I’ve just emerged from an extended exchange about human free will.
There seemed to be agreement that many people believe that they have
free will, but disagreement about whether this belief is valid or
delusional. I plunged into this topic because I don’t see how, without
free will, my life can have the meaning that comes from personal
responsibility for my decisions. I don’t see the possibility of
satisfaction from being a puppet in God’s drama, or a pre-programmed
machine, or a creature controlled by chaotic randomness. I don’t need
complete freedom from the constraints of time and place, and I don’t
need to deny that my choices are influenced by predilections and
experiences.
But if my conscious self has no control over any of my decisions, I
don’t see why should I feel any pride in my good decisions and regret
for my bad decisions; they were not MY decisions.

So my Big Question is this: Are free will and personal responsibility
inextricably linked, or can one exist without the other?

(Implicit in what I’ve written here are some controversial assumptions
about such things as the nature of self, the value of individuality,
and the meaning of free will. If my assumptions block you from
answering the question I asked, please save your doubts and challenges
for another discussion. I am eager to respond to comments that address
the question I asked, within the framework of my implicit
assumptions.)

One possible answer to your dilemna is to assume a probabilistic
casuality in human affairs, if not more broadly. That is, circumstance
defines only the probability distribution of possible outcomes. So if
you make no effort at all, you will do as circumstances dictate, and
your moral responsibility arises from innaction when action was instead
possible; if you struggle, you can produce outcomes that deviate from
what is most probable, and thereby assume a moral responsibility; the
harder you struggle, the more improbable the outcome, and this offers a
foundation for moral heroism or extraordinary virtue.
--

       Haines Brown, KB1GRM

On Jul 21, 2:49 pm, Haines Brown <bro...@teufel.hartford-hwp.com>
wrote:

Thank you for taking to time to delve into my question, but I'm not
sure I understand your point. Clauses like "if you make no effort at
all" and  "If you struggle" seem to assume that I have free will, and
can choose between being passive or struggling. I share your
assumption that my free will gives me that choice, but what If I can't
make that choice because the outcome is pre-ordained by some outside
force?

I didn't mention free will because I thought you presumed it; of course
we have free will. The problem is the determination of circumstance
("some outside force"). But we also know those outside forces and the
force of circumstance also are real, so the problem I addressed was how
to reconcile them.

The term "free will" is ideological and so can possibly carry the
implication that we can do just as we please, but that is obviously not
the case. Also it contaminates the notion "freedom", for in terms of
that ideology, freedom comes to mean unconstrained choices, rather than
the power to act. I mention this to suggest that there's no necessary
connection between free choice and moral responsibility.

I'm not sure of your implication that one can always choose between
passivity and struggle. That may be true in practice, but I don't see
why in principle. I can cook up scenarios where circumstance dictates an
outcome and not only do you not have any power to resist it, but you
don't have a leverage from which to exert that power even if you had
it. Your heart is beating and you can't directly stop it, for your body
dictates that it must beat, and you have no direct way to stop it even
if you wanted to, for consciousness does not connect to the muscles. I
was suggesting that in this circumstance you have no moral
responsibility for the beating of your heart.

That is, circumstance determines the probability distribution of
_possible_ outcomes. Impossible outcomes are irrelevant because they
won't happen and have no relation to moral responsibility. Within the
realm of possibility you do have choices, and therefore do have moral
responsibility.

I suggested that the responsibility had both an objective and a
subjective side. Objectively it is the degree to which the outcome most
likely under the circumstance is socially moral. Objective circumstance
encourage me to brush my teeth this morning, it is a matter that has no
moral implications. If I do it or don't do it makes no difference in
moral terms. Sometimes the morally right thing to do is encouraged by
circumstance (is quite probable). The red light causes you to stop and
let other traffic go. That's, let's say, a morally correct thing to do,
but the light forced you to do it anyway. My conforming to the law, you
are making only a minor moral choice because you are only doing what you
are required to do.

The subjective side is the effort you make to not do what is not
probable. In the case of the red light above, you don't struggle at all
to stop at the light, and so while you are doing what is socially
considered moral, you only conformed to the law, and so did not do
anything particularly moral. On the other hand, at the risk of your own
life you jump into the pond to save the life of a child even though you
are a bad swimmer, is a powerful moral choice because you mightily fight
circumstance and the most probable thing to do which is to just watch
the person drown.

In short, if we define "free choice" in absolute terms, I think we get
in trouble. It is always limited by circumstance and by our
powers. Likewise if we think of determination in positivist terms as an
unequivocal determination, in which case your action is either
absolutely determined or not at all by circumstance. That's why I
suggested a probabilistic determination as being much more realistic.

