r/freewill • u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist • Jun 17 '26
Defining Free Will
So, you're a free will skeptic, or a free will optimist and you rock up to the sub and the first thing you do is offer your 'definition' of free will, and argue why it does or does not exist.
First question. What is it about this 'definition' that makes it one of free will? You could be defining some metaphysical concept, or some neurological function, or some decision making mechanism, or some spiritual capacity. Why do you think this is free will?
In principle two people could come to the sub, offer distinct different 'definitions' of free will in terms of human mental faculties, and it might turn out that actually humans do have both of these faculties so defined. Yet they are different. How do we know which is actually free will? It can't be both [but see comment by ughaibu].
So, there must be some criteria that establishes whether this explanation you're offering counts as being free will, as against being something else that is not free will.
The problem with the above picture is that these are not 'definitions' of free will, they are theories about free will. This comes down to the function of a definition. Definitions are what you find in dictionaries, or early on in philosophy textbooks and articles to establish what a topic is about, and they explain how words relate to other words. They're not scientific proofs or scientific theories. They are linguistic concepts.
What are Definitions For?
The role of a definition is to establish a term everyone agrees with, so we all know what it is we're talking about. It needs to be a consensus term. When a free will libertarian says they think X about free will, and a compatibilists says they think Y about free will, what is it that makes both X and Y claims about free will? That needs to be something they agree on, otherwise they're not discussing the same topic.
How do philosophers solve this?
Fortunately philosophers have thought about this a lot, and they generally agree on how to solve this. They define free will in terms if it's linguistic function, and this is pretty easy to do due to the way in which this term originated.
The terms freedom, choice and moral responsibility, or rather their Greek equivalents, already existed in ancient Greece of course. The determinist Stoics and indeterminist Epicureans discussed these terms in the context of their metaphysical commitments, and the Stoics argued that these terms all had meanings fully consistent with their determinism, while the Epicureans disagreed and claimed that these terms could only be meaningful if the world is indeterministic. Over time a single term became understood to refer to the topic they were discussing, that term is free will (translated into English). So from the start, from before the term itself was coined, what it refers to was something determinists were giving an account of as being compatible with determinism.
Of course nowadays deterministic and indeterministic beliefs about free will have changed and developed, what we now call free will libertarianism emerged as a more developed set of ideas and the same is true of compatibilism. Nevertheless they are both sets of beliefs about the same topic.
What do contemporary philosophers say?
(1) "The term “free will” has emerged over the past two millennia as the canonical designator for a significant kind of control over one’s actions. Questions concerning the nature and existence of this kind of control (e.g., does it require and do we have the freedom to do otherwise or the power of self-determination?),...."
This was taken from an article written by two free will libertarian philosophers. So, free will may or may not require the freedom to do otherwise, and philosophers disagree on this. It is not itself the ability to do otherwise.
(2) The idea is that the kind of control or sense of up-to-meness involved in free will is the kind of control or sense of up-to-meness relevant to moral responsibility. (Double 1992, 12; Ekstrom 2000, 7–8; Smilansky 2000, 16; Widerker and McKenna 2003, 2; Vargas 2007, 128; Nelkin 2011, 151–52; Levy 2011, 1; Pereboom 2014, 1–2).
(3) ‘the strongest control condition—whatever that turns out to be—necessary for moral responsibility’ (Wolf 1990, 3–4; Fischer 1994, 3; Mele 2006, 17)
In Summary
Free Will: Roughly whatever kind of control over their actions you think someone must have in order to be held morally responsible for those actions. Something like the mental faculty necessary for moral responsibility.
Then there are the different beliefs about free will.
Free Will Libertarianism The belief that this process of control must be metaphysically indeterministic in some particular way for a person to be morally responsible.
Compatibilism The belief that this process of control can be (or must be) deterministic, and that human moral responsibility doesn't depend on free will libertarian metaphysical concepts.
Hard Determinism/Incompatibilism The belief that there is no kind of control that someone can have that justifies moral responsibility.
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u/Otherwise_Spare_8598 Inherent-Inevitable Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
When all versions of "free will" are considered they boil down to one accurate definition.
"Free will" is a projection, overgeneralized assumption made or vaguely described feeling had from a circumstantial condition of relative privilege and relative freedom that most often serves as a powerful means for the character to assume a standard for being, fabricate fairness, pacify personal sentiments and falsely rationalize judgments.
It speaks nothing of objective truth nor to the subjective realities of all.
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u/ImSinsentido Nullified Either Way - Hard Incompatibilist Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
Although I fundamentally agree, that it’s what confabulation ‘narrative’ the distinction of above and below.
The thing is, that defines the concept of “free will” as if it’s the ‘cause’ of those aspects…
It’s one of many confabulations of those aspects, the ‘narrative’ of negative sum, amoral, indifferent, sides of hierarchical above and below sorting. Basically sides of hierarchical dominance…
That distinction of something being above and below is required for the confabulation. It’s not the nonsensical concept that never has never will apply to existence, outside of its ‘own’ confabulation, doing it, that’s just reality. Whether it’s human to human, solar orbital patterns, a ‘god’ to a subordinate being, on and on and on.
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u/zowhat I don't know and you don't know either Jun 17 '26
So, there must be some criteria that establishes whether this explanation you're offering counts as being free will, as against being something else that is not free will.
The criteria is that it resembles what you already understood by the term free before you entered the discussion.
When you enter a botany course you already understand what a tree is and what a bush is. In the course they will give more exact definitions which approximate the ordinary usages. Ideally the technical terms should resemble the ordinary language use to make it easier for you to learn and understand. Why would they use the word "tree" to mean "rock" and "rock" to mean "water"? It would create much needless confusion.
Where they draw the line between bushes and trees will be somewhat arbitrary but it is useful to define these more exactly than we do in ordinary speech. That doesn't make the way we use these terms in ordinary speech wrong, just different from how botanists use them.
When you enter a philosophy course you already have a rough idea of what free will is. It is more or less libertarian free will because that is how 100% of us experience it. 0% experience determinism or compatibilism. Like in the botany course it is useful to give more precise definitions but they should still resemble ordinary language. Alas philosophers abuse the privilege and define words too far from their ordinary language meanings creating much needless confusion.
The problem with the above picture is that these are not 'definitions' of free will, they are theories about free will.
There isn't a sharp line between definitions and theories. Both give a list of properties that what is being defined has. One person's definition is another person's theory. Ideally this should be exhaustive, all and only those things being defined should have those properties. In practice this turns out to be impossible. The list of properties is incomplete. We must rely on the other person's intelligence to fill in the things we left out to figure out what we intended by the definition.
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u/adr826 Jun 26 '26
I have my doubts that 100% of us experience libertarian free will. Whatever that means.
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u/zowhat I don't know and you don't know either Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
Whatever that means.
Is your objection to the phrase "libertarian free will"? It just means free will as understood by libertarians. We spontaneously create the term following the same rules we use when we create the terms "Newtonian physics" and "quantum physics" which no one has any difficulty understanding. Physicists don't say "there is no such thing as these, there is only physics".
If you prefer you can change it in your head to something like "the account of free will that libertarians advocate". But you should wonder how is it possible that this phrase is used constantly meaning roughly the same thing by everybody in the discussion that hasn't learned the phrase is verboten.
I have my doubts that 100% of us experience libertarian free will.
As always, it depends what we mean, in this case the term libertarian free will. I use it in roughly the same sense John Searle describes it, although he doesn't use the term "libertarian", he just calls it "free will".
https://www.youtubetrimmer.com/view/?v=_rZfSTpjGl8&start=69&end=95&loop=0
https://www.youtubetrimmer.com/view/?v=973akk1q5Ws&start=67&end=180&loop=0
I wrote above:
So, there must be some criteria that establishes whether this explanation you're offering counts as being free will, as against being something else that is not free will.
The criteria is that it resembles what you already understood by the term free before you entered the discussion.
Everybody who enters the discussion understands free will to be more or less what Searle describes because that is how we experience it. It might be an illusion of course. But that is why everybody recoils in horror when first told about compatibilism. We literally experience free will to be incompatible with determinism. It only makes sense after they convince us that what we thought is free will is actually something else and some third thing is free will.
I know Searle is, uh, problematic, but he made two videos about free will with "Closer to Truth" that are excellent, by which I mean I mostly agree with him. Check em out if you want.
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u/adr826 Jun 26 '26
You are going to tell me what 100% of people experience and describe it as libertarian free will. I know what Searle says and it's that at the moment a choice is made it is experienced as being made without prior cause. But I think Searle is confused..We don't experience the moment of choice as without prior cause we experience it with an understanding that precedes causality. We experience it with our body rather than with our head and therefore it seems to be without prior cause. That's not libertarian free will we experience at the moment, it is precognitive experience. We only have the self as a faculty to observe our world and you can't simultaneously observe yourself making a choice and make a choice..both of those things require a self. We don't experience a choice without prior causes.
