To Whom It May Concern

This was posted on the Solo Passion list...

Dear SOLO-ists:

Casey has referred to my "ongoing campaign against free will." That is not accurate. I argue for conditional free will -- you could have done otherwise than you did in a given situation, IF you had WANTED to. This is in contrast to the standard Objectivist concept of free will, which is really more of a KANTIAN outlook, and which I have characterized as categorical free will -- you could have done otherwise than you did in a given situation, PERIOD, i.e., EVEN IF you HADN'T wanted to.

I am no more against free will than Ayn Rand was against necessity in morality. In regard to ethical necessity, she said, "Reality confronts man with a great many 'musts,' but all of them are conditional: the formula of realistic necessity is: 'You must, if --' and the 'if' stands for man's choice: '--if you want to achieve a certain goal.' " (CVD, pp. 118-119)

Similarly, in regard to free will, I say: Reality confronts man with a great many "cans," but all of them are conditional: the formula of realistic freedom (of will) is: "You can, if --" and the "if" stands for man's desires: "--if you want to achieve a certain goal more than you want to achieve some other goal" (i.e., if you value a certain thing more than you value another thing). I think that, in order to remain consistent with her Aristotelian, anti-Kantian outlook, Rand ought to have defined free will as I have, as conditional free will -- not as Peikoff (in OPAR) and others have, as categorical free will.

I realize that it's standard practice in Objectivist circles to refer to Kant as a destroyer of reality, reason, morality, you name it, and that the effect of his categorical necessity was to destroy moral responsibility (CVD, p. 121). I think a case could be made that Rand's categorical freedom has a similar effect. If as Peikoff says (OPAR, p. 60), there is no reason or explanation for focusing, one just focuses or not for no reason, then all of one's actions (to the extent they flow from one's focusing) become arbitrary. Categorical freedom a la Peikoff (and Rand?) destroys moral justification.

However, in the interest of dialogue and mutual exploration -- you know, truth-seeking? -- I would gladly set aside such judgments so that some reasoned discussion could take place. But that presupposes people are more interested in discovering truth than being right and defeating their opponents. If someone wants to explore this issue, on or off list, I am all for it. But I am not going to engage in rhetorically heated debates, particularly not with people who have already amply demonstrated that their chief goal is to distort the views and tear down the character of others. So, anyone so inclined, have a ball: go on and take your best shot; I won't be replying to you.

I have one other comment on Casey's opening essay. He wrote: "...there's no justification for calling everything in your mind 'Objectivism' whether it is nor not because one is so cowed by the religious significance of the title that living without the title is unbearable to you. Ironically, that is the subliminal psychophancy folks like MSK, Bissel, Hudgins and Kelley practice."

I am an independent thinker, using Aristotle's and Rand's most general frameworks and methodologies as my starting point and method of operation. My resulting views are not immune to criticism (but neither are theirs!), so I proceed by checking my premises, trying to be sure my views correspond (reduce) to reality and cohere (integrate) with one another, and double-checking my conclusions. I consider myself an Aristotelian because I agree with his essential philosophy, just as I consider myself an Objectivist (or Randian) because I agree with Rand's essential philosophy. I am no more a psychophant toward Rand than I am (or she was) toward Aristotle.

You might think that it would be perfectly fine for me to regard myself as an Objectivist, since Rand has given several prominent statements of the essence of her philosophy, with which I agree in toto and unreservedly. Still, that is not good enough for some, because I disagree with the Objectivist (categorical) version of free will, which is not included in any of those statements.

Here's something to ponder: no doubt, some of Aristotle's original followers, were they alive today, would dearly love to pitch out the whole lot of the Objectivists who identify themselves as Aristotelian, being in agreement with Aristotle's essential philosophy (while disagreeing with him on various very well known Aristotelian views, such as his politics, his Unmoved Mover, etc.). Would they be right? Are Objectivists out of line in claiming to identify with the basic Aristotelian world-view? Or would the purist Aristotelians be out of line in being so overly restrictive and jealous of competitors?

