Dennett has a real point against Kane with his accusation that there is a special time at which free will occurs. In Kane’s theory the essence of free will is something called a “self forming action” which occurs at particular times in the life of an individual. This leads to a number of problems:1 An SFA may or may not occur at all in an individual, yet by all common-sense standards an individual without SFA’s is as free and responsible as anyone else.2 Since SFA’s are the essence of an individual’s free will, they must also be the essence of an individual’s responsibility. Yet they are indeterministic — mere caprice!3 There must have been a first SFA , which itself cannot have been brought about intentionally, freely and responsibly.
II.4.iv.1 First Objection to Self-Forming Actions
An SFA may or may not occur at all in an individual, yet by all common-sense standards an individual without SFA’s is as free and responsible as anyone else. This is a valid objection to SFA One of the innovations of our approach will be to replace Kane’s isolated SFA’s with an “ongoing process of self-formation” which all physically and psychologically normal adults engage in.
II.4.iv.2 Second Objection to Self-Forming Actions
Since SFA’s are the essence of an individual’s free will, they must also be the essence of an individual’s responsibility. Yet they are indeterministic — mere caprice! This is a very important objection which gets to the heart of what people dislike about indeterminism-based free will. Bear in mind that we have accepted Dennett’s point about the distributed mind. It is the agent as a whole who is responsible, not the any particular part of the agent, including any “indeterminism” module the agent might possess. The agents actions are not caused by any particular neuron, or any particular subsystem, but by the central nervous system acting in concert. An “indeterminism” module would therefore not cause actions, simpliciter, any more than any other module.Responsibility is a relationship that holds or fails to hold between an agent and an action performed externally. You are not responsible for things like earthquakes: the relationship fails to hold. You are also not responsible for neural firings as such; in this case is a category error to say that you are responsible or not for your neural firings. A different relationship holds: you are constituted by them. So, no, you cannot be held responsible for what your RIG does. But you are responsible for actions you perform (whether or not your RIG is involved).Moreover, in our model we posit another module in addition to the indeterminism module (or Random Idea Generator) whose function is specifically to “filter” the output of the Random Idea Generator. Thus the objection that you cannot control which signal the indeterminism module is going to generate is vitiated by placing the control after the generation of the signal. (Just as Natural Selection rescues Darwinian evolution from being mere caprice by acting on genes after they have mutated). There is no straightforward inference from a lack of causal responsibility for one’s indeterminism generator to a lack of moral responsibility an agentFinally, recall that in our discussion of semicompatibilism and responsibility we agreed that there are forms of moral responsibility which are compatible with determinism. Thus, responsibility does not kick in when and only when the R.I.G or indeterminism module fires; responsibility is not created ex nihilo. 3
II.4.iv.iii Third Objection to Self-Forming Actions
There must have been a first SFA , which itself cannot have been brought about intentionally, freely and responsibly. It’s important to understand the difference between a regress and an infinite regress. Earlier, we said:And this works —up to a point. If you did something you intended to do, you are responsible, and if you did something which was not your intention, it was accidental or under duress. But the intention has to have the right sort of causal history. If the intention “flew into your head” shortly before you performed an action based on it, without being based on previous intentional stated, you action was not responsible — or rather you are not a responsible person. Equally, our intuition is that people, or other entities, are not responsible if they did not originate their intention. We don’t hold people who are acting under hypnotic suggestion responsible. If a mad scientist created an intelligent killing-machine, we would hold him ultimately responsible even if the machine was a sophisticated enough AI to be deemed rational.Since we must exclude capricious intentional states, states that do not have enough of history of being produced intentionally by previous states. Thus, there must be some kind of a regress to intentional states. Dennett has a parable that can act as a warning of what happens if you think about regresses in a too rigid, absolute way. it also illustrates that this is indeed a structural problem about regresses, not a problem about free will specifically).”You may think you’re a mammal, and that dogs and cows and whales are mammals, but there really aren’t any mammals at all — there can’t be! Here’s a philosophical argument to prove it.1) Every mammal has a mammal for a mother 2) If there have been any mammals at all, there have been only a finite number of mammals 3) but if there has been even one mammal, by (1), there has been an infinity of mammals , which contradicts (2), so there can’t have been any mammals.Since we know perfectly well there are mammals, we take this argument only a challenge to discover what fallacy is lurking within it. [..] A gradual transition occurred from clear mammals to clear reptiles, with a lot of hard-to-classify intermediaries filling the gaps “(Daniel Dennett, “Freedom Evolves”, p126)The absolutist way of thinking about things falls on the “infinite” side of the dichotomy. For the absolutist, and intentional state has to be fully and 100% brought about by the preceding state...ad infinitum.Kane’s SFA’s fall on the other side …the regress just stops dead.We favour the kind of solution that is the correct solution to the Prime Mammal problem. The parent of a mammal only needs to be more-or-less mammalian. The mammalhood can fade out as you trace things go back. Likewise the “at least partially” clause in the definition of free will allows us to regard present intentional states as being only more-or-less engendered by previous ones, so that the causal and intentional history of an intentional state peters out rather than going back forever or stopping dead.
Can you please explain what I’m supposed to get out of these long copy&pasted without attribution texts? Also, you may want to note that when you are replying to yourself it is very easy for the intended recipient to not notice it if you don’t tell them.
I thought you wanted to know what I thought of Dennet s critique of Kane. After all, if Dennet does not succeed in refuting libertarianism, that is impactuvive on your case.
I thought you wanted to know what I thought of Dennet s critique of Kane.
So copy and pasting without attribution helps that how? Also, do you really expect me to read that monstrosity with its almost complete lack of formatting or paragraph breaks?
After all, if Dennet does not succeed in refuting libertarianism, that is impactuvive on your case.
