of responsibility, I would not personally support the religious idea where someone could be doomed to everlasting punishment for relatively trivial offences (e.g. looking lustfully etc) and hence I would have serious difficulties with the Christian ideas of freedom and responsibility.

dissident

Joe1919 wrote: »

My point is that the idea of free will is very intuitive. When we make a choice, we feel that we are in control; we feel that we are free to act or not to act. This idea of freedom is very important and also gives us the idea of responsibility and also the drive to pursue goals and not take a fatalistic attitude towards life.

I believe that determinism is also a very intuitive idea but is difficult to argue against due to the limits of language. You see i would argue that the past is merely a fading memory of the now, but it would take sometime to get that argument across since even those few lines are estsoeric.

I think it was confucius who said something along the lines of “before you asked me i knew just what time was, now im not so sure”


The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.—Stephen Hawking

Kama

Be interested to hear your determinist position fleshed out; my basic position is that intuitive appeals are all very well, but show very little, and aren't communicable or justifiable to others.

raah!

As would I, it is very unusual to hear a determinist view point based on intuition.

Here's a quote by Samuel Johnson

“All theory is against free will; all experience is for it.”

FionnMatthew

Someone, earlier, was looking for a clarification of compatibilism.

That's actually a unique burden for the compatibilist - the other two extremes languish in abstract generalities, or phenomenological shrugs, but the compatibilist has the burden of explaining how both could be the case.

Here's a compatibilist position I hashed out myself on another internet forum, which I thought might be interesting to you.

I don't believe there's a contradiction in the notion that the very process by which deterministic forces exert their influence over the actions of complex beings is through the same cognitive/ decisional matrix which gives us the impression that we choose among real options.

Imagi ne a simple algorithm: Given input A, do X, (and not Y). Given input B, do Y (and not X). (Let's imagine that an input can be a button pressed by an operator, or a perceptual stimulus of a fixed type, such as the wave of a hand, or a flash of light.)

A machine operating with that algorithm is clearly caused to do X given input Y, and so on. It is a transparently deterministic system.

Speed up the scale, then, to imagine a machine (for that's all we need just yet) which is built such as to calibrate its decisional matrix so as to frequently perform the best available action in response to relatively stable inputs. Imagine, if you will, a type of evolutionary selection which acts upon stimulus- response hook-ups, which will select, and settle into a stable performance of, action Xs when A inputs occur, because something about doing Y when A causes the A-Y hookup to degrade, whereas something about doing X when A reinforces the A-X hookups. (For our present purposes, the reinforcement/ degradation process can simply be an operator pressing a "YES" button when the system does X when A, and a "NO" button when the system does Y when A, etc - Neural networks are a paradigm example of systems that respond to this description.)

Again, nobody would say that this system is non- deterministic. It is certainly a transparently deterministic system, although, in virtue of its ability to dynamically recalibrate its own causal hookups (given, of course, a degradation/ reinforcement input) it is exponentially more complex a system, and therefore, perhaps, a little less transparent.

Imagine now that this system has some hardwired outcome goals - some hardwired teleology software, such as any biological organism has. Imagine that it also has a second algorithm that carries out the degradation/ reinforcement process itself, without the need for an external operator (without the need for a human trainer). Imagine that, after doing X when A, further inputs (let's say α and β) occur, which are representative of the state of affairs directly following on from doing X when A. Let's say the situation represented by input α is the situation that the system is hardwired to bring about, and the situation represented by input β is the situation that the system is hardwired to avoid. Let's say, when given input α, the system is programmed to reinforce the stimulus- response hookup that brought about α (When A, do X) and let's say, when given input β, the system is programmed to degrade the stimulus- response hookup that brought about input β (When A, do Y).

This machine is going to learn pretty quickly (and entirely causally) to adopt the actions that bring about the situations represented by α in any number of situations you give it, and with any number of actions, so long as the environmental stimuli you give it are relatively stable and coherent (i.e. comparable to our causally determined world.) . It will even learn to adopt the action that most probably will bring about the α sitation. For example, if doing X when A will bring about α 55% of the time, and β 45% of the time, while doing Y when A will bring about β 55% of the time, and α only 25% of the time, the system will, given enough time and stimuli, work up stable X when A hookups, and its Y when A hookup will be seriously degraded. It will develop stable behaviours that will bring about α's, and avoid β's.

