Free will and morality

[Immanuel Can]

So once all of that has been said, I don't see why determinists must be acting in bad faith.

Simple: what they claim to believe is obviously not what they actually apply to life. That's "bad faith." That's hypocrisy. Classic.

You seem to accept that randomness doesn't give us anything of use, so if determinists simply don't believe in randomness then there's no way to "apply that to life" differently from indeterminists, since randomness doesn't give us anything...

Determinism requires, logically, that there is no such thing as "choice," and no "personhood" or "identity" behind what appears to be a choice. There is no choice and no chooser, in other words. All there really is, is an inevitable chain of predetermined causes-and-effects playing out the chain of events predestined to happen. Nothing else.

Is that "useful"? Good question.

I think it appears to be "useful," in one sense, in that it is, in principle, always certain what will happen, given a certain set of preconditions. If we could detect all the preconditions (which, alas, we cannot) we could, in principle, always know what was predestined to happen. That seems helpful to things like physical science, since it would make cause-effect relations predictable, if imperfectly. But in regard to life itself, there's really no "use" for such a knowledge, since all that it would tell us is that things can never be anything but what they're going to end up being anway, regardless of what we do. We, and even our science, are mere "dumb terminals" in that process, and we are not causal agents capable of "using" that information to change anything. (That none of us feels that this is so, or acts like it is so, has to be interpreted by a strict Determinist as a mere delusion we're suffering.)

So no, it's ultimately not "useful." It's merely reassuring, in a fatalistic kind of way: we have no choices, are responsible for nothing, and are not, in fact, capable of choices of any kind, including practical and moral ones. All there ever is, is the chain. However, we think we "know where we are," so to speak.

As the video points out, adding randomness to this story doesn't really improve it. The speaker says he'd rather be a "cog in a machine" the just some "random swerving" in a vacuum. In the "randomness" story, gone is the predictability of the system. It's just as relentless, mechanical and fatalistic as before, but now we've lost any ability, even in principle, to predict and calculate based on that.

So yes, it's true: randomness doesn't "give" us anything...not that it cares to, anyway, or is capable of caring to do so. But the "uselessness" of the random view does not count as an argument against it being true, only against our enjoying it, if it is.

However, we don't act as if the universe is merely "random." None of us gets out of bed in the morning and starts to behave as if that assumption is ultimately true. Rather, we do get up and start to trust that the floor will be beneath our feet, our breakfast will not randomly poison us, and that we can make choices based on our estimations of what is likely to be the case. That's how human beings function. The Determinist, whether a proponent of material Determinism or randomness, also behaves in exactly the same way, and never acts as if his theory is really true.

And this raises the important question: if strict Determinism or randomness Determinism were true, would it not be possible that at least SOME people, in realizing it, could start to live as if they were? And what does it mean when absolutely none of them ever can? Does it not strongly suggest that, no matter how simple and elegant such Determinist solutions seem to be, there is something profoundly wrong with them, particularly in application to human experience? I think it does.

But there is a "use" in even the inconsistent and hypocritical belief in "randomness," too, in the minds of many people. They seem to think that if the universe is governed by forces they can't predict (even in principle) then this, too, would argue they have no causal or moral responsibilities. It would be a kind of "freedom" to think that you can't know what effects your decisions are ever going to have, so you can't be asked to make good decisions and avoid bad ones. So some people are attracted to that. And others find that "randomness" is an explanation that helps them feel their personal confusion over how their actions relate to consequences is reasonable: the world looks miserable and "random" to them, particularly in the association between desire and outcome, or deserving and outcome, because of some event(s) in their lives. So "randomness" lets them say to themselves, "Well, okay; that's just how it is." And they are freed from the painful process of scouring precedents to discover causes of results. (That they totally lose their freedom and agency in the bargain either does not seem to strike them, or they care less about that than about escaping the former kinds of perplexities.)

It's possible that Determinism and randomness Determinism have other "uses" too, that I have not thought of. But some belief having a "use" is not proof of its truthfulness. There are false beliefs for which human beings can find "uses," too, obviously.