My way of cutting through all this silly squabbling and turf-protecting is this: of all the philosophies out there, which one do my views come closest to? For nearly 4 decades now, there has not been even a close second to Objectivism. Yet, despite the fact that I agree with the great bulk of Rand's views, I am certainly not a Randian/Peikoffian Objectivist. Nor am I a Kelleyite Objectivist (as I'm sure he's relieved to know, if he cares). Nor am I a Brandenian or Machanian Objectivist -- or Neo-Objectivist, as they sometimes style themselves. I think it's perfectly fine to qualify "Objectivism" in these ways, but since I don't have enough of a name or body of work to justify attaching my own name to it, I suppose the best label for me is "Independent Neo-Objectivist" (with no insult intended to the others). And that is where I will leave it.

Linz commented earlier that I was not posting here on Solo Passion (or whatever it's called), and it's true that I haven't paid this web site much attention. I've been very busy. However, Casey's comments were brought to my attention, and I wanted to register my protest and offer my perspective for whoever might value it. That's it for this thread. Goodbye and good hunting.

Roger Bissell, musician-writer

P.S. -- I will not debate this post on this web site either.

Post 1

Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - 6:37am

Roger,
You say you are interested in dialogue, mutual exploration, and truth-seeking. If so, the opportunity to reply to two of my posts, which you have so far declined, still exists. One is recent and the other was a few months ago.
http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/Dissent/0046_2.shtml#52
http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/ArticleDiscussions/1302_2.shtml#58
I agree that Peikoff's claim on page 60 of OPAR -- there is no why for choosing to focus -- is nonsense. On the other hand, I believe this part of your portrayal of Objectivist free will -- you could have done otherwise than you did in a given situation, even if you hadn't wanted to -- is a straw man. Can you cite textual support for the "even if' clause?

Post 2

Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - 7:22am

Merlin, my apologies for not replying to your earlier challenge post. I have given it some thought, and I will try to get to it tonight. (I had thought that I answered it but not directly in other later posts, which is probably why I didn't return to it and perhaps why you didn't think I had answered it.) The more recent one, here on RoR, was unclear as to what you wanted comment about. If you could make the question more precise as to what you want, I'll give it a try!

As for the "even if" clause in my portrayal of Objectivist free will as "categorical," I do not have a text citation. It is implied by the statements and arguments given by Peikoff and others. If reasonable Objectivists (and you know who you are!) disagree with this "straw man," as you label it, and instead agree that you are free to choose what you most desire, and you in fact do choose what you most desire, then we have no disagreement except over labels. I call my view compatibilism, the specific form being the compatibilism of conditional free will and value determinism. But perhaps we still do not agree over substance...?

REB

Post 3

Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - 8:38am

Roger,

In my more recent post I quoted you as follows:

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

My example of Jim was an attempt to use this distinction. The action is Jim using or not using cocaine, the specific object. The "want to have", or desire, is Jim's desire to use, or not use, cocaine. You claim, or at least seem to, that Jim cannot choose his desires. In other words, his desires are outside his control, a proposition I don't agree with. (Desires pertaining to life's necessities, like food, water and air are a different matter.)

If reasonable Objectivists (and you know who you are!) disagree with this "straw man," as you label it, and instead agree that you are free to choose what you most desire, and you in fact do choose what you most desire, then we have no disagreement except over labels.

Here you seem to take one's greater (or greatest) desire per se as a given, whereas I would say this desire per se is something subject to deliberation and choice. Saying it another way, your perspective seems to be on time T1 and mine is on time T0, such times as described here:
http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/ArticleDiscussions/1302_2.shtml#58

Post 4

Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - 11:47am

Merlin, this will be quick and messy, because I'm on a break at work.

I don't say that desires are entirely out of one's control. They are out of one's direct control. If you want to override a strong desire, you must engage in a new thought process and evaluation about an alternative action (vs. acting out the desire), which will hopefully produce a new desire that is stronger. If you want to think and evaluate an alternative more than you want to automatically follow through on the original desire, you have a shot at controlling it by means of replacing it. That's what I mean by saying you can't choose your desires. You choose that which generates them. And if you desire to replace a desire (by additional thinking and evaluating = deliberating), you have to go the indirect route of deliberating. But if you don't desire to deliberate more than you desire to (e.g.) take the cocaine, you don't have much chance to replace that desire.

