Libertarianism (metaphysics)
Encyclopedia
Libertarianism is one of the main philosophical
positions related to the problems of free will
and determinism
, which are part of the larger domain of metaphysics
. In particular, libertarianism, which is an incompatibilist position, argues that free will is logically incompatible with a deterministic universe and that agents have free will, and that therefore determinism is false. Although compatibilism, the view that determinism and free will are not logically incompatible, is the most popular position on free will amongst professional philosophers, metaphysical libertarianism is discussed, though not necessarily endorsed, by several philosophers, such as Peter van Inwagen
, Robert Kane
, Robert Nozick
, Carl Ginet
, Hugh McCann, Harry Frankfurt
, Alfred Mele
, Roderick Chisholm
, Daniel Dennett
, Timothy O'Connor, Derk Pereboom and Galen Strawson
.
The term "libertarianism" in a metaphysical or philosophical sense was first used by late Enlightenment
free-thinkers
to refer to those who believed in free will
, as opposed to determinism
. The first recorded use was in 1789 by William Belsham
in a discussion of free will and in opposition to "necessitarian" (or determinist) views. Metaphysical and philosophical contrasts between philosophies of necessity and libertarianism continued in the early 19th century.
and alternative possibilities
). As determinism would be, in this instance in order to be true, that one could flip a coin and forever show the exact output (heads or tails) infinitely. As such certainty is that from the previous conditions one can precisely determine any given output or outcome.
Accounts of libertarianism subdivide into non-physical theories and physical or naturalistic theories. Non-physical theories emphasize the way in which the agent doing the choosing is known, rather then what the agent consists of, be there any agent acknowledged at all. Through free belief the identity of an agent is established. By this view an agent cannot be established to exist by empirical or philosophical evidence, because evidence forces to a conclusion, destroying the freedom necessary in coming to a belief about the agent. Only the decisions and alternatives are taken to be matters of fact, but the agent is considered a matter of free belief. While metaphysical libertarians such as William of Ockham
and Thomas Reid
believe people have a soul which does the job of choosing, it would not be inconsistent with Ockham and Reid's philosophy to say that people don't have a soul, provided one arrives at the conclusion in a free way.
Explanations of libertarianism which do not involve dispensing with physicalism
require physical indeterminism. This is because physical determinism (under the assumption of physicalism) implies that there is only one possible future -- an idea which is not compatible with libertarian free will. Some explanations involve invoking panpsychism
, the theory that a quality of mind
is associated with all particles, and pervades the entire universe, in both sentient and non-sentient entities. Other approaches do not require free will to be a fundamental constituent of the universe; ordinary randomness is appealed to as supplying the "elbow room" that libertarians believe to be necessary. Free volition
is regarded as a particular kind of complex, high-level process with an element of indeterminism. An example of this kind of approach has been developed by Robert Kane
. Although at the time C. S. Lewis
wrote Miracles
, Quantum Mechanics
(and physical indeterminism
) was only in the initial stages of acceptance, he stated the logical possibility that if the physical world were proved to be indeterministic, this would provide an entry (interaction) point for non-physical entities into the traditionally-viewed "closed system" of the physical world. Thus some event might be philosophically describable as being an action of a non-physical entity on physical reality (noting that under a physicalist point of view the non-physical entity must be independent of the self-identity or mental processing of the sentient being).
.
When human beings become agents through reflexive self-awareness, they express their agency by having reasons for acting, to which they assign weights. Choosing the dimensions of one's identity is a special case, in which the assigning of weight to a dimension is partly self-constitutive. But all acting for reasons is constitutive of the self in a broader sense, namely, by its shaping one's character and personality in a manner analogous to the shaping that law undergoes through the precedent set by earlier court decisions. Just as a judge does not merely apply the law but to some degree makes it through judicial discretion, so too a person does not merely discover weights but assigns them; one not only weighs reasons but also weights them. Set in train is a process of building a framework for future decisions that we are tentatively committed to.