[Flannel Jesus]

However, we don't act as if the universe is merely "random." None of us gets out of bed in the morning and starts to behave as if that assumption is ultimately true. Rather, we do get up and start to trust that the floor will be beneath our feet, our breakfast will not randomly poison us, and that we can make choices based on our estimations of what is likely to be the case. That's how human beings function. The Determinist, whether a proponent of material Determinism or randomness, also behaves in exactly the same way, and never acts as if his theory is really true.

But there's no "way to act" based on determinism or indeterminism. Randomness doesn't give us anything useful - it doesn't give us any difference that is actionable.

You talked a lot about how usefulness has nothing to do with if it's true, which is correct, but it makes me worry you've drastically misunderstood something I've said. I'm not arguing for or against the existence of randomness when I say it doesn't give us anything useful. I'm saying the implications of its existence, if it does exist, are... not what libertarian free willians think they are.

Libertarian free willians think randomness can be a source of free will, and thus moral responsibility. These are examples of the "usefulness" of randomness. The case I make is that those uses cannot be attributed to randomness whatsoever.

I think randomness exists, I just don't think it's coherent to base useful concepts like responsibility on it.

If you cannot make use, philosophically, of randomness, then you also can't reasonably say "determinists are acting like they aren't determinists", since that means "determinists are acting like there's randomness". If there's a way to "act like there's randomness", that implies you've found a use for it and are changing your behaviour accordingly. I don't see where that comes from. I don't think people who believe randomness exists, and people who don't, have any substantial difference in the rest of their behaviours.

It makes just as much sense, then, to say non determinists are acting in "bad faith" because they're acting like determinism is true. You can't just give a monopoly on basic human behaviours to one side of the debate, and call the other side copy cats.

[Immanuel Can]

However, we don't act as if the universe is merely "random." None of us gets out of bed in the morning and starts to behave as if that assumption is ultimately true. Rather, we do get up and start to trust that the floor will be beneath our feet, our breakfast will not randomly poison us, and that we can make choices based on our estimations of what is likely to be the case. That's how human beings function. The Determinist, whether a proponent of material Determinism or randomness, also behaves in exactly the same way, and never acts as if his theory is really true.

But there's no "way to act" based on determinism or indeterminism. Randomness doesn't give us anything useful - it doesn't give us any difference that is actionable.

Quite true.

But it does seem, in the minds of some people, to offer them a rationale for quietism, or for not feeling responsible for whatever happens or has happened. That, I think, gives them a feeling of freedom from responsibility. And for some folks, that's not nothing.

I'm saying the implications of its existence, if it does exist, are... not what libertarian free willians think they are.

Oh, I see.

But free will doesn't require belief in randomness, of course. And that's the source of the confusion: if I now have you right, I wasn't sharing your assumption that it did...so your objection wasn't making clear sense to me.

In the video, the point is made that both strict Determinism and randomness Determinism are forms of Determinism. And that's very true. The randomness explanation actually has nothing to do with Libertarianism, as you now note.

If one has two, or three, or ten courses of action, that is not "random." The fact remains that however many choices you DO have, you DON'T have a whole lot more. There's only a certain set of possibilities in any given situation.

And one's choice among them is motivated by various factors. But one's volition is not controlled: one can choose to accept or disregard any of the possible motives, according to one's own personal judgment. That's Libertarian freedom without recourse to randomness.

In fact, as I pointed out and as you also seem to be saying, if the Libertarian appeals to randomness, then he's appealed to a form of Determinism.

Libertarian free willians think randomness can be a source of free will, and thus moral responsibility. These are examples of the "usefulness" of randomness. The case I make is that those uses cannot be attributed to randomness whatsoever.

I agree. They can't.

However, the Libertarian, if he understands his own philosophy and its logic, should not try to argue that way. It's self-defeating. What he should say, instead, is that he has volition to choose among a range of possible options, but not unlimited or random outcomes.

I think randomness exists, I just don't think it's coherent to base useful concepts like responsibility on it.

