Determinism and Free will

I don't see how you can possibly compare my analysis of human choice and Randian sacrifice with the bogus Freudian theories about denial of incestuous feelings being proof that you have them. My theory is more like the denial of incestuous feelings coupled with the fact that you had sex with your mother and your sister being proof that you have incestuous feelings. In other words, the attempt to deny that you have incestuous feelings is pretty well trumped by your actions! (Unless someone held a gun to your head.)

Similarly, the denial that you value X less than Y, coupled with the fact that you choose Y instead of X, is proof that you value X less than Y. Or, to put it in more positive form: the claim that you value X more than Y, coupled with the fact that you choose Y instead of X, is proof that you value Y more than X. The attempt to deny that you value X less than Y (and Y more than X) is pretty well trumped by what your actual choice of Y over X.

I'll flesh this out by returning to the standard example of a supposedly bona fide sacrifice given by the Objectivists. A man wants to pursue a career in art, but his mother wants him to be a doctor. So, in order to please his mother he gives up his art career and becomes a doctor. Now the standard Objectivist analysis of this is that he gave up his higher value, being an artist, for a lesser value, being a doctor -- and that that constitutes a sacrifice by Rand's definition. But this is nonsense, because the analysis is too simplistic.

Look what the actual alternatives the man is weighing. He is not simply considering the choice between being an artist or being a doctor. On that simplistic, out-of-context view, it certainly appears that he is committing a sacrifice, if he gives up art for medicine, but only because we are considering no other relevant factors. In particular, we are overlooking the fact that a serious concern of his is pleasing his mother. This factor enters into and heavily influences his choices. In the present case, what he is really considering, then, is the choice between displeasing his mother by being an artist and pleasing his mother by being a doctor. These are the lesser and greater values involved.

So, the man either chooses to displease his mother by being an artist, or to please his mother by being a doctor. Obviously, if he chooses the latter, he is giving up a lesser value (actually, a disvalue), displeasing his mother by being an artist, for a greater value, pleasing his mother by being a doctor. He values pleasing his mother by being a doctor more than he values displeasing her by being an artist. As long as those are the only two choices he thinks he has, and he gives up the first one for the sake of the second one, then neither he nor we have any logical ground for calling that a "sacrifice" in the Randian sense.

Every supposed instance of Randian "sacrifice" fits this pattern. There is no such thing in human action. And it has nothing to do with theories that can't be disconfirmed (a la Freud), but everything to do with the fact that value-determinism is an axiom of human action.

The challenge I offered earlier is still open, Jeff's pre-emptive attempt to avoid engaging it being invalid. Anyone?

REB

Post 41

Saturday, December 10, 2005 - 12:54am

Jeff Perren points out the non-falsifiability of the
"value-determinist" idea.

I agree about that problem, since I don't see any example
which would be taken as falsifying the idea that, in
a choice circumstance, one chooses what one *really*
most values.

However, I think there's an even worse problem, which
pertains to the thesis talking of "values" as if:

(a) they pre-existed a choice; and

(b) were in the nature (though not described as such)
of the "forces" of physics.

I might synopsize this problem as "the cart before the horse."

What I'm getting at with the cart-before-the-horse
image is that instead of *value-causation* being
operative, what's occurring is *value-formation*.
Instead of a person's being made to choose X by the
person's values, the person forms the person's values --
or, arrives at the person's values -- through the
deliberative activity involved in choosing.

I hope to have a chance to discuss this issue
of pre-existing causal "push" versus "pull in
process of being formed" when I can write at
greater length. Meanwhile, possibly this hint
as to the backward placement of where the "value"
belongs in the process might be helpful to others
attempting to grapple with the relationship between
values and decisions.

Ellen

[misspelling corrected]
___
(Edited by Ellen Stuttle
on 12/10, 1:02am)

Post 42

Saturday, December 10, 2005 - 5:47am

Ellen S.,

It's been tried before. See here:
http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/ArticleDiscussions/1302_2.shtml#54

Post 43

Saturday, December 10, 2005 - 10:53am

Roger, my retort is that I lacked the virtue (ie. courage) to pursue my highest value. I (irrationally) wanted her more than air, my friend. Can I get off the couch now?

Analyze that.

Ed

Post 44

Saturday, December 10, 2005 - 12:36pm

Ellen, your metaphor of formative-value-pull sounds more like what I think than preexisting-value-push, but in any case, you are using a causal kind of metaphor to describe how our values move us. They motivate us, and cause us to take the actions we do. I look forward to reading your further thoughts on this.

Ed, I'm tempted to take you literally and analyze your example (?), but judging by the tone (reading between the lines), it seems that what you are really saying to me is GFY. So, that is what I will do instead, pending clarification to the contrary.

REB

Post 45

Saturday, December 10, 2005 - 2:58pm

Jeff,
B-I-N-G-O. Well done.
Michael

Post 46

Saturday, December 10, 2005 - 3:45pm

Rog (pronounced "raj"), how exceptionally rare is the occasion that I would stoop to using intentional duplicity for malicious purposes! You read what wasn't there, MY FRIENDLY ACQUAINTANCE. Roger, I like you. And I like interacting with you. I consider you an equal peer with highly-similar values. You ... you ... you complete me (now I'm kidding). That said, I very much would like comment on this apparent hole that I have blasted into the hull of the SS Value-Deterministicists: the pesky integration of virtue of which I mention above -- which is perhaps stated less eloquently as:

If ya' ain't got the virtue, then ya' can't get the value. If this is true (and I think it is), then there will be values folks hold (quite high values), that they don't choose to seek -- because they haven't yet built the character needed (the virtue needed) with habitual actions. I see you retorting that they "will" enter into the kind of habitual action that builds their character and virtue (enough to the point where they can then productively seek their high values -- but I'm uncomfortable with that response. Taking that response, one could only talk about value-determination as a retrospective summary of one's life. John Q. -- may his soul rest in peace -- lived his life for those values that, ultimately, he had built up his capacity to achieve. If you look at his lived life, then you will see that his decisions were best characterized by that "terminal" value-hierarchy.