Arguably, outcomes are never pre-ordained. Pre-ordained outcomes would
have to be what happens in an absolutely isolated system, which is only
a limiting case, a hypothetical construct that does not exist in
reality. If all systems are in principle open, outcomes are going to be
probabilistic and not foreordained.

--

       Haines Brown, KB1GRM

On Jul 22, 3:25 am, Haines Brown <bro...@teufel.hartford-hwp.com>
wrote:

Haines,

I'm sorry, but apparently I haven't been clear. You say, "of course we
have free will." But my original  question was intended to probe the
implications for personal responsibility if we do NOT have free will,
if what we call "free will" is just an illusion. There are those who
would argue that our decisions are controlled by "God's plan" or were
baked into the universe at the moment of the Big Bang. That's what I
meant by my reference to "being a puppet in God’s drama, or a pre-
programmed machine, or a creature controlled by chaotic randomness."
My intention is not to launch a debate about whether free will is real
or an illusion. I'm hoping to discuss the implications of how we
answer the real vs. illusion question. If a person says that free will
is an illusion, does that automatically mean that personal
responsibility is also an illusion? As I put it in my original
question: "Are free will and personal responsibility inextricably
linked, or can one exist without the other?"

I thought I had defined my concept of free will when I wrote, "I don’t
need complete freedom from the constraints of time and place, and I
don’t need to deny that my choices are influenced by predilections and
experiences. But if my conscious self has no control over any of my
decisions,..." But apparently I wasn't clear, because you entered into
an extended discussion of these very points. I don't think we
disagree, but I got the impression from your tone that you thought we
did. For example, you wrote, "I'm not sure of your implication that
one can always choose between passivity and struggle." I didn't mean
to imply "always." You wrote, "In short, if we define 'free choice' in
absolute terms, I think we get in trouble." I agree, but somehow I get
the sense that you think we disagree.

Also, you went into some detail about the degrees of responsibility as
if that was the heart of my post. I meant to pose a simpler, more
basic question: Is there any responsibility at all?

But I hope we don't get bogged down in the past history of our
exchange. I'm eager to know more about your views on whether or not
personal responsibility requires at least some degree of free will.

Rodge

You pose what I guess is called a counterfactual. If I have no free
will, how can I be morally responsible? Why not simply conclude we are
not?

Well, even those who suggest there is an omnipotent god don't suggest we
have no free will, do they? After all, what was the Garden of Eden all
about? How are we to work out our salvation? It would help if you cited
an author that suggests we have no free will, for that offers a real
target to criticize.

But you raise a hypothetical, not a question of your own, and this
complicates things. Who says free will is an illusion, and why? As for
free will and personal responsibility being linked, I can imagine (with
a bit of a stretch) having each by itself: a) Robinson Crusoe on his
island lives, at least we can posit, without social norms and therefore
lives amorally. There is no ill he can do. b) If a social group with
which I am closely linked in some way does something morally bad despite
my not agreeing to it, don't I carry the onus unless I do something to
distance myself from that group? For example, if you happen to think
Bush is terribly wrong to have attacked Iran, can you smugly say, "Well,
I didn't vote for him"?  Of course not, for in the eyes of the world,
you are linked to his policies, especially if being an American brings
you advantages.

Yes I did probe the issues because I was not entirely clear where you
stood. Thanks for the clarification that shows we have much common
ground.

But now comes a different question. The fact of responsibility is quite
different from moral responsibility. The latter entails social norms, I
believe. What is a moral act in one society may be immoral in
another. However, responsibility can have nothing to do with morality. I
open the gate; someone asks, Who is responsible for opening the gate,
perhaps suggesting that whoever opened it should should be rewarded or
responsible for closing it. There may be a moral compunction implied by
the question, but possibly merely opening a gate need not be moral or
immoral in itself.

Without checking my dictionary, off the top of my head, responsibility
can mean a) attribution (it is I who fumbled the pass, b) accountability
(I disappointed my team by fumbling the pass) c) moral accountability (I
fumbled the pass because I was distracted by a pretty chearleader).

Simply put, yes. Short of serious brain damage, I assume we all have a
free will to act, and action entails responsibility in one or more of
the senses I just defined.

--

       Haines Brown, KB1GRM

Haines,

What a rich response! So many thoughtful points to delve into, not to
disagree about but to probe more deeply.

I do believe both that we have free will and that that means we are
personally responsible. But I draw some significant conclusions based
on that belief. Being the rational guy that I am, I want to know if
that belief can withstand a thoughtful challenge. Hence, I put the
question out there for critical analysis (and for reinforcing support,
as well).