Impactuvive? I’m trying to figure out what word was supposed to go there? Do you mean it impacts?
Kane versus Dennett II
Dennett has a real point against Kane with his accusation that there is a special time at which free will occurs. In Kane’s theory the essence of free will is something called a “self forming action” which occurs at particular times in the life of an individual. This leads to a number of problems:1 An SFA may or may not occur at all in an individual, yet by all common-sense standards an individual without SFA’s is as free and responsible as anyone else.2 Since SFA’s are the essence of an individual’s free will, they must also be the essence of an individual’s responsibility. Yet they are indeterministic — mere caprice!3 There must have been a first SFA , which itself cannot have been brought about intentionally, freely and responsibly.
II.4.iv.1 First Objection to Self-Forming Actions
An SFA may or may not occur at all in an individual, yet by all common-sense standards an individual without SFA’s is as free and responsible as anyone else. This is a valid objection to SFA One of the innovations of our approach will be to replace Kane’s isolated SFA’s with an “ongoing process of self-formation” which all physically and psychologically normal adults engage in.
II.4.iv.2 Second Objection to Self-Forming Actions
Since SFA’s are the essence of an individual’s free will, they must also be the essence of an individual’s responsibility. Yet they are indeterministic — mere caprice! This is a very important objection which gets to the heart of what people dislike about indeterminism-based free will. Bear in mind that we have accepted Dennett’s point about the distributed mind. It is the agent as a whole who is responsible, not the any particular part of the agent, including any “indeterminism” module the agent might possess. The agents actions are not caused by any particular neuron, or any particular subsystem, but by the central nervous system acting in concert. An “indeterminism” module would therefore not cause actions, simpliciter, any more than any other module.Responsibility is a relationship that holds or fails to hold between an agent and an action performed externally. You are not responsible for things like earthquakes: the relationship fails to hold. You are also not responsible for neural firings as such; in this case is a category error to say that you are responsible or not for your neural firings. A different relationship holds: you are constituted by them. So, no, you cannot be held responsible for what your RIG does. But you are responsible for actions you perform (whether or not your RIG is involved).Moreover, in our model we posit another module in addition to the indeterminism module (or Random Idea Generator) whose function is specifically to “filter” the output of the Random Idea Generator. Thus the objection that you cannot control which signal the indeterminism module is going to generate is vitiated by placing the control after the generation of the signal. (Just as Natural Selection rescues Darwinian evolution from being mere caprice by acting on genes after they have mutated). There is no straightforward inference from a lack of causal responsibility for one’s indeterminism generator to a lack of moral responsibility an agentFinally, recall that in our discussion of semicompatibilism and responsibility we agreed that there are forms of moral responsibility which are compatible with determinism. Thus, responsibility does not kick in when and only when the R.I.G or indeterminism module fires; responsibility is not created ex nihilo. 3
II.4.iv.iii Third Objection to Self-Forming Actions
There must have been a first SFA , which itself cannot have been brought about intentionally, freely and responsibly. It’s important to understand the difference between a regress and an infinite regress. Earlier, we said:And this works —up to a point. If you did something you intended to do, you are responsible, and if you did something which was not your intention, it was accidental or under duress. But the intention has to have the right sort of causal history. If the intention “flew into your head” shortly before you performed an action based on it, without being based on previous intentional stated, you action was not responsible — or rather you are not a responsible person. Equally, our intuition is that people, or other entities, are not responsible if they did not originate their intention. We don’t hold people who are acting under hypnotic suggestion responsible. If a mad scientist created an intelligent killing-machine, we would hold him ultimately responsible even if the machine was a sophisticated enough AI to be deemed rational.Since we must exclude capricious intentional states, states that do not have enough of history of being produced intentionally by previous states. Thus, there must be some kind of a regress to intentional states. Dennett has a parable that can act as a warning of what happens if you think about regresses in a too rigid, absolute way. it also illustrates that this is indeed a structural problem about regresses, not a problem about free will specifically).”You may think you’re a mammal, and that dogs and cows and whales are mammals, but there really aren’t any mammals at all — there can’t be! Here’s a philosophical argument to prove it.1) Every mammal has a mammal for a mother 2) If there have been any mammals at all, there have been only a finite number of mammals 3) but if there has been even one mammal, by (1), there has been an infinity of mammals , which contradicts (2), so there can’t have been any mammals.Since we know perfectly well there are mammals, we take this argument only a challenge to discover what fallacy is lurking within it. [..] A gradual transition occurred from clear mammals to clear reptiles, with a lot of hard-to-classify intermediaries filling the gaps “(Daniel Dennett, “Freedom Evolves”, p126)The absolutist way of thinking about things falls on the “infinite” side of the dichotomy. For the absolutist, and intentional state has to be fully and 100% brought about by the preceding state...ad infinitum.Kane’s SFA’s fall on the other side …the regress just stops dead.We favour the kind of solution that is the correct solution to the Prime Mammal problem. The parent of a mammal only needs to be more-or-less mammalian. The mammalhood can fade out as you trace things go back. Likewise the “at least partially” clause in the definition of free will allows us to regard present intentional states as being only more-or-less engendered by previous ones, so that the causal and intentional history of an intentional state peters out rather than going back forever or stopping dead.
Can you please explain what I’m supposed to get out of these long copy&pasted without attribution texts? Also, you may want to note that when you are replying to yourself it is very easy for the intended recipient to not notice it if you don’t tell them.
I thought you wanted to know what I thought of Dennet s critique of Kane. After all, if Dennet does not succeed in refuting libertarianism, that is impactuvive on your case.
So copy and pasting without attribution helps that how? Also, do you really expect me to read that monstrosity with its almost complete lack of formatting or paragraph breaks?
Impactuvive? I’m trying to figure out what word was supposed to go there? Do you mean it impacts?