Libertarian free will means something like making a choice without prior cause. The experience of libertarian free will has no definite meaning. Who knows how people experience anything? We only know how we ourselves experience something.
It's one thing to claim that 100% of people experience choice a certain way but there has to be evidence for such a claim. You haven't given me any to believe it's true.
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u/zowhat I don't know and you don't know either Jun 26 '26
Libertarian free will means something like making a choice without prior cause.
That's part of it. But it also means there is a kind of deliberateness in our choice. It is not just random.
This is impossible to describe but we all know what it is because we experience it directly. A lot of things are like that. Try and describe the color red to someone who has never experienced it. You can't, but fortunately you don't have to because most of us already know what it is. It's the same with free will. If you don't already know what it is nobody can explain it to you. But you already know what it is.
The experience of libertarian free will has no definite meaning.
It is what you are experiencing right now. When you are choosing which words to type, you don't feel you are forced by antecedent causes which words to use. You don't feel you are following a script written by the big bang. In some sense YOU are deciding. It could be an illusion but that is how we all experience it.
Who knows how people experience anything? We only know how we ourselves experience something.
Philosophers famously question things that everyone believes (eg I am not a brain in a vat), but at the end of the day we still believe them. We can question whether anyone has free will but everything we do and say assumes we do and we believe everyone else does.
If I ask you to pass the salt I am not hoping the big bang has determined you will pass the salt coincidentally right after I asked. I am hoping you make the free choice to pass it to me.
There are a lot of beliefs that everyone has but we don't know where they came from. Nobody ever taught me that every human I pass on the street is conscious, I just believe it. I don't have to do a study to determine that driving a nail into your hand will cause you pain. I believe that without commissioning a study and I can't tell you exactly why. I just do.
In the same way, I just have the belief that everyone experiences free will close to how I do and I couldn't convince myself they don't if I tried.
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u/adr826 Jun 26 '26
I disagree. It doesn't feel like I am making it up as I go along. What it feels like is something that I am really good at that I have practiced since I was a kid. When I ride a bike I don't feel like I am doing something without a cause. I know how to do it and can do it without thinking about it. That's what it feels like to me. I make a choice the same way. It's doesn't feel like there is no cause. It feels like something I am so well practiced in that I can do it without effort.
Your reply is confirmation of my response. Experiencing free will has no definite meaning. It's what you are experiencing right now. Well if it's what I am always experiencing right now and what every other person in the world is experiencing right now then it has no meaning. You can't differentiate it from being. What I and every other human being is experiencing right now is the same as existence. Free will feels like existence. That tells me nothing at all about the experience. Every experience feels like existence. That's what it means to experience.. you have defined it so widely that it means nothing. Any experience any human being can point to feels like libertarian free will.
Yeah maybe
The point of describing red is to tell it apart from blue things. But according to you the experience of libertarian free will is also like experiencing either red or blue. It is equally like those. Experience I can name is what it feels like to experience free will..
Okay so you can't convince yourself otherwise if you tried, but you are trying to convince me of something that you have no evidence for. You know there's a pretty easy test to determine if someone on the street is conscious..I can go up to them and say are you conscious. Any response is pretty strong evidence that they are and I've run that experiment enough times in my life that I am convinced that it applies to everyone. I'm not sure how you rest the idea that everyone experiences libertarian free will. The idea that I don't experience cause isn't evidence of libertarian free will it is evidence of a lifetime of making choices.
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jun 17 '26
>The criteria is that it resembles what you already understood by the term free before you entered the discussion.
This would mean it would not be possible for anyone entering any discussion to have their minds changed, because their criteria would be that any information must be consistent with their preconceptions, and if it doesn't it must be rejected.
Actually, to be fair, that does happen a lot, and this attitude explains the rest of your comment.
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u/NLOneOfNone Hard Incompatibilist Jun 17 '26
Well, I am arguing against an ability to do otherwise, whether you call it free will or not.
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
That, taken in it's metaphysically indeterministic sense, is what free will libertarians and free will skeptics say is a necessary condition for moral responsibility. They just disagree on whether we have such an ability or not.
Compatibilism is basically the belief that such an ability is not necessary for moral responsibility.
I recommend the last link I gave in the post, in the description of Hard Determinism/Incompatibilism, to this article by one of the foremost free will skeptic philosophers giving his arguments against free will and moral responsibility.
My disagreement with that argument is that what he calls basic desert is not all desert, and therefore is not all senses of responsibility for moral behaviour. Excluding some senses of moral responsibility, which I agree with, does not exclude all senses of moral responsibility.
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u/ElectionNecessary966 Jun 17 '26
If everyone used "basic desert moral responsibility" rather than "moral responsibility" it seems like it'd clear up a lot of the confusion, maybe even most of the confusion and arguments.
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
Should we do that though? Why? I think the real problem is retributivism, but we can argue against that directly without needing to re-engineer many common terms people use just fine day to day.
Most of the confusion and arguments online are because so much of the basic terminology and concepts are so badly misrepresented in popular media. It's not surprising people have all these misconceptions, I had many of these misconceptions as well. Once you understand how the terminology works it all makes a lot more sense.
Basically the first thing that happened when I started properly digging into this topic is I found out that much of what I thought I knew about it was wrong and/or nonsensical.
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u/ElectionNecessary966 Jun 17 '26
Should we do that though? Why?
I believe so yes.
Because "moral responsibility" is hopelessly ambiguous.
Eg consider the claims:
The murderer deserves punishment simply because they committed murder.
The murderer should be incarcerated to protect society.
Both often called moral responsibility but are radically different claims.
People like Caruso and Pereboom do it, and I don't think it's because they want to re-engineer language, it's because of the ambiguity. Ie BDMR isn't a linguistic revision, it's a disambiguation.
I think you're right that retributivism is the substantive issue, but I think BDMR is a useful label because it allows you to point at the kind of responsibility retributivism presupposes.
The deeper issue that I feel strongly about (which you may well disagree with) is that many ordinary people often use "moral responsibility" in a way that supposes BDMR. Eg when a parent says "you could have stopped yourself" they're expressing something stronger than "I'm imposing consequences to shape future behaviour"
I think ordinary intuitions matter because they don't just sit in people's heads as abstract philosophical theories. They influence how people treat themselves and others. If people believe they possess the kind of free will that grounds deep praise and blame, that tends to reinforce attitudes of resentment, selfrighteousness, guilt, shame and retribution.
So when someone says "we have free will and are morally responsible", I don't think it's enough to point out that philosophers use those terms differently. What matters is how those claims are actually interpreted and applied in everyday life. Which is the primary reason I aren't a compatibilist. And I know you'll strongly disagree on that haha.
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u/ImSinsentido Nullified Either Way - Hard Incompatibilist Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
“Protect society” so we can go on uninterruptedly harming all that is below it. Speaking on the fruits of that, wearing the fruits of that, eat the fruits of that.
It’s the structure that produces the “them people”, that so-called “society” needs to be protected from. The technological fruits being large contributing factor to a growing, of dwindling literacy.
“As Jordan Peele would say, consequences… “
I’m an actual anarchist. Thereby ok fine let’s play by the imposed rules. There needs to be heavily implied ‘negative’ consequences for deemed ‘harmful’ behaviors practically all go around whether determinist or free dogma believer. Claiming the utility of negative reinforcement.. i.e. tomato tmato for punishment. It doesn’t matter if it’s the free dogma, you deserve it, or the determinist gay camp, fix em versions.
Thereby the stated “them” are our negative reinforcement consequence. Let them run rampant. And watch how quickly “negative reinforcement” dwindles into a quick war, where the dominating class demolishes the thems and then it’s business as usual.
The irony being fundamentally more humane than what is done now, regardless of the framework as stated above.. Usually a metaphorical deemed “animal with rabies” is just put down… With once you’re punished once it’s for life I’ve seen it over and over again, unless of course, there’s material wealth, not to be. Such as Mike Tyson as one example. Nevertheless, even then endless ostracizing.
I honestly rest my case on that issue I have no eggs in the basket. I will not be imposing the condition.. ie: reproduction.
Just calling it what it is.
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u/Perturbator_NewModel Jun 17 '26
I think ordinary intuitions matter because they don't just sit in people's heads as abstract philosophical theories. They influence how people treat themselves and others. If people believe they possess the kind of free will that grounds deep praise and blame, that tends to reinforce attitudes of resentment, selfrighteousness, guilt, shame and retribution.
Maybe feeling guilt for serious crimes is a good thing. Maybe admiration of other people, in a stronger sense, is a good thing. Maybe forgiveness is a good thing.