Whether the desire to deliberate arises at t0 or t1 is largely irrelevant. Whatever desire is dominant at t1 will dictate your action. That is the value-determinism aspect of human choice/action. And you are free to pursue whatever desire is dominant at t21. That is the conditional free will aspect of human choice/action.

I hope that answers your question. If not, it'll be 9 hours or so before I can think and post further on it.

Best regards,
REB

Post 5

Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - 4:29pm

Roger Bissell wrote:

I hope that answers your question.

Not at all. Your introducing new terms (your 2nd and 3rd sentences) and confounding T0 and T1 have only muddied the water.

If not, it'll be 9 hours or so before I can think and post further on it.

If you comment on Jim's scenario from your "compatibalist" perspective, that might clarify your position. I am crossing my fingers, but not betting on it.

Post 6

Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - 4:30pm

Once upon a time, on another thread ("Objectivism and Determinism"), Merlin Jetton quoted Rand as follows: "[T]hat 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 character." (Lexicon, "Free Will"). He did so by way of disputing Roger Bissell's argument that our values determine our actions, granting that, yes, our values determine our actions at Time T-1 (after we have exercised our choice to think or not to think), but not at Time T-0 (when we do have that choice).

Why this dichotomy? Why must choices that do not pertain to focusing be controlled by our values, but not choices that do pertain to it? Why can't one value focusing one's mind just as much as one values telling the truth or respecting other people's rights? Just as there is a reason to respect other people's rights, a reason which once recognized can determine one's decision to honor it, so there is a reason to focus one's mind, a reason which once recognized can determine one's decision to honor it.

- Bill

(Edited by William Dwyer
on 12/13, 4:32pm)

Post 7

Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - 4:57pm

"so there is a reason to focus one's mind, a reason which once recognized can determine one's decision to honor it" [emphasis mine]

Bill,
Probably you've covered this before, and this will start another and possbilty tangential round of debate, but I would like to know:

How can one recognize it until one has focused (and ceterus paribus) and evaluated?

Post 8

Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - 4:58pm

"so there is a reason to focus one's mind, a reason which once recognized can determine one's decision to honor it" [emphasis mine]

Bill,
Probably you've covered this before, and this will start another and possibly tangential round of debate, but I would like to know:

How can one recognize it until one has focused and (ceterus paribus) evaluated?

(Edited by Jeff Perren on 12/13, 4:59pm)

Post 9

Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - 5:08pm

Jeff, I'll answer your question to Bill Dwyer. I've already posted on this on another thread in answer to Michael Moeller. It seems most sensible to recycle the material here. Michael wrote (in gray blocks):

How does one identify and evaluate without first exercising the choice to think? In order to get down to the end of your sequence ("action to obtain"), one must first exercise the capacity to focus...Secondly, "final causation" refers to one choosing one's goals, then subsequently the means by which to attain them. But in order to do this, it obviously relies first on the choice focus. Those "wants", or more appropriately those ends, are evaluated according to the hierarchy of values, which, in order to be evaluated, must first rely on the choice to focus--this is the *first cause* of one's knowledge.

How does one exercise a capacity that one does not already want to exercise? In other words, how can you undertake any action, including focusing, without already valuing and wanting to undertake that action? You cannot choose to focus without first wanting to focus. If focus is the prerequisite of knowledge, and wanting to focus is the prerequisite of focusing, then that makes wanting to focus the first cause of one's knowledge. Or, at least, more of a first cause than focusing! Which is the chicken and which is the egg here? (The answer is: neither.)

Yes, there is a regress involved. However, if you go back far enough, you will find a state of awareness that you did not choose, but which instead simply happened to you as it does to other animals -- and the most likely candidate for this is becoming awake in the morning. As your body rises up out of sleep, you become spontaneously aware that you are waking up, you decide that you want to wake up and be fully aware more than you want to continue sleeping or lolling about half-awake, and so you choose to focus and then focus your awareness on waking up. From that point on, there is a reciprocal relationship between your focusing and your wants.

