FREE WILL & DETERMINISM

FREE WILL & DETERMINISM

1. Causation

   • If A then B, if no B no A.
     • Determinism: not remembering lecture, not going. remembering, going. Was there a choice here?
       • What would be the worth of choice function if determinism were true?

2. DETERMINISTIC WORLD VIEW

   • importance of FW: we like to feel people can be held accountable for their actions, we like to feel like we're in control of our own lives
     • HARD DETERMINISM: ALL EVENTS ARE DETERMINED BY THEIR CAUSES AND CONSEQUENTLY THERE'S NO FREE WILL
       • SOFT DETERMINISM/COMPATIBILISM: HUMAN ACTIONS ARE DETERMINED BY PRIOR CAUSES, BUT FREE WILL STILL EXISTS
         • (e.g. prior events include your own choices)
         • INCOMPATIBILISM: FREE WILL AND DETERMINISM CANNOT EXIST TOGETHER
           • CLASSICAL FREE WILL THEORY : HUMAN ACTIONS NOT DETERMINED BY CAUSES & THERE IS FREE WILL
             • an arg for FW: if there was no free will, there would be no difference between those under compulsion (addiction) and ordinary non compulsive actions
               • P2: there is a diff
                 • Conc: free will exists
                   • Invalid
                 • Begs Q
         • Dennett: my actions are result of my conditioning and genes, then my choice responsibility on this basis - caused by other things but still yours
     • can't do this is life is determined
   • Why deny FW? belief everything is determined, everything has a cause and what happens is predetermined by past events
     • Hobbes: "Every act of a mans will procedeth from some cause"
       • Spinoza: "Man is necessarily always prey to his passions
         • KANT: held that we have to presuppose that every event is determined by a cause, if we didn't the thought of science would be impossible
       • Holbach: "he is born without his own consent"
         • for Holbach - how ever voluntary an action may seem to you, it's part of a cause and effect cycle, this goes outside of you & out of your control
           • "Whatever manner he is considered, is connected to universal Naure"
             • A system of Nature, Vol 1, 1770.
     • observation is reliable. Presuppose patterns
     • every event has a prior cause (water at 100 degrees), that prior cause determines next event (water boils) - the prior cause is also predet. caused
   • PREMISE 1: Every event is determined - it couldn't have happened differently
     • PREMISE 2: Human actions are also determined, they're events like any other.
       • Premise 2: Perhaps human actions are not events like any other?
         • Humans think about what they do before they do it? Is this FW? think but not action? not the case for nature - rain etc. no thinking involved
           • but our actions are then caused by our thought - are they physical events? Yes - doesn't affect determinist arg then.
             • But our actions just don't FEEL determined!
               • Determinist: it's just a powerful illusion
                 • Wittgenstein's leaf analogy - thinks to itself in the wind - now i'll go this way, now i'll go that.
                   • FW not compatible with science -- science tells us we are evolved creatures on a continuum so we would have to accept dogs, plants, ants have FW
                     • Also, humans are subject to the laws of physics
                       • Determinist - feeling of having free will exists only in some creatures
                         • Taoist philosophy teaches everything happens in accordance with the tao inc. our actions
     • does this beg the Q? is it dependent on deterministic world view - physicists prepared to accept that some events aren't determined
       • but if actions are random rather than determined does this make them any closer to being free?
   • The No 3rd Way Arg.:
     • P1: cause is prior to effect
       • P2: nothing is prior to itself
         • Conc: nothing is the cause of itself
       • is this true? water at 100 degrees it boils IMMEDIATELY
     • No 3rd Way Arg (Version 2):
       • P1: cause is always distinct from it's effect
         • P2: nothing is distinct from itself
           • Conc: nothing is the cause of itself
             • still caused by itself/random - not free
   • Classical Free Will Theory: Human Actions are DIFFERENT.
     • agent causation: intelligent beings have actions which are independent
       • no truth of the matter of future states - before something happens its true nor false that they'll happen
         • we can't know something until it happens. Is this true?It is true that I will die, but it hasn't happened yet.

3. PRAISE AND BLAME

   • NO FREE WILL = NO MORAL RESPONSIBLITY
   • Clarence Darrow and the Trial of Leopold and Loeb (1924): said that their actions were due to their environment/genetics
     • hence they shouldn't he held accountable for the actions of someone else.
     • no free will = no blame
       • isn't it irrational to accept we can't praise or blame anyone?
   • determinists try to make sense of moral resp. in consequencialist reasons:
     • they deserve it, to protect society, to deter others
       • how does this make sense if they nor us have free will?
         • we can't affect how they will act in the future if it's predetermined
           • if we blame we must think that the could have done otherwise!
             • Schoolboy - didn't learn because he was stupid. Didn't learn because he was lazy.
               • in determinism, laziness and stupidity are traits with prior cases - could they have done otherwise?
               • SMART: jurisdiction of praising or blaming is pragmatic - blaming someone for being lazy might make them less lazy. Blaming them for being stupid
                 • wont make them less stupid
                 • so we can still praise/blame when we have no free will
                   • produce a change doesn't accept people DESERVE it.
                 • worries of consequentialism will affect this:
                   • -To protect society - dangerous but innocent, guilty not violent?
                     • As a deterrent - no fw = won't work. not known to be empirically effective
                       • Rehabilitation - not known empirically whether rehab actually works
                         • Rule utilitarianism: do what as general rule has good effects
                           • so don't put people in prison if they're innocent as it's likely to have bad consequences - misses the point they're INNOCENT!
                 • SMART'S approach is impersonal and instrumental
           • Don't confuse with fatalism - determinism doesn't say that smthng bound to happen no matter what else happens
             • previous factors ARE important to determ.
   • for praise and blame to be effective, we must accept actions have causes like intentions
   • Peter Strawson
     • Expressivist reasons - punishment of expressing society's approval/dissaproval of actions
       • punish people going against my values - Smart misses this
     • language is expressive: well done!
       • interpersonal situations - someone steps on your toe - RESENTMENT but they didn't mean to
         • Were they forced? mentally ill, addicted? continuously in this state of not meaning to - acceptance, no blame regardless of your loss
           • we therefore have an objective view
   • useful for conditioning regardless of determinism
     • determined conditioning (cause), better person (effect)
       • actions owned by them
         • even if no fw, it works with dogs!