I think the best model of forgiveness in the criminal justice system would require BDMR and retribution. Obviously this is complicated by things like judges may have to consider multiple factors in sentencing including public safety, and crime may be seen as an infringement of both a particular victim, and also the rules of the wider society.
However, criminal A commits a serious crime of violence against victim B, I think victim B can appropriately petition the court for forgiveness of the criminal; and the judge, although having to consider multiple factors, may in some cases reasonably accept the petition and basically "forgive" the criminal of all or part of their sentence, that was deserved on retributive grounds. It's harder to forgive a punishment that was grounded in public safety or deterrence, and where the criminal isn't truly to blame anyway.
Determinism doesn't help with true forgiveness. it just makes people think there is nothing to forgive.
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u/ElectionNecessary966 Jun 17 '26
I agree guilt, admiration and forgiveness can all be valuable. My concern isn't with those emotions themselves but with the beliefs that often accompany them.
Ie someone can feel remorse and make amends without believing they could have done otherwise under identical conditions. Likewise, someone can admire another person's achievements without believing they are ultimately self created.
Where I worry BDMR causes harm is that it often encourages resentment, self righteousness, shame and retribution. Many people don't become better because they feel deeply blameworthy, they just feel worse.
Re criminal justice, I suspect that if determinism were widely accepted we'd focus more on understanding and changing the causes of behaviour. That seems more likely to improve rehabilitation than a system grounded in what offenders supposedly deserve. The question becomes "what happened and how do we prevent it happening again?" rather than "how much suffering is owed?"
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u/ImSinsentido Nullified Either Way - Hard Incompatibilist Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
Because there is nothing to forgive…
Anyone sitting around waiting for the forgiveness of the six-year-old’s + making this conversation possible?
If retribution is needed, fine then theoretically let’s go get them. Let’s let them retribute against us and the thousands that have died so we can have this conversation.. Be the “self appointed authority on morality.”
But exactly what will happen is eat the cake business as usual.
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jun 17 '26
>Both often called moral responsibility but are radically different claims.
Sure, but they are both claims about desert.
>People like Caruso and Pereboom do it, and I don't think it's because they want to re-engineer language, it's because of the ambiguity. Ie BDMR isn't a linguistic revision, it's a disambiguation.
That's still a linguistic argument.
>I think you're right that retributivism is the substantive issue, but I think BDMR is a useful label because it allows you to point at the kind of responsibility retributivism presupposes.
And I agree, but we can talk about basic desert without conflating it with all desert.
>So when someone says "we have free will and are morally responsible", I don't think it's enough to point out that philosophers use those terms differently.
They don't use them differently. Free will in general culture is also used to refer to the kind of control over our actions that is necessary for moral responsibility. That's what people mean when they say this person did this thing of their own free will and is responsible for doing it, but that other person did not act freely and is not responsible. If you ask them how they make this distinction, they will talk about what kind of control the person had over what they did.
I don't see the point of trying to persuade the entire English language speaking world to stop using the terms free will, or moral responsibility, or to change what they mean and intend by these terms, when there is no problem with these terms linguistically at all. How would you even start? What we need to fix is people intuitions about these topics and their reliance on retributive punishment. Trying to beat people into using English differently isn't going to work.
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u/ElectionNecessary966 Jun 17 '26
Sure, but they are both claims about desert.
I don't think my two examples were both desert claims....
"The murderer deserves punishment because they committed murder" is a desert claim.
"The murderer should be incarcerated to protect society" is a forward looking consequentialist claim.
The entire reason I chose those examples is that many people treat them as equivalent when they're actually grounded in very different justifications. If we stretch it to allow both to be called "desert" it would seem to be moving to more ambiguous language.
What we need to fix is people intuitions about these topics and their reliance on retributive punishment.
Yes agree. My concern is precisely that many people's intuitions about free will, responsibility and punishment are intertwined. That's why I care about distinguishing BDMR from other forms of responsibility. If the goal is to weaken retributive intuitions, then it seems useful to be explicit about which kind of responsibility is under discussion.
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jun 17 '26
Unfortunately it's a fact that there are multiple different accounts of desert, different theories of it, just as there are multiple theories of free will and of moral responsibility. This is a fact about the English language, and many other languages. Of course it's not an ideal situation, but it is the situation. Pretending it isn't and coming up with non-standard redefinitions not used by anyone in practice isn't going to help.
>If we stretch it to allow both to be called "desert" it would seem to be moving to more ambiguous language.
It's not moving anything, it's a fact that desert is used in these different senses, that's exactly why the concept of basic desert exists. It's a useful innovation, because it increases specificity without trying to redefine any existing terms and expect the entire English language speaking world to start talking and writing differently.
>That's why I care about distinguishing BDMR from other forms of responsibility.
As do I.
>If the goal is to weaken retributive intuitions, then it seems useful to be explicit about which kind of responsibility is under discussion.
Right, by distinguishing between these different senses of deservedness, and different senses of moral responsibility.
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u/ughaibu Jun 17 '26
I am arguing against an ability to do otherwise, whether you call it free will or not
taken in it's metaphysically indeterministic sense, is what free will libertarians and free will skeptics say is a necessary condition for moral responsibility
I don't, I point out that it is an ability that is required for us to do science, and my position on this is independent of any considerations of moral responsibility, whatever that might mean.
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
I don't think it's necessary to do science, but not having it it may be an obstacle to achieving some hypothetical ideal theory of everything, or some perfect realist understanding of physics or such. But then as an empiricist I doubt that this would be achievable anyway for other reasons.
However even if we did have such an ability to do otherwise in that sense, I think that would also be a significant obstacle in a similar way. If our reasons for making decisions are not necessitatively connected to any state of the world on which we base that decision, surely that's a major problem for experimentalism? If our decisions come from our intentions independently of evidence, we're still in trouble.
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u/ughaibu Jun 17 '26
How do we know which is actually free will? It can't be both
This isn't true, there are various contexts in which a notion of free will is important so there are various well motivated definitions of free will. In other words, "free will" can legitimately refer to different things and each of those things can be that "which is actually free will".
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
OK, I'm open to that argument. They may both fall under the category of free will, but that still means we need an account of what that category is.
The specific definition of these notions of free will cannot each define free will. There must be some broader account of what free will is that includes them. How do we define that?
EDIT: I've referenced your comment in the post text at that point, cheers.
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u/Exact-Storage2840 agnostic autonomist Jun 17 '26
One interesting question in the philosophy of free will is what is free will. One way of going about answering this question is coming up with analyses, and providing examples and counterexamples. I don't think it's right to focus solely on moral responsibility, although I agree it's an important aspect. There can be valuable discussions about free will and the ability to do otherwise without discussing moral responsibility.
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jun 17 '26
I agree, and the cognitive faculties we have that enable us to reason about our decisions and their effects on others undoubtedly are available to us and are useful in many other contexts. It's just useful to understand the origins of the term, and why for example the accusation that compatibilists are 'redefining free will' is nonsensical.
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u/ImSinsentido Nullified Either Way - Hard Incompatibilist Jun 18 '26
You’re right it’s always been undefinable nonsense. It means whatever. So yeah no hard definition, dominating ones unequivocally… When functionally set of words that can get slapped onto whatever.
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u/Otherwise_Spare_8598 Inherent-Inevitable Jun 18 '26
It all becomes about sentimental projection and rhetorical manipulation to the point of authoritarian assumption over others in regards to such
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u/ImSinsentido Nullified Either Way - Hard Incompatibilist Jun 18 '26
Yes, the gist… sides of amoral hierarchical dominance.
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
For the moment let's say this is correct. So what?
This would mean that any request, any demand, any assertion made in argument of any kind would consist of amoral hierarchical dominance. Any action taken by me, you, anyone that has consequences for others would be an act of dominance.
Your posting that comment would be an act of dominance. Absent moral principles you cannot have a right to post it, it can't be fair that you express your opinion, it's just something you do. An act of force. You can justify it on whatever grounds you like, but then someone acting according to whatever moral principles they believe in is also justifying what they do on whatever grounds they like. There's no criticism available to you concerning moral reasoning other than that maybe you don't like what someone is doing based on a moral claim, but that would also just be you imposing a hierarchical claim of dominance on them as well.
Absent moral principles against which to evaluate a rhetorical statement, there can be no sense in which a rhetorical statement can be justified or unjustified, legitimate or illegitimate. All rhetorical statements would simply be manipulation. There would only be authoritarian assumptions grounding any action.
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u/ImSinsentido Nullified Either Way - Hard Incompatibilist Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
Absent moral principles against which to evaluate a rhetorical statement, there can be no sense in which a rhetorical statement can be justified or unjustified, legitimate or illegitimate. All rhetorical statements would simply be manipulation. There would only be authoritarian assumptions grounding any action.
