Yes, masking, or better, confounding. If 50% of the time when you say “horse”, your horse-beliefs are actually caused by cows, then you’re not a reliable horse detector. The research by Libet, Wegner, etc. applies to the selection of options stage, not just the generation stage, and shows significant influence of “external” causes. Scare quotes: “external” by most libertarians’ lights. (In my view, this is not a problem, but I’m a dyed in the wool compatibilist.) Supposing our universe to have some decisions fitting the libertarian two-stage model, nevertheless in other cases we are just as prone as the guys in the other universe to think ourselves “initiators” of causal chains.
e research by Libet, Wegner, etc. applies to the selection of options stage, not just the generation stage, and shows significant influence of “external” causes.
From what I have seen of such research “”external” equates to “unconscious”, ie free will is tacitly taken to be conscious volitional control. That idea is part of the cluster of issues that make up the problem of free will, but its not the same as libertarian free will. As far as I am concerned, the beliefs and values of my unconscious mind are my beliefs and values..I don’t think I am taken over by an external force when my System 1 decides something.
Understanding the topic conceptually is important, and is often what goes missing in the naiver empirical approaches.
(In my view, this is not a problem, but I’m a dyed in the wool compatibilist.)
Compatibilist free will is almost trivially compatible with determinism, which is a strong clue that is is not what the historical debate has been about. So now we have three things: libertarian free will, compatibilist free will, and conscious control.
I’m with you on System 1, and that is a big flaw in the way Libet and Wegner present their results. But more importantly, on further thought, their causal diagrams are probabilistic. So possibly, you’re right: our beliefs about lack of cause could be caused by an actual indeterminacy, while in an otherwise similar deterministic universe their beliefs are caused by something else. I was wrong to object to that claim.
I still see no appeal in such indeterminism, but that’s another story.
Yes, masking, or better, confounding. If 50% of the time when you say “horse”, your horse-beliefs are actually caused by cows, then you’re not a reliable horse detector. The research by Libet, Wegner, etc. applies to the selection of options stage, not just the generation stage, and shows significant influence of “external” causes. Scare quotes: “external” by most libertarians’ lights. (In my view, this is not a problem, but I’m a dyed in the wool compatibilist.) Supposing our universe to have some decisions fitting the libertarian two-stage model, nevertheless in other cases we are just as prone as the guys in the other universe to think ourselves “initiators” of causal chains.
From what I have seen of such research “”external” equates to “unconscious”, ie free will is tacitly taken to be conscious volitional control. That idea is part of the cluster of issues that make up the problem of free will, but its not the same as libertarian free will. As far as I am concerned, the beliefs and values of my unconscious mind are my beliefs and values..I don’t think I am taken over by an external force when my System 1 decides something.
Understanding the topic conceptually is important, and is often what goes missing in the naiver empirical approaches.
Compatibilist free will is almost trivially compatible with determinism, which is a strong clue that is is not what the historical debate has been about. So now we have three things: libertarian free will, compatibilist free will, and conscious control.
I’m with you on System 1, and that is a big flaw in the way Libet and Wegner present their results. But more importantly, on further thought, their causal diagrams are probabilistic. So possibly, you’re right: our beliefs about lack of cause could be caused by an actual indeterminacy, while in an otherwise similar deterministic universe their beliefs are caused by something else. I was wrong to object to that claim.
I still see no appeal in such indeterminism, but that’s another story.