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Wednesday
April 25, 2007

Free Will or Not? by Tibor R. Machan

Sure enough, some topics resurface quite naturally in the wake of certain types of events. The Virginia Tech massacre has brought out the gun control champions, as well as those who anticipate their histrionics and warn that banning guns can do more harm than good in just such circumstances. Also, the issue of whether perpetrators of such heinous acts are helpless or in fact possess free will and are therefore responsible for their actions has come up (notably in a recent missive by New York Times columnist David Brooks.) (Read more...)
Discuss this Article (112 messages)

Saturday, May 12, 2007 - 11:55pm

Jon,

Consider Robert Malcom "determined."

Ed

Sunday, May 13, 2007 - 4:32am

[screaming] "I can't help it - the molecules made me the way I am!!!" [sniff, sniff] ;-)

Sunday, May 13, 2007 - 9:31am

Jeffrey: "We may freely choose to think more or less clearly and more or less deeply about something, but our conclusions and subsequent actions are all pre-determined in an inescapable way by the content of our pre-existing values. Is this correct?"

Our actions are determined by our values (and their relative placement in our value system), which are themselves determined by our thinking or not, which is within our own control.

Jeffrey: "By the way, this is not my interpretation of what Rand means when she writes: "the choice that controls all the choices you make" in the passage you quote. I believe that she is identifying the most fundamental free choice available to us, not the only free choice (despite the use of the word only earlier which I think is a rhetorical flourish)."

Well, I don't know how she could have been any clearer about it. AR wasn't one to sacrifice clarity for "rhetorical flourish." She was extremely careful about her words.

Ed: "Consider Robert Malcom "determined.""

I'm not sure I understand, Ed. If what you're implying is that I'm endorsing determinism, you're wrong. A man's actions are determined by his values, yes. But what determines what he values and how much he values it? HE does, by his own volition. His actions aren't the result of a force over which he has no control; they're the result of the values he's freely adopted, by his own thinking or not.

Sunday, May 13, 2007 - 5:47pm

Jon Trager wrote:

> Our actions are determined by our values (and their relative placement in our value system),
> which are themselves determined by our thinking or not, which is within our own control.

Jon:

You appear to be saying that in real time we do not exercise direct free-will control over our choices and actions. We think, to what ever degree we choose, and thereby program our value hierarchy, but the current state of our value hierarchy then determines all of our decisions and actions in real time. Am I understanding you correctly?

Regards,
--
Jeff

Sunday, May 13, 2007 - 7:20pm

John asked,

Bill just wondering and my apologies if you've already explained, but how would you define free will?

The term "free will" can be used in different senses, but the sense in which Objectivists use it is perhaps best reflected in the following statement by philosopher Richard Taylor: "In the case of an action that is free, it must be such that it is caused by the agent who performs it, but such that no antecedent conditions were sufficient for performing just that action." (Taylor, Metaphysics, p. 50)

Ed wrote,

You would say that free will always involves an initial indifference between choices, but not (always) doing what you felt like doing.

Yes, indifference, because if the moral agent were not indifferent to the alternatives confronting him -- if he were to value one alternative more than the other(s) -- then he would necessarily choose the one that he values most. I don't believe, however, that we are ever indifferent to all of the alternatives confronting us. Suppose, for example, that you cannot decide whether to clean up the yard or remain comfortably seated in your chair. If, during this period of indecision, you remain seated, you will, by that very fact, have chosen to stay where you are. Deciding not to choose between a particular alternative is itself a choice.

I wrote, "I'm not sure about C), which could be consistent with compatibilism, depending on how it's interpreted. If the ability to perform or refrain from performing an act depends on one's underlying intentions, then it's not free unless one's intentions are themselves free, i.e., not strictly determined by one's values and underlying motivations."

This is what I've been harping about, Bill. Your conception of free will is a completely arbitrary will -- and it is not philosophically-correct to think that way.

