By freechoice I mean a putative capacity that is incompatible with determinism
Writing nondeterminism into the definition doesn’t establish anything about the real world.
and which underlies common attitudes of culpability, congratulation, regret, etc.
Common attitudes do not depend on the arguments of philosophers (although they may well get influenced by such deepities as get into the popular air). Debates about determinism show up in the law courts only to the extent that a person’s deliberation drastically fails to screen off other causes of their actions (such as insanity, drug influence, etc.). The law does not need to deal with philosophical spooks.
Now, there are any number of contemporary intellectuals, Sam Harris for example, ready to argue that there is no such thing as free will, choice is an illusion, we are all just sacks of competing brain modules, the self does not exist, nothing it true, all is a lie, and any number of such deepities. I think they’re all wrong, but I think that free will as a spooky extra-deterministic force is also wrong.
That people do not regret some of their decisions -I could/would not have done otherwise- does indeed not mean that they regard themselves as automata whose decisions can only be inevitable. Why do you?
I used the word “putative” in the hope of signaling that I was not attempting an armchair argument for the actual existence of FW. I was, however, launching an armchair argument for the incompatibilist concept of FW being the correct concept, as opposed to incompatible.ism. If it is correct, the actual existence of FW would depend on empirical factors, such as the actual existence of determinism (which is rather different to the situation if compatibilism is correct)
The arguments of philosophers should depend on common concepts, the notion of FW that people use and care about. The existence of regret shows that people care about a notion of FW that involves accessible contractual worlds. The compatibilist can only offer inaccessible worlds, ie if the Big Bang had been different, you would have been determined to do differently, whereas the incompatibilist maintains that you could have done differently by your own choice.
I dont bet onthe idea that FW is nonexistent , as per Harris, nor on the idea that it is triviallly compatible with determinism, as per Dennet. Incompatibilist FW only has to override determinism if determinism is actually the case, which is an empirical, not a conceptual issue.
Writing nondeterminism into the definition doesn’t establish anything about the real world.
Common attitudes do not depend on the arguments of philosophers (although they may well get influenced by such deepities as get into the popular air). Debates about determinism show up in the law courts only to the extent that a person’s deliberation drastically fails to screen off other causes of their actions (such as insanity, drug influence, etc.). The law does not need to deal with philosophical spooks.
Now, there are any number of contemporary intellectuals, Sam Harris for example, ready to argue that there is no such thing as free will, choice is an illusion, we are all just sacks of competing brain modules, the self does not exist, nothing it true, all is a lie, and any number of such deepities. I think they’re all wrong, but I think that free will as a spooky extra-deterministic force is also wrong.
I don’t.
I used the word “putative” in the hope of signaling that I was not attempting an armchair argument for the actual existence of FW. I was, however, launching an armchair argument for the incompatibilist concept of FW being the correct concept, as opposed to incompatible.ism. If it is correct, the actual existence of FW would depend on empirical factors, such as the actual existence of determinism (which is rather different to the situation if compatibilism is correct)
The arguments of philosophers should depend on common concepts, the notion of FW that people use and care about. The existence of regret shows that people care about a notion of FW that involves accessible contractual worlds. The compatibilist can only offer inaccessible worlds, ie if the Big Bang had been different, you would have been determined to do differently, whereas the incompatibilist maintains that you could have done differently by your own choice.
I dont bet onthe idea that FW is nonexistent , as per Harris, nor on the idea that it is triviallly compatible with determinism, as per Dennet. Incompatibilist FW only has to override determinism if determinism is actually the case, which is an empirical, not a conceptual issue.