V-D (the theory) fails to integrate that human life is a dynamic process of personal growth. It fails to integrate character (virtue) building in acting moral agents. It's a here-now-desire theory that smacks of ethical subjectivism. These are my criticisms, do you have any responses to them?

Ed

Post 47

Saturday, December 10, 2005 - 9:22pm

Ed wrote,

Question for the Value-Determinizers in this thread:

What is it then, when I (or anyone) uses free will to choose to sacrifice a higher value for a lower one? Like when I, back in high school, choose to thwart that which I desired above all other desires (her name was Laura), by choosing not to enter into the required verbal interaction that she had seemed receptive to?

You'll have to explain to me what motivated you to do this? Was it fear of rejection? If so, then you valued the avoidance of a situation in which the rejection might occur. Talking to her wasn't worth risking that possibility. If a value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep--if, in other words, a value is an object of an action--then there is a perfectly legitimate sense of "value" in which you valued choosing not to enter into the required verbal interaction. Was this a sacrifice of a higher value to a lower one? Only in retrospect. You wished that you had had the courage to confront your fear and initiate the interaction. You wished that you had valued talking to her more than avoiding the possibility of being rejected. But in fact, at the time that you made your choice, you didn't value it.

There is a difference between valuing something and wanting to value it. For example, a person who has a pathological fear of elevators cannot bring himself to ride one, even though he wishes that he could. In avoiding elevators, is he sacrificing a higher value for a lower one? Only in the sense that he wishes his fear wasn't so great that he prefers to avoid them. But in choosing not to ride an elevator, his choice is a reflection of what he really values, not what he wishes that he valued.

You write,

Sacrifice can be willfully chosen, but that contradicts value-determinism. Doesn't it?

Not if one understands what Objectivism means by "sacrifice." The only meaningful sense in which sacrifice can be willfully chosen is the sense in which someone believes in the morality of (self) sacrifice. As Nathaniel Branden points out in his article, "Isn't Everyone Selfish?": "Obviously, in order to act, one has to be moved by some personal motive; one has to "want," in some sense, to perform the action. The issue of an action's selfishness or unselfishness depends, not on whether or not one wants to perform it, but on why one wants to perform it. By what standard was the action chosen? To achieve what goal?" (VOS, 59)

If a person is an altruist, then he values the sacrifice of his non-moral values, which is what Rand means which she talks about sacrificing a higher value for a lower one. She means the sacrifice of a higher non-moral value to a lower one. In sacrificing a higher non-moral value to lower one, the altruist is still acting on his values, because he values being faithful to his morality more than he values sacrificing it.

- Bill

Post 48

Saturday, December 10, 2005 - 11:08pm

Ellen Stuttle wrote,

Jeff Perren points out the non-falsifiability of the "value-determinist" idea.

I agree about that problem, since I don't see any example which would be taken as falsifying the idea that, in a choice circumstance, one chooses what one *really* most values.

Where, oh where, did falsifiability become a criterion of truth?! Is there a problem with the law of identity, because no example we can think of would falsify it? Is there a similar problem with the law of causality? How about the laws of arithmetic? I can't think of any example in which two two's equal five. More to the point, how about Rand's concept of value as "the object of an action"? (See "Who Is Ayn Rand?" by Nathaniel Branden, 21) What would falsify that? An object of an action that isn't a value? Well, there isn't any. If you act for an end or goal, then you're acting for the sake of a value. Does that mean that Rand's definition is illegitimate? I don't think so.

Ellen continues,

However, I think there's an even worse problem, which pertains to the thesis talking of "values" as if:

(a) they pre-existed a choice; and

(b) were in the nature (though not described as such) of the "forces" of physics.

I might synopsize this problem as "the cart before the horse."

What I'm getting at with the cart-before-the-horse image is that instead of *value-causation* being operative, what's occurring is *value-formation*. Instead of a person's being made to choose X by the person's values, the person forms the person's values -- or, arrives at the person's values -- through the deliberative activity involved in choosing.

I don't think this is correct, even by Objectivism's standards. Quoting Branden in The Virtue of Selfishness, "In order to choose, [man] requires a standard of value--a purpose which his actions are to serve or at which they are to aim."(Emphasis added, p. 57) Or, as Rand observes, "'Value' presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom and for what? 'Value' presupposes a standard, a purpose and the necessity of action in the face of an alternative. Where there are no alternatives, no values are possible." Branden elaborates: "An entity who--by its nature--had no purposes to achieve, no goals to reach, could have no values and no need of values. There would be no 'for what.'" (Who Is Ayn Rand?, 21,22) In other words, choice presupposes a purpose or a goal for the sake of which the choice is made; it implies a pre-existing value; it doesn't form or create the value, which is nonsensical, because it would imply that a choice can be made without any antecedent goal or purpose.

Furthermore, contrary to Ellen, there is no implication in value determinism that the values which motivate a person's actions are in the nature of the "forces" of physics. The factors that determine a person's actions are final, not efficient causes. They're teleological, not mechanistic. They don't "make" a person choose an action, which suggests that the person is forced to choose it apart from and against his will. This is an absurd characterization that has nothing whatever to do with value determinism.