But choosing to focus is not the "first cause" of all this. It is "perception" (i.e., awareness that you are waking), followed by the valuing or wanting to be more awake and focused. (If you wish to challenge the sequence I laid out, you should do that. Your present approach, accepting the sequence and arguing for the primacy of focus, simply doesn't work.)

Michael again:

To put it in concrete terms, if I want to chose a destination and map out the best way to arrive, I must first start the engine. No matter how many times I have started the engine before or how many destinations I have been to, I have to start it again in order to pursue a course of action to the desired destination.

Yes, indeed, and I start my mental engine every morning, much the same way as described above. No "first-cause focusing." Instead, it's first-cause perception (awareness) of becoming awake, evaluating wakefulness as being better than non-wakefulness, wanting wakefulness, and then choosing to pursue wakefulness, which requires focus. Every subsequent focus depends upon this specific sequence.

Every subsequent focus also depends upon some value alternative requiring focused attention coming to my awareness, being evaluated, and desired (wanted). A lot precedes a given act of focus. A "first-cause" is the last thing that focusing is! It is the means of pursuing something you want -- namely, solving of a conflict that has arisen, etc.

REB

Post 10

Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - 5:11pm

Merlin what I meant to write in paragraph 2 of post 4 was this:

Whether the desire to deliberate arises at T0 or T1 is largely irrelevant. Whatever desire is dominant at T1 will dictate your action. That is the value-determinism aspect of human choice/action. And you are free to pursue whatever desire is dominant at T1. That is the conditional free will aspect of human choice/action.

As for your comment about my second and third sentences (of the first paragraph), I really don't know what you mean.

I will get to your example about Jim, the coke addict, later this evening.

REB

Post 11

Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - 6:00pm

Bill Dwyer wrote:

Why this dichotomy? Why must choices that do not pertain to focusing be controlled by our values, but not choices that do pertain to it? Why can't one value focusing one's mind just as much as one values telling the truth or respecting other people's rights?

What did I write that led you to think that I hold such a dichotomy? I do value focusing.

Post 12

Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - 6:14pm

As long as I am being quoted on this thread, I will quote another one from the same debate (Post#22 on Determinism and Free Will thread)

Roger, how in any sense can you be said to "evaluate wakefulness as being better than non-wakefulness" without the choice to focus? Any ~evaluation~ presupposes the choice to focus. How, in any meaningful sense, can you be said to *evaluate* without first choosing to focus? There is no such thing as an unfocused evaluation. I wonder if you understand the choice to focus the same way AR does when she speaks of it as a "set". We would agree that we are given the evidence of the senses (perception), after that it is one's mental approach to that evidence--do I float by in a haze or do I raise my level of awareness to attempt to identify the evidence that is given? Beyond the perceptual, nothing is automatic or given in terms of man's volitional conceptual ability--the identification/evaluation has to be done by choice.

Bill, I want your answer on this, as Roger has already given his. Do you think that one can evaluate, that is to say, identify some aspect of reality as for me or against (including one's own mental processes), without the choice to focus? A 'yes' or 'no' will suffice.

Roger writes:

Yes, there is a regress involved. However, if you go back far enough, you will find a state of awareness that you did not choose, but which instead simply happened to you as it does to other animals

Even if one starts on the purely perceptual level as a child, does the choice to focus merely keep "happening"? The perceptual can be said to merely "happen", i.e. is automatic, but what about the choice to focus one's mind, one's conceptual faculty? NO!!!! Nothing just "happens" on this level, it is purely the product of volition, and no antecedent choice to focus guarantees at any time in the future it will "happen" again.

Notice too, on your example of "being wakeful", the choice to focus does NOT mean one is always engaged in conscious problem-solving. A lot of the time it means your conscious mind is giving standing orders to the subconscious, to be on the lookout and to pull previous identifications out at lightening speed. Without this mechanism, human's knowledge would never get off the ground as each time something was learned, it would have to be learned over and over again. Therefore, when I wake up in the morning and I stumble into the shower and turn the knobs, the conscious mind is recalling what it previously learned, but choice to focus is still primary--it is the one in charge of issuing these orders--it is the *first cause*.