So far so good. This machine is still transparently deterministic.

Now, complexify this machine exponentially. The machine is capable of hooking up certain actions, not to individual inputs, but to composite states of affairs composed of potentially billions of individual inputs, which can come in all forms - perceptual indicators, linguistic indicators. It trains itself not only to hook up actions to inputs, but to have perceptual takings of the manifold of inputs - in effect, it trains itself how to interpret its otherwise massively overwhelming capability for perception, and to categorize these interpretations into schematic inputs, to which it then trains itself to react. Let's say the machine is also massively parallel (just like a neural net). It's not just doing this; it's doing it in triplicate. Let's say, also, that although it has several first-order goals, which are hardwired, it can dynamically take on, and recalibrate second-order goals, which recursively enable it to achieve its first order goals. It can even decline one of its first-order goals for long term benefits in terms of other first-order goals. Let's say, also, that machines such as this are designed to work in community with other such machines, and are designed to learn to observe and appropriate the successful behavioural hookups of other machines for themselves, in effect, learn behaviours off the group which are time-honoured as successful : the communal norms.

It is sufficiently complex to function in a massively dynamic system, such as the natural world, and it is such because it has been "engineered" by natural selection to be something that does exactly that.

Now, the system no longer works transparently in terms of simple hookups between stimuli and actions. One of the outcomes of a decisional algorithm becoming so complex is that it has to develop ways of systematizing information, of schematizing it, but this can only go so far. It also must be able to develop meta-principles for making the most probably advantageous actions in comparatively novel situations. Situational inputs, for this machine, are no longer such simples as A or B. They are never identical, and there will always be subtle differences in the situations composed of billions of possible variables, as represented by the system's interpretative apparatus (which, remember, is also dynamic, and adaptive.) The system, therefore, must have a module for making meta-decisions, for dealing with novels situations - it must develop a capacity to judge - to say of such and such a collection of billions of variables that it is a situation where action X is likely to bring about the most advantageous outcome relative to its first or second order goals. It must have the capacity of judgment. It will do this by developing a representative system, which is able to simulate potential outcomes from pertinent schematized variables and states of affairs. It will now not only have inputs and actions, but an intra-system process, which functions as a means of representing, categorizing the world, and making inferences between certain inputs and other possible states of affairs. Such a system, even though it will, in its astounding complexity, still obey causal laws, will no longer be transparently deterministic, at least to non-omniscient beings like ourselves. Still, we have a commitment to the idea that since everything we built it from was all good and proper, and since we didn't include any magic items, or angel dust, it will, though we cannot watch it at work in the fine details, still have to comply with the deterministic laws of the universe. Nothing is happening in there that couldn't be mapped out, in theory. We'd just need a galaxy-sized map for it. Otherwise, we will say that the machine is opaquely deterministic.

Finally, let's say the manner in which the machine networks its inputs, inferences and responses is a reasoning system, which is open-ended and revisable: a language. And let's say that one of the outcomes of having a representative system for extremely complex, goal oriented beings such as these, is that it learns to represent itself, and to represent the decisions it makes to itself. The causal processes that, when properly calibrated (as most of these beings are), bring about the most advantageous situations, are manifested and represented in a conscious stream in the machine, and in fact, the conscious stream is an integral part of the dynamic, adaptive representative decision-making power of the system. While, to observe the machine's inner workings, it would likely be opaque, the most pertinent and relevant factors of a situation are, after having been refined by the machine's interpretative systems, surrendered to the conscious stream, where it consciously reasons (using its language) which will be the best action to take, using its judgment. All of this is acutely transparent to the machine - since that is a necessary condition of its being able to respond so complexly to such a complex environment.