- Bill

Post 49

Sunday, December 11, 2005 - 1:04am

Ed Thompson wrote (post 34): "Question for the Value-Determinizers in this thread: What is it then, when I (or anyone) uses free will to choose to sacrifice a higher value for a lower one? Like when I, back in high school, choose to thwart that which I desired above all other desires (her name was Laura), by choosing not to enter into the required verbal interaction that she had seemed receptive to? Sacrifice can be willfully chosen, but that contradicts value-determinism. Doesn't it?"

I replied: "No. In fact, what we call "sacrifice" never involves giving up a higher value for a lower one. Never. It is metaphysically impossible for any living being to do this, even human beings. Your example: you valued more to refrain from the "required verbal interaction" than you did to have a relationship with Laura, and you chose accordingly. Had you really desired the relationship above all other desires -- including the desire to refrain from "required verbal interactions" -- you would have chosen Laura instead."

Ed responded (post 43): "Roger, my retort is that I lacked the virtue (ie. courage) to pursue my highest value. I (irrationally) wanted her more than air, my friend. Can I get off the couch now? Analyze that."

I replied: "Ed, I'm tempted to take you literally and analyze your example (?), but judging by the tone (reading between the lines), it seems that what you are really saying to me is GFY. So, that is what I will do instead, pending clarification to the contrary."

Ed responded again (post 46): "Rog (pronounced "raj"), how exceptionally rare is the occasion that I would stoop to using intentional duplicity for malicious purposes! You read what wasn't there, MY FRIENDLY ACQUAINTANCE."

OK, Ed, I get the message! :-) However, I need to clarify that I misread your "Can I get off the couch now? Analyze that" not as "duplicity," but as an ironically stated, irritated rejection of my efforts to explain how your example fit into my value-determinism approach. I see now that you really did want me to try to unpack your example, so we will continue with "the couch" for a bit longer here (at your request :-).

Also, I see now that I earlier misinterpreted your comment about "choosing not to enter into the required verbal interaction that she had seemed receptive to." I read that as meaning that there were certain verbal games or arduous verbal efforts she required of you, and that you chose not to engage in them. What you actually meant appears to be that, as you say, you simply did not have the courage to approach her, and that you thereby lost the opportunity to attain your (supposed) high value, a romantic relationship with her.

Now, you say that you desired Laura "above all other desires," including breathing. Yet, that cannot be, because, as your actions prove, you desired being safe (from rejection) more than you desired having Laura. That is the meaning of the fact that, as you say, you lacked the courage/virtue to pursue her. Avoiding rejection was thus a higher value than attaining Laura, and refraining from taking the risk in talking to her was the virtue by which you achieved that value. (This is not psychologizing, since you yourself explained lack of courage as the reason why you didn't approach Laura in conversation.)

Now, you might object to calling these a "value" and a "virtue," since avoiding rejection and refraining from risk basically mean you are giving up your best chance at achieving your rational self-interest (romantic happiness). But remember that Rand's definitions of these terms are very general. A value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep, and a virtue is the action by which one achieves a value -- regardless of whether that value is rational and objective or irrational and subjective, i.e., life-serving, fulfilling, happiness-promoting, etc., or not.

Look at the nasty pairs of values and virtues in the altruist ethics, for example, such as peace at any price to be achieved by appeasement. But just because we reject the values and virtues of the altruist morality does not mean they are not values and virtues of the altruist morality. And just because we reject the altruist morality does not mean that it is not a morality.

I make this point, because you, like many Objectivists, sometimes speak as though an irrational value, i.e., something you act to gain and/or keep that is not in your rational self-interest is not really a value. And, in parallel, something that you do not act to gain and/or keep that is in your rational self-interest nevertheless is really a value.

This last is very important. Rand was very clear about value requiring action -- and something that you desired or aspired to, but did not act toward, did not qualify as a value. She very much disdained people who wanted to be judged for their "good intentions," rather than their actions. (I don't recall exactly where I read or heard her say it. It might have been in a Q&A to a Peikoff lecture back in the 70s. Perhaps some charitable soul will help us out with this information.)

So, Rand would probably have said that while your aspiration (desire) seemed to be a romantic relationship with Laura, what you aspired to (desired) more strongly, and thus your real value -- that which you acted to gain and/or keep -- was a state of freedom from the pain of possible rejection. In Objectivist terms, you were motivated by "fear of death" (i.e., pain of rejection) rather than "love of life" (i.e., joy of romance). (You will find these phrases somewhere in either The Virtue of Selfishness and/or The Psychology of Self-Esteem. Check the indexes.)

At other times, Rand spoke as if one had lesser values and greater values that might be in conflict with one another. Following her principle about the essence of value being action rather than aspiration (desire), she would have also compared values as greater or lesser, according to whether you acted for them or merely aspired to them (but did not act). So, rather than calling romance a non-value to you, and non-rejection a value to you, she might instead have called romance a lesser value to you, and non-rejection a greater value to you.

Accordingly, she might have described your situation as giving up a lesser (but rational) value, romantic happiness for a greater (but irrational) value, avoidance of possible rejection. Granted, by a rational standard of value (and virtue), romantic happiness should have been your greater value, and courage your operative virtue, but in fact they weren't.

Ed, there's my analysis. I'm sorry for you that things worked out the way they did with Laura. But life goes on and, hopefully, we learn, we grow, we become stronger from our weaknesses and mistakes. I hope I have helped you to see that you did not really "choose to sacrifice a higher value for a lower one" -- not by Rand's definition of "value," anyway.

