Determinism and Free will

Robert, the answer to your question is several paragraphs earlier in my post, where I quote Bill Dwyer about Branden and Richard Taylor.

Branden was endorsing Taylor's clear, precise definition of "determinism" in terms of antecedent conditions. Bill and I are saying that this same definition applies not only to mechanistic determinism but also to teleological (value) determinism. And I was merely commenting that Branden and Peikoff were rather narrow sighted in not realizing this point. They were overly narrow or restrictive in their application of the definition. They were failing to exercise the same precision in applying the definition that Taylor exercised in formulating it.

Rodney, welcome to the discussion. I don't believe that "the possible objection that our values, though decisive, are not themselves determined, but the result of the thought-work we have chosen to do" has been raised here on RoR (or on SOLO). Do you wish to raise it? :-)

No Objectivist I am aware of denies that our wants or desires (i.e., our valuing) are determined by the thinking and evaluating we choose to do. There is a causal chain, elucidated by Branden in The Psychology of Self-Esteem, that goes from perception to cognition to evaluation to emotion to action. Some of the chain may involve automatized processes or very quick, unchosen actions, such as a lightning-like realization that a speeding car headed toward you represents something that can hurt you and thus is bad for you (in that context). Often, especially in non-routine and non-emergency situations, such identifications and evaluations are done deliberately and by choice. But in any case, the emotion of fear, the desire to avoid (not wanting, dis-valuing) being hit that results is automatic, determined by the cognition and evaluation that generated it.

As for the "thought-work we have chosen to do," by my view that is free only in the conditional sense. If you want to do that thought-work more than you wanted to blank out or think about something else, you can (are free) to do so. That is conditional free will or, as Merlin Jetton has encouraged me to say, conditional volition. The other side of the coin is that whatever you most want to do -- do thought-work or avoid doing it -- determines what you will do. That is teleological or value-determinism. Freedom ("can") and Determinism ("must") are in holy metaphysical wedlock in human action -- but only if they are understood as NOT being (standard Objectivist) categorical free will and (the Objectivist straw-man) mechanistic determinism.

REB

Post 61

Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 11:17am

Yes, Roger, of course. Since this is essentially how AR conceives choice, it surprises me a lot that the point has not been raised. Can you answer in five lines? (That's not a taunt, just an approach to understanding your position.)

Post 62

Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 11:44am

I now notice you have answered above (but at length)--sorry. So I ask: What, if anything, controls whether you want to "do that thought-work more than you wanted to blank out"?

Post 63

Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 12:24pm

Hi, Rodney. I'm glad that you saw that I had answered your earlier question, even if the answer was a bit long for your comfort. :-)

On to your next question! You wrote: "What, if anything, controls whether you want to 'do that thought-work more than you wanted to blank out'?"

Good question! I may want to come back to this, if a longer, more complicated answer occurs to me. (Or if I mess up this one. :-)

I will analyze your example in two parts, because the magnitude of each desire -- to think or to evade -- can be adjusted by additional thought-work or other input. Let's use Merlin Jetton's terminology and analyze the situation at the times T0 and T1.

1. At time T0, what determines the relative magnitude of your desire to think or evade? Basically, we talking about your pleasure, curiosity, etc. to think vs. your fear, discomfort, etc. at the prospect of thinking -- about whatever it is that faces you. Many details may go into generating the amount of desire to think vs. to avoid thinking. Your past habits in dealing with similar conflicts, your degree of intellectual interest in the matter, your general level of pleasure in problem-solving, your level of emotional comfort with the matter, etc. All of these things are antecedent factors that feed into one's level of desire to think or not think The resultant of these factors is the direction that one's desire tips. Conflicting desires do not exist in a vacuum, and there is no guarantee that one will always experience one's strongest desire as being the desire to do the rational, life-serving thing.

