Freedom is understood in contrast to its various opposites. I can be free as opposed to being presently coerced. I can be free as opposed to being under some other person’s general control. I can be free as opposed to being subject to delusions or insanity. I can be free as opposed to being ruled by the state in denial of ordinary personal liberties. I can be free as opposed to being in jail or prison. I can be free as opposed to living under unusually heavy personal obligations. I can be free as opposed to being burdened by bias or prejudice. I can even be free (or free spirited) as opposed to being governed by ordinary social conventions. The question that needs to be asked, and which hardly ever is asked, is whether I can be free as opposed to being causally determined. Given that some kind of causal determinism is presupposed in the very concept of human action, it would be odd if this were so. Why does anyone think that it is?
But just to make sure I’ve been clear, I meant to refer to whether the results are guaranteed in the absolute sense (causal determinism) regardless of whether they are guaranteed to match my expectations.
If you mean quantum fluctuations, that’s also something you’re ignorant of. It doesn’t make you free, though. It’s just randomness.
Freedom is the freedom to say that 2+2=4. Or that 2+2=goldfish, if that’s what floats your boat. The important thing is that your words are determined by your goals. Basically, free will is will that happens to be free.
If the freedom you seek is freedom to change your GOALS (like bad habits), well, I guess we are restricted to a degree. I like to think of such goals as not really mine, but those of a beast that lives in my body. I am free.
I reread your first post, and I think that you might have understood the word “action” too literally. Determinism is not presupposed in ANY human action, but to plan your next move, you need some idea of what its effect will be. And to do that, you need rules. That’s causality.
I personally recommend A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will by Robert Kane to anyone interested in that kind of question—it’s short, and except when dealing with Kane’s own theory (which it only does for the last few chapters), quite fair-minded.
But to address your remark: one problem with declaring indeterminism in human decision-making is how it interacts with cases where the decision is obvious. Suppose you were visiting a town you only ever traveled to once a decade, and in that town you went to a restaurant serving the greatest (let’s say) minestrone soup in the world. You haven’t eaten minestrone soup at all for a year, you love the stuff, it’s the cheapest thing on the menu, and you’re leaving tomorrow so you know you gotta get you some of this.
If you are causally determined to order the minestrone soup, are you acting of your own free will when you do?
If you are not, then are you acting of your own free will if you don’t?
(I steal this example from my “Action and Responsibility” class a year or two ago, but it’s a good one.)
Beats me. I guess it depends on what you mean by free will. (There are so many different meanings that I don’t like to use the phrase.) It also doesn’t answer my question at all.
If you explained how the fact that it’s possible to order soup proves that events are perfectly predictable in theory, that would answer my question.
Well, how did you mean your question? I mean, the answer is obviously, “of course you can act without guaranteed results, that’s every action anyone has ever taken ever.” Except that it’s an utterly inane result which the people in the free will community (mostly) don’t care about, and this entire debate is in the free will community, and needs to be understood in the context of compatibilism and incompatibilism.
See, there are numerous philosophers (and non-philosophers) whose model of free choice is “choice which could go either way, even under the exact same circumstances”—and they interpret it logically, that you could load the save file from before the decision and see them switch. If that’s the nature of a free decision, then you run into the problem of the soup, here—apparently, you’re only free to order the soup if you’ve got some measurable chance of not ordering the soup, despite that you’d have to be crazy or stupid to not order the soup. Which is counterintuitive, because nobody’s holding a gun to your head—it looks like an exemplar of a free decision unless you’re committed to that sort of philosophy.
Well, if it’s true that “causal determinism is presupposed in the very
concept of human action,” then it should stay true when I’m talking
about causal determinism and human action alone—and I should be able
to ask for an explanation.
In other words, how does the fact that people do order soup show that if
you load the save file, you’re guaranteed the same result? I know it’s
used as a step in proofs about “free will,” but I’m asking about the
step, not the proofs. Another proof rebutting some of the people who don’t like the
first proof isn’t an answer.
Wait, are you asking the empirical question, “do human decision-making processes operate in a deterministic fashion”? As far as I can tell, the answer is approximately “yes” (at least at scales typical of ordering food at a restaurant without influence from nondeterministic random-number generators), the aforementioned can-go-either-way philosophers are committed to the opposite answer (or to believing that we’re just automata), and the people you really should be asking are the cognitive scientists and neuroscientists. Of which I am neither.
I’ll try another rephrasing: I have been told that “causal determinism
is presupposed in the very concept of human action.” I look at the
concept of human action and see no presupposition about causal
determinism. So I ask, “Where in the concept is this presupposition? I
can’t find it.”