The life-long process of self-definition in this broader sense is construed indeterministically
by Nozick. The weighting is "up to us" in the sense that it is undetermined by antecedent causal factors, even though subsequent action is fully caused by the reasons one has accepted. He compares assigning weights in this deterministic sense to "the currently orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics", following von Neumann
in understanding a quantum mechanical system as in a superposition or probability mixture of states, which changes continuously in accordance with quantum mechanical equations of motion and discontinuously via measurement or observation that "collapses the wave packet" from a superposition to a particular state. Analogously, a person before decision has reasons without fixed weights: he is in a superposition of weights. The process of decision reduces the superposition to a particular state that causes action.
is one of the leading contemporary philosophers on free will
. Advocating what is termed within philosophical circles "libertarian freedom", Kane argues that "(1) the existence of alternative possibilities (or the agent's power to do otherwise) is a necessary condition for acting freely, and that (2) determinism is not compatible with alternative possibilities
(it precludes the power to do otherwise)". It is important to note that the crux of Kane's position is grounded not in a defense of alternative possibilities (AP) but in the notion of what Kane refers to as ultimate responsibility (UR). Thus, AP is a necessary but insufficient criterion for free will. It is necessary that there be (metaphysical
ly) real alternatives for our actions, but that is not enough; our actions could be random without being in our control. The control is found in "ultimate responsibility".
Ultimate responsibility entails that agents must be the ultimate creators (or originators) and sustainers of their own ends and purposes. There must be more than one way for a person's life to turn out (AP). More importantly, whichever way it turns out must be based in the person's willing actions. As Kane defines it,
In short, "an agent must be responsible for anything that is a sufficient reason (condition, cause or motive) for the action's occurring."
What allows for ultimacy of creation in Kane's picture are what he refers to as "self-forming actions" or SFAs — those moments of indecision during which people experience conflicting wills. These SFAs are the undetermined, regress-stopping voluntary actions or refraining in the life histories of agents that are required for UR. UR does not require that every act done of our own free will be undetermined and thus that, for every act or choice, we could have done otherwise; it requires only that certain of our choices and actions be undetermined (and thus that we could have done otherwise), namely SFAs. These form our character or nature; they inform our future choices, reasons and motivations in action. If a person has had the opportunity to make a character-forming decision (SFA), they are responsible for the actions that are a result of their character.
objects that Kane's depiction of free will is not truly libertarian but rather a form of compatibilism
. The objection asserts that although the outcome of an SFA is not determined, one's history up to the event is; so the fact that an SFA will occur is also determined. The outcome of the SFA is based on chance, and from that point on one's life is determined. This kind of freedom, says Clarke, is no different than the kind of freedom argued for by compatibilists, who assert that even though our actions are determined, they are free because they are in accordance with our own wills, much like the outcome of an SFA.
Kane responds that the difference between causal indeterminism and compatibilism is "ultimate control — the originative control exercised by agents when it is 'up to them' which of a set of possible choices or actions will now occur, and up to no one and nothing else over which the agents themselves do not also have control". UR assures that the sufficient conditions for one's actions do not lie before one's own birth.
Galen Strawson
holds that there is a fundamental sense in which free will
is impossible, whether determinism
is true or not. He argues for this position with what he calls his "basic argument", which aims to show that no-one is ever ultimately morally responsible for their actions, and hence that no one has free will in the sense that usually concerns us. In its simplest form, the Basic Argument runs thus:
In his book defending compatibilism, Freedom Evolves
, Daniel Dennett spends a chapter criticising Kane's theory. Kane believes freedom is based on certain rare and exceptional events, which he calls self-forming actions or SFA's. Dennett notes that there is no guarantee such an event will occur in an individual's life. If it does not, the individual does not in fact have free will at all, according to Kane. Yet they will seem the same as anyone else. Dennett finds an essentially indetectable notion of free will to be incredible.
. These separate the free stage from the will stage.
In the first stage, alternative possibilities for thought and action are generated, in part indeterministically.
In the second stage, an adequately determined will evaluates the options that have been developed.
If, on deliberation, one option for action seems best, it is selected and chosen. If no option seems good enough, and time permitting, the process can return to the further generation of alternative possibilities ("second thoughts") before a final decision.
A two-stage model can explain how an agent could choose to do otherwise in exactly the same circumstances that preceded the first stage of the overall free will process.
Mark Balaguer, in his book Free Will as an Open Scientific Problem argues similarly to Kane. He believes that, conceptually, free will requires indeterminism, and the question of whether the brain behaves indeterministically is open to further empirical
research.
Two stage models have also been proposed by William James
, Arthur Holly Compton, Karl Popper
, Henry Margenau
, Daniel Dennett
, Alfred Mele
and Bob Doyle. A number of these theorists have made an analogy with Darwinian evolution.
(also known as Frankfurt cases or Frankfurt-style cases) were presented by philosopher Harry Frankfurt
in 1969 as counterexamples to the "principle of alternative possibilities" or PAP, which holds that an agent is morally responsible
for an action only if they have the option of free will
(i.e. they could have done otherwise).