Best regards,
REB

P.S. -- Now that I have a clearer understanding of my position, I can see that "value-determinism" may not be the best name for it. Using Rand's definition of value, that label suggests that our actions to gain and/or keep something are determined by that which we act to gain and/or keep, which means that our value-seeking actions are determined by the object of our value-seeking actions. Clearly, this does not make a lot of sense! Instead, it's apparent to me that our actions to gain and/or keep something (our value-seeking actions) are determined by what we most strongly want or desire or aspire to.

Naturally, it is best (most life-serving) if one's actions are determined by rational desires rather than irrational desires, whims, etc., and this is the Aristotelian model of right action, also reflected in Rand's ethics of rational self-interest. But I think it's true that in general, rational or not, desire (i.e., strongest desire) determines value and action. You value, and you take value-seeking action in pursuit of, that which you most want or desire.

And since desire and want and will are synonymous in this context, we could label my approach (strange as it may seem) as "will-determinism." Not determinism by some entity within us called the "will," but determinism by us as conscious entities being in a particular relationship of desiring (wanting, willing to achieve) some particular thing or state of affairs more strongly than others. As I have said previously, I my view as being compatible with agent-causation, and this seems to be a clearer explanation of how that is so than I have given previously.

Post 50

Sunday, December 11, 2005 - 5:49am

I make this point, because you, like many Objectivists, sometimes speak as though an irrational value, i.e., something you act to gain and/or keep that is not in your rational self-interest is not really a value. And, in parallel, something that you do not act to gain and/or keep that is in your rational self-interest nevertheless is really a value.

It is not a viable value...

Post 51

Sunday, December 11, 2005 - 7:31am

Bill,
Nothing Popperian intended. I was only trying to suggest that the view Roger expresses is immune from any influence -- that no fact or argument would make any sort of dent in his theory -- because it's not based on any fact. In any case, Roger's retort, and yours, that the theory is founded on an axiom is wrong headed. The Law of Identity, causation, et al are abstractions based on observation of countless facts. Roger's theory denies one of the most obvious facts available to an individual in favor of a sophisticated theory, based on an incorrect view of causation. (All these are assertions, yes. I'm not trying to prove my case here, but simply to delineate some errors.)

To give a partial argument: a theory, to be valid, must be based (ultimately) on observations. Determinism is not. It's based on an unresolved, but mistaken, tension between causation and an observable fact -- that we can choose, at any given moment (barring circumstances such as damaged brains, chemical influences, etc) to do this or we can choose to do that. Sometimes this is in fact, and the chooser knows this, the lower of two of his own values. The error consists of asserting, despite plain evidence to the contrary, that you will only consider this his higher value -- after you've observed what was in fact chosen. The observable power to initiate, direct, and regulate certain mental, and by extension, physical actions is what is basic, not any alleged axiom of human mental functioning.

But I may be wrong in asserting that you and he are wrong, if this is what you and he are saying:

"there is no implication in value determinism that the values which motivate a person's actions are in the nature of the "forces" of physics. The factors that determine a person's actions are final, not efficient causes. They're teleological, not mechanistic. They don't "make" a person choose an action, which suggests that the person is forced to choose it apart from and against his will. This is an absurd characterization that has nothing whatever to do with value determinism."

In that case, then, the problem may be as simple as the misuse of the term "determinism"... just as you and he consistently misuse the term "free will".

"suggests that the person is forced to choose it apart from and against his will" is exactly what "determinism" means because that's what it would be -- if it existed.

And the concept "free will" does not imply "random, uncaused, unmotivated, disconnected from any prior, current, or present facts".

These terms have acquired fairly clear meaning from use (oh my, Popper and Wittgenstein in one post) over a long period. You and he are merely muddying the waters.

Post 52

Sunday, December 11, 2005 - 10:16am

Roger Bissell wrote:

As for choosing our values, the answer is yes and no. It depends on which sense of "value" you mean. A choice pertains to an action. So, while it's true that I can choose an action aimed at obtaining a specific object (i.e., a value), it is not true that I can choose to want to have (i.e., value) the object. http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/ArticleDiscussions/1302_2.shtml#54

     Consider the case of a guy I will call Jim. He has a responsible, well-paying job, a wife, and young children. He has never wanted or used hard drugs. He is invited to a party and is offered some cocaine. He decides to try it, does and likes it. He likes it so much he wants it again days later. He eventually develops quite a habit of using cocaine. After a while it starts affecting his job performance, leads to money problems, and his wife finds out. It threatens his job, marriage and family. He starts thinking about all this and the example he is setting for his kids. He vows to not want or use cocaine ever again. He doesn't break the habit entirely at first. He has a couple of relapses, but eventually he does completely break the habit. He saves his job and family.
     I think it's safe to assume what Roger says about himself above he would also say about Jim. During this entire sequence of events Jim did not choose to want or not want cocaine. He chooses to use cocaine when he wants to and chooses not to use cocaine when he doesn't want to. His want goes on and off like a light switch. However, the switch is something entirely out of Jim's control.
     Let's see how Roger or Dwyer respond to Jim's case.

Post 53

Sunday, December 11, 2005 - 11:37am

Roger,

I've always understood "value determinism" to mean the theory that our values (i.e., our interests) determine our choices. To be sure, the object of our actions does not itself determine our choices, for it is our interest in or desire for it that determines them. But our pursuit of the object reflects the desire for it. You don't pursue a value--you don't act to gain or keep something--without wanting--without being motivated--to gain or keep it. I think "value determinism" is a perfectly legitimate name for your theory, so long as "value" is understood as pertaining to the verb "to value" rather than to the object of the verb--to that which is valued.