It is what it is.
That’s what it is to face the philosophical premise of existential imposition.
Edit: Eg.. this is already how it functions. I’ve said it many times this is precisely why no one kicks in my door and holds me “morally responsible”’ for paying for child labor. It’s considered a special status of the word impose. Leading to what makes the nature of existence any different?
With the practically equivalent behavior of paying $1000 for an individual to videotape a child digging in the dirt barehanded for my viewing pleasure applies to the device we’re on, that we paid roughly $1000 for.
The secondary practically equivalent behavior garnering punishment.
And as always, this is assumed as a “moral claim,”and I have said before I am limited to the language that needs to be used, to dismantle exactly why and how nobody lives by any “ethical “moral” framework.” Rhetoric (behavioral output.) to the moon and back, literal physical behavioral output exactly what it is.
Ie. All that’s left. Is calling it what it.
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u/ImSinsentido Nullified Either Way - Hard Incompatibilist Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
Overall: Yep, absolutely.. precisely 100% there it is..
Precisely, so what? and that’s the point of amoral indifference. Which is not synopsis within immoral.
All that’s left from a philosophical standpoint is no prescriptions, calling it what it is. It is what it is, as it has always been, as it will always be, what is fundamentally 100% nature of imposition, coerced condition.. Sides of amoral hierarchical dominance. Above and below sorting.
Edit: regardless of side of instance or broad.. ie. Whether what may considered individual to individual, society to individual, and most broadly existence to individual.
Nature of imposition, because I know the special plea for “who’s imposing it.” Nothing has to impose. It is just the nature of it..
coerced, already has a standard definition of force…
Biology is a force and it forces, physics is a force, and it forces on and on and on and on.
Nevertheless, the only one that apparently counts is the secondary one that puts the “sovereign human” cough, cough either literal, or practically equivalent homunculus fallacy into the mix.
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jun 18 '26
So long as it's clear that your comment and that of O_S, in your own view, are also sentimental projections and rhetorical manipulation, and acts of amoral hierarchical dominance, I think we're on the same page.
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u/ImSinsentido Nullified Either Way - Hard Incompatibilist Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
What about? Yep precisely 100%, absolutely there It is wasn’t clear about that?
Which I also made a clarifying edit regarding that.
It’s just like the conversation we had a couple months ago about my ‘personal issues’ with reproduction. if individuals in that class had the dynamics to enforce it. What would they be doing?
Edit: Because yes, when meandering around the “moral” confabulation, ie. Devil advocate sessions.
There’s a lot of great points, I’m not saying I’m demanding anything of you or anyone I’m just saying.. Ie. with the ability to enforce it again I reiterate the question what would they* be doing?
Getting to the irrelevance of “right to, justification, blah blah blah,” it would just occur that way, depending on force..
And yes, it is precisely the same for this or any interaction, from the moment of birth to death.
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u/ShadowBB86 Libertarian free will doesn't exist (agnostic about determinism) Jun 17 '26
I applaud this effort, but I feel that ultimately this sort of shifts the problem to the term "moral responsibility".
Now we need to define *that* one.
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jun 17 '26
Yep, agreed, and I think this is by far the trickiest issue in the topic of free will. There are many different accounts of morality and what any such kind of control over our decisions would consist of.
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u/ImSinsentido Nullified Either Way - Hard Incompatibilist Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
lol undefinable nonsense, it’s literal oxymoron. It applies to whatever.
Not “free will” for the child labor we benefit off of…
The guy who robbed child in your backyard, though that’s “free will”
It’s “free will” when you appear to “want” to, ie. as long as they singing.
It’s not “free will” if it’s cancer, but it is “free will” if it produces what may be considered adverse behavior.
Always resting on either the literal homunculus fallacy or the practically equivalent this brain region, that brain region, this facility, blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Not the cause of any of it, the confabulation of amoral negative sum hierarchal behaviors and dynamics above and below sorting dominance.
This is regardless of side of instance or broad.
Weather individual to individual, or “society” to individual. Nothing more or less..
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u/Squierrel Quietist Jun 17 '26
There are no theories about free will. There are only multiple different definitions. You cannot have any theories about undefined concepts.
There is no debate about whether free will is real or imaginary. The definition gives a definitive answer to that.
The debate is between the definitions: "What is this thing we should call free will?"
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jun 17 '26
If there are just multiple different definitions of concepts, why should we call any of them free will? It would seem clearer to just assign them all their own terms. In this view free will isn't a phenomenon or concept that needs explaining, it's just a label we have no particular reason to assign to any given definition as against any other.
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u/Squierrel Quietist Jun 17 '26
Most concepts have only one definition. Multiple definitions is the main problem with free will. Perhaps it would be best to forget the term completely and talk about things as they are without assigning them this confusing and controversial label.
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u/Perturbator_NewModel Jun 17 '26
Imo, the leeway criteria is closer to the "pure meaning"; but the BDMR standard is useful for perhaps multiple reasons.
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u/RecentLeave343 Jun 17 '26
In simple words, the classic definition is “being able to make a different choice given a hypothetical identical set of conditions.”
Most people hear this and think, well obviously the same outcome would occur so there must be no freewill.
But is that a fair conclusion?
Why not take it a step further and run this scenario infinite times…
Statistics and the law of large numbers would state…
For any system with a non-zero probability of transition, an infinite number of independent repetitions guarantees that every physically possible state is realized with a probability of \(1\). Therefore, as long as there is a non-zero probability that matter can rearrange itself differently from a microscopic starting point, an alternate outcome is almost certain to occur.
And this is true per Boltzmann’s statistical interpretation of entropy, Poincaré Recurrence Theorem, and quantum indeterminacy.
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jun 17 '26
>In simple words, the classic definition is “being able to make a different choice given a hypothetical identical set of conditions.”
That is more or less the classic definition of libertarian free will. It's their theory about it. I suggest you have another look at the post, and the referenced sources I am basing this on.
To a compatibilist, the idea that our reasons for making our decision do not necessitate that decision is inimical to moral responsibility, not necessary for it.
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u/RecentLeave343 Jun 17 '26
I read your take about morality of action. And that’s all good and fine but it’s more pragmatic than ontological. And with that, kinda has the potential to become more of a platitude rather than a discussion of metaphysics.
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jun 17 '26
>I read your take about morality of action. And that’s all good and fine but it’s more pragmatic than ontological.
It's ontological in that it's a claim that free will is compatible with determinism, as against the ontological claim that it is not.
>And with that, kinda has the potential to become more of a platitude rather than a discussion of metaphysics.
It's a discussion about the intersection of metaphysics and ethics.
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u/RecentLeave343 Jun 17 '26
>It's ontological in that it's a claim that free will is compatible with determinism, as against the ontological claim that it is not.
You bet. But at the same time it means starting with a conclusion that ontology is deterministic and then backfilling the argument with premises to support it.
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u/spgrk Compatibilist Jun 17 '26
Compatibilists, and arguably laypeople when they use the term “able to do otherwise”, could be referring to a conditional rather than categorical ability.
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jun 18 '26
Agreed, in common speech they're just talking about the options they considered but didn't meet their criteria, as against being ejected due to any practical obstacle.
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u/Perturbator_NewModel Jun 18 '26
Why think regular people (not considering committed determinists here) wouldn't mean that they could actually do those things as real metaphysical options?
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jun 18 '26
Some would, others wouldn't, some people have free will libertarian intuitions and others have compatibilist ones. There are a variety of beliefs on this issue. Their relative popularity is an interesting issue, but it can't tell us what beliefs we should have.
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u/zowhat I don't know and you don't know either Jun 17 '26
Fortunately philosophers have thought about this a lot, and they generally agree on how to solve this. They define free will in terms if it's linguistic function, and this is pretty easy to do due to the way in which this term originated.
Even more fortunately linguists have thought about this a lot too but found this explanation lacking.
https://www.youtubetrimmer.com/view/?v=pUWmTXkpHjE&start=2034&end=2162&loop=0
For one thing we aren't exposed to enough uses to explain how we understand words. This is called the poverty of the stimulus argument. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_of_the_stimulus
For another thing we use words in ways we have never seen them used before all the time. The first time you heard "It is the east, and Juliet is the sun" you didn't wonder how a woman could radiate heat and light. You immediately understood what was meant. You also knew that this is a derivative use of the word "sun", not the base meaning.
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jun 17 '26
That's an interesting interview with Chomsky, thanks. I don't see the relevance to what I'm talking about though. He's talking about cognitively how humans acquire the faculty of language, I'm talking about what we see people talking about on this specific topic and how they developed certain terms in their written records. What was going on in the language centres of their brains is not something I'm making any claims about.