Regards,
Michael

PS. In regards to your Objectivist De-Coder Ring, it seems they are in high demand from the Objectivist "Tolerationist" Store and are on backorder right now. Don't bother putting your name on the waiting list, they are fakes anyway.
.

Post 13

Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - 6:30pm

Roger,

I have a question for you. Why cling to the label "Objectivist" or "Randian" when you object to an essential like free will. Of course, you are free to use AR's ideas and give her credit for them, but why align yourself where there is a fundamental disagreement, especially when you seem to think many Objectivist are "Randroids" anyway? I really don't get it. And if you disagree that it is a fundamental, then just think in all the essays where AR has free will at the bottom of concept formation, ethics, psychology, art (see analysis of Shakespeare), and on and on. Once you pull out this central pillar, the hierarchal structure collapses.

Michael

Post 14

Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - 7:34pm

Thank you, Roger, for your insightful and thought-provoking posts. You will find some new Atlas points in your mailbox. I appreciate your clear statements inspecting the nature of volition. I also share your self-evaluation: I, too, am an Objectivist, who has found truths that Ayn Rand and her intellectual estate did not.

When I was a teenager, I memorized Ayn Rand's reply to the question: "Don't you have to be thinking in order to choose to think?" (The preceding statement was that there is only one immoral choice, the choice not to think.) Rand's response was that the choice to think is different from every other kind of choice. Only a few years later, I learned to reject that answer as incomplete. I believe that David Kelley has done significant work on the nature of focus, which is the real problem: focus exists before thought.

"The choice to think is different from every other kind of choice." This week, the U.S. Navy announced a successful test on a new class of submarine, the Virginia Class. They did not say what follows, but consider what it would have meant if the press release were to have read: "... the USS Virginia (SSN 774) is the Navy's latest aircraft. Different from every other aircraft, it does not travel through the air." Granted that a submarine can launch aircraft. Granted that submarines and aircraft both travel through fluid environments. Both have wings. (We call the sub's wings "diving planes.") Both have propellers. And so on. So, is a submarine an aircraft? Only if the choice to think is different from every other choice.

I submit that the choice to think is not different from every other choice. I believe that the ability to think is discovered by the individual within the individual. Some people like it. Some people like it a whole lot. Others choose to do it as little as possible and eventually, they do not have to choose not to do it at all: they just stop doing it.

By "it" by "thinking" I do not mean "mentating" or "ideating." Whatever runs through their heads, it is apparently not thinking. I make that judgment based on my perception of their words and actions. People in a room make vocal noises of commonality, but it is not the kind of dialog you find here -- or most other places online.

In fact, based on my understanding of the works of Julian Jaynes, I believe that most people still have bicameral minds. They have weak selves or perhaps lack selves entirely. They hear voices in their heads that they attribute to God. This is how they talk. We can only accept them as we perceive them. Futhermore, I assert that this state applies to many truly intelligent (bicameral) people who read the works of Ayn Rand in order to have a voice in their head that tells them what to do. They then repeat the words they hear. This is how the first cities were built -- by chanting the work orders. You do not have to read much Objectivist literature to realize that this pattern is being repeated by people who are building a new world.

Personally, the voice in my head is my own. I did not discover it myself: my mother put it there (or activated it). I was about five or six, running around the house, and she told me to stop and think. I asked her what she meant. She asked me if I do not have a voice in my head. I said that I do not. She said that I did, but that I could not hear it because I was running around. She told me to listen to it late at night before I fell asleep. My daughter was younger than that when I asked her the same question. However, she said that she does have a voice in her head.

Post 15

Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - 9:12pm

It always strikes me on these threads that there seems too much a 'robotic' ness about the focus issue - as if an 'on/off' switch, with little in between, instead of a dimmer switch of varying degrees - which do not in themselves necessitate full awareness to function, thus still allowing voiltion without this hard either/or mechanism which is so deterministic...
(Edited by robert malcom on 12/13, 9:13pm)

Post 16

Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - 11:58pm

Michael Moeller wrote:

I have a question for you. Why cling to the label "Objectivist" or "Randian" when you object to an essential like free will. Of course, you are free to use AR's ideas and give her credit for them, but why align yourself where there is a fundamental disagreement, especially when you seem to think many Objectivist are "Randroids" anyway? I really don't get it. And if you disagree that it is a fundamental, then just think in all the essays where AR has free will at the bottom of concept formation, ethics, psychology, art (see analysis of Shakespeare), and on and on. Once you pull out this central pillar, the hierarchal structure collapses.