Jeff, you wrote,

Nothing Popperian intended. I was only trying to suggest that the view Roger expresses is immune from any influence -- that no fact or argument would make any sort of dent in his theory -- because it's not based on any fact."

I think your criticism, which is very common, is based on a misunderstanding of what we're saying. We're not simply defining a value as whatever someone chooses and then saying that if the person chose it, he must have valued it and that his values therefore determine his actions. If that were our position, what you're saying would indeed be an effective rejoinder to it. For the position would then be vacuous and circular. What we're saying is something entirely different. Our argument is that an unmotivated choice--a choice that is not necessitated by any felt preference for the object of the choice--is psychologically nonsensical, because it would imply an uncaused choice--a choice that is not made for the sake of an end or goal--for the sake of something that the person wants to achieve. In other words, for a choice to occur, there has to be an object of interest. If there is no such object or if one is indifferent to the alternatives that one is facing, such that one lacks a preference for either alternative over the other, then there is no rational basis for a choice. To choose under such circumstances would be an utterly pointless endeavor. As Branden observes, "In order to choose, [man] requires...a purpose which his actions are to serve or at which they are to aim." That purpose has to be something that the actor values or prefers over the alternative; otherwise, there is no reason for him to choose it.

That is the argument. Criticize it, if you must, but please don't accuse us, in so many words, of advocating a theory that is vacuous or "non-falsifiable."

You continue,

Roger's theory denies one of the most obvious facts available to an individual in favor of a sophisticated theory, based on an incorrect view of causation. (All these are assertions, yes. I'm not trying to prove my case here, but simply to delineate some errors.)

To give a partial argument: a theory, to be valid, must be based (ultimately) on observations. [Agreed] Determinism is not. It's based on an unresolved, but mistaken, tension between causation and an observable fact -- that we can choose, at any given moment (barring circumstances such as damaged brains, chemical influences, etc) to do this or we can choose to do that.

You say that this is an observable fact. If it is as observable as you say, why is there any disagreement over it? I don't think what you observe is the ability to choose either of two alternatives under the same conditions. What you observe is the ability to choose either one, if you decide to choose it. In other words, what you observe is that there is nothing preventing you from choosing either alternative, if you should consider it worth choosing.

You continue,

"Sometimes this is in fact, and the chooser knows this, the lower of two of his own values."

Then what motivates him to choose it in preference to the so-called higher value? And what could it possibly mean to say that the value he prefers is lower than the one that he does not prefer? Doesn't that obliterate the meaning of "lower" and "higher" in this context?

You write,

The error consists of asserting, despite plain evidence to the contrary, that you will only consider this his higher value -- after you've observed what was in fact chosen.

"Plain evidence to the contrary"? Evidence to whom? Not to me.

The observable power to initiate, direct, and regulate certain mental, and by extension, physical actions is what is basic, not any alleged axiom of human mental functioning.

Yes, we have the ability to regulate our mental functioning, but it is an ability that depends on valuing the choices that we make in the process of regulating it. You don't regulate any process of action, mental or physical, without a purpose, and that purpose is what you value.

But I may be wrong in asserting that you and he are wrong, if this is what you and he are saying:

"there is no implication in value determinism that the values which motivate a person's actions are in the nature of the "forces" of physics. The factors that determine a person's actions are final, not efficient causes. They're teleological, not mechanistic. They don't "make" a person choose an action, which suggests that the person is forced to choose it apart from and against his will. This is an absurd characterization that has nothing whatever to do with value determinism."

In that case, then, the problem may be as simple as the misuse of the term "determinism"... just as you and he consistently misuse the term "free will".

Where have I misused the term "free will"?? Admittedly, the term has different meanings, depending on the context. But I have always used it in this kind of debate to mean libertarian, not compatibilist, free will.

You continue to quote me,

"suggests that the person is forced to choose it apart from and against his will" is exactly what "determinism" means because that's what it would be -- if it existed.

And the concept "free will" does not imply "random, uncaused, unmotivated, disconnected from any prior, current, or present facts".

I know that that is the theory, but we're arguing that if you are able to choose either of two alternatives under the exactly same the conditions, then you must be indifferent to which alternative you choose. If you were not, then you would choose the one you valued most. But if you are indifferent between them, then your choice of one alternative rather than the other is indeed unmotivated, since even though you chose it, you didn't value it any more than the other alternative--which doesn't make any sense and which is why we're determinists.

- Bill

(Edited by William Dwyer
on 12/11, 11:14pm)

Post 54

Monday, December 12, 2005 - 1:13am

Roger wrote as a P.S. to his post 49:

"Now that I have a clearer understanding of my position,
I can see that 'value-determinism' may not be the best
name for�it."

As you probably know, Roger, I think it's a terrible name for it --
and I don't think that your suggestion of "will-determinism" is
any better -- since I don't think that the thesis you're presenting
is "determinism" at all. It's a theory of causation, but not a
theory of determinism. You wrote at the end of your P.S.:

"As I have said previously, I my view�as being�compatible
with agent-causation, and this seems to be a clearer
explanation of how that is so than I have given previously."

I hope you recall our (off list) exchange this fall
in which I asked you what it is you consider your views
"compatible" with. I thought you'd come to the conclusion
by the end of that that you aren't proposing "the doctrine
that there's only one physically possible future" (Von Inwagen's
succinct definition of "determinism," which Dennett picks up
as his operative definition in *Freedom Evolves*).
To support agent causation is to acknowledge the reality
of choice -- and unless I very much misread you, you do
believe that people in fact make choices, that choosing is
a real phenomenon, that it is not an illusion. Why then
you'd want to call yourself a "determinist" I can't
fathom. What "pay off" is it that you see in using that
term instead of just straightforwardly calling yourself
an agent causationist?