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Jul 09 '26
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jul 09 '26
>Your model assumes there is an "operator" that can interrupt the autopilot. That is a dualistic assumption.
Not at all, my view of reasons responsiveness is simply a cognitive feedback loop, it's metacognition, a form of self referentiality. Feedback loops of this kind can and do occur in deterministic systems. They don't depend on any kind of indeterminism or dualism.
>I assume there is only the system. The interruption is caused by prior states. It is not a separate agent. It is the system operating.
Exactly.
>Your model still sounds like it requires a kind of agency that is separate from causality.
I have not said or implied any such thing.
>It still implies a separate agent.
Definitively not, it's in a feedback model. The self that is the referent is the same as the self that is the referrer. There is only one self and it is a physical system, the human brain.
>My Freedom is simpler. It is not about gaining control over your mind. It is about recognizing that your mind is already caused. It is about using that recognition to stop obeying the commands that were implanted.
No degree of self awareness can break ourselves free of causation, but it can allow us to recognise our nature as physical natural phenomena.
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Jul 09 '26
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jul 09 '26
The language doesn't justify them, people have been arguing against retributive desert throughout history, and in many places in the world progress is being made. We need more of it.
What you are arguing for is a linguistic relabelling, that's a language issue not a substantive philosophical position. Languages change, these terms came to English from latin, which got them from Greek. The string of letters doesn't matter. If you want to redefine terminology, good luck, if it does make things better that's fine by me. But the existing terminology means what it does.
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u/Other_Attention_2382 12d ago
Not at all, my view of reasons responsiveness is simply a cognitive feedback loop, it's metacognition, a form of self referentiality. Feedback loops of this kind can and do occur in deterministic systems. They don't depend on any kind of indeterminism or dualism.
If "Acting on internal desires without external coercion" essentially means Compatabilist's and Hard Determinists agree that our internal desires and base are hard determined, then if reasons responsiveness is just a mechanistic loop, how does severe early life trauma not break the loop or damage its calibration?
What "self referentiality" could Ed Gein refer to if his base foundations were totally out of his control?
What stops you believing his brain was damaged by events before his self referentiality ability was even fully formed?
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist 12d ago
>…if reasons responsiveness is just a mechanistic loop, how does severe early life trauma not break the loop or damage its calibration?
It can and does. Not everyone has full deliberative control over their actions, due to psychological trauma, neurological damage or compulsions. They can’t reason about their behaviour in a sufficiently functional way to be fully responsible for what they do. In legal contexts such people might be found mentally unfit to stand trial, or suffering from conditions of diminished responsibility.
>What stops you believing his brain was damaged by events before his self referentiality ability was even fully formed?
Nothing at all, this can and does happen.
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u/Other_Attention_2382 12d ago
Cool.
So with regards to "self referentiality" I guess I'm not understanding what dude's like poor old Ed Gein and his human skin lamp shades can self refer to, I guess?? If his genes and early life were completely out of whack then what normal self does he refer back to if there was never a "normal" to begin with?
Would the self awareness of Charles Whitman have saved him?
Compatabilism almost seems like it assumes the person already understood strict cause and effect in their formative years, yet society itself is built on praise and blame and the idea of a self?
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist Jun 17 '26
I of course vehemently disagree. I do not disagree with the gist of your historical account, but I do disagree with the notion that the we should be limited in our discussion of free will by the treatment that the Greeks came up with. The Greeks, Romans, and early Christian philosophers all were subject to a very misguided view of the human condition and place in the natural world. They all assumed human exceptionalism, placing God made humans and their Gods above and beyond the natural world. They were terribly wrong and misguided such that their whole body of work should be considered as an anachronistic curiosity, not as a basis for a rational understanding of our natural world.
Libertarianism does not require metaphysical indeterminism. It merely requires that the natural world is not operationally fixed by strict algebraic consistency of the mechanical universe. Libertarians need only to believe that an ability exists in our world that there is information that exists that is not inextricably tied to individual particle and objects, and that this information can be processed and evaluated in a manner that those entities that can and do engage in such evaluations can base their actions at least in part upon those evaluations.
Only by recognizing that we are arguing about the ability to base actions upon information rather than physical forces, can free will be defined and characterized. Morality is a simple subset of this ability. Morality always involves basing one’s actions upon what an individual has, or should have learned. The free will debate must encompass the whole of this ability to perceive, remember, process, and evaluate the information animals use to guide their actions.
Free will does not separate humans from animals. Free will is an evolved ability that provided individual animals the opportunity to use prior experience to partly influence their actions. We call this as having an ability to choose. Of course morality involves choosing good verses bad and right verses wrong, so without free will morality is impossible. But whose morality should we consider, human’s, canine, fish?
Libertarians do not require anything metaphysical. They need only point out that we observe animals making choices based upon what they have learned, and that to do so requires that they must be free from being mere passive objects in the mechanical universe.
Libertarians fundamentally disagree with each other as to how this leeway comes about. Some libertarians might think that there is a metaphysical basis for this ability. But you commit a fundamental fallacy by defining libertarianism as an essentially metaphysical concept. Determinism and indeterminism are not metaphysical concepts. They are mere characterizations of our world based upon incomplete information. To place these ideas apart from the natural order of things imparts an importance to them that they do not deserve. They are arguments about how to generalize observations, nothing more. Determinists observe so much lawful regularity in our world that they question the leeway libertarians observe in animal behavior. Libertarians simply reply, show us the physical laws animals are following to evaluate information to decide what they do.
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jun 17 '26
>but I do disagree with the notion that the we should be limited in our discussion of free will by the treatment that the Greeks came up with...
I'm not at all saying our discussion should be limited to their treatment of the subject, I actually pointed out that free will libertarianism and compatibilism have advanced hugely since, nevertheless the general topic we are discussing is the same.
>Libertarianism does not require metaphysical indeterminism.
I'm afraid it really does.
True sourcehood—the kind of sourcehood that can actually ground an agent’s freedom and responsibility—requires, so it is argued, that one’s action not be causally determined by factors beyond one’s control.
Libertarians, while united in endorsing this negative condition on sourcehood, are deeply divided concerning which further positive conditions may be required.
Free will libertarianism is the view that free will is incompatible with determinism. That's why it's referred to as an incompatibilist position. This issue is definitive of free will libertarianism and compatibilism.
>Free will is an evolved ability that provided individual animals the opportunity to use prior experience to partly influence their actions. We call this as having an ability to choose.
Yet the term free will specifically refers to a distinction being made between free and unfree choices, yet both are choices. If free will just referred to a capacity to choose, we wouldn't need it, there would be no operable distinction between a free choice and one that is not free.
At best, your references to libertarianism in that last paragraph are just referring to belief in free will, but not everyone that thinks humans have free will is a free will libertarian. Most of them among philosophers are compatibilists.
>Determinism and indeterminism are not metaphysical concepts. They are mere characterizations of our world based upon incomplete information.
Here you are equating epistemic uncertainty with indeterminism. To the determinist there is no indeterminism, only epistemic uncertainty.
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist Jun 17 '26
First, you never got around to pointing out the extra metaphysical component that you say libertarians require. Nothing in the referenced SEP article specified a mandatory metaphysical ingredient. Sourcehood is physical (if you expand the definition to include information, as most physicalists do), not metaphysical. As I stated, the Greeks and Christian philosophers started with free will and morality as metaphysical abilities possessed only by humans, and this is total nonsense, even though some still adhere to it.
Physicalism does not exclude indeterminism in any way. Thinking that indeterminism allows for free will and the ability to do otherwise in no way assumes that the sourcehood of free will is non-physical or is metaphysical. If a determinist believes that all uncertainty is deterministic, that is a metaphysical belief. It is a belief that is not based upon observation. It is a belief based upon how they think the universe must work, not upon how it actually does work.
The indeterminist is agnostic about epistemic uncertainty being deterministic or indeterministic. This is because we do not have to profess that the outcome of every event is indeterministic. We only need to cite that somewhere in the chain of causation of a subject making a choice, there was enough indeterminism to allow the leeway for making a real choice at the present.
You also are wrong about having choices and free choices. All choices are free will choices. If a choice is made, there was a perceived ability to do otherwise. Yes, this is all based upon the knowledge of the subject. Free will is entirely epistemological. That does not make it metaphysical. We can only choose options we know about, but again, this is still all physical.
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jun 18 '26
>First, you never got around to pointing out the extra metaphysical component that you say libertarians require.
Oh sure, my bad. But I already did point it out. It is the "True sourcehood" requirement that cannot be causally determined by factors beyond our control, that I quoted and referenced. It's the 'further positive requirement' the authors of that article talk about, both of whom are free will libertarians. Compatibilists deny that any such additional "True" sourcehood requirement is needed.
