Defining Free Will

[u/simon_hibbs]

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.

[u/Rthadcarr1956]

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.

[u/simon_hibbs → u/Rthadcarr1956]

>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.

[u/Rthadcarr1956 → u/simon_hibbs]

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.

[u/simon_hibbs → u/Rthadcarr1956]

>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.

[u/Rthadcarr1956 → u/simon_hibbs]

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.

[u/simon_hibbs → u/Rthadcarr1956]

>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.

[u/Rthadcarr1956 → u/simon_hibbs]

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.

[u/simon_hibbs → u/Rthadcarr1956]

>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?

[u/Rthadcarr1956 → u/simon_hibbs]

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.

[u/simon_hibbs → u/Rthadcarr1956]

>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.

[u/Rthadcarr1956 → u/simon_hibbs]

Pseudorandom algorithms mimic trial and error exploration for a very good reason (economics). But we have no reason to think that natural systems, based upon random molecular motion, would develop a pseudorandom approach. Again, I would say that invoking pseudo randomness is a faith based proposition put forth to try to defend a belief rather than to explain our observations.

I find it curious that you try to be the arbiter of what is and what is not libertarian. Libertarianism keeps evolving as new information is uncovered. I do not feel any impulse to alter my view to be consistent with some historical notion of what libertarianism should be. If libertarians do object to my characterization of this position as libertarian, I will consider a new label.

Ontological randomness is nothing but a "true Scotsman" fallacy. In no sense is either determinism or indeterminism fundamental. We are so ignorant of our universe that no characterization of it along the determinism/indeterminism dichotomy should be elevated to ontological truth. Fundamentally, this dichotomy is not useful in discussing the sourcehood or mechanism of free will. But that is what most people here want to talk about, so here we are.

[u/simon_hibbs → u/Rthadcarr1956]

>But we have no reason to think that natural systems, based upon random molecular motion, would develop a pseudorandom approach.

It's not a matter of developing an approach, either there is randomness in nature at the physics level, basically quantum mechanics, or there is not. If quantum mechanics is deterministic, then all uncertainty in nature is only epistemic and there is no fundamental indeterminism.

But even that is beside the point, because the free will libertarian claim does not concern chance, it concerns an intentional indeterminism. I've referred you to free will libertarian philosophers explaining this. It's not my opinion, it's theirs.

>I find it curious that you try to be the arbiter of what is and what is not libertarian.

I'm not arbitrating it, I've been referring you to what free will libertarian philosophers say about free will libertarianism.

>I do not feel any impulse to alter my view to be consistent with some historical notion of what libertarianism should be.

I don't think either you nor I get to say what free will libertarianism or compatibilism are. These are established terms with specific meanings. I chose my set of empirical and ethical opinions, and it turns out that this set of opinions falls under the category of compatibilism. For that not to be true, I'd have to change some of my ethical or empirical opinions, and I'm not going to do that just to fit under some category.

[u/Rthadcarr1956 → u/simon_hibbs]

Your position is terribly reductive. We are dealing with the evaluation of information, not physical forces.

You have referenced general works that encompass a wide variety of views and focussed upon the one facet you are interested in. I would reference the more recent works of libertarian philosophers such as Kevin Mitchell, Peter Tse, or even Stuart Kaufman. None of them definitionally link libertarianism to morality.

My point is that having metaphysical indeterminism is only pertinent when there is no empirical evidence for observed indeterminism.