Well, if the choice isn't ultimately arbitrary, then it's weighted in favor of one of the alternatives, and a weighted choice is not free. As Ayn Rand puts it, "A free will saddled with a tendency is like a game with loaded dice. It forces man to struggle through the effort of playing, to bear responsibility and pay for the game, but the decision is weighted in favor of a tendency that he had no power to escape. If the tendency...is not of his choice, his will is not free. (For the New Intellectual, p. 168)

I wrote, "I don't think D) qualifies, for if autonomy is influenced by built character, higher values, informed reason, etc., then it is determined by these factors."

Here you equivocate between "influenced" and "determined" -- and that is philosophically-incorrect to do.

Doesn't "influenced" imply "determined"? If a person is influenced to choose one alternative over another, then his choice is weighted in favor of the influenced alternative, and (as we have seen) a weighted choice is not free.

I wrote, "Nor would E) qualify, as it is a description, not of free will, but of indeterminism."

Interesting answer. If you admit that free will is not identical to indeterminism -- and you, here, do -- then you have also admitted (albeit indirectly) that determinism is not the opposite of free will. So, with determinism not being an opposite to free will, there's wiggle-room in your mind for both to exist at the same time (because they don't contradict each other)?

"Indeterminism," as the term is used here, does not simply mean the opposite (or negation) of determinism. Free will is a species of non-determinism but not of indeterminism. In the Objectivist lexicon, indeterminism is the view that "not all human action is necessitated, because some actions allegedly have no causes at all.... In certain cases it is just a sheer, causeless accident which of two actions a man performs." (Harry Binswanger, "Volition as cognitive Self-Regulation," p. 5) By contrast, the doctrine of free will holds that a person's choices do have a cause, the cause being the moral agent himself. According to determinists, free will may imply indeterminism, but free will is not synonymous with indeterminism.

- Bill

Sunday, May 13, 2007 - 9:09pm

So Bill are you saying there is no such thing as free will?

Sunday, May 13, 2007 - 10:51pm

Ed wrote,

Bill, as Jon Trager alludes to in post 51, you sell humans short. When you brought up the analogy of the famous Buridan's Ass dilemma, you equivocated between an ass and a human. You didn't presume any kind of intellectual deliberation on the human's part. Instead, you said that humans, like hungry asses, will choose based on happenstance focus.

I wasn't suggesting that the person didn't choose to focus on the various alternatives confronting him, only that he would probably choose an alternative that he was already focused on at the time he wanted to make his choice.

But here is how a human would actually react (and notice it involves free will) ...

1) notice 2 sources of same food equidistant from present location
2) notice hunger
3) notice no appreciable difference over which choice is made (but that EITHER would satisfy hunger)
4) deliberately, but somewhat randomly, choose to decide on one of them (over the other) because of the existential indifference of the 2 choices AND the importance of your life continuance.

Right. But the question is, what is the nature of this "random" process? Why does he choose one alternative rather than the other, if they are both equally desirable? My answer is that he would reach a point (perhaps very quickly) at which he no longer wished to postpone the decision, and at that point would simply choose whichever alternative he happened to be focused on at the time. Again, I'm not saying that he didn't choose to focus on that alternative to begin with.

Asses don't "choose" like that. Asses aren't "free" like that.

Of course. The example was designed simply to challenge the determinist, by arguing that if determinism were true, the ass would starve to death, and so would a determined human being, since there is nothing motivating him to choose one alternative over the other. Aristotle alludes to the problem in his "On the Heavens," wherein he writes "of the man who, though exceedingly hungry and thirsty, and both equally, yet being equidistant from food and drink, is therefore bound to stay where he is." (295b33) But, of course, this is a purely imaginary dilemma, for animals as well as for humans, since no animal, however determined, has ever starved to death, because it couldn't decide between two equally attractive sources of food.

- Bill

(Edited by William Dwyer
on 5/13, 11:26pm)

Sunday, May 13, 2007 - 11:22pm

John asks,

So Bill are you saying there is no such thing as free will?

