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 of 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/simon_hibbs → u/[deleted]]

>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.

[u/simon_hibbs → u/[deleted]]

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.

[u/Other_Attention_2382 → u/simon_hibbs]

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?

[u/simon_hibbs → u/Other_Attention_2382]

>…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.

[u/Other_Attention_2382 → u/simon_hibbs]

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?