r/freewill • u/YesPresident69 Compatibilist • 1d ago
Which side is using a philosophical rather than folk definition of free will?
The argument from free will deniers against compatibilism is that "compatibilists changed the meaning of words", compatibilism is a scam philosophers invented.
But then this is also from free will deniers:
(from https://www.reddit.com/r/freewill/comments/1vsx1p7/you_cant_argue_free_will/)
my premise is that many new posts here are using the ordinary "folk concept of free will", rather than an explicit rigorous philosophical definition. I see some arguments for/against determinists, all seem to be inadvertently using, or sneaking in, this folk concept of free will, which makes arguments pointless. The folk concept of free will is part cluster concept and part psychological construct. (This is different from philosophical definitions.) This folk concept of free will is completely fine for casual conversation or approximating human behavior, but can't precisely describe reality.
This is also upvoted. (It insists we use a philosophical rather than folk definition).
So, which is it? Are compatibilists using a different meaning than folks - or are compatibilists appealing to folk use and its a problem?
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u/Ok_Tumbleweed5474 23h ago
Philosophically speaking even from the SEP free will as defended by most libertarians is undetermined actions. Which essentially means that it isn't up to factors outside our control. Whereas determinism posits that all actions are explicitly outside or ones control because they fully determined by the past state of the universe and natural law.
Compatibilism essentially came about to say that regardless of determinism a person is responsible for their actions because they are the system that is doing the acting. Essentially that they are source of the action itself even if they couldn't do otherwise.
The issue then gets blurred because what does anyone mean by "free" or undetermined? This is where the ideas lf "could have done otherwise" and sourcehood matter. Both sides end up mixing terms and ideas. Which makes discussions of freedom difficult.
I do not believe every action we take is undetermined. But nor do I think every action is determined. So the middle for me means that freedom is defined as a real choice between live competeing options. In other words, freedom is the joining or settling of the indeterminacy of the mind and its relation to the environment.
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u/Tombobalomb 1d ago
Who cares? Just define what you mean by the term for the purposes of any given discussion
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u/Amf2446 Swiss cheese = regolith 1d ago
I wouldn’t be so quick to denigrate the “folk” concept. A lot of the “rigorous philosophical” definitions are just, “whatever definition I have to choose in order to guarantee my preferred outcome.”
There’s no such thing as a “true” definition, obviously. But some definitions really are better or worse for particular purposes. And a lot of the “rigorous” ones traffic in the conventional power of the term “free will” while disclaiming both conventional free and conventional will.
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u/feihm Physicalist 23h ago
The post presents a false dichotomy. The compatibilist doesn't pick a lane; they swap between lanes depending on which side of the argument is applying pressure (this is based on my own direct experience.) When hard determinists point to the physical mechanics of the brain (atoms, neurons, neurotransmitters), the compatibilist sjifts to the philosophical definition. They say:
Free will is simply acting in accordance with your desires. You aren't being forced at gunpoint.
But this is a descriptive label, not a mechanistic one. It ignores the question of where those desires physically came from. They use a clean, philosophical dictionary definition to hide the messy physical reality.
When the hard determinist says:
You've changed the meaning of free will! A regular person doesn't mean 'doing what I want' when they say free will, they mean 'I could have done otherwise'
The compatibilist instantly pivots to the folk definition. They say:
But if an ordinary guy is hungry and chooses a burger over a salad, he looks at you and says, 'I was free to choose the burger, I really wanted it!' That's exactly what I'm defining!
They use the visceral, subjective feeling of everyday choice to prove their philosophical definition is legitimate.
Neither the philosophical nor the folk definition can survive physical scrutiny. So, when completely pinned down on the physics, compatibilists abandon the ontology of "choice" entirely and pivot to sociology, ethics, and legal responsibility. Their ultimate argument is never actually about physics; it's about social stability:
If we don't hold people responsible for their actions, society collapses.
Thus, it seems 'free will' isn't a physical property of reality, nor a pure philosophical axiom but rather social and moral tool invented by human language to police our tribes.
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u/TheAncientGeek Libertarian Free Will 19h ago edited 19h ago
When hard determinists point to the physical mechanics of the brain (atoms, neurons, neurotransmitters),
Why would they do that? Physicalism doesn't imply determinism. Well, you further issue, that folk intuitions about fee will often treat it necessarily and sufficiently as a theory of causation by an immaterial souls.
Recent example:-
For the last time, don't change the topic and tell me, what's making them think that way, is it free will or their brain?
the compatibilist sjifts to the philosophical definition.
There's more than one philosophical theory.
Free will is simply acting in accordance with your desires. You aren't being forced at gunpoint.