I agree, that far...except I don't think we can judge that things are "random" based on merely our current inability to see what regularities might govern particular situations (like the classic case of the light particle seeming to appear in two different states at the same time). And I would argue we're really in shallow water when we try to argue that because particles seem to behave certain ways at the molecular level, that there's no logic or reasons as to how they behave at the macro level -- that's very obvious, I think, because we still observe scientific laws and regularities, which make our choices at least generally successful in predicting regular outcomes.

The temptation, then, is to be overly impressed with things like chaos theory or randomness, and to fail to consider that such fields are new to us and our methods imperfect at the moment, or to notice that at the macro level, things simply do not behave like that. Life doesn't become random merely because we don't know all the reasons. It also doesn't become random because of the way micro particle seem to behave.

Prediction and causality still work, at least in a general way; and if they didn't, then science itself would never work. All results would be random. No scientific principles, predictions and laws would ever work at all.

Likewise, when we strike somebody with a baseball bat, or give him a gift of money, we are predicting particular outcomes: injury or happiness, respectively, we presume. (We'd be very surprised if the guy we hit with the bat was grateful, or if the guy we gave money was head-injured by it.) And most of the time, we turn out to be right. It's this regularity, predictability and cause-effect probability that makes moral calculations possible. And if it's possible for us to behave in morally-calculating ways, then (if we can find an ethical theory that works universally) then we do have moral duties -- because we know our choices are not random, and don't have random results.

[Flannel Jesus]

However, the Libertarian, if he understands his own philosophy and its logic, should not try to argue that way. It's self-defeating. What he should say, instead, is that he has volition to choose among a range of possible options, but not unlimited or random outcomes.

But that's just compatibilism, which is not libertarian free will, and as it's name implies is a form of free will which is fully compatible with determinism.

[Immanuel Can]

However, the Libertarian, if he understands his own philosophy and its logic, should not try to argue that way. It's self-defeating. What he should say, instead, is that he has volition to choose among a range of possible options, but not unlimited or random outcomes.

But that's just compatibilism,

Absolutely not.

Compatiblism is just Determinism with a smiling face. Libertarian free will posits that you are quite free to choose among the many available options. But in no way does it ever suppose the options can be infinite. How could it? They never are. It wouldn't even be reasonable to think they should be, or could be.

But that's a long way from Determinism or Compatibilism, which both hold that there IS actually no "choice" and no "options" at all.

Put it this way: Libertarianism sees many roads possible. Determinism and Compatibilism see only one, ever. Libertarianism sees the choosing agent standing at the crossroads, making a decision. But for Determinism and Compatibilism, since there is only one road, there is no crossroads, no alternatives, and really, no agent to make any decision. There is only the one, straight, guardrail-lined road, and it goes only one way.

[Flannel Jesus]

To the extent that libertarian free will is opposed to determinism, it relies on randomness. Determinism is simply a world view with 0 randomness, so any view of free will that relies on determinism being false is a view that relies on randomness.

Which is why I was arguing that randomness gives us nothing earlier. Not free will. Not moral responsibility. Not anything. You agreed with that before. I guess we have our wires crossed.

[Immanuel Can]

To the extent that libertarian free will is opposed to determinism, it relies on randomness.

No, it actually doesn't. It relies on there being options and choice.

That's different from randomness. Randomness implies the total absence of reasons, predictabilty and pattern. That's not an apt descriptor.

Determinism is simply a world view with 0 randomness,

No, as we have seen, there is such a thing as randomness-style Determinism. Remember the video? And there is the old-style Causal Determinism of the Materialists, and the Theistic Determinism of Calvinism, as well. And they're all bunk, of course.

It's the absence of alternate possibilities that defines Determinism. In Determinist thinking, there's no "if," no "how it might have been" and no "other possible outcomes." There is only what had to happen. It's Fatalism in a tuxedo, really.

[Flannel Jesus]

To the extent that libertarian free will is opposed to determinism, it relies on randomness.

No, it actually doesn't. It relies on there being options and choice.

Options and choice aren't inherently conceptually incompatible with determinism. If the only way you can conceptualise them is at odds with determinism, then it is random.