...my, I am an idiot. No, it certainly doesn’t look presupposed—I imagine someone is misunderstanding (Edit: or equivocating) the term “causal determinism”. Causality is presupposed, but not determinism.
I was also frustrated by Hill’s vagueness on what seemed to be an important point (perhaps he elaborates later?). In any case, I can tell you what I think Hill was thinking when he wrote that, though I’m not exceptionally confident about it.
The concept of human action—of making plans and following through with them—seems to be based on the assumption that the world is fundamentally predictable. We make decisions as if the future can to some extent be determined by a knowledge of the present, paired with a set of well-defined rules.
The natural objection to this would be that human action only presupposes some ability to predict the future, but not the perfect ability that might be possible if causal determinism is true. However, one could argue that it is far more natural to assume that the future is completely predictable, at least hypothetically, based on the fact that even our limited knowledge of the laws of nature seems to give us a good deal of predictive power. After all, there are many things we cannot yet do, but this would seem to be poor evidence that they are logically impossible.
So in my mind, Hill wasn’t trying to make a definitive case for causal determinism, only observing that it is the far more natural conclusion to draw, based on the planning-oriented way human beings interact with the world.
You’re misreading the quote, I think. Hill isn’t talking about the planned results of one’s action being “guaranteed” or determined, but rather simply stating that action itself is impossible without some form of causality.
In the quote Hill seems to be assuming that any form of causality would be in some way deterministic, which makes sense to me. Whether or not you agree with it is another question.
EDIT: Another way to think about it is that the determinism Hill is referring to doesn’t have to do with whether certain results are guaranteed (as you seem to be thinking of), but rather simply with the fact that a result is guaranteed.
That is, some form of causal determinism (A causes B causes C) must be assumed in order for the whole idea of “action” to make any sense, according to Hill.
I know I’ve stated my point at least twice now in slightly different ways, but I struggled (more than) a bit in trying to sensibly formulate an answer to your question.
I’m surprised that’s gotten so many upvotes. It’s just a very long way of saying “Why do people disagree with me?” without providing any reasons to agree. The sudden switch to talking about causal determinism is a non-sequitur.
Causal determinism is presupposed in the concept of human action? Um, no. Belief in free will is not the same as denial of causality.
-- David Hill
You’ve made essentially this argument yourself, and I’ve been wondering: How is causal determinism “presupposed in the concept of human action”?
Can’t I do things without the results being guaranteed?
“Can’t I do things without the results being guaranteed?”
Yes; it’s called ignorance. It’s not called freedom.
You’re not providing evidence. You’re just presupposing what he’s asking for evidence of.
Upvoted for giving a definite answer.
But just to make sure I’ve been clear, I meant to refer to whether the results are guaranteed in the absolute sense (causal determinism) regardless of whether they are guaranteed to match my expectations.
If you mean quantum fluctuations, that’s also something you’re ignorant of. It doesn’t make you free, though. It’s just randomness.
Freedom is the freedom to say that 2+2=4. Or that 2+2=goldfish, if that’s what floats your boat. The important thing is that your words are determined by your goals. Basically, free will is will that happens to be free.
If the freedom you seek is freedom to change your GOALS (like bad habits), well, I guess we are restricted to a degree. I like to think of such goals as not really mine, but those of a beast that lives in my body. I am free.
The quote was about freedom. My question was about causal determinism, and it wasn’t about the relationship between causal determinism and freedom.
I reread your first post, and I think that you might have understood the word “action” too literally. Determinism is not presupposed in ANY human action, but to plan your next move, you need some idea of what its effect will be. And to do that, you need rules. That’s causality.
You can do things without the results being guaranteed.
But you cannot do anything, be responsible for any action, without causality.
RobinZ has pointed out that there’s a difference between causality and causal determinism.
You’re losing sight of the original question. People who believe in free will don’t deny causality.
I personally recommend A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will by Robert Kane to anyone interested in that kind of question—it’s short, and except when dealing with Kane’s own theory (which it only does for the last few chapters), quite fair-minded.
But to address your remark: one problem with declaring indeterminism in human decision-making is how it interacts with cases where the decision is obvious. Suppose you were visiting a town you only ever traveled to once a decade, and in that town you went to a restaurant serving the greatest (let’s say) minestrone soup in the world. You haven’t eaten minestrone soup at all for a year, you love the stuff, it’s the cheapest thing on the menu, and you’re leaving tomorrow so you know you gotta get you some of this.
If you are causally determined to order the minestrone soup, are you acting of your own free will when you do?