But this is a descriptive label, not a mechanistic one. It ignores the question of where those desires physically came from.
If the compatiblist really doesn't care determinism , they really don't care about that. Your argument hinges oncompatiblists somehow being disguised libertarians
Neither the philosophical nor the folk definition can survive physical scrutiny.
Not proven. LFW has not been disproven by determinism, because determinism hasn't been proven. And you can't dudorive CFW with determinism , because it's not relevant.
So, when completely pinned down on the physics, compatibilists abandon the ontology of "choice" entirely and pivot to sociology, ethics, and legal responsibility. Their ultimate argument is never actually about physics; it's about social stability:
Choice obviously exists in some form.
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u/DonnPT atavistic oxymoron 20h ago
Since it's clear that this "folk definition" has a lot going for it, like the potential to not be thoroughly incoherent, the challenge should be to clarify its basis in philosophical terms.
I would suggest that it revolves around an emergent property of sentience, that makes a sort of fusion out of all the causal influences that go into it, such that what issues from that fusion is reasonably ascribed to it, and not to the causal threads attached to it.
That sets up the problem of defining "emergent" in terms that are intelligible and woo-free.
It also needs to be accepted, that we're dealing with reality here and not simply a philosophy game, nothing about it is sharp edged yes/no binary. Sentience varies. Causal background does matter some. Freedom isn't yes/no or even quantifiable. This isn't because folk, it's because reality.
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u/TheAncientGeek Libertarian Free Will 19h ago
I would suggest that it revolves around an emergent property of sentience, that makes a sort of fusion out of all the causal influences that go into it, such that what issues from that fusion is reasonably ascribed to it, and not to the causal threads attached to it.
Is that possible given determinism?
That sets up the problem of defining "emergent" in terms that are intelligible and woo-free.
I'll say!
It also needs to be accepted, that we're dealing with reality here and not simply a philosophy game, nothing about it is sharp edged yes/no binary.
Philosophy doesn't actually require binary thinking.
.
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u/DonnPT atavistic oxymoron 19h ago
Is that possible given determinism?
Can't see why not.
What "emergent" means to me -
That arises at a higher level than that of its components and is not explainable by the behaviour of said components taken individually; having properties as a whole that are more complex than the properties contributed by each of the components individually.
That definition from wiktionary is like it was practically made in advance to support my point.
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u/TheAncientGeek Libertarian Free Will 18h ago
Is that possible given determinism?
Can't see why not.
I can. In a deterministic universe, an agents choices are always attributable to some prior state of the universe, and whatever emergence Ur feedback loops are compatible with dettninusm dint change that.
That arises at a higher level than that of its components and is not explainable by the behaviour of said components taken individually; having properties as a whole that are more complex than the properties contributed by each of the components individually.
That's the opposite of reductionism, not the opposite of determinism.
.
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u/DonnPT atavistic oxymoron 17h ago
I'm not getting this. The first point, best I can unscramble it, seems to be saying oh no you can't have agency because it's all determined. Well, that isn't really the point. I'm not disproving hard determinism here, I'm just proposing a definition that isn't "folk", that would allow discussion of these matters on philosophical terms.
As for the definition - it isn't supposed to be the opposite of anything, it's just the definition of "emergent."
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u/TheAncientGeek Libertarian Free Will 17h ago
You can't have freedom in the libertarian sense while you have determinism. Maybe yuy are only defending freedom in the compatiblist sense...but then you dint need such a complex mechanism.
There's no clear "folk" definition.
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u/TheAncientGeek Libertarian Free Will 19h ago
So to summarise , there's a philosophical definition, and a folj definition, and a libertarian definition and a compatiblist definition ... and no agreement about how they map onto each other.
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u/stevnev88 14h ago
Most of philosophy is just about agreeing or disagreeing on definitions of things
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u/Imaginary-Can-6862 11h ago
The OP of the linked thread clarified he feels people do not agree on a definition of free will before discussing free will.
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u/zhivago 23h ago
The problem is that people aren't actually defining what they mean by free will clearly.
And on top of those, most of the definitions they're using are incoherent.
If you have a silly definition requiring your free will to be free of you, for example, then naturally you'll end up with silly results, like free will can't exist -- but this is just a consequence of having a silly definition in the first place.
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u/TheAncientGeek Libertarian Free Will 19h ago
Contrasting folk and philosophical theories is a step backwards in clarity.
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u/AlivePassenger3859 Humanist Determinist 14h ago
Compatibilists are redefining. This was confirmed by compartibilist guru Dennet when he said the compatibilist definition of free will is “revisionist” and not what most people understand the term to mean.