Yes, on the grounds that every choice, including the choice to think or not to think, is determined by one's value judgments. As Jon Trager points out, Objectivism disagrees with this view, because, while it regards every other choice as determined by one's value judgments, it does not apply the same standard to the choice to think or not to think. That choice is not considered the result of a value judgment, even though all other choices are. The problem that I have with the Objectivist view is that every choice, including the choice to think or not to think, is a conscious decision, which presupposes an awareness of the alternatives and an evaluation of their relative merits. Since every choice is made for the sake of a value, it is necessarily regarded by the moral agent as the best means of satisfying that value.

- Bill

Monday, May 14, 2007 - 5:29am

Bill,

The problem that I have with the Objectivist view is that every choice, including the choice to think or not to think, is a conscious decision, which presupposes an awareness of the alternatives and an evaluation of their relative merits.

But the choice to think or not doesn't have to come from a promulgated (rationally-originated) desire to think. E. Mack dealt with this issue sufficiently in The Philosophic Thought of Ayn Rand. How can the very choice to think be something that one thinks about? It sounds like a cart before a horse. In reality, the choice to think is usually caused by an individual's response to unsatisfying environmental cues.

In the case of animals, the response to unsatisfying environmental cues is pre-programmed (through instinct). In the case of humans, it isn't.

Ed

Monday, May 14, 2007 - 6:34am

Ed T. wrote:

In reality, the choice to think is usually caused by an individual's response to unsatisfying environmental cues.

The proof is in the pudding! :-) Here Ed is unsatisfied with Bill D.'s concept of free will. So he decides to think of another way to influence Bill. Moreover, he is "determined" to influence Bill. This is probably in vain, since Bill has chosen to stand his ground and he can't have chosen otherwise. :-)

Monday, May 14, 2007 - 7:40am

Jeffrey: "You appear to be saying that in real time we do not exercise direct free-will control over our choices and actions. We think, to what ever degree we choose, and thereby program our value hierarchy, but the current state of our value hierarchy then determines all of our decisions and actions in real time. Am I understanding you correctly?"

I think so, Jeffrey. Of course, a person can carefully think about different alternatives when faced with a dilemma. But that consideration is just an effort to identify which of the available alternatives is higher on his existing value scale in a case where it's not immediately obvious to him.

Now, as I've said before, that value scale was created by him and is possible to change. But the values toward the low end of the scale are easier to change than the values toward the high end.

Bill: "As Jon Trager points out, Objectivism disagrees with this view, because, while it regards every other choice as determined by one's value judgments, it does not apply the same standard to the choice to think or not to think."

Hold on, Bill. What I said in post #51 is that the choice to think or not IS determined by a value: one's own life. That's the standard O'ism applies to the choice to think or not, as thinking is the identification/integration of what exists for the purpose of furthering one's life and happiness. Was that not clear in my message?

(Edited by Jon Trager on 5/14, 1:09pm)

Monday, May 14, 2007 - 7:51am

Bill:

John asks,

So Bill are you saying there is no such thing as free will?

Yes, on the grounds that every choice, including the choice to think or not to think, is determined by one's value judgments.

But don't people choose their values judgements?

Monday, May 14, 2007 - 10:46am

I wrote, "The problem that I have with the Objectivist view is that every choice, including the choice to think or not to think, is a conscious decision, which presupposes an awareness of the alternatives and an evaluation of their relative merits." Ed replied,

But the choice to think or not doesn't have to come from a promulgated (rationally-originated) desire to think. E. Mack dealt with this issue sufficiently in The Philosophic Thought of Ayn Rand. How can the very choice to think be something that one thinks about? It sounds like a cart before a horse. In reality, the choice to think is usually caused by an individual's response to unsatisfying environmental cues.

"The choice to think," in the Objectivist lexicon, is not the choice to go from a state of absolute non-thinking to a state of thinking, which is impossible. It is the choice to raise or sharpen one's level of thinking and awareness. If one were not, at some level, aware of the choice to think and of its desirability, it wouldn't be a genuine choice.

I wrote, "As Jon Trager points out, Objectivism disagrees with this view, because, while it regards every other choice as determined by one's value judgments, it does not apply the same standard to the choice to think or not to think." Jon replied,

Hold on, Bill. What I said in post #51 is that the choice to think or not IS determined by a value: one's own life. That's the standard O'ism applies to the choice to think or not, as thinking is the identification/integration of what exists for the purpose of furthering one's life and happiness. Was that not clear in my message?

