Compatibilism is impossible

[Consul]

"Behind the whole compatibilist enterprise lies the valid and important insight that, from one centrally important point of view, freedom is nothing more than a matter of being able to do what one wants or chooses or decides or thinks right or best to do, given one’s character, desires, values, beliefs (moral or otherwise), circumstances, and so on. Generally speaking, we have this freedom. Determinism does not affect it at all, and it has nothing whatever to do with any supposed sort of ultimate self-determination, or any particular power to determine what one’s character, desires, and so on will be. It is true that the fact that we generally have this freedom provides no support for the idea that we are or can be ‘truly’ self-determining in the way that still appears to be necessary for true responsibility. But we can indeed be self-determining in the compatibilist sense of being able by our own action, and in the light of our necessarily non-self-determined characters and desires, to determine to a very considerable extent what happens to us.

Compatibilists who stress this point have a powerful question to ask: ‘What else could one possibly suppose, or reflectively require, that freedom could or should be, other than this?’ But the old incompatibilist answer remains. This account of freedom does nothing to establish that we are truly responsible for our actions, nor, in particular, to establish that we are or can be truly morally responsible for our actions, in the ordinary, strong, desert-entailing sense."

(Strawson, Galen. Freedom and Belief. Rev. ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. p. 94)

——————

"Compatibilism says that our choices are free insofar as they manifest our characters (our beliefs, desires, etc.) and are not determined via causal chains that bypass our characters. If so, freedom is compatible with predetermination of our choices via our characters. The best argument for compatibilism is that we know better that we are sometimes free than that we ever escape predetermination; wherefore it may be for all we know that we are free but predetermined.

Incompatibilism says that our choices are free only if they have no determining causes outside our characters – not even causes that determine our choices via our characters. The best argument for incompatibilism rests on a plausible principle that unfreedom is closed under implication. Consider the prefix 'it is true that, and such-and-such agent never had any choice about whether', abbreviated 'Unfree'; suppose we have some premises (zero or more) that imply a conclusion; prefix 'Unfree' to each premise and to the conclusion; then the closure principle says that the prefixed premises imply the prefixed conclusion. Given determinism, apply closure to the implication that takes us from preconditions outside character – long ago, perhaps – and deterministic laws of nature to the predetermined choice. Conclude that the choice is unfree. Compatibilists must reject the closure principle. Let's assume that incompatibilists accept it. Else why are they incompatibilists?

I'll speak of 'compatibilist freedom' and 'incompatibilist freedom'. But I don't ask you to presuppose that these are two varieties of freedom. According to incompatibilism, compatibilist freedom is no more freedom than counterfeit money is money."

(Lewis, David. "Evil for Freedom's Sake?" 1993. Reprinted in Papers in Ethics and Social Philosophy, 101-127. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. pp. 109-10)

[Consul]

What I am arguing is that free will is impossible in a deterministic world.

Libertarian free will (as described by Chisholm) surely is.

"[E]ach of us, when we act, is a prime mover unmoved. In doing what we do, we cause certain events to happen, and nothing—or no one—causes us to cause those events to happen."

(Chisholm, Roderick M. On Metaphysics. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1989. p. 12)

Let's assume the world is wholly natural/physical, and we are human animals. How is libertarian free will supposed to work?
I would have to be able to cause neurons in my brain to cause decisions/intentions or actions of mine through sheer "willpower"—in such a way that the neural activity in question is initiated by me nonrandomly and independently of everything else that is or was going on in my brain, my body, my environment, and the rest of the world. That is, my (nonrandom) causings of the neural causings of my decisions/intentions or actions are themselves totally uncaused and uninfluenced by anything that happens or happened in the universe. Sounds like magic to me! Libertarian willpower is a supernatural force that doesn't exist in a natural world.

[Iwannaplato]

What I am arguing is that free will is impossible in a deterministic world.

Libertarian free will (as described by Chisholm) surely is.

"[E]ach of us, when we act, is a prime mover unmoved. In doing what we do, we cause certain events to happen, and nothing—or no one—causes us to cause those events to happen."