As a preliminary to point 2: How does one get out of such a situation, when an irrational desire seems to be overriding a rational desire? Basically, you have to do some further, "sideways" thought-work. You have to first be aware of and want to get out of that situation more than you want to let it control you. You have to identify that you are out of rational control, and you then have to evaluate that as being bad. This identification and evaluation may happen more or less spontaneously, as many realizations do. And if they result in a desire to regain rational control that is sufficiently strong, that desire will lead you to reflect further on the choice (to think or not), to grit one's teeth and face down one's fears by choosing to think. But you have to want to do that more than you want to let your fear and discomfort cause you to choose to not think. If you do not, then your strongest desire -- to evade -- will result in your not thinking. It's as simple as that.

2. So, at time T1, what determines the relative magnitude of your desire to think or evade? The thought-work you did, on the side, when you realized the undesirability of the situation you were in. That additional reflection or deliberation can result in an increased desire to think, to the point that it overrides your fear of the possible consequences or your discomfort at the effort of thinking.

To summarize: at T0, the controlling factor of the relative magnitude of conflicting desires is context. At T1, the controlling factors are context and whatever deliberation one has done, as a result of one's realization of the negative implications of one's pending choice of not thinking. (It can go in the other direction, too. One might start out intending to think about an issue, and then chicken out after some amount of deliberating.)

I see now that this was a fairly long post, anyway. Sorry. I hope it helps. Comments? Questions?

REB

Post 64

Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 2:01pm

Roger, my hat is off to you for your patient, reasonable engagement of critics (same to you Bill!). I have a few comments that I would like to run up the flag-pole -- to see if anyone will salute them ...

1. The best name for your stance is teleological determinism

2. The concept of "will" is best described as "intellectual appetite"

3. Antecedent deliberation (or lack thereof) hinges on an agent's choice to focus ("think" is too general)

4. You are not really "free" to go against your strongest desires, until and unless you "build/acknowledge" desire to do the work of rational validation/invalidation of your values -- in the Eric Mack sense

5. Values can be promulgated (in the Rand sense) -- but they need not be [one might promulgate a value, for instance, by thinking through what kind of society is best for man, applying that thought-through material to current political parties, and then adopting the best available party as a value to act to gain/keep]

Howzzat?
Ed

Post 65

Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 2:59pm

Roger, I have always recognized those types of psychological complexities, but I still reject this type of determinism. It seems to stem from action-reaction causality--the denial of the possibility of the existence in the universe of a "point-source" entity-action causality, the possibility of a living source wherein awareness and blame is ultimately and totally lodged. (And not the sense in which you "blame" an avalanche for falling on you.)

There are many such fascinating facts in our world, facts that when kept firmly in mind seem to expand our feeling of awareness and power, because they force our minds out of the comfort zone. The absence of a "why" for existence as such. Time being in the universe, and not the universe in time. Certainty being possible.

And a point source not representing chance, but being a locus of blame not in quotes.

Post 66

Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 3:13pm

Good points, Rodney.

Roger (or Bill), please, analyze this ...

Given a rational agent's current "evaluative feel" (which derives from their past focus and contemplation--contrasted against their future hope), their actions will be one way, and not other ways. They could not act otherwise, as that would be acting against their "evaluative feel"--and "evaluative feel" JUST IS choice.

You will always and only act in accordance with your intellectual appetite (ie. will). Acting in discordance with this--is absurd.

Ed

Post 67

Thursday, December 15, 2005 - 12:05am

Rodney wrote,

"Roger, I have always recognized those types of psychological complexities, but I still reject this type of determinism. It seems to stem from action-reaction causality--the denial of the possibility of the existence in the universe of a "point-source" entity-action causality, the possibility of a living source wherein awareness and blame is ultimately and totally lodged. (And not the sense in which you "blame" an avalanche for falling on you.)