If you are not, then are you acting of your own free will if you don’t?
(I steal this example from my “Action and Responsibility” class a year or two ago, but it’s a good one.)
Beats me. I guess it depends on what you mean by free will. (There are so many different meanings that I don’t like to use the phrase.) It also doesn’t answer my question at all.
If you explained how the fact that it’s possible to order soup proves that events are perfectly predictable in theory, that would answer my question.
Well, how did you mean your question? I mean, the answer is obviously, “of course you can act without guaranteed results, that’s every action anyone has ever taken ever.” Except that it’s an utterly inane result which the people in the free will community (mostly) don’t care about, and this entire debate is in the free will community, and needs to be understood in the context of compatibilism and incompatibilism.
See, there are numerous philosophers (and non-philosophers) whose model of free choice is “choice which could go either way, even under the exact same circumstances”—and they interpret it logically, that you could load the save file from before the decision and see them switch. If that’s the nature of a free decision, then you run into the problem of the soup, here—apparently, you’re only free to order the soup if you’ve got some measurable chance of not ordering the soup, despite that you’d have to be crazy or stupid to not order the soup. Which is counterintuitive, because nobody’s holding a gun to your head—it looks like an exemplar of a free decision unless you’re committed to that sort of philosophy.
Well, if it’s true that “causal determinism is presupposed in the very concept of human action,” then it should stay true when I’m talking about causal determinism and human action alone—and I should be able to ask for an explanation.
In other words, how does the fact that people do order soup show that if you load the save file, you’re guaranteed the same result? I know it’s used as a step in proofs about “free will,” but I’m asking about the step, not the proofs. Another proof rebutting some of the people who don’t like the first proof isn’t an answer.
Wait, are you asking the empirical question, “do human decision-making processes operate in a deterministic fashion”? As far as I can tell, the answer is approximately “yes” (at least at scales typical of ordering food at a restaurant without influence from nondeterministic random-number generators), the aforementioned can-go-either-way philosophers are committed to the opposite answer (or to believing that we’re just automata), and the people you really should be asking are the cognitive scientists and neuroscientists. Of which I am neither.
I’ll try another rephrasing: I have been told that “causal determinism is presupposed in the very concept of human action.” I look at the concept of human action and see no presupposition about causal determinism. So I ask, “Where in the concept is this presupposition? I can’t find it.”
...my, I am an idiot. No, it certainly doesn’t look presupposed—I imagine someone is misunderstanding (Edit: or equivocating) the term “causal determinism”. Causality is presupposed, but not determinism.
I was also frustrated by Hill’s vagueness on what seemed to be an important point (perhaps he elaborates later?). In any case, I can tell you what I think Hill was thinking when he wrote that, though I’m not exceptionally confident about it.
The concept of human action—of making plans and following through with them—seems to be based on the assumption that the world is fundamentally predictable. We make decisions as if the future can to some extent be determined by a knowledge of the present, paired with a set of well-defined rules.
The natural objection to this would be that human action only presupposes some ability to predict the future, but not the perfect ability that might be possible if causal determinism is true. However, one could argue that it is far more natural to assume that the future is completely predictable, at least hypothetically, based on the fact that even our limited knowledge of the laws of nature seems to give us a good deal of predictive power. After all, there are many things we cannot yet do, but this would seem to be poor evidence that they are logically impossible.
So in my mind, Hill wasn’t trying to make a definitive case for causal determinism, only observing that it is the far more natural conclusion to draw, based on the planning-oriented way human beings interact with the world.
You’re misreading the quote, I think. Hill isn’t talking about the planned results of one’s action being “guaranteed” or determined, but rather simply stating that action itself is impossible without some form of causality.
In the quote Hill seems to be assuming that any form of causality would be in some way deterministic, which makes sense to me. Whether or not you agree with it is another question.
EDIT: Another way to think about it is that the determinism Hill is referring to doesn’t have to do with whether certain results are guaranteed (as you seem to be thinking of), but rather simply with the fact that a result is guaranteed.
That is, some form of causal determinism (A causes B causes C) must be assumed in order for the whole idea of “action” to make any sense, according to Hill.
I know I’ve stated my point at least twice now in slightly different ways, but I struggled (more than) a bit in trying to sensibly formulate an answer to your question.
I’m surprised that’s gotten so many upvotes. It’s just a very long way of saying “Why do people disagree with me?” without providing any reasons to agree. The sudden switch to talking about causal determinism is a non-sequitur.
Causal determinism is presupposed in the concept of human action? Um, no. Belief in free will is not the same as denial of causality.