As to Bill's comment --

"The factors that determine a person's actions are final,
not efficient causes. They're teleological, not mechanistic.
They don't 'make' a person choose an action, which suggests
that the person is forced to choose it apart from and
against his will. This is an absurd characterization that
has nothing whatever to do with value determinism." --

If this is "an absurd characterization," then the theory
being proposed isn't determinism. A theory of teleological
causation is not a theory of determinism.

And, in regard to the "falsifiability" issue, Bill wrote:

"Where, oh where, did falsifiability become a criterion of truth?!"

Who said it was a criterion of truth? It is however
a criterion of whether you're proposing an hypothesis
that can be tested.

In reply to Jeff Perren's further comments (in post 51),
Bill then replied in post 53:

"I think your [Jeff's] criticism, which is very common,
is based on a misunderstanding of what we're saying. We're
not simply defining a value as whatever someone chooses and
then saying that if the person chose it, he must have valued
it and that his values therefore determine his actions. If
that were our position, what you're saying would indeed
be an effective rejoinder to it. For the position would
then be vacuous and circular. What we're saying is something
entirely different. Our argument is that an unmotivated choice--
a choice that is not necessitated by any felt preference for
the object of the choice--is psychologically nonsensical,
because it would imply an uncaused choice--a choice that
is not made for the sake of an end or goal--for the sake
of something that the person wants to achieve. In other
words, for a choice to occur, there has to be an object
of interest."

If that's what you're saying, then why not just say it?
Why use the term "determinism"? Except for your using
the word "necessitated" in your explication -- a word
which is out of place if you're speaking of deciding
to so something for a reason instead of being
mechanistically made by physical causes to do something --
what volitionist (except possibly Leonard Peikoff,
in his malapropos "There is no such why" comment in
OPAR) would disagree?

I'll come back at a later time to the issue I hinted at
in post 48 of "value-formation."

Ellen

Post 55

Monday, December 12, 2005 - 7:43pm

In post 54, Ellen Stuttle commented on my post 49:
...I don't think that the thesis you're presenting is "determinism" at all. It's a theory of causation, but not a theory of determinism. You wrote at the end of your P.S.: "As I have said previously, I my view as being compatible with agent-causation, and this seems to be a clearer explanation of how that is so than I have given previously." I hope you recall our (off list) exchange this fall in which I asked you what it is you consider your views "compatible" with. I thought you'd come to the conclusion by the end of that that you aren't proposing "the doctrine that there's only one physically possible future" (Von Inwagen's succinct definition of "determinism," which Dennett picks up as his operative definition in *Freedom Evolves*). To support agent causation is to acknowledge the reality of choice -- and unless I very much misread you, you do believe that people in fact make choices, that choosing is a real phenomenon, that it is not an illusion. Why then you'd want to call yourself a "determinist" I can't fathom. What "pay off" is it that you see in using that term instead of just straightforwardly calling yourself an agent causationist?
First, I don't see any reason that I need to choose one term over the other. They both name distinct aspects of the phenomenon of human action. Nor do I see any conflict in straightforwardly calling myself both an agent-causationist and a value determinist. I have been doing so for several years now.

As an agent-causationist, I do indeed support the reality of choice, but as a value-determinist, I see choice as being free not in any absolute sense, but only in a conditional sense, and in the following two ways:

Epistemologically, one is aware of the prospect of a choice, because one faces an alternative about which one has not yet decided. At any given point in the decision process, one is aware of the fact that one may end up deciding differently than one thinks one is going to. Epistemologically, the situation is experienced as being free, as not being a foregone conclusion, as being an open alternative. And it's not foregone, since one doesn't know what other factors may intervene and result in a change in the constellation of one's conflicting desires/values before the choice is made. As I wrote in post 12 of this thread,

...in a situation that is not yet clearly determinate to me as a valuer and actor, and in which I have not finished considering the options before me, something that I find myself desiring most strongly at one point in time is something that I may later, at the point of decision, find myself no longer desiring most strongly. I have evidence that I may end up choosing that thing, but I don�t yet know that I will. So, epistemologically speaking, I have reason to believe it is possible that I will choose it; I may choose it [if at the point of choice I desire it most strongly].

Metaphysically, I think that there is a form of determinism at work in human choice and action, but not the Laplacean, clockwork, mechanistic determinism you and I discussed this fall. Similarly to Branden's view that "causality" (the relation between an entity and its actions) is a very broad abstraction, I think that "determinism" is a very broad abstraction and that it means, in most general terms, that what an entity does is in any situation is determined by antecedent conditions. More specifically, in value-determinism, the antecedent condition that determines any and every action of a conscious being is a prior state of valuing or desiring in that being. As I wrote in post 12 [emphasis added]:

I think that there are levels of determinism in the universe, and that living organisms (let alone conscious ones) have a different form of determinism governing their actions than do inanimate objects. What living organisms are governed by is not efficient causation, but final causation, their need to seek values, which is experienced by conscious living organisms as desiring or wanting to pursue certain things.

In conscious beings, the specific way that final causation operates deterministically is to constrain them to pursue that which, in a given situation, they most want to pursue. And, as Locke and others have pointed out, conscious beings are free to pursue that which they most want to pursue, if nothing (such as coercion or disease or the Law of Gravity) prevents them from doing so. (Locke thought it was nonsense to speak of "freedom of the will." It is human beings that are free to do that which they most want, or not free to do so, depending on the conditions of their environments and bodies.)