T his machine has a "feeling of choosing," in that the actions which it carries out are quite often rendered by a decisional matrix which is also a representing/ judging system. It so happens that the causal processes which bring about its actions are transparently available to it in those most conscious of situations. Its "feeling of choosing" is relatively true, since it is the very thing that, arising out of a causally deterministic universe, carries out in accordance with causal laws the train of processes which help it to do the things that will help it to, for instance, survive, in situations when it could easily do otherwise for want of such a sophisticated decisional matrix, and thereby perish.

I'm sorry if this has been a little slapdash in places. I'm typing very fast, because I don't have a lot of time. But the point of what I've written is this: if a story like this could be true, then this whole debate is a case of people (on both sides of the debate) trying to universalize this "feeling of choosing" into a metaphysical principle - a condition for the possibility of existence - when there is no reason to suppose that it couldn't be accounted for in a more adequate conception of exactly how it is that minds such as ours could evolve in a deterministic universe. In this story, "free will" is a relatively modest thing, metaphysically speaking, but there is nothing in the story of a deterministic universe that makes our "feeling of choosing" illusory, since we do, in effect, choose, because that is simply a word for the extremely sophisticated, novel way in which organisms like us carry out causal interactions with the world.

The "feeling of choosing," I think, is nothing more than the antecedent and enduring capability of entertaining counterfactuals . If the simple algorithm machine of the first example were, in fact, conscious, as we are, and its conscious stream were involved in the entertainment of counterfactuals - "I could do X when A, and I could also do Y when A, which one should I do?" - then it to would have the feeling of choosing when after weighing the counterfactuals against each other on the basis of outcomes, its decisional matrix produced one action rather than the other.

The point is that rational beings (and although we are not always rational beings, I think that we are potentially rational beings to the extent that at least some of our decisions are gotten to via a conscious reasoning through, and weighing of predictive outcomes, therefore rational) by virtue of the fact that their actions come about as the result of a conscious reasoning process, will have a "feeling of choosing," since they are in fact choosing, and this is nothing more than the election of one course of action over another by a deterministic, although conscious and rational, decisional matrix.

FionnMatthew

Joe1919 wrote: »

There are a number of arguments that I immediately think of that support the idea of responsibility, irrespective of whether free will exists or not.

Actually, Joe, none of these arguments are sound at all. Hard determinism demands that we dispense with the idea of moral responsibility entirely, and look for the explanations of behaviour elsewhere. Addicts are so because they have specific genes, or dysfunctional brain chemistry, and we must look for a physical causal remedy, etc.

Look at your arguments:

1. Guilt and shame and bad conscience seem to be common emotions and this would seem to support the idea that responsibility is a normal part of been human.

This is an argument from precedent, and it also commits the naturalistic fallacy.

You derive from the fact of classical folk morality, (guilt, shame, bad conscience, responsibility) that classical folk morality is "natural," and in some sense correct.

First of all, the commonness of folk moral notions like guilt and shame doesn't give you the "naturalness" of responsibility. That's deriving an is from an ought.

Secondly, a hard determinist would argue that whether or not it is a "natural" way to be, folk notions like responsibility and guilt, etc, are abusive and denigrating social constructs, that tend to blame individuals for actions they were caused to take. He will see these folk notions as rather unfair, and advocate doing away with them. "Naturalness" doesn't really trump this argument. You have to show that there is something correct to the notion of responsibility, not just that it's something that everyone feels they have.

2. The idea of vengeance (revenge) is universal . We do hold others responsible.

Once again, the universality of revenge talk doesn't give you the legitimacy of responsibility, or, even, vengeance talk. We do hold others responsible, yes. That shouldn't come as a surprise. That's why we're talking about it. The determinist will say that it is barbaric and wrong to hold others responsible the way we do (and given the ubiquity of revenge, I am tempted to agree with him here.) This is another is->ought transition.

3. We teach responsibility to our children , so even if responsibility is not innate, it appears to be a necessary social construct.

THAT we teach responsibility to our children doesn't make it a NECESSARY social construct.

We could, just as easily, says the determinist, STOP teaching our children about responsibility.

Most families in the world teach their children religious beliefs. That doesn't make them a necessary social construct.

There's no necessity to the notion of responsibility in normative ethics. If you want to defend it, you've got to argue for why it's important, rather than just point to examples of it, and how ubiquitous it is. This is the contention of the social psychology determinists: that folk morality is WRONG, and that we ought to change it.