, as detailed below:
Traditionally, compatibilists
(defenders of the compatibility of moral responsibility and determinism, like Alfred Ayer
and Walter Terence Stace
) try to reject premise two, arguing that, properly understood, free will is not incompatible with determinism. According to the traditional analysis of free will, an agent is free to do otherwise when they would have done otherwise had they wanted to do otherwise. Agents may possess free will, according to the conditional analysis, even if determinism is true.
Frankfurt's examples are significant because they suggest an alternative way to defend compatibilism, in particular by rejecting the first premise of the argument. According to this view, responsibility is compatible with determinism because responsibility does not require the freedom to do otherwise.
Frankfurt's examples involve agents who are intuitively responsible for their behavior even though they lack the freedom to act otherwise. Here is a typical case:
Donald is a Democrat and is likely to vote for the Democrats
; in fact, only in one particular circumstance will he not: that is, if he thinks about the prospects of immediate American defeat in Iraq
just prior to voting. Ms. White, a representative of the Democratic Party, wants to ensure that Donald votes Democratic, so she secretly plants a device in Donald's head that, if activated, will force him to vote Democratic. Not wishing to reveal her presence unnecessarily, Ms White plans to activate the device only if Donald thinks about the Iraq War prior to voting. As things happen, Donald does not think about the Democrats' promise to ensure defeat in Iraq prior to voting, so Ms White thus sees no reason to activate the device, and Donald votes Democratic of his own accord. Apparently, Donald is responsible for voting Democratic in spite of the fact that, owing to Ms. White's device, he lacks freedom to do otherwise.
If Frankfurt is correct in suggesting both that Donald is morally responsible for voting Democratic and that he is not free to do otherwise, moral responsibility, in general, does not require that an agent have the freedom to do otherwise (that is, the principle of alternate possibilities is false). Thus, even if causal determinism is true, and even if determinism removes the freedom to do otherwise, there is no reason to doubt that people can still be morally responsible for their behavior.
Having rebutted the principle of alternate possibilities, Frankfurt suggests that it be revised to take into account the fallacy of the notion that coercion precludes an agent from moral responsibility. It must be only because of coercion that the agent acts as they do. The best definition, by his reckoning, is this: "[A] person is not morally responsible for what they have done if they did it "only because they could not have done otherwise."
postulated free will which is metaphysically libertarian to exist in that all apparently extental determinations are fully self-created. The conscious will is then truly & absolutely free to navigate those determinations. Indeterminacy from without, determinacy from within is the dialectic of absolute free will. All objects finding their distinctions within us as subject implies universal self-creation.
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
positions related to the problems of free will
Free will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
and determinism
Determinism
Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...
, which are part of the larger domain of metaphysics
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
. In particular, libertarianism, which is an incompatibilist position, argues that free will is logically incompatible with a deterministic universe and that agents have free will, and that therefore determinism is false. Although compatibilism, the view that determinism and free will are not logically incompatible, is the most popular position on free will amongst professional philosophers, metaphysical libertarianism is discussed, though not necessarily endorsed, by several philosophers, such as Peter van Inwagen
Peter van Inwagen
Peter van Inwagen is an American analytic philosopher and the John Cardinal O'Hara Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He previously taught at Syracuse University and earned his PhD from the University of Rochester under the direction of Richard Taylor and Keith Lehrer...
, Robert Kane
Robert Kane (philosopher)
Robert Hilary Kane is an American philosopher. He is Distinguished Teaching Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, and is currently on phased retirement....
, Robert Nozick
Robert Nozick
Robert Nozick was an American political philosopher, most prominent in the 1970s and 1980s. He was a professor at Harvard University. He is best known for his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia , a right-libertarian answer to John Rawls's A Theory of Justice...
, Carl Ginet
Carl Ginet
Carl Ginet is an American philosopher and Professor Emeritus at Cornell University. His work is primarily in action theory, moral responsibility, free will, and epistemology....
, Hugh McCann, Harry Frankfurt
Harry Frankfurt
Harry Gordon Frankfurt is an American philosopher. He is professor emeritus of philosophy at Princeton University and has previously taught at Yale University and Rockefeller University. He obtained his B.A. in 1949 and Ph.D. in 1954 from...
, Alfred Mele
Alfred Mele
Alfred Remen Mele is an American philosopher. He has been the William H. and Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy at Florida State University since 2000...
, Roderick Chisholm
Roderick Chisholm
Roderick M. Chisholm was an American philosopher known for his work on epistemology, metaphysics, free will, and the philosophy of perception. He received his Ph.D. at Harvard University under Clarence Irving Lewis and Donald C. Williams, and taught at Brown University...
, Daniel Dennett
Daniel Dennett
Daniel Clement Dennett is an American philosopher, writer and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science. He is currently the Co-director of...
