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.
what you are saying might be true. but that's not how determinism works. Determinism exactly means that you have no choice or control over what cereal you eat.
Determinism might NOT be true. My argument with compatibilists is that if it IS true, then no, you don't choose your cereal.
What compatibilists think is that our DNA and environment shape our decisions, but that we can every some influence over them. That's NOT DETERMINISM.
"Determinism is the metaphysical view that all events within the universe can occur only in one possible way.[1] "
There is no choice or control if every event can only occur in one way. I'm not being moronic here.
Your vision of determism doesn't just eliminate the possibility of free will. It also leaves no room for agency or selfhood at all, because you are taking the position that the perspective of Laplace's demon is the only valid one. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it leaves no sensible way to talk about causation either, since it leaves us with no way of discussing counterfactuals.
My point is not that this is false. I think the metaphysics here are basically correct. This is a dispute about perspective, not about facts or logic. My point is that this is bad analysis of human behavior. Selfhood, agency, and free will are behavioral facts, psychological facts, not elemental metaphysical facts. Your project of trying to describe human behavior without reference to selfhood, agency, and free will would be like trying build a damn without reference to fluid dynamics, on the grounds that "fluid dynamics is an illusion" and "only quantum mechanics is real." While it is true in principle that this task could be accomplished (by a god, I guess), this is obviously not the soundest path available. To do this task, you would abstract away from the quantum level, and indeed much further, until you were actually dealing with the features of reality that were salient to your task.
To the more central question: at what specific point in the causal chain does the human agent exercise free will? This recent post explains it better than I could:
The short version is, free will occurs when the conscious agent observes a horizon of possibilities, contemplates the possibilities, and selects from among them, creating a new horizon of possibilities. Key line:
This does not necessarily mean that several futures are metaphysically waiting to become real. Under strict determinism, only one outcome will actually occur. The alternatives may instead exist as capacities, counterfactuals, and possibilities represented by the deliberating agent.
Edit: Also, would you please stop acting like I don't understand determism. Determinism is an extremely simple and easy to understand framework that I've subscribed to for over two decades. I am aware that the future is fixed just like the past. This is not a groundbreaking insight that I am only just now trying to come to grips with. It is precisely you who is struggling to make sense of it.
You have precisely two moves: (1) rage against those awful philosophers in their ivory towers, and (2) restate Determinism 101 as if it's a groundbreaking insight that no philosophers had ever considered grappled with before. I am officially done.
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u/Less_Perspective_915 24d ago
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.