4.Its hard to envisage how a world would work without the idea of responsibility. Everyone would be irresponsible!

This isn't really an argument at all. It's just a shrug. Just because it's hard to imagine it doesn't mean that it isn't possible.

Besides which, (judging from your exclamation mark, you were being comical, but on the off chance that you were half serious here:) there are credible accounts of how society could work without the folk morality notions of responsibility etc. John Doris and Gil Harman write well on this topic. In a post-folk morality world, nobody is responsible or irresponsible, because that dichotomy is no longer recognized as meaningful.

Joe1919

Hi Fionn.

My post was a quick reply to the question by $Xcut "With regard to free will and culpibility. Are there any well founded arguments put forward that deal with the issue of reponsibility for actions in the absence of free will?" At no stage in this post was I saying that we OUGHT to be responsible or that there was a metaphysical basis for responsibility but that the 'idea of responsibility' appears to be a matter of fact.

Indeed, I gave no metaphysical answer because I don't believe there is a metaphysical answer to how we can have the 'idea of responsibility' compatible with determinism and hence my rejection of the Christian concept of responsibility.

But we can make other arguments. We can appeal to feelings or pragmatism and we could argue that the 'idea of responsibility' has a survival value or that 'it just exists' as a 'matter of fact'.

My first two points are really an appeal to emotion or feeling. If someone hits me, I may hold him responsible if he is to blame and feel like hitting him back. I also feel responsible when I look after my children and would feel guilty if anything happen to them due to my irresponsibility.. These, for me, are 'matters of fact.' You may feel different.

My last two points are pragmatic. I have suggested that responsibility is possible only a 'necessary social construct'. My use of the word 'necessary' may be misleading but is meant to be in a pragmatic, rather than a metaphysical sense. Its hard to see the world, as it presently is, existing without the idea of responsibility. The same could be said for the idea of 'property'. Of course the world would exist without these ideas (responsibility or property), but it would be a different world. (I let you decide whether better or worst)

Indeed, its possible to see the 'idea of responsibility' as a sort of similar idea to that of the 'idea of property. The responsible person [is made to ] 'takes ownership' of his choice and enjoys the rewards or suffers the punishments that are the fruits of his choice.

This appeal to feeling and pragmatism could be put another way. Lets say a molester rapes and kills a child. Of course the argument could be made that the murderer has no free will (or is determined) and therefore not to blame. But, WE MUST hold him responsible, irrespective of our beliefs because we FEEL its what we should do and we would have no sense or feeling of justice otherwise. There are also Pragmatic reasons why he must be held accountable and its hard to see how a system of justice could work without the idea of responsibility.(praise/blame)

FionnMatthew

Joe1919 wrote: »

Hi Fionn.

My post was a quick reply to the question by $Xcut "With regard to free will and culpibility. Are there any well founded arguments put forward that deal with the issue of reponsibility for actions in the absence of free will?" At no stage in this post was I saying that we OUGHT to be responsible or that there was a metaphysical basis for responsibility but that the 'idea of responsibility' appears to be a matter of fact.

Indeed, I gave no metaphysical answer because I don't believe there is a metaphysical answer to how we can have the 'idea of responsibility' compatible with determinism and hence my rejection of the Christian concept of responsibility.

But we can make other arguments. We can appeal to feelings or pragmatism and we could argue that the 'idea of responsibility' has a survival value or that 'it just exists' as a 'matter of fact'.

My first two points are really an appeal to emotion or feeling. If someone hits me, I may hold him responsible if he is to blame and feel like hitting him back. I also feel responsible when I look after my children and would feel guilty if anything happen to them due to my irresponsibility.. These, for me, are 'matters of fact.' You may feel different.

