Other: “Free will” is a confused term, so the question is unanswerable. If one takes the mechanism that results in the confusion about free will and labels that “free will”, then of course compatibilism holds.
In no other field of discourse that comes to mind do we generally take a non-existent thing P and re-label the psychological cause of belief in that thing ‘P’ merely so that we get to keep using the word. What would be the precedent?
If P is a confused term, then asserting ‘P exists’ is either false or meaningless, not ‘trivially true because we can redefine it in some principled way’.
Centrifugal force isn’t a psychological cause. It’s not as though we learned that centrifugal force is a hallucination caused by iron and B12 deficiency and redefined ‘centrifugal force’ to mean ‘a deficiency of iron and B12.’
Redefining ‘free will’ to mean ‘the sensation of feeling as though one’s actions are in no way determined by causes outside oneself’ (or whatever it is that we’re supposed to be salvaging here) strikes me as more similar to redefining ‘sin’ to mean ‘the sensation of feeling guilty’ or perhaps ‘the sensation of feeling that one has transgressed against a supernatural order.’ Or redefining ‘karma’ to mean ‘the intuition that we live in a just universe.’ Or redefining ‘soul’ to mean ‘the brain’s tendency to treat itself as though it were immaterial.’ Where do we take metaphysical or religious ideas and salvage them by re-assigning them cognitive states? Maybe I’m missing some obvious pool of cases of this sort.
Other, purely because in reading pragmatist’s definitions I also accidentally read two other comments which confused me. My position is that we do not have contracausal free will, yet our decisions feel like that from the inside, and that indeed the question itself is usually a disguised query for whether we can ever be morally responsible for things, which I believe is a separate question.
I said “Lean toward: incompatibalism” because I assume you are talking about Libertarian or Contra-Causal Free Will when you talk about Free Will, but are also including less-strong theses about Free Will.
If you are not including contra-causal free will, change it to “Accept Compatibalism” if you are ONLY talking about contra-causal free will, change it to “Accept Incompatibalism.”
I like the idea of pulling some language from logic and saying we have “bound will,” not “free will.”
This may well be compatibilism as intended by its defenders, but that isn’t the impression I’ve ever had from their papers.
I would [very] roughly describe bound will with the following two claims:
My will is free from Susie’s will.
Neither Susie’s will nor my will is free from physical causes.
Notice that such a term doesn’t care whether the universe is strictly deterministic or merely stochastic.
Other: it depends entirely on what one defines “free will” to mean, and all disagreements on the question are due to different definitions. Nobody is disputing actual facts. (That is, nobody who accepts a deterministic or random universe, as specified in pragmatist’s definitions.)
Free will: incompatibilism or compatibilism?
[pollid:82]
Incompatibilism: One cannot have free will in a deterministic universe.
Compatibilism: One can have free will in a deterministic universe.
So I’m an incompatibilist: One cannot have free will. Hence, one cannot have free will in a deterministic universe.
Other: “Free will” is a confused term, so the question is unanswerable. If one takes the mechanism that results in the confusion about free will and labels that “free will”, then of course compatibilism holds.
I voted ‘accept compatibilism’ but essentially agree with this statement.
In no other field of discourse that comes to mind do we generally take a non-existent thing P and re-label the psychological cause of belief in that thing ‘P’ merely so that we get to keep using the word. What would be the precedent?
If P is a confused term, then asserting ‘P exists’ is either false or meaningless, not ‘trivially true because we can redefine it in some principled way’.
“Centrifugal force”
Centrifugal force isn’t a psychological cause. It’s not as though we learned that centrifugal force is a hallucination caused by iron and B12 deficiency and redefined ‘centrifugal force’ to mean ‘a deficiency of iron and B12.’
Redefining ‘free will’ to mean ‘the sensation of feeling as though one’s actions are in no way determined by causes outside oneself’ (or whatever it is that we’re supposed to be salvaging here) strikes me as more similar to redefining ‘sin’ to mean ‘the sensation of feeling guilty’ or perhaps ‘the sensation of feeling that one has transgressed against a supernatural order.’ Or redefining ‘karma’ to mean ‘the intuition that we live in a just universe.’ Or redefining ‘soul’ to mean ‘the brain’s tendency to treat itself as though it were immaterial.’ Where do we take metaphysical or religious ideas and salvage them by re-assigning them cognitive states? Maybe I’m missing some obvious pool of cases of this sort.
Upvoted in agreement. (I responded other as well.)
Other, purely because in reading pragmatist’s definitions I also accidentally read two other comments which confused me. My position is that we do not have contracausal free will, yet our decisions feel like that from the inside, and that indeed the question itself is usually a disguised query for whether we can ever be morally responsible for things, which I believe is a separate question.
I said “Lean toward: incompatibalism” because I assume you are talking about Libertarian or Contra-Causal Free Will when you talk about Free Will, but are also including less-strong theses about Free Will.
If you are not including contra-causal free will, change it to “Accept Compatibalism” if you are ONLY talking about contra-causal free will, change it to “Accept Incompatibalism.”
I like the idea of pulling some language from logic and saying we have “bound will,” not “free will.”
This may well be compatibilism as intended by its defenders, but that isn’t the impression I’ve ever had from their papers.
I would [very] roughly describe bound will with the following two claims: My will is free from Susie’s will. Neither Susie’s will nor my will is free from physical causes.
Notice that such a term doesn’t care whether the universe is strictly deterministic or merely stochastic.
Other: it depends entirely on what one defines “free will” to mean, and all disagreements on the question are due to different definitions. Nobody is disputing actual facts. (That is, nobody who accepts a deterministic or random universe, as specified in pragmatist’s definitions.)