, Timothy O'Connor, Derk Pereboom and Galen Strawson
Galen Strawson
Galen John Strawson is a British philosopher and literary critic who works primarily on philosophy of mind, metaphysics , John Locke, David Hume and Kant. He was educated at the Dragon School, Oxford , from where he won a scholarship to Winchester College...
.
The term "libertarianism" in a metaphysical or philosophical sense was first used by late Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
free-thinkers
Freethought
Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that opinions should be formed on the basis of science, logic, and reason, and should not be influenced by authority, tradition, or other dogmas...
to refer to those who believed in free will
Free will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
, as opposed to determinism
Determinism
Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...
. The first recorded use was in 1789 by William Belsham
William Belsham
William Belsham was an English political writer and historian, noted as a supporter of the Whig Party and its principles. In 1789 he coined the term libertarian in a discussion of free will and in opposition to "necessitarian" views...
in a discussion of free will and in opposition to "necessitarian" (or determinist) views. Metaphysical and philosophical contrasts between philosophies of necessity and libertarianism continued in the early 19th century.
Overview
Metaphysical libertarianism is one philosophical view point under that of incompatibilism. Libertarianism holds onto a concept of free will that requires the agent to be able to take more than one possible course of action under a given set of circumstances (also see the many-worlds interpretationMany-worlds interpretation
The many-worlds interpretation is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that asserts the objective reality of the universal wavefunction, but denies the actuality of wavefunction collapse. Many-worlds implies that all possible alternative histories and futures are real, each representing an...
and alternative possibilities
Alternative possibilities
Alternative possibilities for action are one of two criteria considered essential for libertarian free will and for moral responsibility. The other is to the ability to choose and do otherwise in exactly the same circumstances....
). As determinism would be, in this instance in order to be true, that one could flip a coin and forever show the exact output (heads or tails) infinitely. As such certainty is that from the previous conditions one can precisely determine any given output or outcome.
Accounts of libertarianism subdivide into non-physical theories and physical or naturalistic theories. Non-physical theories emphasize the way in which the agent doing the choosing is known, rather then what the agent consists of, be there any agent acknowledged at all. Through free belief the identity of an agent is established. By this view an agent cannot be established to exist by empirical or philosophical evidence, because evidence forces to a conclusion, destroying the freedom necessary in coming to a belief about the agent. Only the decisions and alternatives are taken to be matters of fact, but the agent is considered a matter of free belief. While metaphysical libertarians such as William of Ockham
William of Ockham
William of Ockham was an English Franciscan friar and scholastic philosopher, who is believed to have been born in Ockham, a small village in Surrey. He is considered to be one of the major figures of medieval thought and was at the centre of the major intellectual and political controversies of...
and Thomas Reid
Thomas Reid
The Reverend Thomas Reid FRSE , was a religiously trained Scottish philosopher, and a contemporary of David Hume, was the founder of the Scottish School of Common Sense, and played an integral role in the Scottish Enlightenment...
believe people have a soul which does the job of choosing, it would not be inconsistent with Ockham and Reid's philosophy to say that people don't have a soul, provided one arrives at the conclusion in a free way.
Explanations of libertarianism which do not involve dispensing with physicalism
Physicalism
Physicalism is a philosophical position holding that everything which exists is no more extensive than its physical properties; that is, that there are no kinds of things other than physical things...
require physical indeterminism. This is because physical determinism (under the assumption of physicalism) implies that there is only one possible future -- an idea which is not compatible with libertarian free will. Some explanations involve invoking panpsychism
Panpsychism
In philosophy, panpsychism is the view that all matter has a mental aspect, or, alternatively, all objects have a unified center of experience or point of view...
, the theory that a quality of mind
Mind
The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...
is associated with all particles, and pervades the entire universe, in both sentient and non-sentient entities. Other approaches do not require free will to be a fundamental constituent of the universe; ordinary randomness is appealed to as supplying the "elbow room" that libertarians believe to be necessary. Free volition
Volition (psychology)
Volition or will is the cognitive process by which an individual decides on and commits to a particular course of action. It is defined as purposive striving, and is one of the primary human psychological functions...
is regarded as a particular kind of complex, high-level process with an element of indeterminism. An example of this kind of approach has been developed by Robert Kane
Robert Kane (philosopher)
Robert Hilary Kane is an American philosopher. He is Distinguished Teaching Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, and is currently on phased retirement....
. Although at the time C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
wrote Miracles
Miracles (book)
Miracles is a book written by C. S. Lewis, originally published in 1947 and revised in 1960. Lewis argues that before one can learn from the study of history whether or not any miracles have ever occurred, one must first settle the philosophical question of whether it is logically possible that...