Point one: I don't "cling" to anything. I just like to use the most accurate label to describe myself and my views. As I wrote in the first post in this thread:

Of all the philosophies out there, which one do my views come closest to? For nearly 4 decades now, there has not been even a close second to Objectivism. Yet, despite the fact that I agree with the great bulk of Rand's views, I am certainly not a Randian/Peikoffian Objectivist...I think it's perfectly fine to qualify "Objectivism"...I suppose the best label for me is "Independent Neo-Objectivist"...

The reason I consider myself to be some kind of an Objectivist (or Randian) -- an Independent (neo)Objectivist or neo-Randian -- is that I agree with Rand's essential philosophy, as outlined during the 1960s and 1970s in several of her prominent statements of the essence of Objectivism, all of which I agree with in toto and unreservedly.

It's really too bad we can't ask Rand why she repeatedly omitted from all of those statements something supposedly so essential and fundamental to her philosophy -- namely, the Objectivist categorical version of free will, as stated by Peikoff in OPAR. But since she never included it in one of her statements of the essence of Objectivism, that's not my problem. It's the problem of those who are trying to substitute what they think is the essence of her philosophy for what she said it was. That's a no-no, right?

So, when I propose to substitute conditional free will for categorical free will, I am not taking issue with Rand's statements of the essence of her philosophy. I am merely disagreeing with those who try to put categorical free will in some kind of foundational position in the philosophy (let alone in the philosophy itself).

Point two: As noted, I don't think that categorical free will is essential or fundamental to Objectivism. I think that conditional free will and value determinism are adequate to sustain Objectivism's hierarchical structure. We could (and perhaps should) have a massive, multi-thread discussion of the various ways in which categorical (could have done otherwise period) free will is supposedly essential to Objectivism, whereas conditional (could have done otherwise if...) free will suffices to support the philosophy's vital tenets (such as moral responsibility, objectivity, Romantic plot structure, etc.). Alternatively, it would make a hell of a seminar. Another time, though. I have way too much on my plate right now. (Just fyi, I have outlined a book on this very topic, entitled The Conditions of Freedom, that I intend to write, if someone else does not do so before I get around to it. :-)

Point three: I don't think that "many Objectivists are Randroids." Strictly speaking, no Objectivists are Randroids! Though some Randroids call themselves "Objectivists." You're actually one of the few I've run across. <joke>

Best,
REB

Post 17

Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 1:34am

Merlin Jetton says that my "quick and messy" post (#4 in this thread) only "muddied the waters." He said:

If you comment on Jim's scenario from your "compatibalist" perspective, that might clarify your position. I am crossing my fingers, but not betting on it.

Here is the scenario:

     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.

He also wrote:

In my more recent post I quoted you as follows:
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
My example of Jim was an attempt to use this distinction. The action is Jim using or not using cocaine, the specific object. The "want to have", or desire, is Jim's desire to use, or not use, cocaine. You claim, or at least seem to, that Jim cannot choose his desires. In other words, his desires are outside his control, a proposition I don't agree with. (Desires pertaining to life's necessities, like food, water and air are a different matter.)
If reasonable Objectivists (and you know who you are!) disagree with this "straw man," as you label it, and instead agree that you are free to choose what you most desire, and you in fact do choose what you most desire, then we have no disagreement except over labels.
Here you seem to take one's greater (or greatest) desire per se as a given, whereas I would say this desire per se is something subject to deliberation and choice. Saying it another way, your perspective seems to be on time T1 and mine is on time T0, such times as described here:
http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/ArticleDiscussions/1302_2.shtml#58

Desire is always subject to choice and deliberation, but it cannot be directly changed. Desitre is the automatic result of cognition and evaluation, so it can only be changed by first doing something about the cognitions and evaluations that led to it. Specifically, one must engage in other cognitions and evaluations that will generate a greater desire for something else than one's original desire.