I'm a determinist, but not because I believe in the action-reaction model of causality. Nor is determinism inconsistent with an entity-action model of causality. The latter model would be a correct description of a world without free will just as well as it would a world with free will. Moreover, as Branden notes,

The premise that every action is only a reaction to an antecedent action, rules out, arbitrarily and a priori, the existence of self-generated, goal-directed action. The way in which this premise has impeded progress in the science of biology is outside the scope of this article. ("Volition and the Law of Causality," The Objectivist, p. 44)

Since Roger and I advocate teleological determinism, we recognize the existence of self-generated, goal-directed action, which incidentally pertains to all forms of life, even those that Objectivism recognizes as determined by antecedent causes. We enthusiastically subscribe to the entity-action model. Our endorsement of determinism has an altogether different origin. We also believe that you can "blame" people for their bad behavior and not in the sense in which you blame an avalanche for falling on you, i.e., not simply in the sense of recognizing that the person is the cause of the bad behavior. We believe in holding him morally blameworthy in a way that we could not hold an avalanche morally blameworthy. To hold him morally blameworthy is simply to recognize that he ought not to have chosen the bad behavior, which is something you can't say about an avalanche.

It is true, of course, that you can't hold someone morally blameworthy for an action that he was forced to take, because if he was forced to take it, then he could not have chosen differently, even if he wanted to. But you can hold a determined human being morally blameworthy insofar as he could have chosen differently if he had wanted to. For example, I can hold a bank robber morally blameworthy, even if he thought that he had a right to steal the money because he regarded banks as corrupt bastions of capitalism. In other words, even if he had no reason to refrain from committing the robbery and could not therefore have acted differently under the circumstances, I can still hold him morally blameworthy, because he could have acted differently if he had wanted to
--if he had believed that robbing the bank was the wrong thing to do. Nobody forced him to commit the crime.

And in fact, that is precisely how our legal system functions today. It does not demand to know whether or not the robber had any reason or motive to have acted differently; all it cares about is whether or not he could have acted differently if he had wanted to--if he had had a different set of values. So long as he wasn't forced by someone else to commit the robbery (a la Patty Hearst, if you know who she is), he can be held morally blameworthy.

- Bill
(Edited by William Dwyer
on 12/15, 12:10am)

Post 68

Thursday, December 15, 2005 - 8:21am

William, you say: "you can hold a determined human being morally blameworthy insofar as he could have chosen differently if he had wanted to." But under your idea, that he did not want to is merely a reaction to other things (however complex).

Post 69

Thursday, December 15, 2005 - 10:59pm

William, you say: "you can hold a determined human being morally blameworthy insofar as he could have chosen differently if he had wanted to." But under your idea, that he did not want to is merely a reaction to other things (however complex).

Of course, it is a response to his moral values, among other things, which is why philosophy is so important. If you want to get people to act differently, you have to get them to think differently. Do you deny this? And if you do, of what value is philosophy in the grand scheme of things? Is there any point in trying to change people's philosophy, if it has no effect on their behavior?

- Bill

Post 70

Friday, December 16, 2005 - 5:28am

Yes, but if life is merely a perpetual circle of action-reaction, and all is predestined, then you are working from the overly restricted view of causality Branden is talking about.

Tell me in five lines the problem with the free-will version of causality.

Post 71

Friday, December 16, 2005 - 11:46am

Sideline:

I understand Rodney's call for a 5-line summary not as a bullying technique (that's just not Rodney), but as a call for simplification of complexity. This might be a time where complexity precludes being captured in 5 lines or less, but then Bill could just say so -- and be off the hook.

I love the Rawlings 5-line Challenge -- it makes you think.

Ed

Post 72

Friday, December 16, 2005 - 12:46pm

I go by the principle that a position that can't be summarized is either denying philosophic fundamentals or redefining terms.

Post 73

Friday, December 16, 2005 - 12:59pm

How about this? ...

"A mature position is that which can be stated whilst standing on one foot." --Ed Thompson, philosopher extraordinaire

Too cocky??

Ed

Post 74

Friday, December 16, 2005 - 1:05pm

True enough - an immature crawls all over the place...;-)

Post 75

Friday, December 16, 2005 - 1:06pm

Yes, but if life is merely a perpetual circle of action-reaction, and all is predestined, then you are working from the overly restricted view of causality Branden is talking about.