My last two points are pragmatic. I have suggested that responsibility is possible only a 'necessary social construct'. My use of the word 'necessary' may be misleading but is meant to be in a pragmatic, rather than a metaphysical sense. Its hard to see the world, as it presently is, existing without the idea of responsibility. The same could be said for the idea of 'property'. Of course the world would exist without these ideas (responsibility or property), but it would be a different world. (I let you decide whether better or worst)

Indeed, its possible to see the 'idea of responsibility' as a sort of similar idea to that of the 'idea of property. The responsible person [is made to ] 'takes ownership' of his choice and enjoys the rewards or suffers the punishments that are the fruits of his choice.

This appeal to feeling and pragmatism could be put another way. Lets say a molester rapes and kills a child. Of course the argument could be made that the murderer has no free will (or is determined) and therefore not to blame. But, WE MUST hold him responsible, irrespective of our beliefs because we FEEL its what we should do and we would have no sense or feeling of justice otherwise. There are also Pragmatic reasons why he must be held accountable and its hard to see how a system of justice could work without the idea of responsibility.(praise/blame)

Joe1919 wrote: »

Hi Fionn.

My post was a quick reply to the question by $Xcut "With regard to free will and culpibility. Are there any well founded arguments put forward that deal with the issue of reponsibility for actions in the absence of free will?"

I know, Joe.

At no stage in this post was I saying that we OUGHT to be responsible or that there was a metaphysical basis for responsibility but that the 'idea of responsibility' appears to be a matter of fact.

In what sense do you mean "a matter of fact" ?

It's certainly an undeniable tenet of the commonsense framework of persons and interpersonal action. I pointed that out in the last post.

But it's not a fact in the sense that it is unavoidable, or that we couldn't live without it.

The question you were replying to was asking whether there are good grounds on which to continue using responsibility-talk, even after accepting a deterministic universe.

Now, this already accepts it as a fact that we, as humans, continue to use and value responsibility-talk. As someone mentioned earlier, it doesn't seem to be simply a hangover from the notions of Christian psychology. It informs our very thought about people and action.

But it's severely problematised by determinism.

The other poster had recognized that if one is a determinist, holding people responsible for their actions starts to look downright intolerable. Why should we hold a man responsible for a murder, if he had no choice in carrying it out?

The only possible reasons we should hold a man responsible for a murder is if there are very good philosophical reasons why responsibility talk is in some sense substantive and valuable, in a deterministic framework.

It isn't sufficient to indicate THAT we use notions of responsibility in interpersonal discourse, and talk about action. We already know that. That isn't a justification. That's just a descriptive assertion. We need arguments that rejuvenates responsibility within a deterministic framework.

I don't think there are any. That's ok, because I'm not a determinist; at least I'm not a determinist in that sense. As a compatibilist, I think we can have our cake and eat it too.

But I was simply pointing out that if you're going to defend responsibility talk, you have to do more than simply indicate that it's a really natural way of thinking. We already know that. We're looking for justificatory reasons, substantive ones, why responsibility isn't completely abrogated by a determinstic point of view.

For me, that's a good jumping off point into compatibilism.

But look:

Indeed, I gave no metaphysical answer because I don't believe there is a metaphysical answer to how we can have the 'idea of responsibility' compatible with determinism and hence my rejection of the Christian concept of responsibility.

I think you're on to the right track here. For me, the free will/determinist controversy all emanates from a confusion of incompatible discourses - incompatible language games, if you want.

Determinism is an in-principle view. We can never actually know the full truth of determinism. It's only ever going to be an in principle belief that every single banal action or happening in the human repertoire is entirely caused by the vast universe of miniscule antecedent events going on in a human being, and in the world around him.

Free will, however, is innately practical, and has to do with how we encounter the world. In fact, it's a by-product of the information processing capacity of human-brains, is what I'd like to claim, as a compatibilist - since our brains have evolved as adaptive, and highly complex ways of creating actions in response to situations.

The two are utterly incompatible discourses. One is a metaphysical discourse - off the scale of human knowledge, the other is sub-scale - it has to do with the actions we perform volitionally without even thinking about our choosing. (we think to choose, but we rarely apperceive that choosing.)

It seems to me that the idea of responsibility, which you've labeled Christian, is actually vindicated, in this view.

But we can make other arguments. We can appeal to feelings or pragmatism and we could argue that the 'idea of responsibility' has a survival value or that 'it just exists' as a 'matter of fact'.