, Quantum Mechanics
Quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics, also known as quantum physics or quantum theory, is a branch of physics providing a mathematical description of much of the dual particle-like and wave-like behavior and interactions of energy and matter. It departs from classical mechanics primarily at the atomic and subatomic...
(and physical indeterminism
Indeterminism
Indeterminism is the concept that events are not caused, or not caused deterministically by prior events. It is the opposite of determinism and related to chance...
) was only in the initial stages of acceptance, he stated the logical possibility that if the physical world were proved to be indeterministic, this would provide an entry (interaction) point for non-physical entities into the traditionally-viewed "closed system" of the physical world. Thus some event might be philosophically describable as being an action of a non-physical entity on physical reality (noting that under a physicalist point of view the non-physical entity must be independent of the self-identity or mental processing of the sentient being).
Robert Nozick
Nozick puts forward an indeterministic theory of free will in Philosophical ExplanationsPhilosophical explanations
Philosophical Explanations is a wide-ranging metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical treatise written by Robert Nozick and published in 1981.-The Parthenon Model and non-coercive philosophy:...
.
When human beings become agents through reflexive self-awareness, they express their agency by having reasons for acting, to which they assign weights. Choosing the dimensions of one's identity is a special case, in which the assigning of weight to a dimension is partly self-constitutive. But all acting for reasons is constitutive of the self in a broader sense, namely, by its shaping one's character and personality in a manner analogous to the shaping that law undergoes through the precedent set by earlier court decisions. Just as a judge does not merely apply the law but to some degree makes it through judicial discretion, so too a person does not merely discover weights but assigns them; one not only weighs reasons but also weights them. Set in train is a process of building a framework for future decisions that we are tentatively committed to.
The life-long process of self-definition in this broader sense is construed indeterministically
Indeterminism
Indeterminism is the concept that events are not caused, or not caused deterministically by prior events. It is the opposite of determinism and related to chance...
by Nozick. The weighting is "up to us" in the sense that it is undetermined by antecedent causal factors, even though subsequent action is fully caused by the reasons one has accepted. He compares assigning weights in this deterministic sense to "the currently orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics", following von Neumann
John von Neumann
John von Neumann was a Hungarian-American mathematician and polymath who made major contributions to a vast number of fields, including set theory, functional analysis, quantum mechanics, ergodic theory, geometry, fluid dynamics, economics and game theory, computer science, numerical analysis,...
in understanding a quantum mechanical system as in a superposition or probability mixture of states, which changes continuously in accordance with quantum mechanical equations of motion and discontinuously via measurement or observation that "collapses the wave packet" from a superposition to a particular state. Analogously, a person before decision has reasons without fixed weights: he is in a superposition of weights. The process of decision reduces the superposition to a particular state that causes action.
Robert Kane
KaneRobert Kane (philosopher)
Robert Hilary Kane is an American philosopher. He is Distinguished Teaching Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, and is currently on phased retirement....
is one of the leading contemporary philosophers on free will
Free will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
. Advocating what is termed within philosophical circles "libertarian freedom", Kane argues that "(1) the existence of alternative possibilities (or the agent's power to do otherwise) is a necessary condition for acting freely, and that (2) determinism is not compatible with alternative possibilities
Alternative possibilities
Alternative possibilities for action are one of two criteria considered essential for libertarian free will and for moral responsibility. The other is to the ability to choose and do otherwise in exactly the same circumstances....
(it precludes the power to do otherwise)". It is important to note that the crux of Kane's position is grounded not in a defense of alternative possibilities (AP) but in the notion of what Kane refers to as ultimate responsibility (UR). Thus, AP is a necessary but insufficient criterion for free will. It is necessary that there be (metaphysical
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
ly) real alternatives for our actions, but that is not enough; our actions could be random without being in our control. The control is found in "ultimate responsibility".
Ultimate responsibility entails that agents must be the ultimate creators (or originators) and sustainers of their own ends and purposes. There must be more than one way for a person's life to turn out (AP). More importantly, whichever way it turns out must be based in the person's willing actions. As Kane defines it,
In short, "an agent must be responsible for anything that is a sufficient reason (condition, cause or motive) for the action's occurring."
What allows for ultimacy of creation in Kane's picture are what he refers to as "self-forming actions" or SFAs — those moments of indecision during which people experience conflicting wills. These SFAs are the undetermined, regress-stopping voluntary actions or refraining in the life histories of agents that are required for UR. UR does not require that every act done of our own free will be undetermined and thus that, for every act or choice, we could have done otherwise; it requires only that certain of our choices and actions be undetermined (and thus that we could have done otherwise), namely SFAs. These form our character or nature; they inform our future choices, reasons and motivations in action. If a person has had the opportunity to make a character-forming decision (SFA), they are responsible for the actions that are a result of their character.