(Chisholm, Roderick M. On Metaphysics. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1989. p. 12)

Let's assume the world is wholly natural/physical, and we are human animals. How is libertarian free will supposed to work?
I would have to be able to cause neurons in my brain to cause decisions/intentions or actions of mine through sheer "willpower"—in such a way that the neural activity in question is initiated by me nonrandomly and independently of everything else that is or was going on in my brain, my body, my environment, and the rest of the world. That is, my (nonrandom) causings of the neural causings of my decisions/intentions or actions are themselves totally uncaused and uninfluenced by anything that happens or happened in the universe. Sounds like magic to me! Libertarian willpower is a supernatural force that doesn't exist in a natural world.

I think the problem runs deeper than an unknown force. Perhaps there are forces we don't know about. But for the sake of argument let's assume there is this force. Why wouldn't it also be determined? I can control the matter in my brain. Fine. OK. Why do I decide to control it in the way I do? Wouldn't I control it based on my desires, goals, wants, values, wishes? Wouldn't these all create the state of that force at Time 1 which leads to my controlling my neurons at Time 2? It's just another causal chain.

Or, the contol over the neurons has nothing to do with, is not caused by my desires, values, wants, etc.....

What's the point of that?

[Consul]

Let's assume the world is wholly natural/physical, and we are human animals. How is libertarian free will supposed to work?
I would have to be able to cause neurons in my brain to cause decisions/intentions or actions of mine through sheer "willpower"—in such a way that the neural activity in question is initiated by me nonrandomly and independently of everything else that is or was going on in my brain, my body, my environment, and the rest of the world. That is, my (nonrandom) causings of the neural causings of my decisions/intentions or actions are themselves totally uncaused and uninfluenced by anything that happens or happened in the universe. Sounds like magic to me! Libertarian willpower is a supernatural force that doesn't exist in a natural world.

I think the problem runs deeper than an unknown force. Perhaps there are forces we don't know about. But for the sake of argument let's assume there is this force. Why wouldn't it also be determined?

Because libertarian willpower is by definition an absolutely autonomous prima causa or primum movens (first, i.e. uncaused, cause or first, i.e. unmoved, mover).

I can control the matter in my brain. Fine. OK. Why do I decide to control it in the way I do? Wouldn't I control it based on my desires, goals, wants, values, wishes? Wouldn't these all create the state of that force at Time 1 which leads to my controlling my neurons at Time 2? It's just another causal chain.
Or, the contol over the neurons has nothing to do with, is not caused by my desires, values, wants, etc.....
What's the point of that?

From the materialistic perspective, my mental controlling of neural processes in my brain is itself a neural process in my brain; and in order for it to be an exertion of libertarian free will, it would have to be uncontrolled and uninfluenced by any other neural or material processes. The buck stops here according to libertarians, who deny that there is a potentially infinite regress of predetermining causes of our volitions and actions. Libertarians believe that causal determinism is false! They are incompatibilists!
From my anti-libertarian point of view, libertarian volitions qua causae primae are magical causations ex nihilo that just cannot occur in reality.

[Consul]

It should be mentioned that…

"There are three main libertarian options for understanding sourcehood or self-determination: non-causal libertarianism (Ginet 1990, 2008; McCann 1998; Lowe 2008; Goetz 2009; Pink 2017; Palmer 2021), event-causal libertarianism (Wiggins 1973; Kane 1996, 1999, 2011, 2016; Mele 1995, chs. 11–12; 2006, chs. 4–5; 2017; Ekstrom 2000, 2019; Clarke 2003, chs. 2–6; Franklin 2018), and agent-causal libertarianism (Reid 1788 [1969]; Chisholm 1966, 1976; Taylor 1966; O’Connor 2000; Clarke 1993; 1996; 2003, chs. 8–10; Griffith 2010; Steward 2012). Non-causal libertarians contend that exercises of the power of self-determination need not (or perhaps even cannot) be caused or causally structured. According to this view, we control our volition or choice simply in virtue of its being ours—its occurring in us. We do not exert a special kind of causality in bringing it about; instead, it is an intrinsically active event, intrinsically something we do. While there may be causal influences upon our choice, there need not be, and any such causal influence is wholly irrelevant to understanding why it occurs. Reasons provide an autonomous, non-causal form of explanation. Provided our choice is not wholly determined by prior factors, it is free and under our control simply in virtue of being ours. Non-causal views have failed to garner wide support among libertarians since, for many, self-determination seems to be an essentially causal notion (cf. Mele 2000 and Clarke 2003, ch. 2). This dispute hinges on the necessary conditions on the concept of causal power, and relatedly on whether power simpliciter admits causal and non-causal variants. For discussion, see O’Connor (2021).
Most libertarians endorse an event-causal or agent-causal account of sourcehood."