We choose actions. That is why we can directly choose to pursue something that we desire (as long as it is what we most desire at the time of choosing to pursue it), while we cannot directly choose to desire (or stop desiring) something, but can only directly choose the actions (cognition and evaluation) that generate that desire (or its cessation or replacement with a different, stronger desire).

When an opportunity at T0 to again use cocaine presents itself, and Jim's desire to use cocaine is sufficiently strong as to quickly override the desire he has to not use cocaine (i.e., to continue doing something other than using cocaine), he will shortly thereafter at T1 choose to use cocaine. That is value-determination in action at T1.

However, if in such an opportunity, T0', Jim realizes that something is wrong with his life and that it relates to his cocaine use, he may experience a desire to understand the situation more fully, and if that desire is more intense than his desire to dismiss the thought and continue with his habit, he will then at T1' choose to engage in thought and evaluation (deliberation) about his habit and what he might do to change it. This again is value-determination in action, this time at T1'. And if as a result of his deliberation (and possible further actions such as therapy that he will choose if he desires to undertake them more than he desires the status quo), Jim has a newfound bolstering of his desire to not use cocaine, such that it overrides his desire to use cocaine, he will then at T2' choose to refrain from using cocaine. Yet again, this is value-determination in action, this time at T2'.

At the same time value-determination is governing Jim's choices, he is also exercising conditional free will. If he wants to use cocaine more than he wants not to, he can (is free to) continue doing so. If he wants to deliberate about his cocaine use more than he wants to continue using it, he can (is free to) do so. If he wants to take therapeutic steps to lessen his cocaine desire or replace it with other, stronger desires more than he wants to continue using cocaine, he can (is free to) do so. If he finally wants to refrain from using cocaine more than he wants to use it, he can (is free to) do so.

Value-determinism (or teleological determinism) is compatible with conditional free will. This is how determinism applies to human action, and this is the way in which the choices of human beings (including the choice to focus) are free. Like Hobbes, Locke, and Hume (see the extended entry on determinism in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy), I view desire or valuing as the teleological determinant (final cause) of human choice.

And I see this all as basically an elaboration of what I said in post 4, but perhaps it helps clarify my position sufficiently that we can move on. Questions, comments?

Best,
REB

Post 18

Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 1:40am

Michael Moeller wrote,

We would agree that we are given the evidence of the senses (perception), after that it is one's mental approach to that evidence--do I float by in a haze or do I raise my level of awareness to attempt to identify the evidence that is given? Beyond the perceptual, nothing is automatic or given in terms of man's volitional conceptual ability--the identification/evaluation has to be done by choice.

Bill, I want your answer on this, as Roger has already given his. Do you think that one can evaluate, that is to say, identify some aspect of reality as for me or against (including one's own mental processes), without the choice to focus? A 'yes' or 'no' will suffice.

Yes, because if you choose to focus, you will have evaluated the need "to identify some aspect of reality" as more important than the desire "to float by in a haze." If this were not the case--if you had no idea which alternative were more important or more worth choosing--not only would you have no motive for choosing it, but you also would have no idea that you ought to choose it, in which case, it could not be morally prescribed, nor, therefore, could you be held morally responsible for choosing it. And since, according to Objectivism, the choice to think controls all of your other choices and determines your life and your character, it would follow that you could not be held morally responsible for anything you do. Do you really want to say that? If not, then you need to recognize that the choice to think it is itself subject to moral evaluation.

You are reversing cause and effect. Choice presupposes evaluation; evaluation does not presuppose choice, unless the choice is to raise one's awareness and engage in a more abstract form of evaluation. Before you can make a choice of any kind, you must first recognize what the alternatives are and then have some idea as to which alternative is worth choosing. The choice to focus one's mind is the choice to raise one's level of awareness, not the choice to become aware. You cannot choose to go from literal non-awareness to awareness; nor can you choose an alternative without some reason for choosing it. An act of choice requires both awareness and motive, which means that it requires both a recognition of alternatives and a prior evaluation of their relative merits.

- Bill

Post 19

Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 5:54am