Sure. But those aren't justifications for a determinist. You can't justify, say, judicial murder by saying "I feel we should do it. We've always done it. It's just done! It's a fact."

That's missing the point that whether or not we should continue to do it has been thrown into question. That's the question you were asked - whether there are any reasons why we shouldn't entirely abandon the notion of responsibility in a deterministic framework.

Pragmatism doesn't work that way, either. Pragmatism is about seeing the practices and frameworks we use to approach and intuit the world as, not necessarily correct, but just part of our repertoire of ways of dealing with the world. The criterion of sufficiency for a way of thinking, in a pragmatic framework, is whether or not it gets the job done. But this, again, is primarily a descriptive way of looking at our commonsense framework. It's not a justificatory one. You don't get away with, say, a pragmatic justification for slavery by saying that, historically, it's how mankind dealt with the workload. These days we have an alternative, and we know slavery is unfair. The determinist says that these days we are presented with an alternative way of looking at human agency and action - and that the old way is unfair. A pragmatic argument won't be sufficient here. You have to 1) argue that responsibility-talk ISN'T wrong, and 2) that it's better than the alternative. The insistence that "it works" isn't a knockdown argument.

My first two points are really an appeal to emotion or feeling.

Right - but those aren't sound argumentative bases for a justificatory argument for responsibility talk. In fact, those are fallacious, by most standards.

I could appeal to emotion to justify my hypothetical (cultural) commitment to stoning women to death for pre-marital sex. That probably won't hold up to most people's standards, however.

If someone hits me, I may hold him responsible if he is to blame and feel like hitting him back.

This is circular. You say you may hold him responsible IF HE IS TO BLAME. But if responsibility talk is, as the determinist says, defunct, he can't be to blame. He was caused to hit you. He has no real choice in the matter. He'll never be "to blame" in a deterministic universe. So you can't just wait for people to be susceptible to blame before you hold them responsible. And holding them responsible is just going to look monumentally unfair, isn't it? Because he had no choice. If you accept determinism, you ought to be an awful lot more understanding about it.

Just feeling like hitting the guy back doesn't get you there either. That looks like a fallacious rationalisation for revenge. You might feel like hitting him back. There might be some instinctual commitment to taking revenge - some instinctual basis for the sorts of feelings that manifest as responsibility talk in highly evolved organisms - but that isn't a justification for it. As we've seen, he couldn't have done otherwise. It's like justifying breaking something because you got angry at it. If you accept determinism, you must accept that you have no rational reason retaliate.

I also feel responsible when I look after my children and would feel guilty if anything happen to them due to my irresponsibility..

Once again, if anything happens to your children, irrespective of your feelings, you could not have done otherwise. You were caused to do what you did. A determinist will tell you that your guilt is a normative phenomenon, derived from how you feel you are supposed to behave within a community, and that you need not beat yourself up about it. You might not feel as if this is particularly possible, but there it is. What is at stake isn't whether you can stifle your feelings of regret, but whether there could exist a society where people didn't feel responsible when awful things happened to their children, when they are a proximate cause. The fact that such a thing is, in theory, possible, means that there still need to be sound justificatory arguments for responsibility talk, or you're going to have been feeling bad for no good reason, and all because you were brought up to believe, erroneously, that you had responsibility.

These, for me, are 'matters of fact.' You may feel different.

I don't feel different, actually. I think responsibility-talk is integral, not just because there's precedent for it, but because there are very good reasons to adopt it, and all of this derives from my compatibilist position. But this is your position. And:

1) Just because they are matters of fact about the way humans think about interpersonal morality doesn't mean that this is the way humans ought[//i] to think. Determinists say we should abandon this way of thinking. You were asked to give good reasons why we shouldn't abandon this way of thinking. THAT we think this way, isn't a good reason.
2) If you DO feel that there are good reasons why we ought to cleave to a responsibility framework, then you can't consistently endorse hard determinism. You ought to provide reasons why, within a deterministic framework, responsibility talk is not a) vacuous and b) objectionable.