Free Will > Libertarian Accounts of Sourcehood

Indeed, "non-causal self-determination" sounds as self-contradictory as "non-causal self-causation".
However, the word "volition" is ambiguous, because it means either the mental power of willing/choosing/deciding/intending or the mental act of willing/choosing/deciding/intending as the manifestation or exertion of that power. Now the question is how actual manifestations of willpower come about. If they require prior acts of willing ("I hereby want my willpower to manifest itself!"), then we end up with a vicious regress of willings that is incompatible with libertarianism ("I hereby want to want my willpower to manifest itself!"). If I understand it correctly, non-causal libertarianism holds that I can exert my willpower without having to cause its manifestation in the form of actual choices/decisions/intentions. But if its manifestation doesn't occur as an effect of a prior cause, then I fail to understand how it can occur at all as a nonrandom event, and how its occurrence can be controlled by me at all.

What (agent- or event-)causal libertarians hold is that I can freely cause manifestations of my willpower in the form of actual choices/decisions/intentions in such a way that nothing causes or influences my causing of them.

[Iwannaplato]

Let's assume the world is wholly natural/physical, and we are human animals. How is libertarian free will supposed to work?
I would have to be able to cause neurons in my brain to cause decisions/intentions or actions of mine through sheer "willpower"—in such a way that the neural activity in question is initiated by me nonrandomly and independently of everything else that is or was going on in my brain, my body, my environment, and the rest of the world. That is, my (nonrandom) causings of the neural causings of my decisions/intentions or actions are themselves totally uncaused and uninfluenced by anything that happens or happened in the universe. Sounds like magic to me! Libertarian willpower is a supernatural force that doesn't exist in a natural world.

I think the problem runs deeper than an unknown force. Perhaps there are forces we don't know about. But for the sake of argument let's assume there is this force. Why wouldn't it also be determined?[/quote]

Because libertarian willpower is by definition an absolutely autonomous prima causa or primum movens (first, i.e. uncaused, cause or first, i.e. unmoved, mover).

Yes, Yes, I get that. But this means that the individual libertarian is proposing and usually implicitly celebrating a freedom that has nothing at all to do with their own values, desires, goals, interests, emotions and so on.

And I think if you look at most lay LFWers this is not at all what they are saying. They are are defending a freedom that precisely must be part of a causal chain going back into earlier states.

I haven't seen anyone, online at least, who while in the abstract defending/asserting LFW aren't also claiming a personal, individual expression of this freedom. And so, why wouldn't that also be determined?

Now someone could give up any personal, individual identification with this force, but I don't see anyone drawn to that.

From the materialistic perspective, my mental controlling of neural processes in my brain is itself a neural process in my brain; and in order for it to be an exertion of libertarian free will, it would have to be uncontrolled and uninfluenced by any other neural or material processes. The buck stops here according to libertarians, who deny that there is a potentially infinite regress of predetermining causes of our volitions and actions. Libertarians believe that causal determinism is false! They are incompatibilists!

Yes, yes, of course they are.

From my anti-libertarian point of view, libertarian volitions qua causae primae are magical causations ex nihilo that just cannot occur in reality.

Yes, I understood that. But I am saying, hey let's grant this freedom from past causes. You have that...

What value would that be to you, LFWer?

It would mean, again, that your (the LFWer not Consul) desires, goals, values and so on are not causes in this force. For you as an individual, that force would be acting at random. You hate Democrats well it may choose to vote for them. You hate pedophila, well it might choose to act this out. Becauses, essentially, you are saying that this force is in no way an outcome of of your values.


Even if true, it seems a pyrrhic freedom. In a sense one that the LFWer has little to do with. It sort of occurs within him or her, like burps that lead to choices.

[attofishpi]

Sure, and I considered that, but certainly the Sun will consume the Earth as a red giant prior to that causal chain...then of course you will insist that my fart 'chain' exists within the red giant that will eventually cause something to happen to Neptune.

You ever seen the movie Sunshine? Suppose your fart changes which people are alive at the time, so different people take the trip to the sun. Suppose in the world where you didn't fart, they fail to reignite the sun, but in the world where you did fart, they succeed. Your rectum would have saved the solar system and most assuredly it would affect the weather on Neptune.