Again, the antecedent condition that governs or determines every one of a conscious being's choices and actions is that which, at the time of choice and/or action, it most wants or values.

Ellen, you have rejected my viewpoint of value-determinism, on the grounds that it relies on an implied metaphor of desires or values "pushing" one toward a certain action, and that this smacks of mechanistic causation, of physical forces causing our actions. You say that some other form of causation (teleological) is operating, and I agree. However, your suggestion of a substitute viewpoint, of values "pulling" us toward them, isn't really an improvement, because "pulling" is just as physical as "pushing"! Personally, I'm OK with either description as long as it is treated simply as a metaphor that helps to clarify the phenomenon of motivation, the fact that our desires or values move us in certain ways.

You might want to suggest that deterministic causation operates via antecedent conditions, and that human action operates via "consequent" conditions (what an organism wants to have attained by acting), and thus that human action is not deterministically caused. I am saying that since the teleological, "consequent" factors governing human action are what an organism wants or values most, then that organism's actions are just as surely determined as are a rock's actions being governed by mechanistic, antecedent factors. (I used quote marks above, because I think it's clear that so-called consequent conditions, being projections of a desired future state and not really something existing in the future and acting backward causally, are thus actually antecedent to any actions governed by those factors.)

One more point in response to you, Ellen: I realize that the internal process unfolding when we choose between competing desires/values is not as simplistic as weighing 15 ergs of desire for vanilla against 10 ergs of desire for chocolate! I hope you'll give me more credit than that! At the same time, I think it should be recognized that there is a conscious awareness of a different intensity level of desire or valuing involved when one potential goal is preferred over another, and that this awareness is thus a kind of comparative measuring, even though it is not at all the same kind of units of measurement as are used in comparative measurement of physical quantities.

That concludes what I wanted to say in response to your post. However, while I'm borrowing from post 12, I may as well include most of the rest of it here, since I didn't really get much of a response to it the first time around. Maybe enough further context has been added that you or someone else will be able to reconsider it and make a thoughtful (i.e., non-dismissive) response this time.

So, by "may decide," I do mean "is free to decide." But I do not mean you are categorically free to choose anything other than what you actually choose, as in, "I could have chosen x rather than y, period," but conditionally, as in, "I could have chosen x rather than y, if I had wanted x more than I wanted y." The former is how Peikoff and other Objectivists present the idea of free will: you could have done otherwise than you did, presumably even if you hadn�t wanted to, whereas I am arguing that you could have done otherwise only if you had wanted to more than what you did.

For instance, you may decide to have vanilla ice cream, if you are (existentially) free to do so, and if it turns out that you want to have vanilla ice cream more than you want anything else that conflicts with it. In other words, if you are not under coercion, and if vanilla ice cream is your strongest desire, vanilla ice cream is what you will have.

It may seem that this is just a tautology, and that I am defining "strongest desire" in terms of what you end up choosing. However, I think that we are in the presence of an axiom of human action. If as Branden said in "Isn't Everyone Selfish?," it is a "truism" that all behavior is motivated, and we always in some sense "want" to do what we do, I don't see how you can escape the conclusion that what you did is what you most wanted to do -- not what you "would like to have done, if things had been different," but what you did want to do, given the way things were.

Let me expand on the ice cream example just a bit more to show the axiomatic nature of action being based on one�s strongest desire. Suppose I offer Michael a choice of vanilla or chocolate ice cream. Normally, he might just blurt out, vanilla (which, let�s say, is his favorite). But to make it interesting, let's consider the case where I've just told him that, by my theory of human choice and action, he has to pick vanilla, because that is what he most prefers. Michael, not liking my value-determinism notions one little bit (!), decides to be contrary and instead select chocolate, just to show me that I don't know a whole lot about free will. :-)

I then point out to him that he is still choosing what he most strongly prefers, but now, instead of choosing vanilla rather than chocolate, he most prefers choosing to choose against his flavor preference rather to choose in accordance with his flavor preference. It's on a meta-level of choice, but it is still what he most wants to do in this situation. Upon reflection, I realize that I was too specific in what I told him that choosing vanilla was what he "had to" do, because the situation changed, once the option of flouting my value determinism theory reared its ugly head. Michael still did what he "had to" do, but it was on the higher level of his choice preference, rather than his flavor preference.

So, in each case�and I maintain, in any case you can dream up (and yes, that is a challenge!) -- the antecedent condition that determines human choice is the strongest operative desire, whether it is in fact rational and life-serving or not. Barring coercion, incapacitating disease, etc., you can and will choose the thing you most desire, unless conditions change and you then desire something else more strongly -- such as choosing less-preferred chocolate ice cream out of an overriding desire for "variety" or "defying Roger�s value-determinist claims." :-)

This is the way I interpret my experience of having free will, as being conditional, rather than categorical. I hesitate to call this a "volitionist" view, because so many volitionists are of the categorical variety. They think that unless you could have done otherwise than you did, even if you didn't want to, you are not free. I think this is nonsense. It makes much more sense to me that I could only have done otherwise than I did, if I had wanted to. (This is the compatibilist view of choice and free will.) Why else would you need to be able to do other than what you did? But Ellen, if you or someone else wants to dub me a "conditional volitionist", I would be perfectly happy with that label. Then I might even be able to qualify for my Official Objectivist De-coder Ring. :-)

REB

(Edited by Roger Bissell on 12/12, 8:04pm)

Post 56

Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - 11:14am

I wrote, "The factors that determine a person's actions are final, not efficient causes. They're teleological, not mechanistic. They don't 'make' a person choose an action, which suggests that the person is forced to choose it apart from and against his will. This is an absurd characterization that has nothing whatever to do with value determinism."