Jon, my apologies if I misrepresented you, but I took you to be advocating a free, undetermined choice. If you really believe that the choice to think is itself determined by a value, then how can you consider the choice to be free? And how does your view comport with Rand's, in which she writes, "that which you call 'free will' is your mind's freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom, the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and your character."? I understood her to be saying here that the choice to think is not determined by anything, not even one's values.

I wrote that there is no free will (in the traditional or Objectivist sense of the term), "on the grounds that every choice, including the choice to think or not to think, is determined by one's value judgments." John Armaos replied,

But don't people choose their values judgements?

Not in the sense that they could just as well have chosen a different value judgment. A value judgment does not result directly from a choice but from an observation or awareness of the benefit or value of an action or of the object of an action. It is not something one chooses, any more than one "chooses" to value pleasure or disvalue pain. A value judgment is an estimate of a thing's value.

- Bill

Monday, May 14, 2007 - 11:12am

Bill:

I wrote that there is no free will (in the traditional or Objectivist sense of the term), "on the grounds that every choice, including the choice to think or not to think, is determined by one's value judgments." John Armaos replied,

But don't people choose their values judgements?

Not in the sense that they could just as well have chosen a different value judgment. A value judgment does not result directly from a choice but from an observation or awareness of the benefit or value of an action or of the object of an action. It is not something one chooses, any more than one "chooses" to value pleasure or disvalue pain. A value judgment is an estimate of a thing's value.

- Bill

I'm having a hard time understanding this. Isn't the process of estimating a thing's value require a set of choices?

Monday, May 14, 2007 - 11:27am

I'm having a hard time understanding this. Isn't the process of estimating a thing's value require a set of choices?

It can, but the estimate itself isn't a choice.

- Bill

Monday, May 14, 2007 - 11:51am

John A. asks Bill D.:

But don't people choose their values judgements?

This question was raised in earlier threads.
http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/GeneralForum/0739.shtml#1
http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/Dissent/0046.shtml

It might help to peruse them. Roger Bissell's posts are quite relevant, as he and Bill Dwyer largely agree. It's hard to get a real clear answer, because the dialogue can get stuck on a subtle distinction, sidetracked, or go in circles.

After hearing from Bill D., John A. writes:

I'm having a hard time understanding this. Isn't the process of estimating a thing's value require a set of choices?

This is the way it usually goes.

Monday, May 14, 2007 - 12:21pm

Maybe it's just a semantics thing for me that I'm hung up on. I thought free will is a recognition that man has the ability to think and choose for himself.

Monday, May 14, 2007 - 1:01pm

Maybe it's just a semantics thing for me that I'm hung up on. I thought free will is a recognition that man has the ability to think and choose for himself.

As it is used here, free will is not defined simply as the ability to think and choose for oneself; a person whose choices are determined by his value judgments would have that ability. Free will is the ability to make choices that are not necessitated by antecedent causes.

- Bill
(Edited by William Dwyer
on 5/14, 9:18pm)

Monday, May 14, 2007 - 1:29pm

Bill,

Free will is the ability to make choices that are not necessitated by antecedent causes.

In other words, a will that is free has to be free from reality -- a will able to choose arbitrarily (otherwise, it isn't "free"). Only the arbitrary can be "free", everything else must be "determined" -- "free" and "determined" make a true dichotomy.

Is that right so far?

Ed

Monday, May 14, 2007 - 1:52pm

Bill D:

Free will is the ability to make choices that are not necessitated by antecedent causes.

Ed T.:

In other words, a will that is free has to be free from reality -- a will able to choose arbitrarily (otherwise, it isn't "free"). Only the arbitrary can be "free", everything else must be "determined" -- "free" and "determined" make a true dichotomy.
Is that right so far?

Not even by me, and I thought I was on your side! I agree with Bill's words (but maybe not with what he means). Reality can and usually does *influence* (not "necessitate") our choices. Choices influenced by reality aren't "free from reality."