Critique
Randolph ClarkeRandolph Clarke
Randolph Clarke is a Professor of Philosophy at Florida State University. His interests are human agency, particularly intentional action, free will, and moral responsibility....
objects that Kane's depiction of free will is not truly libertarian but rather a form of compatibilism
Compatibilism
Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are compatible ideas, and that it is possible to believe both without being logically inconsistent. It may, however, be more accurate to say that compatibilists define 'free will' in a way that allows it to co-exist with determinism...
. The objection asserts that although the outcome of an SFA is not determined, one's history up to the event is; so the fact that an SFA will occur is also determined. The outcome of the SFA is based on chance, and from that point on one's life is determined. This kind of freedom, says Clarke, is no different than the kind of freedom argued for by compatibilists, who assert that even though our actions are determined, they are free because they are in accordance with our own wills, much like the outcome of an SFA.
Kane responds that the difference between causal indeterminism and compatibilism is "ultimate control — the originative control exercised by agents when it is 'up to them' which of a set of possible choices or actions will now occur, and up to no one and nothing else over which the agents themselves do not also have control". UR assures that the sufficient conditions for one's actions do not lie before one's own birth.
Galen Strawson
Galen Strawson
Galen John Strawson is a British philosopher and literary critic who works primarily on philosophy of mind, metaphysics , John Locke, David Hume and Kant. He was educated at the Dragon School, Oxford , from where he won a scholarship to Winchester College...
holds that there is a fundamental sense in which free will
Free will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
is impossible, whether determinism
Determinism
Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...
is true or not. He argues for this position with what he calls his "basic argument", which aims to show that no-one is ever ultimately morally responsible for their actions, and hence that no one has free will in the sense that usually concerns us. In its simplest form, the Basic Argument runs thus:
- We do what we do, in a given situation, because we are what we are.
- In order to be ultimately responsible for what we do, we have to be ultimately responsible for what we are — at least in certain crucial mental respects.
- But we cannot, as the first point avers, be ultimately responsible for what we are, because, simply, we are what we are; we cannot be causa suiCausa suiCausa sui denotes something which is generated within itself. This concept was central to the works of Baruch Spinoza, Sigmund Freud, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Ernest Becker, where it relates to the purpose that objects can assign to themselves...
. - Therefore, we cannot be ultimately responsible for what we do.
In his book defending compatibilism, Freedom Evolves
Freedom Evolves
Freedom Evolves is a 2003 popular science and philosophy book by Daniel C. Dennett. Dennett describes the book as an installment of a life-long philosophical project, earlier parts of which were The Intentional Stance, Consciousness Explained and Elbow Room...
, Daniel Dennett spends a chapter criticising Kane's theory. Kane believes freedom is based on certain rare and exceptional events, which he calls self-forming actions or SFA's. Dennett notes that there is no guarantee such an event will occur in an individual's life. If it does not, the individual does not in fact have free will at all, according to Kane. Yet they will seem the same as anyone else. Dennett finds an essentially indetectable notion of free will to be incredible.
Other two-stage models
Kane's theory is an example of a two-stage model of free willTwo-stage model of free will
A two-stage model of free will separates the free stage from the will stage.In the first stage, alternative possibilities for thought and action are generated, in part indeterministically....
. These separate the free stage from the will stage.
In the first stage, alternative possibilities for thought and action are generated, in part indeterministically.
In the second stage, an adequately determined will evaluates the options that have been developed.
If, on deliberation, one option for action seems best, it is selected and chosen. If no option seems good enough, and time permitting, the process can return to the further generation of alternative possibilities ("second thoughts") before a final decision.
A two-stage model can explain how an agent could choose to do otherwise in exactly the same circumstances that preceded the first stage of the overall free will process.
Mark Balaguer, in his book Free Will as an Open Scientific Problem argues similarly to Kane. He believes that, conceptually, free will requires indeterminism, and the question of whether the brain behaves indeterministically is open to further empirical
Empirical
The word empirical denotes information gained by means of observation or experimentation. Empirical data are data produced by an experiment or observation....
research.
Two stage models have also been proposed by William James
William James
William James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism...
, Arthur Holly Compton, Karl Popper
Karl Popper
Sir Karl Raimund Popper, CH FRS FBA was an Austro-British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics...