I don't conceptualise them to be at odds with determinism at all. At the end of the day, when an option is selected, when a choice is made, something had to determine that choice, and either that something exists in a deterministic system, OR that something exists in a system with randomness in it. But adding randomness into a system, as we agree, gives us nothing

No, as we have seen, there is such a thing as randomness-style Determinism. Remember the video?

No, please refresh my memory, what does that mean?

[Immanuel Can]

To the extent that libertarian free will is opposed to determinism, it relies on randomness.

No, it actually doesn't. It relies on there being options and choice.

Options and choice aren't inherently conceptually incompatible with determinism.

Yes, they are. They're antithetical to it.

If one believes there are any such things as actual "choices" or "options" that are not total delusions, then one is not actually a Determinist, by definition, even if one were to call himself that and insist that he is. He's just not.

I don't conceptualise them to be at odds with determinism at all.

Then you're no Determinist.

At the end of the day, when an option is selected, when a choice is made, something had to determine that choice, and either that something exists in a deterministic system, OR that something exists in a system with randomness in it. But adding randomness into a system, as we agree, gives us nothing

Here's the problem: you're using the word "determine" in two ways, at the same time. Let me clear them up, if I can.

1. "Determine," in ordinary usage, merely means "to decide willfully." So we use it in a phrase like, "I was determined to go to the store," or "Why are you determined not to listen to me?"

2. "Determine," in philosophical usage, means "to bring about inevitably." Very clearly, this is different from usage 1: for when you say, "I was determined to go to the store," you don't mean, "I was forced to go, regardless of my will, by prior causal forces." No, you just mean the ordinary thing: I wanted to go, I decided to go, I didn't let things stop me, and I went."

You can't mix the two. But it seems that when you say "something had to determine the choice," you're only meaning the ordinary usage, but when you say "a deterministic system," it's apparent you are in the second kind of usage. You can't do both at the same time, or in the same argument, because they actually deny the truth of one another.

How, you might wonder? Well, Determinism type two supposes that there is no causal power in human will. It all comes from prior causal forces, whether material, or fate, or from the ironclad will of the Deterministic "god," as in Calvinism. Determinism type one depends entirely on human free will, and means that what you decide is the decisive factor in the situation.

That's the key difference between actual Determinism and ordinary determining: can a human will be the decisive factor in whether or not something happens? Determinism says, "Absolutely not. Never. Not at all." But determining (type one) says, "Absolutely. Yes. It's the important thing."

But if you and I can discuss, deliberate, and thus "determine" which one is right, then that means that human will is involved, and Determinism is false.

Does that help?

No, as we have seen, there is such a thing as randomness-style Determinism. Remember the video?

No, please refresh my memory, what does that mean?

Did you watch the video? It's very short. And it's very easy to watch, and very enlightening as to this point. Please, do yourself a favour on this, and go back and watch it...or watch it again, if you already did. If you watch the animations in the background, too, it will make the point even more clear. Then we can discuss what it says.

[Flannel Jesus]

Here's the problem: you're using the word "determine" in two ways, at the same time. Let me clear them up, if I can.

1. "Determine," in ordinary usage, merely means "to decide willfully." So we use it in a phrase like, "I was determined to go to the store," or "Why are you determined not to listen to me?"

2. "Determine," in philosophical usage, means "to bring about inevitably." Very clearly, this is different from usage 1: for when you say, "I was determined to go to the store," you don't mean, "I was forced to go, regardless of my will, by prior causal forces." No, you just mean the ordinary thing: I wanted to go, I decided to go, I didn't let things stop me, and I went."

You can't mix the two. But it seems that when you say "something had to determine the choice," you're only meaning the ordinary usage, but when you say "a deterministic system," it's apparent you are in the second kind of usage. You can't do both at the same time, or in the same argument, because they actually deny the truth of one another.

You are correct that they are different meanings, but I didn't think that needed spelling out. They are two different meanings of the word determine, I didn't think conceptually I needed to clarify that the two uses weren't meant to be confused with eachother.

"Can I kick this can?"

It's intuitively clear to most people that the first "can" doesn't mean the same thing as the second "can".

