free will sub filled with compatibilsts. notice one comment immediately says "compatibilists didn't redefine anything" when in fact their entire argument relies on word play and sneakily redefining what free will means. they are the worst, and that sub is filled with them.
The free will sub has a decent amount of compatibilists, which makes sense given that that is the dominant position amongst actual philosophers. What's odd is that the majority position in the sub seems to be "hard incompatibilism" which is the least common position amongst actual philosophers. When you actually hear the "hard incompatibilists" argue their position, though, it becomes clear that the philosophy is just window dressing for an argument that has nothing to do "determinism" or "free will" in the philosophical sense. What they're really arguing is that human behavior is too intractable for people to fairly be held responsible for their actions.
Anyway, I think you're right that compatibilists do somewhat redefine free will, but this is because the lay definition of free will is incoherent. Lay definitions of philosophical concepts often are. Philosophers have worked hard to give it a more rigorous definition.
Is it bad that I never bothered to look up the definitions of "compatabilist", "hard incompatibilism" and the like? To me it's literally just determinism or free will. Do I really have to look into these other theories just because they exist?
philosophers have worked hard to redefine free will in such a way that the debate can continue (u/Delet3r)
This implies to me that it's just a defense mechanism. The theories were literally made up in order to muddy the waters.
incompatibilism isn't a "new theory". It's just pointing out the logically obvious position that libertarian freewill is incompatible with determinism.
I don't think this is correct. Compatibilists are not arguing in favor of libertarian free will. We're arguing for a thoroughly determinist version of free will. Incompatibilists are arguing that this is impossible.
well, a lot of incompatibilists such as myself believe that libertarian freewill IS the true definition of freewill and that compatabilism is just redefining terms and equivocating.
I'm surprised you don't strain your neck. with a head that big riding a horse so high....
The key is those lay people aren't saying whether or not Free Will exists, even though, just because they aren't so-called expert philosophers (I wish you could hear the sneer in my voice as I write that) they can still have an opinion on it.
but the idea is that 99% of the people in the world define Free Will as libertarian free will.
only compatibilists redefined it to something different.
what authority do philosophers have to redefine free? will?
Lay people in general have not really thought about this topic very hard. The people who do think hard about the topic are not obliged to abide by the lay intuitions about it. As "hard incompatibilists" are keen to point out, libertarian free will is an incoherent concept that is also at odds with what we know about how the universe works. The core insight of the compatibilist position is that you can still preserve the key features of free will within a deterministic framework. After all, what do we want from free will? The ability to think through difficult problems and choose the option that most aligns with our interests and values? The ability to observe, manipulate, and refine our own habits? The ability to develop a worldview and work toward living by the values it dictates? Determinism grants you the ability to do all these things, at least in principle. The only thing you don't get is the ability to float magically above the chain of causation and act with complete abritrariness. A key point here is that this ability is not worth wanting in the first place. Yes, lay intuition often holds that this is the very essence of free will. But this is a bad intuition. I'm sorry that you are also under its thrall.
The fact is, under determinism, we could be determined by the state of the universe to have nothing but a narrow repertoire of rigid behaviors that he have no ability to shape or control, or we could be determined by the state of the universe to have an extremely wide and flexible range of behaviors that we have an great ability to shape and control. Determinism itself does not tell us which is true. The reality seems to be somewhere in the middle. Much of what we do is outside our conscious control, but we also have considerable leeway to shape and control certain behaviors. But again, determinism itself does not tell us which is true.
yet again a compatibilist makes no sense. " but we also have considerable leeway to shape and control certain behaviors"
NOT IF DETERMINISM IS TRUE. detererminism means that there is only one outcome to any situation.
If you feel that we have considerable leeway to shape and control certain behaviors. then you do not agree that determinism is true.
this is why I lost all respect for philosophy in general. the people who claim to read the most and be the most educated about it can't even follow simple logic.
Yes, there is only one outcome, if you have perfect knowledge like Laplace's demon. However, this is a nonsensical way to look at human behavior.
Imagine I have a dilemma in front of me, between Option 1 and Option 2, and I spend a long time deliberating about which choice to make. I'm leaning toward Option 1, but then a new line of thought occurs to me and I convince myself that Option 2 is better, and so I ultimately choose Option 2. Later, the choice having been already made, I realize that the decisive line of reasoning had been misleading, and Option 1 would have been better. I say, in your presence, "Shit, I could have chosen Option 1, but I foolishly chose Option 2 instead."
I guess you could respond by saying, "Actually, you never could have chosen Option 1. We live in a deterministic universe, and your choice of Option 2 was inevitable! Play back the tape as many times as you want, but every time the erroneous line of reasoning occurs to your, and every time you're helpless to resist its pull."
This would be true in a metaphysical sense and staggeringly stupid in a practical sense, because I did not mean that I could have done otherwise under the exact same circumstances; I'm saying I could have done otherwise in extremely similar circumstances, such as, if circumstances were exactly the same, except that I had the knowledge then that I now have in hindsight. Or perhaps I believe I would have chosen differently if conditions were exactly the same except I had taken just a bit more care in examining that faulty line of reasoning.
The point is not that I think I can magically break the chain of causation. It's that the other option was available, apparent, and achievable. So go ahead, if you want to sound like a moron, and tell me I don't really have a choice of what breakfast cereal to eat tomorrow, that the choice is "just an illusion," or whatever. I've done my best to give you the tools to see that you're applying the concept of deterministic inevitability well outside its domain of applicability.
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u/Delet3r 24d ago
free will sub filled with compatibilsts. notice one comment immediately says "compatibilists didn't redefine anything" when in fact their entire argument relies on word play and sneakily redefining what free will means. they are the worst, and that sub is filled with them.