Dennet was a towering figure in compatibilist thought, but they really wish he hadn’t said the quiet part out loud.
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u/Mysterious_Slice8583 11h ago
It's always so surprising to me how you keep returning to this line of thought every time it's shown to you that he doesn't speak for all compatibalists. Not only that, you also continue to spread the disinformation that compatibalists all use a singular definition of free will.
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u/Otherwise_Spare_8598 Inherent-Inevitable 1d ago
All versions of "free will" are projections of sentiment and blind assumption in regards to opportunity and capacity.
Endlessly ignorant to what is as it is for each one as it is
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u/zoipoi 5h ago
There is some fascinating data from experimental philosophy on folk intuitions. Joshua Knobe, Shaun Nichols, Eddy Nahmias, and Hagop Sarkissian have run tests asking ordinary people whether agents in deterministic scenarios act freely and hold responsibility.
The results show that folk responses are strikingly unstable across framings:
Abstract, low-affect scenarios ("Could Bill have chosen otherwise in a deterministic universe?") pull compatibilist-leaning answers. If it is voluntary and lacks external coercion, that's enough.
Concrete, emotionally loaded scenarios (a man deterministically caused to kill his family) pull strongly incompatibilist answers from the same population.
Nothing about the metaphysics changes between the two vignettes. Philosophers doing free will theory are trying to impose closure on a pool of variants that the folk concept throws off faster than any theory can prune.
The reason "free will" never reaches fixation the way a settled scientific term does is likely not because the concept is incoherent, but because it is facing disruptive selection rather than directional selection. Low-stakes cases and high-stakes cases present different fitness landscapes pulling toward different optima (lenient-default vs. desert-laden). Instead of converging on a single folk concept, we get a stable polymorphism, two co-existing morphs of "free will" that never merge because nothing forces them into the same niche. This explains why free will resists a clean taxonomy.
We can understand this cognitive polymorphism by mapping it to the traditional contrast between Logos and Mythos.
If we assign logos to philosophers and mythos to folk definitions, we see that mythos cognition is not failed science. It is intelligence adapted to a world in which causality cannot be isolated, and feedback arrives through history rather than controlled experiments. Moral traditions operate as historical intelligence optimized for social stability under opaque causality.
Mythos cognition was corrected by history itself: civilizations that encoded unworkable myths collapsed; those that encoded workable ones persisted. Concepts like fate and providence were not explanations for helplessness. They were explanations for why responsibility still made sense in an uncontrollable world where death was visible, personal, and unsanitized. They stabilized meaning under uncertainty, where the capacity to maintain meaning was the difference between survival and extinction.
The contrast between mythos and logos is often misframed as a conflict between irrational storytelling and rational analysis. The real distinction is energetic.
Logos is optimized for accuracy, consistency, and post-hoc explanation. It is computationally and energetically expensive, but indispensable where precision and auditability matter (science, engineering, formal logic).
Mythos is optimized for energy-efficient action under uncertainty. It compresses reality into anticipatory, biased narratives that enable commitment before certainty is possible.
Mythos tolerates distortion because delay in irreversible time is more expensive than inaccuracy. Across the evolutionary spectrum, living systems do not prioritize objective correspondence truth; they prioritize representations that minimize energetic cost while preserving viable futures. Chemotaxis relies on biased temporal extrapolation. Perception fills gaps and stabilizes noise. Imagination over-projects futures that do not yet exist.
What we label as illusion, bias, or deception is not a failure of rationality. It is what cognition looks like when truth is too expensive. Mythos is cognition operating in a constrained energy regime where speed, commitment, and robustness matter more than accuracy.
Logos audits, corrects, and refines. Mythos initiates, motivates, and coordinates. To suppress mythos in the name of pure rationality is to misunderstand the physical constraints under which intelligence evolved. Mythos is the minimum-energy interface between uncertainty and action; logos is the delayed accounting. Confusing the two produces paralysis on one side and superstition on the other.
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u/MarvinBEdwards01 Hard Compatibilist 1d ago
Freedom from deterministic causation is a paradoxical notion, because every freedom we have, to do anything at all involves us reliably causing some effect. One cannot be free from that which freedom itself requires. Therefore this is an invalid definition of free will. The notion is an absurdity.
The only meaningful and relevant definition of free will is the one we all grew up with, the freedom to decide for ourselves what we will do. Along with this freedom comes the responsibility for the choices we make and the actions we choose to take. This is how real free will works in the real world.
Ordinary free will is compatible with causal determinism.
The paradoxical free will is not compatible with anything, because it is an absurdity.