Ellen replied,

If this is "an absurd characterization," then the theory being proposed isn't determinism. A theory of teleological causation is not a theory of determinism."

In The Psychology of Self-Esteem, Nathaniel Branden quotes 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." (Emphasis added, pp. 50,51) The thesis I am defending states that if one chose an action, then the antecedent conditions (including one's value judgment) were sufficient for performing just that action. Therefore, according to Nathaniel Branden (and Richard Taylor), I am a determinist--a teleological determinist, to be sure, but a determinist nonetheless.

In regard to the "falsifiability" issue, I wrote: "Where, oh where, did falsifiability become a criterion of truth?!"

Ellen replied

Who said it was a criterion of truth? It is however a criterion of whether you're proposing an hypothesis that can be tested.

You mean by setting up conditions under which the theory to be tested would be false. Okay, but in that case, the fact that value determinism is non-falsifiable is no more an argument against its being true than the fact that the law of identity is non-falsifiable is an argument against its being true, or the fact that the purposiveness of human choice is non-falsifiable is an argument against its being true.

In Post 53, I replied to Jeff Perren's comments (in Post 51):

"I think your [Jeff's] criticism, which is very common, is based on a misunderstanding of what we're saying. We're not simply defining a value as whatever someone chooses and then saying that if the person chose it, he must have valued it and that his values therefore determine his actions. If that were our position, what you're saying would indeed be an effective rejoinder to it. For the position would then be vacuous and circular. What we're saying is something entirely different. Our argument is that an unmotivated choice--a choice that is not necessitated by any felt preference for the object of the choice--is psychologically nonsensical, because it would imply an uncaused choice--a choice that is not made for the sake of an end or goal--for the sake of something that the person wants to achieve. In other words, for a choice to occur, there has to be an object of interest."

Ellen replied,

If that's what you're saying, then why not just say it? Why use the term "determinism"? Except for your using the word "necessitated" in your explication -- a word which is out of place if you're speaking of deciding to so something for a reason instead of being mechanistically made by physical causes to do something -- what volitionist (except possibly Leonard Peikoff, in his malapropos "There is no such why" comment in OPAR) would disagree?

But the "reason" in this case is the (final) cause of the action; it is the purpose for which the action is chosen. Given that purpose, one had to choose that which one judged as the best means to its achievement. One could not have chosen otherwise under the circumstances, which is to say that one's choice was necessitated by one's value judgment. This is not the same as saying that one was mechanistically made to do something by physical causes. You allude to Peikoff's denial of a purpose or a reason for one's choice. I think that he may have adopted that position, because he realized that to grant such a reason is a fatal concession, which would commit him to determinism.

- Bill

Post 57

Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - 10:09pm

The discussion is getting more interesting! Ellen Stuttle is asking why Bill Dwyer and I call our view "determinism," since we hold, like Rand, that actions are governed by final causation rather than efficient causation -- i.e., teleological causation rather than mechanistic causation.

Well, as Bill wrote in post 56:

The thesis I am defending states that if one chose an action, then the antecedent conditions (including one's value judgment) were sufficient for performing just that action. Therefore, according to Nathaniel Branden (and Richard Taylor), I am a determinist--a teleological determinist, to be sure, but a determinist nonetheless.

Yes. As I noted above, in post 55:

Some people try to deny that antecedent conditions determine one's choices and posit instead what amounts to consequent conditions (what an organism wants to have attained by acting), and thus that human action is not deterministically caused. I am saying that since the teleological, "consequent" factors governing human action are what an organism wants or values most, then that organism's actions are just as surely determined [by teleological antecedent factors] as are a rock's actions being governed by mechanistic antecedent factors. (I used quote marks above, because I think it's clear that so-called consequent conditions, being projections of a desired future state and not really something existing in the future and acting backward causally, are thus actually antecedent to any actions governed by those factors.)

In post 54, Ellen Stuttle asked:

Why use the term "determinism"? Except for your using the word "necessitated" in your explication -- a word which is out of place if you're speaking of deciding to so something for a reason instead of being mechanistically made by physical causes to do something -- what volitonist (except possibly Leonard Peikoff, in his malapropos "There is no such why" comment in OPAR) would disagree?

Bill replied:

But the "reason" in this case is the (final) cause of the action; it is the purpose for which the action is chosen. Given that purpose, one had to choose that which one judged as the best means to its achievement. One could not have chosen otherwise under the circumstances, which is to say that one's choice was necessitated by one's value judgment. This is not the same as saying that one was mechanistically made to do something by physical causes. You allude to Peikoff's denial of a purpose or a reason for one's choice. I think that he may have adopted that position, because he realized that to grant such a reason is a fatal concession, which would commit him to determinism.

I think that's exactly correct, Bill. Peikoff apparently did not have a conception of any kind of determinism other than mechanistic determinism. If he had, he could have seen that teleological determinism (or value determinism) is perfectly compatible with (conditional) free will and not to be feared. For all the conceptual flexibility that Branden encouraged us to adopt, when he argued that causality was a very broad concept, not limited to physical, billiard-ball action, he and Peikoff and others have shown remarkably narrow vision about the concept of determinism.

REB

Post 58

Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 5:36am

Was it really narrow - or perhaps actually more precise...

Post 59

Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 7:36am