Well of course if anything is going to save planets within the Solar System, it's going to be what comes out of The Life of Brian's anal passage.

PS> I haven't watched the film and am certain I never will. (unless someone holds a gun to my head, or a very attractive woman agrees to give me a blow job)...to watch that tripe.

[attofishpi]

Sure, and I considered that, but certainly the Sun will consume the Earth as a red giant prior to that causal chain...then of course you will insist that my fart 'chain' exists within the red giant that will eventually cause something to happen to Neptune.

Consider that your fart and Neptune are part of one thing. One thing that is unfolding. Your fart might not even affect your neighbor. But it's an illusion that there are all these separate objects with little domino chains. There one complex object unfolding.

You must agree, that causal chains have a termination point?

[Iwannaplato]

Sure, and I considered that, but certainly the Sun will consume the Earth as a red giant prior to that causal chain...then of course you will insist that my fart 'chain' exists within the red giant that will eventually cause something to happen to Neptune.

Consider that your fart and Neptune are part of one thing. One thing that is unfolding. Your fart might not even affect your neighbor. But it's an illusion that there are all these separate objects with little domino chains. There one complex object unfolding.

You must agree, that causal chains have a termination point?

I'm actually arguing that they are limited view constructions. But in that realm, which is quite practical to use, yes, I think even something like gravity doesn't taper off indefinitely but actually has a termination point. At least recent science points to this, I believe. But all that is divvying up the universe into 'separate' parts.

[Flannel Jesus]

You must agree, that causal chains have a termination point?

Why must anyone agree with that? What would make a casual chain terminate? I think just the opposite - the butterfly effect - casual chains branch out and multiply.

Every action has an equal an opposite reaction. That means any amount of energy you put into something, that energy will continue propagating through physical reality pretty much forever. Energy can be neither created nor destroyed. The consequence of this is that no casual chain is ever terminated, to my understanding.

[Iwannaplato]

You must agree, that causal chains have a termination point?

Why must anyone agree with that? What would make a casual chain terminate? I think just the opposite - the butterfly effect - casual chains branch out and multiply.

Every action has an equal an opposite reaction. That means any amount of energy you put into something, that energy will continue propagating through physical reality pretty much forever. Energy can be neither created nor destroyed. The consequence of this is that no casual chain is ever terminated, to my understanding.

And goodness knows what entanglement is doing. I mean, it seems like everything was once packed into a tight little point.

[attofishpi]

You must agree, that causal chains have a termination point?

Why must anyone agree with that? What would make a casual chain terminate? I think just the opposite - the butterfly effect - casual chains branch out and multiply.

Every action has an equal an opposite reaction. That means any amount of energy you put into something, that energy will continue propagating through physical reality pretty much forever. Energy can be neither created nor destroyed. The consequence of this is that no casual chain is ever terminated, to my understanding.

Tad busy but entropy n thermodynamics isn't going to support you here. A causal chain such as atto farting will terminate, such that it has no affect on anything happening within the Dog Star sirius system. (i'm probably addressing iwwannap. more than your question here) - gotta go.

[Flannel Jesus]

A causal chain such as atto farting will terminate

I've never read a physicist saying anything like this, and I've read a lot of words by a lot of physicists. I have a hard time believing that squares with the conservation of energy and momentum.

[bahman]

Compatibilism (= Hobbes/Locke/Hume-style free will) isn't impossible but irrelevant to the crucial question as to whether we have libertarian free will, in the sense that we can (sometimes at least) form decisions or intentions, and perform corresponding actions the causing of which by us is neither predetermined nor random. This sort of free will implies that if we decided to do/did X at time T, we could have decided to do/done otherwise at T.

"[W]e seem to be caught between a rock and a hard place. We seem to have to choose between just dismissing compatibilism as obviously false (and thus being deemed irrational by the professional philosophers who endorse the view) and engaging in a long, difficult argument about how the term “free will” is to be defined. But I think there’s a third alternative. The trick is not to fall into the trap of trying to argue that compatibilism is false; the trick is to argue instead that it’s irrelevant—that even if it’s true, it simply doesn’t matter.