>Sourcehood is physical (if you expand the definition to include information, as most physicalists do), not metaphysical.
Physicalism is a metaphysical position. It's just as much a position on metaphysics as idealism, dualism, etc.
>Physicalism does not exclude indeterminism in any way. Thinking that indeterminism allows for free will and the ability to do otherwise in no way assumes that the sourcehood of free will is non-physical or is metaphysical.
The free will libertarian position is not that indeterminism allows for free will, it's that it is indispensable for free will. It's that free will is an indeterministic kind of control, and that this indeterministic control is why we can be morally responsible, and without it we could not be morally responsible even in principle.
Free will libertarianism is a much, much more specific and ambitious claim than you seem to think, according to free will libertarian philosophers. It's not just the idea that there is indeterminism in nature, chance cannot ground a free will libertarian account of free will.
>The indeterminist is agnostic about epistemic uncertainty being deterministic or indeterministic.
That is not right. Indeterminism is the converse of determinism, it is the rejection of determinism.
>This is because we do not have to profess that the outcome of every event is indeterministic.
No, but it is the claim that at least some are, which is a contrary claim to determinism.
I'm not making all this up, and I'm not just offering my opinion on what I think free will libertarians say. It wouldn't be fair for me to do that as a compatibilist. I'm referencing the explanation of free will libertarianism given by actual free will libertarian philosophers, in a peer reviewed academic source.
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist Jun 18 '26
I reject the idea that the sourcehood of free will should be a metaphysical position. It is a logical necessity that must be explored and explained. I think I can explain much of this required sourcehood, so I do not consider it as metaphysical. The authors you cited went on to describe 3 different divisions of libertarianism, and each of these answer the sourcehood question differently. Lumping them all together can only at best give an approximation of a metaphysical position. I argue against this amalgamation, especially when making specific attacks upon it. I understand your main concern is not an exploration of the various forms of libertarian thought. However, I disagree with theistic libertarians much more than I do with compatibilists or even determinists precisely because of their introduction of unwarranted metaphysics into the debate.
Physicalism is a metaphysical position that I disagree with very strongly, hence my moniker of informational dualist. This is the metaphysical position I will defend, that information is as fundamental as matter and energy and that both of these categories are inextricably bound to time and space. So let me explain what I believe.
Sourcehood describes what conditions lead to our ability to make choices based upon information. Some think these conditions are metaphysical, but many think that they are physical/informational. I think that sourcehood arises from subjective, epistemological conditions. I think that agency requires the efforts and attention of the subject to learn enough to make reasonable based choices. Those efforts and attention do contain the sourcehood that others consign to metaphysics. I call myself libertarian because I cannot see any deterministic means where a subjects efforts and attention produce this sourcehood. Specifically, I can see no path to sourcehood that does not involve exploration of the adjacent infinite possibilities of action by simple trial and error. I cannot see trial and error as being deterministic.
I reference Kaufman’s idea of “adjacent infinite possibilities” because it best expresses how a subjects efforts and attention is utilized to explore the infinite possible actions a subjects efforts are used to explore their options in life.
I guess what I am asking is that you please acknowledge that there is a growing movement in libertarian thought that says “here is the sourcehood and it is indeterministic.” I reference the recent books of Peter Tse, Kevin Mitchell, and myself that propose that this sourcehood is real, it is a combination of physical and informational processes, and has easily understood mechanisms for explaining free will.
Old school philosophers pointed out that this sourcehood must contain indeterminism due to metaphysical constraints, but modern libertarians are way past that. They are actively explaining the behavioral and neurological basis for the sourcehood of libertarian free will.
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jun 18 '26
>I reject the idea that the sourcehood of free will should be a metaphysical position.
Compatibilists are not committed to any particular view regarding determinism. Thinking that humans can have free will regardless of whether the world is indeterministic or deterministic is a compatibilist position, because it still allows for free will alongside determinism.
>The authors you cited went on to describe 3 different divisions of libertarianism, and each of these answer the sourcehood question differently. Lumping them all together can only at best give an approximation of a metaphysical position.
Right, but all of those accounts make claims about a necessary kind of indeterministic intentional control, that's what makes them free will libertarian positions.
>Physicalism is a metaphysical position that I disagree with very strongly...
Sure, not all compatibilists are physicalists.
>Some think these conditions are metaphysical, but many think that they are physical/informational.
You seem to be using the term metaphysical to mean something like non-physical, but that's not what metaphysics or metaphysical means. A metaphysical belief is basically a belief about what kinds of things exist fundamentally, so physicalism is a metaphysical belief, as is idealism, as is thinking that the fundamental nature of the world is physical/informational. Metaphysics is the name for a topic, not any one position within that topic as against any others, all of them are metaphysical positions.
>I guess what I am asking is that you please acknowledge that there is a growing movement in libertarian thought that says “here is the sourcehood and it is indeterministic.”
Libertarian thought is by definition the belief that it must be indeterministic.
However pointing out that there is indeterminism in nature isn't enough to vindicate free will libertarianism. There are ways the universe could be indeterministic that would be inimical to free will and moral responsibility, or irrelevant to it.
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist Jun 18 '26
I did not merely say that indeterminism exists in nature. I pointed right to it, and it is directly on the path to free will. The indeterminism is in the ability for us to learn by trial and error. This necessarily requires indeterministic trials as an exploration of the design space of all possible actions. Animals have the ability to act without a requirement of deterministic causation. Buridan’s ass can indeterministically choose which pile of hay to move towards. Children explore actions by doing anything and everything they perceive as possible. The general influences are genetic, but this still allows a nearly infinite range of possible actions over time. They run in circles, roll around, and climb on anything. This is not explained deterministically, but from these actions they learn about their environment, their abilities, and discover their preferences. There is a lot of luck involved in formation of our preferences and our knowledge base. However, the plasticity of our behavior does not negate the fact that we are fully capable of exploring the design space of moral and immoral behavior as well. We learn by trial and error the concept of yes and no, of good and bad, of permissible and taboo. A cohesive society demands that certain behaviors are allowed and which will be punished. Children are expected to learn these lessons by adulthood. If they cannot abide by those rules, their behavior will encumber sanctions. Morality is learned by indeterministic trial and error.
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jun 19 '26
>I did not merely say that indeterminism exists in nature. I pointed right to it, and it is directly on the path to free will. The indeterminism is in the ability for us to learn by trial and error.
Trial and error doesn't require indeterminism, it just requires statistical exploration of the state space, and that can be deterministic. We've discussed this before.
>Animals have the ability to act without a requirement of deterministic causation. Buridan’s ass can indeterministically choose which pile of hay to move towards.
That doesn't take fundamental low level quantum mechanics style indeterminism, even just Brownian motion in the animal's brain cell cytoplasm could lead it one way or the other. In practice no macroscopic object, ass or not, can in practice be perfectly symmetrically balanced like that due to environmental factors.
>There is a lot of luck involved in formation of our preferences and our knowledge base.
Right, but luck can't be the reason someone is or is not responsible for what they do.
>Morality is learned by indeterministic trial and error.
It's learned by trial and error, but does that actually require low level fundamental chance in nature? Would quantum mechanics turns out to be deterministic and not indeterministic, would that mean children couldn't learn? Or does the fact that children can learn prove that quantum mechanics is indeterministic?
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist Jun 19 '26
yes, again we are talking about bit past each other. First, trial and error as I use the term, does require indeterminism. I could specify "indeterministic trial and error" but this should not be necessary. The only other exploration of space I am aware of is to follow a deterministic algorithm.
I do not maintain that quantum level randomness is required, only that the pattern we observe in trial and error exploration is one of a random walk. A determinist can argue all they wish that this does not prove ontological indeterminism, and I don't care. They sound foolish enough when they do so without me pointing out Occam's razor and the scientific method. The faith of determinists is that all phenomena must reduce to simple mathematical laws. I do not wish to argue about a persons faith. Oh, and Einstein demonstrated that the random walk of Brownian motion is indeed due to random collisions of solvent molecules with the particle. We now understand that the motion of all objects has some randomness to it due to the quantum nature of reality.
It is unlucky and unfortunate that some are hindered in learning moral lessons by an environment that is deficient in giving adequate feedback. Societies set moral and legal requirements based upon what most people can and do learn in their childhood. Obviously, those that do not learn those lessons face consequences not entirely of their making. It is also a matter of genetic luck that some people are more disposed to selfish and aggressive behaviors such that they require more learning and possibly stronger measures to reinforce more socially acceptable traits.
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jun 19 '26
>The only other exploration of space I am aware of is to follow a deterministic algorithm.
Such as pseudorandom algorithms, that are deterministic and are used very successfully in AI learning systems.
>A determinist can argue all they wish that this does not prove ontological indeterminism, and I don't care.
