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| Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) |
You may
wonder how it is possible but as you’ll see the answer is really easy. It’s all
about defining free will correctly (from the compatibilists’ point o view of
course). It is possible to define free will in such a way that – despite deterministic
limitations – free will will be still free (though it will not be free from determinants). Take a closer look to the
definition of free will by Arthur Schopenhauer:
Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.
You may
notice that there are so to say two levels of free will. On one hand you can do anything
you will – and this is undeniably the freedom of mind – on the other hand
however you can’t change your will. Your free will controls only the actions,
there is no "free will no. 2" which would be responsible for controlling your
"free will no. 1". If you took some time to consider this sentence, maybe
you would find a paradox in it. Isn’t the action of willing already an action?
I mean, this is something you can do
– you can will. Therefore if you can do what you will you can also will what
you will but that’s contradictory to the second part of definition stating that
you can’t will what you will. Hence the first part of the sentence would be correct
only if the action of willing would not be actually an action and couldn’t be
done; and if an action can’t be performed and if an action is not an action it
means it does not exist. If it does not exist, compatibilism would be ripped of
free will and would become a traditional determinism…
Don’t you
think that we often use terms whose definitions are actually really broad and
vague? Determinists frequently argue if human beings have free mind or not.
Such discussions are sometimes completely meaningless if there is no consensus
about what free mind is. You may argue if boombleday exists but the discussion
would never end because nobody really knows what boombleday means. What do you
think about free will? Is it possible to define it? I’d love to hear from you!
I find Schopenhauer's account of free will about the best there is. However... he had a very pessimistic idea of one's character, as fixed at birth. Hence one cannot really change one's will. I believe that we can seek out education and, indeed, philosophy, and thus develop our minds. In a sense knowledge gives us a potential freedom (see Spinoza). And somehow we have to deal with the phenomenon of effort, or trying. How far I develop my mind will depend in part on how hard I try. This SEEMS to be a matter for me to decide, freely. What do you think?
ReplyDelete[[I find Schopenhauer's account of free will about the best there is.]]
DeleteTry reading Jonathan Pearce's book and you may reconsider your opinion.
http://www.amazon.com/Free-Will-investigation-whether-always/dp/0956694802/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365711360&sr=8-1&keywords=jonathan+pearce
Thank you so much for your comment! I would agree, at least to some extent, with Schopenhauer's perception of character. It is, though not entirely, dependent on the genes we receive from our parents - which is obviously something we have no control of. I would also agree that knowledge might increase our freedom (with sufficient knowledge we are able to find more possible solutions to a specific problem). But in fact, this might be quite a tricky statement - aren't you either free or not free? Can you be more free or less free? Does the awareness of more options make your free will in any way bigger? And if there were only one possible option to choose from, would it mean that - in this particular situation - you have no free will? Can you lose or gain free will? This problem is so complex and fascinating, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteAnd coming back to Schopenhauer's perception of character - I do not really notice a contradiction between the idea of free will and fixed character. Within a one type of character you still have a wide range of possible (re)actions – you are just more prone to undertake certain actions than the others, don't you think?
On Richard's comment about character being static. If character is chemistry, it is not necessarily inborn and can evolve. It can be extremely difficult to predict the trajectory of character's evolution and hence assume that one's biological signature will remain unchanged. It can be safely assumed that similar stimulus can produce different actions at different points in one's life. In other words, even though a wolf will inevitably want to devour its prey, a wolf can potentially become a sheep (and vice versa). An admission of inability to predict change in one's chemistry is humbling and forms a good enough justification in not awarding death penalties (in any circumstance).
ReplyDeleteOn Richard's view on developing one's mind, the disposition to gain more knowledge may be ingrained (possibly to different extents in different stages of life) and thus should not be construed as free action.
Everyone's observations are interesting. Thank you all.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I voted for not being able to define free will. It's interesting, though, that, while people voted that it could be defined, they declined to do so. As it stands, I've yet to see a logically consistent definition of free will. I'd be willing to consider free will if I could be brought to understand it. In my logical world, one can't draw a conclusion without having some process/formula/algorithm through which one mills the data. There, perforce, has to be two sides to an equation. I don't see how choice of any sort can avoid being made by an algorithm.
The error, I'd argue, comes from the unverified assumption that as the complexity of the algorithms increases, some new methods of perceiving and manipulating data are introduced into the evolutionary chain. Which may be, but what those methods are and how they're introduced is unexplained. Instead, it's merely claimed that at some point our thought processes are unchained from their strictly mechanical nature and have adopted a new nature, the nature of which, we're not quite sure. I get lost in those vaguenesses. As some unremembered fellow said, "I'll believe in free will when I see the molecular explanation for it." As it is, I just can't figure out how it would work.
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ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment! However, I think you are confusing free will with omnipotence. Free will does not bestow upon you supernatural abilities, such as speaking a language you have never heard before. Nonetheless, you could be willing to learn a new language and spend your free time on developing linguistic skills in accordance with your brain limitations.
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ReplyDeleteHow I love this feeling when you try to engage in a discussion and after a while you notice that the person has removed his comments. Great.
Delete@Manutd
ReplyDeleteI enjoy the logic of how you came to the conclusion that there's no free will. I agree with you, but your line of reasoning had never occurred to me.
The main objection I have to free will is that it's a religious concept, a deus ex machina. One is always pressed to ask, but from whence cometh this "free" will? How is it "free"? How can one will be free and another not? What is a non-free will? How does free will differ from random?
I've just released a discussion paper that attempts to resolve the outstanding issues between compatibilists and incompatibilists. In it, I argue that in common discourse, 'free will' is not taken to refer to 'contra-causal free will'. In fact, I question the hard determinist's and libertarian's contention that we intuit that we have such contra-causal free will. Using an ordinary-language analysis, I attempt to show that a 'free will' is an unencumbered will and that free will is restricted in four types of situations: coercion, manipulation, addiction and mental illness. Examining these situations, I distil four requirements that must be met for an act to be considered as resulting from a free will. These constitute my 4C theory of free will and are: 1. absence of Compulsion; 2. absence of Control by third party; 3. consonant with agent's Character; and 4. Cognitive capacity to reason. I argue that, in fact, these four criteria underpin jurisprudence, forensic psychology and our ordinary moral intuitions and our practice of praise and blame. I also go on to provide a credible counterfactual conditional analysis of 'could have chosen otherwise' along the lines of 'given the agent's character, the agent would have chosen otherwise in the given situation if the circumstances were different'. I welcome your feedback. You can read the paper at http://www.RationalRealm.com/philosophy/reflections/freewill-compatibilism.html
ReplyDelete