Intuition Pumps (Thought Experiments), Free Will, and Nietzsche

In light of the way that modern philosophy works, this post by Adam Rawlings deserves to be spread far and wide. It's not often that you find philosophers rejecting (even to a degree) rather than analytically debating (fallacious) thought experiments (there are good thought experiments -- check out out I made previously by hitting the thought experiments tag).

I haven't studied modal logic, but it seems that what is "logically possible" is rather arbitrary. Logically possible in our physical world is likely not what philosophers think it is; some of these "logically possible" assertions strike me as similar to Descartes' claim that "the more perfect -- that is to say, that which contains in itself more reality -- cannot be a consequence of and dependent upon the less perfect. This truth is not only clear and evident..." (Third Meditation). ADHR criticizes all of the thought experiments on this basis.

There's another criticism for Frankfurt thought experiments. As a compatibilist, Harry Frankfurt accepts determinism. Yet if determinism implies that there is a single future path which rules out metaphysical responsibility, as Dennett, Pereboom, Honderich, Inwagen, Kane, and others believe, then Frankfurt has to explain how the "free will" necessary for moral (metaphysical) responsibility exists. His thought experiments assume "free will" because people make a free choice. He attacks what he calls the Principle of Alternate Possibilities, focusing this attack on actions -- but what really matters is choices. In Frankfurt's imaginary world, people can still make "free" choices for which they are ultimately responsible. (Technically, the agent in Frankfurt's experiment is only responsible for his action when the controller did not have to act.) What I'm saying is that Frankfurt's thought experiments don't get him any closer to the moral responsibility he wants; he still hasn't addressed the regular problems with "free will" moral responsibility. He won't be able to, either, because the metaphysical free will which allows ultimate metaphysical responsibility is incoherent. We are not responsible for our positions, and thus we are not ultimately responsible for our actions. We are only responsible in the sense that we have to be responsible (responsibility keeps people's behaviors in check). This critique is obvious, but somehow it hasn't gained traction in the philosophical literature; I imagine most philosophers would reject it out of hand simply because they don't want to admit that they've studied Frankfurt counterexamples these past 30+ years without noticing.

If we can get past this focus on ultimate responsibility, however, we can start to think about taking control of our lives and acting with at least some personal responsibility -- you aren't responsible for the position you're in, but goddamnit, you're gonna have to make the best of it. At the same time, this position recognizes (as we do legally) mitigating and aggravating factors in actions, and advocates that we study the causal factors behind behavior to maximize our ability to exert rational control over our bodies. Dennett struggles with this idea in Freedom Evolves, but this is Nietzsche's entire goal, actually, although he pushes people to do it without science (while recognizing that ultimately it may come only through science):

"learning to see -- habituating the eye to repose, to patience, to letting things come to it; learning to defer judgement (italics mine), to investigate and comprehend the individual case in all its aspects. This is the first preliminary schooling in spirituality: not to react immediately to a stimulus, but to have the restraining, stock-staking instincts in one's control. Learning to see, as I understand it, is almost what is called unphilosophical language 'strong will-power'. (Twilight of Idols, What the Germans Lack Section 6.)

Nietzsche makes the distinction between the causa sui -- the self-creating "free will" which we continually debate, and the self's "will to power", the causa prima which we really need to focus on. We can't be create ourselves, but ideally we can act with our rational self rather than our animal instincts, and avoid being jerked around by 'stimuli'.

UPDATE: Thinking more about the Frankfurt example -- in the linguistic sense, yes, Frankfurt's agent is responsible when he chooses to act as the controller wants him to act despite the fact that he cannot do otherwise. But this is a counterexample, and an outlandish one at that. It's really restricted to just this case -- when the agent acts differently than the controller wanted and must be controlled, the agent is no longer responsible. How is it supposed to apply in the real world?

What is the undergroundman?

Notes from Underground: A book about a man constantly battling himself -- and losing.

He falls into a small set of people who always know how they should act, but do not periodically act in that way. This distinction between knowledge and action is said to produce free will, and those people who know right but act wrong are thought to be morally responsible for their actions.

"If I know what is right, I can act right is" is apparently the syllogism with which which we judge people daily. In other words, all people who know what is right can act right. But doesn't that fly in the face of all empirics or logical sense? (By the way, I say only those who know -- what of sociopaths? Do they know the sin of murder any better than a cat knows the sin of murdering a mouse? What if a sociopath's brain is significantly different, as it likely is?)