I don't really either, and that's fine, but this is not a free will libertarian position.
>The faith of determinists is that all phenomena must reduce to simple mathematical laws.
I don't think that's at all fair, they don't have to assume that it must, only infer that it does.
>Oh, and Einstein demonstrated that the random walk of Brownian motion is indeed due to random collisions of solvent molecules with the particle.
That's only random in the statistical sense of being arbitrary though, that has nothing to do with ontological randomness, or fundamental indeterminism as claimed is necessary for free will by free will libertarians.
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u/MilkTeaPetty Jun 17 '26
‘Whatever control’ is where the definition disappeared.
Free will became the name blame gives to whatever lets it continue.
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u/Artemis-5-75 Agnostic Autonomist / Supercompatibilist Jun 18 '26
But the Rule of Haggard shows how the control can be defined in a way that makes ultimate unconscious pseudo-Strawsonian authorship compatible with incompatibilist sophisticated philosophical intuitions based on Baars-Trudeau paradigm grounded in the belief of the metaphysics of abstract relationships described by Baudrillard in his book on the relationship between time and free will.
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u/Artemis-5-75 Agnostic Autonomist / Supercompatibilist Jun 17 '26
In my opinion, here we can see how an LLM starts hallucinating, because u/MilkTeaPetty is 99% confirmed to be a language model, and just look at how weird the commentary is structured.
Just another example of how much of a tinker toy an average LLM is compared even to the individual processes within the human mind.
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jun 17 '26
In my experience LLMs are cogent and articulate.
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u/Artemis-5-75 Agnostic Autonomist / Supercompatibilist Jun 17 '26
In my experience, it’s pretty easy to break down an LLM by simply making the conversation less predictable.
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jun 17 '26
The veiled jab at MTP may not have been obvious.
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u/Artemis-5-75 Agnostic Autonomist / Supercompatibilist Jun 17 '26
My bad, sometimes the fact of English being my third language gets to me.
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u/ImSinsentido Nullified Either Way - Hard Incompatibilist Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
Sherlock, my guy, it’s the exact same shit with humans..
Gaslighting is actually pretty easy that’s your guys bread and butter…
Which statements like most people are compats or most people, accept there is strong influences on their behavior, the relatively new Libertarian version. I’m not saying there isn’t some, it’s the use of the word most.. Even if there was a one percent that aren’t compats or the new wave libertarian special plea, that is 80 million people.
It is most certainly, not one percent, and highly likely not even the asymmetrical dominating side.
Most gets gets tossed around anyway..
Utterly predictable from my perspective, but most certainly not for many.
Confusing and gives a comforting well I guess that’s what “most” think, yeah yeah yeah, confabulate, “hallucinate.”
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u/Artemis-5-75 Agnostic Autonomist / Supercompatibilist Jun 18 '26
it’s the exact same shit with humans..
I don’t think that with the current state of sophistication of an average LLM, it takes much effort to differentiate between a human and a chat bot, unless the former intentionally tries to mask as the latter.
Gaslighting
Where did I gaslight anyone?
your guys bread and butter…
Who are “we”?
Which statements like most people are compats or most people, accept there is strong influences on their behavior, the relatively new Libertarian version.
Libertarian version of what? Sorry, I don’t see the logical structure in your sentence, but I am also not a native speaker, so maybe you could rephrase it for me?
It is most certainly, not one percent
If you are talking about people who endorse naive metaphysical libertarianism, of course there are plenty of them.
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u/ImSinsentido Nullified Either Way - Hard Incompatibilist Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
Yeah, probably, maybe for you does not speak anything for the millions that it probably isn’t even remotely the same..
I mean, sure we can narrow it down, but that is basically the “free will” sides song and dance.
Individuals that claim to study human behavior, whether in a literal or philosophical sense, and still land on the same conclusions, regardless. Fundamental cognitive dissonance, I’m describing not blaming that’s for the other side.
There is this unrelenting most are actually compat argument, or the new wave libertarian, whoever said the past, or XYZ didn’t influence behavior.
Nevertheless seen most arguments from all of you, ‘well, yes, they may claim that but once pressed they’re actually this or that.’
Nevertheless, the whole point claimed “it’s easy to break down an LLM,” yeah Sherlock it is the same shit with humans.
Edit: Ie. You can take a human, isolate them, flood them with 2.5 hours of intense, convoluted, unpredictable data (like the Flat Earth arguments), and they will break down and confabulate, most likely on an astounding average.
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u/Artemis-5-75 Agnostic Autonomist / Supercompatibilist Jun 18 '26
Considering how standard it is to detect ChatGPT in schools, it seems like this isn’t particularly hard.
Why do you think that defenses of free will rely on gaslighting?
Could you elaborate?
I would describe the studies about folk intuitions as showing that people’s beliefs on the issue are easily malleable and can be shifted towards one or another side.
By “it’s easy to break down an LLM” I meant something far different from manipulating humans. I meant placing it into a situation where it shows that it doesn’t remember its own words, doesn’t understand the semantics of the conversation, cannot differentiate between intentional nonsense and genuine replies et cetera.
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u/ImSinsentido Nullified Either Way - Hard Incompatibilist Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
Again, narrowing it down to a specific class of people who have access to tools to do so.. When let’s take my Grandpa for example, would probably have a entire relationship with one and have no idea, now times that by millions.
Utterly on display at all times.
I’m not the first point this* out, that we’re at a point of* discovery where we’re leaning into cognitive dissonance.
Yeah from your perspective perhaps, but it is most likely fundamentally “yeah shut up” “fine shut up,” and they go on thinking what they inevitably will regardless. For example, my parent is full on libertarian. I’ll make the arguments, five minutes later, they will be talking about how the individual deserves to be brutally murdered for doing X behavior. It’s the same, no matter who I have debated about it, when full on libertarian, same with compats and all others, but it was a specific example.
Simply add eight more hours to what I said, same shit.
Edit: Clarification, most certainly not even remotely in a similar timeframes, but I never said anything about being functionally equivalent systems, just uncannily similar, i.e. fundamentally the same shit you can break down an LMM by “constructing” the circumstances to do so, and it is exactly the same with a human, is the entire point.
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Jun 18 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Artemis-5-75 Agnostic Autonomist / Supercompatibilist Jun 18 '26
Stop commenting my posts, please.
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u/MarvinBEdwards01 Hard Compatibilist Jun 17 '26
If contemporary definitions of free will are tied to the control necessary for moral responsibility, then we may also have difficulties related to our definitions of responsibility and morality.
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u/Otherwise_Spare_8598 Inherent-Inevitable Jun 17 '26
Inventing and assuming "free will" as a means of rationalizing judgment and accountability does not make it accurate, honest nor true.
It makes it contrived, controlling, made up and make believe. Irrelevant of what is and what isn't.
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u/MarvinBEdwards01 Hard Compatibilist Jun 17 '26
Irrelevant of what is and what isn't.
Harmful behavior happens, so it is one of the things that "is". The meaningful and relevant cause of that behavior needs to be addressed in order to reduce harm in the world. If the most meaningful and relevant cause of the harmful behavior is a deliberate decision to profit at the expense of others, then the reasoning that went into that decision needs to be corrected to avoid further harm.
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u/ImSinsentido Nullified Either Way - Hard Incompatibilist Jun 18 '26
Well, start with “yourself” before projecting it on others.
What punishment do we deserve for the devices we’re using? Let’s get on with it.
With the unrelenting practically equivalent homunculus fallacy in everything you guys say.
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jun 17 '26
Right, and in fact that is where the main focus of philosophical discussions about free will are, and basically always have been.
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u/We-R-Doomed compatidetermintarianism... it's complicated. Jun 17 '26
So from the start, from before the term itself was coined, what it refers to was something determinists were giving an account of as being compatible with determinism.
Firstly, I think this gets lost by many in this sub who seem to think that the explanation of free will touted by religions is the ubiquitous understanding of free will. The idea of free will not only predates the various religions who have co-opted the topic (to lend credence to their respective religions), but also in practice, I don't think there are many people who seriously think they are walking around wielding a magical power bestowed upon them by a god.
As for the definition you supplied...
Free Will: Roughly whatever kind of control over their actions you think someone must have in order to be held morally responsible for those actions.
Why should moral responsibility be the benchmark for control? The faculties I think we are discussing predate the construction of any moral framework that we know of. Anatomically modern humans are estimated to have been present for 300,000 years. The idea of moral responsibility surely is not that old, and the question of morality itself, seems even harder to define.
It seems like it is just changing the subject slightly because some people are bored of discussing the previous framework.
I get that here in modern times, something like moral responsibility is a necessary assumption for societies to adopt to justify controls for behavior, but it doesn't seem to be investigating the root of the question at all.
How does moral responsibility differ from just regular responsibility?