4. Classical Free Will Theory

   • reject compatibilism - William James "makes the word free meaningless"
   • common sense understanding of free will
     • P1: our actions are not determined
       • P2: our actions are not random either
         • P3: We make things happen
           • what does it mean to say we make something happen
             • clouds cause rain - not fw
           • causes and effects can't pass through us, we are the origins of our actions
       • trick dice, not determined but not random. Weighted makes it unfree?
   • do we understand the nature of cause and effect? Hume first to point this out
     • Billiard balls - we don't actually see a ball causing another to move - we add the causality due to the regularity of experience of it
       • science itself gives us reason to believe there are things science cannot understand
         • consciousness - one of those things we don't understand - when we act consciously we act freely
           • we feel as though we're doing things and nothing else is causing us to do them
         • scientisim - science can answer every question, is this true?
           • even if we knew all the physical facts in the world there would still be things about the mind we don't know
             • does this mean we have a non physical soul? - Nagel not arguing for this but for the fact there are somethings that science cannot know
               • Nagel - there is something it is to be you - we will never know what it is like to be a bat.
   • directly aware we're doing something is the same as being directly aware of our thoughts
   • Chisholm: we're in a better position to know we're doing things than we are to know external events cause each other
     • our actions are caused by our minds, minds may be different from anything else in the world
       • this difference is free will - Brain = immediate cause of actions, we're conscious.
   • how is us doing things any different from inanimate objects?
     • 1. Agent causation - Chisholm, 2. Volitional causation = Hodgson
       • 1. Agent Causation - either something is caused by something else or its not caused at all - something else could be another event - an AGENT
         • events & agents = causes which then have effects
           • Aristotle, Physics 256a, "A staff moves a stone, and is moved by a hand, which is moved by a man."
             • for Chisholm there is a difference between an event causing something and an agent doing something
               • physical events can cause things, but an agent can cause and do things
                 • you cause things to happen, but that doesn't mean that's what you're doing - grass is moved when staff is moved
                 • direct experience - a third thing neither determined nor random
       • Volitional causation - when we act we're influenced by reason, but we're not determined by them
         • Some reasons are incommensurable with others - they have more weight
           • Hodgson- we can't often outweigh reasons against each other - some can't be reduced to algorithms
             • are algorithms underlying our reasons?
               • outcome of decision making nor random but reasoned consciously
             • weakness of will - sometimes we accept weaker reasons because of preferences

5. Neuroscience and Free Will

   • evolution: change through really small steps (gradualism). implies transformation from earlier to later lifeforms has to be through small changes
     • principle of uniformality states that living organisms are made of fundamentally unchanging stuff - so no special substance that organisms made of
       • we wouldn't say bacteria has free will
         • continuum - chimpanzees have free will? maybe? us, definitely?
           • how did fw evolve then? evolutionary emerging traits - eyes - but we can physcially see how these evolved!
     • how can FW gradually evolve?
       • Strawson - 'when X emerges from X, Y has to be explainable in terms of X, but fw is a type of causation not reducable to other types of causation
         • just because this proves it didn't evolve doesn't mean it doesn't exist
           • myths - we used to not know how bumblebees flew
             • problem for evolution not for CFWT
               • true for other things i.e. consciousness - evolutionary theory incomplete
               • psychological mechanisms inherited from stone age ancestors - products of natural selection, too complex to have come about by chance
                 • evolutionary psychology implies genetic determinism - compelled by our genes to act in certain ways
                   • Dawkins - genes and environment deciefer how an organism turns out
   • Benjamin Libet
     • person set up with machine which detects neuron movement/activity in the brain which comes out on a EGC
       • takes note of intention formed and then when action was performed
         • proves an awareness of intention around 200 miliseconds before action was performed
           • also build up of readiness potential to form action 550m/s before action
             • so process was already happening before the person because conscious of intention
               • when we act freely we're aware of ourselves initating the action - but Libet's experiment proves unconcious initation
     • epiphenomentalism - idea that consciousness is a by product of the brain's activity.
       • observer of our own actions - Hume's billard balls.
         • but perhaps there is a scientific mystery about free will and consciousness
     • if consciousness isn't involved the action, perhaps we can still explain the will?
       • Libet suggests there's enough time in the 200 milisecs for consciousness to act as a veto - a free won't
         • during build up of readiness potential
         • familiar with such self - vetoing events in everyday life
           • build up of readiness potential and the conscious awareness of it are necessary for an action to be free
             • people with tourettes have no build up of readiness potential
     • Haggard contrasts free actions not with ones with unconcious causes but with:
       • reflex actions
         • constrained actions - could act differently but you are constrained
       • Haggards account of unconstrained decision making
         • brain processes make decisions below your awareness taking in your personal beliefs about the world
           • 1. Early decisions - do it or not do it
             • 2. what will I do - task selection
               • 3.Action selection - how will I do it?
                 • 4. Will i do it?
           • free won't - Haggards 4th stage allows freedom
             • Brass and Haggard (2007) - specific areas of the brain which developed more activity when people stopped themselves
               • free actions result of underlying neurological processes
                 • CONC: actions are free - but he has redefined free - bad news for CFWT.