To see why compatibilism is irrelevant, we need to distinguish two kinds of free will (actually, if we want to, we can distinguish many kinds of free will, but I’ll be able to make my point by discussing only two of them). The first kind of free will is the kind that Hume has in mind—it’s the ability to do what you want, or to act on your desires. Let’s call this Hume-style free will. The second kind of free will is the kind that I’ve been talking about in this book. It’s the kind that you have if your decisions are neither predetermined by prior events nor completely random. Let’s call this not-predetermined free will, or for short, NPD free will.

Given the distinction between Hume-style free will and NPD free will, we can make the following four points:

1. Hume-style free will is obviously compatible with determinism; in other words, it’s obviously compatible with the idea that all of our decisions
are completely caused by events that occurred in the distant past.

2. NPD free will is obviously not compatible with determinism. In fact, it’s built into the very definition of NPD free will that it’s not compatible with determinism. That’s why it’s called not-predetermined free will.

3. Human beings obviously have Hume-style free will. This isn’t even controversial. After all, Hume-style free will is just the ability to act on your desires. Anyone who’s ever eaten a cookie because she wanted one knows that we have this kind of free will.

4. It’s not obvious at all whether we have NPD free will. Some people think it’s an illusion; others think it’s real. In short, there is a raging debate about whether we have NPD free will. In fact, the arguments against free will that we discussed in chapter 2—the scientific argument and the random-or-predetermined argument—are best thought of as arguments against NPD free will.

But given these four points, Hume’s whole view seems completely unhelpful. All he’s really done is pointed out the obvious—that Hume-style free will is compatible with determinism and that we have Hume-style free will. But this doesn’t do anything to change the fact that there is an important open question about whether we have NPD free will.

Perhaps Hume would respond to this by saying that part of his point is that what I’m calling “Hume-style free will” is real free will. I’ll respond to this in the same way that my teenage daughter responds to me when I tell her that she has to be home by midnight: Whatever. I just don’t care what “real” free will is. In fact, I don’t even know what it means to say that Hume-style free will is real free will. This sounds to me like a dispute about words. I don’t care about the expression “free will.” The question I care about is a question about human beings—it’s the question of whether we have a certain, specific kind of free will, namely, what I’m calling NPD free will. But, frankly, I don’t care what we call this kind of free will. If Hume wants to take the expression “free will” for his own, he can have it. I can use a different term. Indeed, at the moment, I am using a different term—I’m using “NPD free will.” But, again, it doesn’t matter whether we call it “NPD free will” or just “free will.” All that matters is whether we have it. That’s the important question about free will—the question of whether human beings have not-predetermined free will.

You might respond to this by claiming that even if NPD free will is important, Hume-style free will is important too. Well, I think that’s right; I think it’s extremely important that we have Hume-style free will, and I would never suggest otherwise. But the question of whether we have Hume-style free will is not important. This is simply because we already know the answer to that question. It’s entirely obvious that we have Hume-style free will. The interesting question—and the controversial question—is whether we also have NPD free will. And the point I’m making here is that this question is interesting and important regardless of what we call this kind of free will."

(Balaguer, Mark. Free Will. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2014. pp. 49-53)

I don't think Hume's definition of free will is correct. What you are free of if you choose what you want.

[bahman]

What I am arguing is that free will is impossible in a deterministic world.

Libertarian free will (as described by Chisholm) surely is.

"[E]ach of us, when we act, is a prime mover unmoved. In doing what we do, we cause certain events to happen, and nothing—or no one—causes us to cause those events to happen."

(Chisholm, Roderick M. On Metaphysics. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1989. p. 12)

Let's assume the world is wholly natural/physical, and we are human animals. How is libertarian free will supposed to work?
I would have to be able to cause neurons in my brain to cause decisions/intentions or actions of mine through sheer "willpower"—in such a way that the neural activity in question is initiated by me nonrandomly and independently of everything else that is or was going on in my brain, my body, my environment, and the rest of the world. That is, my (nonrandom) causings of the neural causings of my decisions/intentions or actions are themselves totally uncaused and uninfluenced by anything that happens or happened in the universe. Sounds like magic to me! Libertarian willpower is a supernatural force that doesn't exist in a natural world.

Free will is necessary in the natural world and it is the ability of the mind rather than physical. Think of a situation in which options are equally liked or when the outcome of options is not known. Without the mind, any person would halt in such situations.