, Henry Margenau
Henry Margenau
Henry Margenau was a German-U.S. physicist, and philosopher of science.-Early life:Born Bielefeld, Germany, Margenau obtained his bachelor's degree from Midland Lutheran College, Nebraska before his M.Sc...
, Daniel Dennett
Daniel Dennett
Daniel Clement Dennett is an American philosopher, writer and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science. He is currently the Co-director of...
, Alfred Mele
Alfred Mele
Alfred Remen Mele is an American philosopher. He has been the William H. and Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy at Florida State University since 2000...
and Bob Doyle. A number of these theorists have made an analogy with Darwinian evolution.
Harry Frankfurt
Frankfurt counterexamplesFrankfurt counterexamples
Frankfurt cases were presented by philosopher Harry Frankfurt in 1969 as counterexamples to the "principle of alternative possibilities" or PAP, which holds that an agent is morally responsible for an action only if causal determinism is false.-The Principle of Alternative Possibilities:The...
(also known as Frankfurt cases or Frankfurt-style cases) were presented by philosopher Harry Frankfurt
Harry Frankfurt
Harry Gordon Frankfurt is an American philosopher. He is professor emeritus of philosophy at Princeton University and has previously taught at Yale University and Rockefeller University. He obtained his B.A. in 1949 and Ph.D. in 1954 from...
in 1969 as counterexamples to the "principle of alternative possibilities" or PAP, which holds that an agent is morally responsible
Moral responsibility
Moral responsibility usually refers to the idea that a person has moral obligations in certain situations. Disobeying moral obligations, then, becomes grounds for justified punishment. Deciding what justifies punishment, if anything, is a principle concern of ethics.People who have moral...
for an action only if they have the option of free will
Free will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
(i.e. they could have done otherwise).
The Principle of Alternate Possibilities
The principle of alternate possibilities forms part of an influential argument for the incompatibility of responsibility and causal determinismDeterminism
Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...
, as detailed below:
- PAP: An agent is responsible for an action only if said agent is free.
- An agent is free only if causal determinism is false.
- Therefore, an agent is responsible for an action only if causal determinism is false.
Traditionally, compatibilists
Compatibilism
Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are compatible ideas, and that it is possible to believe both without being logically inconsistent. It may, however, be more accurate to say that compatibilists define 'free will' in a way that allows it to co-exist with determinism...
(defenders of the compatibility of moral responsibility and determinism, like Alfred Ayer
Alfred Ayer
Sir Alfred Jules "Freddie" Ayer was a British philosopher known for his promotion of logical positivism, particularly in his books Language, Truth, and Logic and The Problem of Knowledge ....
and Walter Terence Stace
Walter Terence Stace
Walter Terence Stace was a British civil servant, educator, philosopher and epistemologist, who wrote on Hegel, Mysticism, and Moral relativism...
) try to reject premise two, arguing that, properly understood, free will is not incompatible with determinism. According to the traditional analysis of free will, an agent is free to do otherwise when they would have done otherwise had they wanted to do otherwise. Agents may possess free will, according to the conditional analysis, even if determinism is true.
Frankfurt's objection
From the PAP definition "a person is morally responsible for what they have done only if they could have done otherwise", Frankfurt infers that a person is not morally responsible for what they has done if they could not have done otherwise — a point with which he takes issue: our theoretical ability to do otherwise, he says, does not necessarily make it possible for us to do otherwise.Frankfurt's examples are significant because they suggest an alternative way to defend compatibilism, in particular by rejecting the first premise of the argument. According to this view, responsibility is compatible with determinism because responsibility does not require the freedom to do otherwise.
Frankfurt's examples involve agents who are intuitively responsible for their behavior even though they lack the freedom to act otherwise. Here is a typical case:
Donald is a Democrat and is likely to vote for the Democrats
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
; in fact, only in one particular circumstance will he not: that is, if he thinks about the prospects of immediate American defeat in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
just prior to voting. Ms. White, a representative of the Democratic Party, wants to ensure that Donald votes Democratic, so she secretly plants a device in Donald's head that, if activated, will force him to vote Democratic. Not wishing to reveal her presence unnecessarily, Ms White plans to activate the device only if Donald thinks about the Iraq War prior to voting. As things happen, Donald does not think about the Democrats' promise to ensure defeat in Iraq prior to voting, so Ms White thus sees no reason to activate the device, and Donald votes Democratic of his own accord. Apparently, Donald is responsible for voting Democratic in spite of the fact that, owing to Ms. White's device, he lacks freedom to do otherwise.