Not necessarily, for the action-reaction view of causality is not incompatible with the entity-action model. As Branden notes, any causal explanation of an entity's action via references to antecedent actions implies an explanation in terms of the entity's properties. So, I can explain an entity's actions in terms of its properties, while recognizing that the action is also the inexorable result of antecedent events. To cite an example used by Branden, if I throw a lighted match into a wastebasket, the resulting fire must be explained by the nature of the interacting entities--the lighted match and the paper that catches fire. But the contact of the lighted match with the paper necessitates the resulting fire; the fire is a reaction to the match coming into contact with the paper. Similarly, if my cat runs to the food that I put out for her, she is engaging in a form of self-generated, goal-directed action, but she is also responding to her recognition of something that she values. In the same way, if you vote for a pro-capitalist candidate rather than for one who is pro-socialist, you are responding to your recognition of a political value--of someone you consider worth supporting. Your action must be explained by the kind of person you are--someone with a certain set of political values--and the kind of candidate you are voting for--someone who shares those values. But your choice is still necessitated by antecedent events--the candidate's appearance on the ballot and your evaluation of his political merits.

Tell me in five lines the problem with the free-will version of causality.

I'll tell you in three lines: The problem is not that it presupposes an entity-action model, which is a perfectly legitimate conception of causality. The problem is that it is inconsistent with the kind of causality appropriate to a living organism, namely, goal-directed action, because free will implies that a person can choose an action for no reason or purpose. If he required a reason or purpose, then his choice would be governed by that reason or purpose and, accordingly, it would not be free.

- Bill

Post 76

Friday, December 16, 2005 - 1:55pm

Eureka!

Bill's notion of freedom is commensurable with "chance" -- in the "acausal" sense. In this sense, in order to be free -- you have to be free of your very nature (what I call Alice in Wonderland metaphysics). To use Kantian terminology then: You would have to be free-in-yourself, or what is more intuitive: free-from-yourself.

So, instead of an agent intiating an action (ie. being the locus of causation), the argument is that a final end (of that agent) will govern that agent's choices (as viewed by that agent against his past, his contemplation about said past, and his future hopes in value attainment). It just seems to me that this is taking the agent out of the locus, reifying an "end" as a mesmerizing essence like the Sirens of the Mediterranean, and placing that essence as the locus of control of that agent.

Whoa (head is spinning), that's all for now ...

Ed

Post 77

Friday, December 16, 2005 - 3:05pm

I'm working on a reply now, but I want to clarify that my main purpose of asking for short statements is to point up essentials, not to show up errors (though that can be the effect). It has worked thus in this case.

PS: This is not in reference to what you just said, Ed, by the way. I only saw your post after posting this.

(Edited by Rodney Rawlings on 12/16, 3:44pm)

Post 78

Friday, December 16, 2005 - 3:14pm

Bill,
"If he required a reason or purpose, then his choice would be governed by that reason or purpose and, accordingly, it would not be free."

Prove it.

"your choice is still necessitated by antecedent events--the candidate's appearance on the ballot and your evaluation of his political merits." [emphasis, mine]

And, even if so, how is my evaluation necessitated?

Further, how is the [necessary] "existence of the candidate and your evaluation" the same thing as [necessary and sufficient]?

And, please Roger, let Bill answer this time.

Your theory must either say that all evaluation (and wants/desires/willing/etc) is necessitated -- in which case you really are a determinist, or you must (in logic and fact) acknowledge that free will exists. You and Roger can not have it both ways.

By the way, Roger, if the conversation is as distressing as you suggest on SOLOP, you might find an environment more amenable to your style on www.wethethinking.com, where I have good reason to believe that Nathan would be happy to give you a good workout, and you would not be subject to any sort of attack on your character. I'm not suggesting you should not post on RoR if that's what you wish to do. But if you feel more comfortable in a forum that focuses exclusively on the intellectual content, that may be more to your liking.

Post 79

Saturday, December 17, 2005 - 3:48pm