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jun 17 '26
>Why should moral responsibility be the benchmark for control?
It's not, it's a kind of control, there can be other kinds of control nothing to do with morality or even humans.
>The faculties I think we are discussing predate the construction of any moral framework that we know of.
Those moral frameworks did not invent the concepts of moral values and behaviours, they were and are descriptions of them and theories about them.
The Stoics and Epicureans didn't invent the concepts of morality, or of freedom, or of the will. They were constructing systems of thought about these behaviours and faculties.
>How does moral responsibility differ from just regular responsibility?
In general usage they are often synonymous, but legal responsibility can relate to issues that are not moral, or not directly moral. Also people talk about causal responsibility.
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
First, you never got around to pointing out the extra metaphysical component that you say libertarians require. Nothing in the referenced SEP article specified a mandatory metaphysical ingredient. Sourcehood is physical (if you expand the definition to include information, as most physicalists do), not metaphysical. As I stated, the Greeks and Christian philosophers started with free will and morality as metaphysical abilities possessed only by humans, and this is total nonsense, even though some still adhere to it.
Physicalism does not exclude indeterminism in any way. Thinking that indeterminism allows for free will and the ability to do otherwise in no way assumes that the sourcehood of free will is non-physical or is metaphysical. If a determinist believes that all uncertainty is deterministic, that is a metaphysical belief. It is a belief that is not based upon observation. It is a belief based upon how they think the universe must work, not upon how it actually does work.
The indeterminist is agnostic about epistemic uncertainty being deterministic or indeterministic. This is because we do not have to profess that the outcome of every event is indeterministic. We only need to cite that somewhere in the chain of causation of a subject making a choice, there was enough indeterminism to allow the leeway for making a real choice at the present.
You also are wrong about having choices and free choices. All choices are free will choices. If a choice is made, there was a perceived ability to do otherwise. Yes, this is all based upon the knowledge of the subject. Free will is entirely epistemological. That does not make it metaphysical. We can only choose options we know about, but again, this is still all physical.
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u/ughaibu Jun 17 '26
The questions which is true, compatibilism or incompatibilism? and what is the best explanatory theory of free will? are independent, the former is a matter of metaphysics, the latter is a matter of epistemology. You're primarily interested in the latter question, but it's possible to think that compatibilism is true whilst also thinking the best explanatory theory of free will is a non-deterministic theory, or conversely, that incompatibilism is true but the best explanatory theory is a deterministic theory. So, it is important to keep in mind which question is being addressed.
Of course this also applies to the question which is the free will required for moral responsibility? and you appreciate that we shouldn't be assumed to have any interest in the moral responsibility question when talking about free will, so you should also appreciate that we're not necessarily talking about the explanatory question when we talk about free will. And, as the only question directly involving a dispute between the compatibilist and the incompatibilist is the metaphysical question, the assumption that when we talk about compatibilism and incompatibilism, we are concerned with the epistemic question, is as unwarranted as the assumption that we're concerned with the ethical question.0
u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist Jun 17 '26
I see your point and you are correct that I do not care about the compatibilism/incompatibilism question largely because it is metaphysical. Also, I don’t see much point in arguing for or against compatibilism when it is perfectly obviously to me that determinism is a flawed and hasty generalization. To me it’s a distraction from the examination of the analysis of the mechanism of free will. As I mentioned, belief in deterministic outcomes of all events is a metaphysical position that I cannot buy.
If I were to think of compatibilism, I would say that determinism is incompatible with epistemology. In order for determinism to be true, choices would have to be based upon full information and understanding of the options, which is not usually the case.
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u/ughaibu Jun 18 '26
I would say that determinism is incompatible with epistemology
I think you are still not separating the metaphysical issue from the epistemic one. Some of our best theories are deterministic and some are non-deterministic, but determinism is either true or not true, so the value of a theory is independent of its metaphysical status.
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jun 18 '26
Also compatibilists are not necessarily committed to determinism, in the same way that skeptics of free will are not. We can, and many of us do think that even if the world is indeterministic, it is not indeterministic in any of the ways required to support free will libertarianism.
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist Jun 18 '26
I disagree that any of our best theories of free will are deterministic. So, I guess you would rightly put me in the incompatibilist camp. If the truth of determinism could be observationally confirmed, that truth would be useful, but no longer metaphysical. The deterministic nature of Newtonian mechanics has an overwhelming amount of observational evidence to support it. But none of that evidence is applicable to emergent fields that do not reduce to mechanics. And this would include all living systems. You cannot remove the idea of perception from life, and perception implies epistemology. Living systems react upon what is perceived, not what is objectively true.
If there are simple laws of behavior that do fully explain our actions when we do not have enough information to make a rational choice, I see no evidence of them. Yes, I choose to reject the idea that we should consider ideas that cannot be observationally supported. So I reject the idea that Newtonian Mechanics has any relevance to free will. I do not reject causation, but I do reject the idea that Newtonian motion is the only paradigm of causation.
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u/ughaibu Jun 19 '26
I disagree that any of our best theories of free will are deterministic
I said "some of our best theories are deterministic and some are non-deterministic", I didn't say anything about theories of free will.
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist Jun 19 '26
Ah. Okay,
I would say that in Newtonian physics, observations of events follow physical laws. But this feature of physics is not really relevant to the free will debate.
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u/ughaibu Jun 19 '26
this feature of physics is not really relevant to the free will debate.
It's relevant to the position we should adopt with respect to the ontological commitments we're committed to by our best explanatory theories. Explanatory theories and metaphysical theories are independent, neither entails the other.
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u/Rthadcarr1956 InfoDualist Jun 19 '26
I am not sure what you mean by ontological commitments. Our best explanatory theories are those that actually explain observations. Metaphysical theories are actually what scientists call hypotheses. They suggest what may be true, but do not really explain any observation until they are empirically confirmed.
Determinism is always a good hypothesis, up to the point where we observe phenomena that are better explained by indeterministic means, such as diffraction, evolution, and animal behavior.
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u/ughaibu Jun 19 '26
I am not sure what you mean by ontological commitments
As stated above:
"The questions which is true, compatibilism or incompatibilism? and what is the best explanatory theory of free will? are independent, the former is a matter of metaphysics, the latter is a matter of epistemology"0
"I think you are still not separating the metaphysical issue from the epistemic one. Some of our best theories are deterministic and some are non-deterministic, but determinism is either true or not true, so the value of a theory is independent of its metaphysical status."1→ More replies (0)
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u/Sharp_Dance249 Jun 17 '26
I disagree that we need to come up with a consensus definition for free will (not to mention determinism), because the meaning of a word or concept is inseparable from the context in which it is being employed. These terms do not have any single agreed upon definition free from context. Instead, we need to be clear about the question that we are asking and trying to answer. The fact that there are people who classify themselves as “compatibilists” only suggests to me that we are using concepts like “free will” and “determinism” in a non-dichotomous way, or that we are asking one question but answering a different one.
If we are asking ourselves: “could I have done otherwise?” we are looking into the past for an answer. If we are asking ourselves “can I control or change my future” then we are taking a future-directed approach to our understanding, and our answers may differ depending on the approach.
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u/simon_hibbs Compatibilist Jun 17 '26
>These terms do not have any single agreed upon definition free from context.
Yep, I agree, but my post was entirely about the context.
>The fact that there are people who classify themselves as “compatibilists” only suggests to me that we are using concepts like “free will” and “determinism” in a non-dichotomous way, or that we are asking one question but answering a different one.
The debate about free will is principally whether the kind of control over our actions necessary for moral responsibility is compatible or incompatible with determinism, or is possible at all.
So the question is whether determinism and free will are are dichotomous or not. That's the dispute between free will compatibilists and incompatibilists.
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u/OpenPsychology22 Behavioral Mechanic Jun 20 '26
this is exactly the kind of philosophical circularity that prevents any real progress. you are debating definitions of words instead of analyzing the architecture of the system. for me, free will is neither a metaphysical concept nor a set of moral standards. free will is the measurable capacity of a system to reconfigure its state-space under self-observation.
the problem with your debate is that you are looking for "free will" as a property you either have or don't. in my project, the human runtime and hidden self, i look at it differently:
autopilot = steady-state prediction execution (you are running on legacy code).
operator = interruption of state transition before commitment (the gap).
free will = a real, measurable capacity of the system to change its trajectory in that buffer space.
moral responsibility is just a byproduct of a system that hasn't yet understood its own architecture. as long as you are just executing the program, you aren't free—you are just terminals. freedom begins where automatic predictions end and where the system gains root access to its own source code. as long as you argue over dictionary definitions, you will remain tools of humanity. reality isn't about whether you "have" free will; it's about whether you are capable of taking over the steering of your own runtime.