If Frankfurt is correct in suggesting both that Donald is morally responsible for voting Democratic and that he is not free to do otherwise, moral responsibility, in general, does not require that an agent have the freedom to do otherwise (that is, the principle of alternate possibilities is false). Thus, even if causal determinism is true, and even if determinism removes the freedom to do otherwise, there is no reason to doubt that people can still be morally responsible for their behavior.
Having rebutted the principle of alternate possibilities, Frankfurt suggests that it be revised to take into account the fallacy of the notion that coercion precludes an agent from moral responsibility. It must be only because of coercion that the agent acts as they do. The best definition, by his reckoning, is this: "[A] person is not morally responsible for what they have done if they did it "only because they could not have done otherwise."
Giovanni Gentile
Philosopher Giovanni GentileGiovanni Gentile
Giovanni Gentile was an Italian neo-Hegelian Idealist philosopher, a peer of Benedetto Croce. He described himself as 'the philosopher of Fascism', and ghostwrote A Doctrine of Fascism for Benito Mussolini. He also devised his own system of philosophy, Actual Idealism.- Life and thought :Giovanni...
postulated free will which is metaphysically libertarian to exist in that all apparently extental determinations are fully self-created. The conscious will is then truly & absolutely free to navigate those determinations. Indeterminacy from without, determinacy from within is the dialectic of absolute free will. All objects finding their distinctions within us as subject implies universal self-creation.
See also
- Actual idealismActual IdealismActual Idealism was a form of idealism, developed by Giovanni Gentile, that grew into a 'grounded' idealism, contrasting the Transcendental Idealism of Immanuel Kant, and the Absolute idealism of G. W. F. Hegel...
- Bayesian inferenceBayesian inferenceIn statistics, Bayesian inference is a method of statistical inference. It is often used in science and engineering to determine model parameters, make predictions about unknown variables, and to perform model selection...
- Benjamin LibetBenjamin LibetBenjamin Libet April 12, 1916, Chicago, Illinois - July 23, 2007, Davis, California) was a pioneering scientist in the field of human consciousness. Libet was a researcher in the physiology department of the University of California, San Francisco...
- Dilemma of determinism
- Free will theoremFree will theoremThe free will theorem of John H. Conway and Simon B. Kochen states that, if we have a certain amount of "free will", then, subject to certain assumptions, so must some elementary particles. Conway and Kochen's paper was published in Foundations of Physics in 2006.-Axioms:The proof of the theorem...
- Monte Carlo methodMonte Carlo methodMonte Carlo methods are a class of computational algorithms that rely on repeated random sampling to compute their results. Monte Carlo methods are often used in computer simulations of physical and mathematical systems...
- Newcomb's paradoxNewcomb's paradoxNewcomb's paradox, also referred to as Newcomb's problem, is a thought experiment involving a game between two players, one of whom purports to be able to predict the future. Whether the problem is actually a paradox is disputed....
- StochasticStochasticStochastic refers to systems whose behaviour is intrinsically non-deterministic. A stochastic process is one whose behavior is non-deterministic, in that a system's subsequent state is determined both by the process's predictable actions and by a random element. However, according to M. Kac and E...
- Voluntarism
- Philosophical zombiePhilosophical zombieA philosophical zombie or p-zombie in the philosophy of mind and perception is a hypothetical being that is indistinguishable from a normal human being except in that it lacks conscious experience, qualia, or sentience...
- Many-worlds interpretationMany-worlds interpretationThe many-worlds interpretation is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that asserts the objective reality of the universal wavefunction, but denies the actuality of wavefunction collapse. Many-worlds implies that all possible alternative histories and futures are real, each representing an...
- Ilya PrigogineIlya PrigogineIlya, Viscount Prigogine was a Russian-born naturalized Belgian physical chemist and Nobel Laureate noted for his work on dissipative structures, complex systems, and irreversibility.-Biography :...
Further reading
- Randolph Clarke Libertarian Accounts of Free Will. Oxford University PressOxford University PressOxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
: New York, 2003. ISBN 0-19-515987-X - Robert KaneRobert Kane (philosopher)Robert Hilary Kane is an American philosopher. He is Distinguished Teaching Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, and is currently on phased retirement....
The Significance of Free Will. Oxford University PressOxford University PressOxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
: New York, 1998. ISBN 0-19-512656-4
External links
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- M. Huemer: A Proof of Free Will
- Peter Van Inwagen: The Mystery Of Metaphysical Freedom
- Collection of papers on various aspects of Free Will and Determinism hosted by Ted HonderichTed HonderichTed Honderich is a Canadian-born British philosopher, Grote Professor Emeritus of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic, University College London and Visiting Professor, University of Bath...
- Information Philosopher
- MindPapers Collection of articles on Libertarianism about Free Will