There's no reason why the meaning of the first "can" denies the meaning of the second "can".

How, you might wonder? Well, Determinism type two supposes that there is no causal power in human will.

Not true, or not necessarily so.

A determinist, a physical material determinist, thinks things in the world have casual power. A hammer can smash a rock. A will is a lot like a hammer: it's governed by the laws of physics, but we still say *it does things*

The will is part of the system of physics, not separate from it.

Randomness doesn't make our will free, and considering you agree with that, I don't know what beef you have with determinism. Other than just thinking it's incorrect - which I agree with, pure determinism is incorrect. But that's not what you seem to be arguing for so... yeah I don't understand the beef

[Flannel Jesus]

No, as we have seen, there is such a thing as randomness-style Determinism. Remember the video?

No, please refresh my memory, what does that mean?

Did you watch the video? It's very short. And it's very easy to watch, and very enlightening as to this point. Please, do yourself a favour on this, and go back and watch it...or watch it again, if you already did. If you watch the animations in the background, too, it will make the point even more clear. Then we can discuss what it says.

I watched it again, and I don't think he ever said anything I would interpret as "randomness-style Determinism". He was talking about randomness within a system that is otherwise largely deterministic, which I understand and agree with.

The things he says in that video jive with everything in saying quite neatly. Randomness doesn't give us any sort of free will - he makes that case too, right around the point where he's saying "I'd rather be a gear...". That's exactly what's happening in this conversation.

If randomness doesn't give us free will, but we have free will, then we have free will despite randomness, and we'd have free will even if we didn't have any randomness, which is exactly what compatibilists say about free will. You believe we have free will, you believe it doesn't come from randomness, which is exactly the thought process of your average compatibilist.

And determinism shouldn't really be an issue if that's your view. Other than it just being factual slightly misguided.

[Immanuel Can]

Determinism type two supposes that there is no causal power in human will.

Not true, or not necessarily so.

Yes, necessarily. If somebody calls themselves a "Determinist" but doesn't also agree with that, then he's not a Determinist, by defintion, no matter what he thinks he is.

The will is part of the system of physics, not separate from it.

That's not the issue. If "will" is just a link in the causal chain, then yes, that's Deterministic. But then, will is really a null item, just a cog inside a machine. It has no causal power itself, and like all cogs, is merely pushed around by prior cogs.

Thus, it is neither really free nor volitional, nor any expression of a person or identity. It's just a cog.

But the question is, "Can an ultimate or initial cause of an action be the human will?"

[Immanuel Can]

The things he says in that video jive with everything in saying quite neatly. Randomness doesn't give us any sort of free will - he makes that case too, right around the point where he's saying "I'd rather be a gear...". That's exactly what's happening in this conversation.

He's actually speaking of Materialist Determinism there. When he's speaking of "random swerving in a vacuum," that's when he's talking about randomness.

But randomness has nothing to do with free will. He and I agree on that.

...we'd have free will even if we didn't have any randomness, which is exactly what compatibilists say about free will.

No, as I understand Compatibilism, that's not what they say.

Compatiblism essentially holds that the universe is secretly Deterministic, but that our ongoing ignorance of how it really is somehow allows for "free will" to be okay to affirm.

Logically, you can see that doesn't work.

Randomness is not a part of their argument, so far as I have ever seen it. But you and I both reject the "randomness" thing, so it's not important either way.

[Flannel Jesus]

But you and I both reject the "randomness" thing, so it's not important either way.

It shouldn't be important, but as long as you put determinism at odds with free will, you make it important. A deterministic world is a complete lack of randomness. If you require determinism to be false for free will to be true, you require randomness.

[Flannel Jesus]

The things he says in that video jive with everything in saying quite neatly. Randomness doesn't give us any sort of free will - he makes that case too, right around the point where he's saying "I'd rather be a gear...". That's exactly what's happening in this conversation.

He's actually speaking of Materialist Determinism there. When he's speaking of "random swerving in a vacuum," that's when he's talking about randomness.

Note that I said "around the point". I think you latched on to the specific words I quoted, rather than what he said around those words.