My last two points are pragmatic. I have suggested that responsibility is possible only a 'necessary social construct'. My use of the word 'necessary' may be misleading but is meant to be in a pragmatic, rather than a metaphysical sense.

I get you. You're saying that responsibility talk was a necessary, and evolutionarily advantageous way of organizing interpersonal behaviour in developing human society, and that our having come to think this way is vindicated by the way we developed as creatures.

That's fine. But once again, if the determinists proffer you an alternative way of thinking, and consistently put forward an argument that it is unfair to hold people responsible for the things they are caused to do, that pragmatic precedent doesn't get you justification. Not by a long shot. You're just arguing from precedent.

Its hard to see the world, as it presently is, existing without the idea of responsibility. The same could be said for the idea of 'property'. Of course the world would exist without these ideas (responsibility or property), but it would be a different world. (I let you decide whether better or worst)

It certainly would be a different world. Actually, that's one of the issues of this argument. Whether or not that world would be better or worse. What the determinist will say is that that world WILL be better. That that world is to be preferred to the one in which we continue to blame people for their actions.

Do you feel that the world where we use responsibility is a better one? If so, you must argue for why. That's what you were asked. Why are we entitled to continue thinking in terms of responsibility, if we are convinced of determinism? What arguments in favour of responsibility obtain here? How can responsibility subsist in a deterministic outlook?

This appeal to feeling and pragmatism could be put another way. Lets say a molester rapes and kills a child. Of course the argument could be made that the murderer has no free will (or is determined) and therefore not to blame. But, WE MUST hold him responsible, irrespective of our beliefs because we FEEL its what we should do and we would have no sense or feeling of justice otherwise.

But that's precisely what's at stake. That's what the determinist is throwing into question. HOW is it more just to punish a man who had no control over his actions? If our feelings of justice go that way, oughtn't we to ignore them?

That's precisely the question you're being asked. How can you justify just satisfying your feelings, and holding a child rapist responsible for his actions?

A determinist will say there must be a neurological or behavioural dysfunction evident in that individual, and will advocate research into how best to remedy that situation. He will deplore the arbitrary punishment of that man, just in order to appease our commonsense intuitions about responsibility.

If you agree with determinism, it isn't just that an argument can be made that the man was not in control of his actions. He wasn't, if you endorse determinism. So what are you going to do about it?

If the folk psychology and folk morality under which punishment and responsibility grew up are derived from a Christian framework, why wouldn't you or I, who have inherited that way of thinking from a society still in the grip of those ideas feel strongly about them? Why wouldn't we feel they were right? You must see here that feeling is not enough. Pointing to feeling, as you're doing here, is just indicating our unexamined and prejudicial intuitions about crime and punishment, and trusting them to be correct. But you've confessed a commitment to determinism, so that is a rational inconsistency. How do you resolve that?

For me, I reject hardline determinism, but I would like to know how you handle it.

There are also Pragmatic reasons why he must be held accountable and its hard to see how a system of justice could work without the idea of responsibility.(praise/blame)

It would certainly be entirely transformed.

The thing is, if we're not justified in having ideas about responsibility, blame and moral volition, then why SHOULD we have the justice system we have now? Doesn't that huge socio-political edifice start to look rather suspect too, if we're determinists? Why do we have a state apparatus that conveniently jumps in at just the moment a person is caused to commit a crime, and dispenses retributive justice in the form of imprisonment or worse at the expense of the taxpayer?

If you look at it this way, you'll see that this is no pragmatic argument for responsibility talk. This is a knockdown argument against responsibility talk. The entire justice system starts to look like a monument of needless persecution, if determinism is true, since it rests on the idea of responsibility, and free will.

Here are two Gil Harman papers that I think satisfactorily outline an alternative conception of society, which doesn't give pride of place to the folk morality. Justice, in this sort of society, is seen as a rehabilitative arm of the people, rather than an institution for dispensing just punishment where it is needed, either as coercive force for the laws, or for the satisfaction of retributive feelings on the part of society.

http://www.princeton.edu/~harman/Papers/Guilt.pdf
http://www.princeton.edu/~harman/Papers/Virtue.html

I actually fundamentally disagree with Harman, but I'm putting them out there to see what you think.