An Important Paradox

Sometimes it seems like philosophy is, or at least has been, largely a study of intractable paradoxes. The greatest of these is certainly not the paradox of God -- that is a paradox based upon a fictional, contradictory concept, so it's no surprise that it is paradoxical.

A more important paradox is the illusion of free will in a deterministic world. Yet at a closer glance this does not seem to be a real paradox either -- it is based upon another fiction; that is, that people have free will. People can "choose" on a whim to act a certain way.

I haven't heard any convincing arguments resolving this paradox. There is no easy answer. Compatibilism essentially says that lack of ultimate freedom to choose "doesn't matter", but clearly when you are morally blaming people for actions which they were completely compelled to do, it does matter. It's hard to understand why the compulsion of a gun to the head is more meaningful than the compulsion of Hard determinists hit closest to the truth -- and the main argument against them is seemingly that they are "too pessimistic".

People should be held morally responsible for their underlying nature (perhaps genes) rather than their actions because their genetics are at the core of who they are. That means that those who are by their nature criminal (that is, genetically) are more blameworthy than those who are driven into criminal behavior through environmental pressures, such as, perhaps, child molesters. Neither should be regarded as "evil" -- both are "bad" from the perspective of the . They should be regarded with pity. The former is a flawed human being from the start while the latter's potential has been (seemingly irrecoverably) destroyed. If their guilt was sufficiently proven (that is, zero doubt) I would have zero trouble with their execution.

The the perpetual "free will" illusion has a pragmatic, self-fulfilling - when everyone believes that everyone has free will and that people who commit wrong acts do that willfully, it imposes a deterrence on immoral and criminal acts. Lifting the veil could potentially revoke that deterrence and allow people to act even worse than they currently do, if you can imagine that. But is that really likely? I don't think so. The deterrence does not seem to be very effective. The veil, as an obvious fiction, is already under subtle attack and has been since the beginning of human history. The distorted view of responsibility confuses people. The first step to recovery is to stop denying.

Some people may think Social Darwinism when I say genetics. While that may be a concern twenty or thirty years down the road, I don't mean to endorse that view at all. The study of how genes affect behavior seems like it always be an imperfect science because of all the variables. Furthermore, if someone is told that they are genetically dishonest or sociopathic -- is it possible for them to then consciously overcome that? I don't know.

Some may notice that this argument is essentially just a secular repacking of Calvinism. Just as Calvinists felt heavy pressure to prove themselves as God's chosen, so people today may feel the pressure to prove themselves as good genetically.

Determinism&Moral Responsibility

If the world is completely deterministic, then what does moral responsibility amount to?

Deterministic Compatibilism

People often think that determinism automatically means that there is no moral responsibility, and that nobody can act freely. This post states that and proposes a solution: we forget about how deterministic the world is. He may be joking, but this is similar to William James' position: that we had to believe in free will on moral grounds. Regardless, here was my comment:

That’s not a solution.

The truth is that you don’t know the future. In a sense, you can decide the future - because nobody knows what the future will be, and you have the power to look ahead, evaluate your free will (or lack thereof), look at the consequences, and make a decision.

Think about that. If you think it’s totally out of your control, it is. If you don’t, it isn’t. There’s something to be said for those self-help books and motivational speakers who say “you decide what you want to be.”

It’s a laborious process to exercise rationality in your actions, but when you do, you are exercising free will.

This is called deterministic compatibilism.

Free will can happen (to a degree) within a deterministic physical system. It has a limit, but nevertheless we have some ability to respond to environmental stimuli, based on our genetics. How we act is predetermined, and what environmental stimuli we are affected by is up to chance. If I convinced you that you can adopt a non-fatalistic stance towards free and you acted on it, exerting some measure of volition, then my stimuli could push you towards a path of rational action. If you aren't convinced, you may adopt a fatalistic stance and drift through life. What you do or don't do depends upon your past environment and genetics -- ultimately, God or chance may be morally responsible. But society can't punish God. Society can only punish you. It doesn't matter whether you wanted to be born with no sense of right or wrong, no sense of discipline, no intelligence, no future, ect. You play with the cards you're dealt, and if you don't play well, then that's your fault.

It's a tragedy, but that's life.

(The ultimate irony is that I have yet to start my 5-page International Trade paper, due tomorrow.)