Not all believers in an omnipotent god say that, but the religious
denial of free will is all around us. In the Hebrew Scriptures, Yahweh
makes His people courageous and their enemies cowardly in battle.
Presbyterians have struggled for centuries with the meaning of
predestination. Some Fundamentalists give the Devil power to corrupt
men's souls ("The Devil made me do it," as Flip Wilson used to say).
Some Muslims honor a deity who controls many things (including people)
when they say "Allah willing." I recently heard a television interview
with a mother grieving the sudden death of a child> She told the
interviewer that she could accept the death because "every moment of
her life was written in God's book." I don't think people always
recognize the implications of what they're saying, and these denials
of free will certainly seem incompatible with other beliefs they may
espouse, as you note. But I don't need some authority to convince me
that many people have religious beliefs that deny human free will.

Some religious people say it implicitly as I just noted, but probably
not explicitly. The strongest attack on free will comes from
materialists, who have various arguments. Some argue that our
decisions are entirely based on previous experiences, and are
therefore predictable if you know enough about those previous
experiences. Some argue that reality is wholly material, so that
everything that happens is controlled by natural law. Sometimes this
argument is presented as a rigid cause-and-effect scenario, where
everything that happens is part of a complex space-time fabric that
existed from the moment of creation (usually described as the Big
Bang). That is an argument that the future exists before we know it,
and therefore the future is inevitable, and we as physical creatures
have no independent control over it. The other physical explanation
focuses on quantum randomness, arguing that sub-atomic reality is
ruled by chance, and therefore everything (including humans) is based
on that reality. Again, I don't think it is relevant to quote
authorities, because I have personally encountered all these arguments
on the Internet, from folks who may or may not know what they are
talking about. But they sure do believe that free will is merely an
illusion, a trick of human self-awareness..

You are making assumptions about the meaning of personal
responsibility and morality that may be true, but are not the
assumptions that I make. (see next item)

I don't want to get bogged down over questions of what is the "right"
definition. I see how you are defining "responsibility." As for me, I
make an important distinction between "accountability" and
"responsibility." I think of "accountability" as tending to focus on
actions, as belng somewhat legalistic, and as usually dealing with
external judgment. "Responsibility," on the other hand, to me tends to
focus on decisions, to be complex and relative, and to deal with
internal judgment.

For example, to fail to enter the correct numbers in a ledger raises
accountability issues of competence or even malfeasance. Your boss (or
the law) may not be much interested in your excuses. Hence, courts
have a general proposition that "ignorance of the law is no excuse."
And the rules governing exculpatory mental illness is narrowly drawn.
You are found guilty or not guilty of DOING something. That's the
external judgment (as would be getting fired).

On the other hand, bobbling the ledger entry because you were up all
night caring for a sick child raises a quite different responsibility
issue. Your choice and the reasons for it become totally relevant. Was
the child really that sick, or did you sit up to feed your pride as a
dutiful parent? Did you stop to consider how the loss of sleep might
effect your office performance? Could you have called in sick (an
untruth)? How serious was the error -- did it mean that somebody had
to take time to re-enter them, or did it bankrupt the company? The
judgment is internal, and comes when you look back at your choices
from multiple angles. You even might go to jail and still feel you
acted responsibly, given the circumstances.

(I'm trying to avoid referring to morality, as tempting as that is,
because I think morality raises different and complex issues that can
distract from the issue I'm trying to raise. Rather than morality, I'm
focusing on simple satisfaction or dissatisfaction that you experience
as a result of your decisions. So we're back to my key question: Can
you experience either satisfaction or dissatisfaction if you know that
you have no control over your decisions?)

Rodge

A reasonable project, but this news group (and newsgroups in general) is
probably not a promising arena for it.

I'm not sure your examples for denials of free will in a religous
context are valid. In the first example, god is enhancing and
diminishing powers, but surely not the free will to exercise
them. Predestination only means your being among the elect is
foreordained, but does not compromise free will in other respects. If
you are among the saints, you will be exercising your free will to
manifest your being elect, not to win salvation. I suppose Flip Wilson's
comment implies that the devil overcame his free will in some respect,
which may offer a counter example, but I wouldn't infer the any
curtailment of free will in some respects (like being in prison) either
denies one's free will in all respects or one's having a free will but
simply your being unable to exercise it (a comatose person we would say
has free will, but just can't exercise it). No Moslem I know would doubt
free will, and I suppose "Allah willing" only means what we do must fall
within the realm of possibility. Also, there's a big difference between
religious principle and the actual behavior of believers, as we know all
too well.

Much of this gets back to a point I made earlier. There are two aspects
of free will that I suppose are always present, but in our political we
tend to reduce them to one: a) lack of constraint, b) capacity to
act. In bourgeois ideology, the capacity to act (ownership of property)
was presumed, and therefore the exercise of free will reduces to a lack
of constraint (the best government is the least government). However,
that freedom is meaningless unless you are in fact able to accomplish
something, and so we must have the capacity to act and make choices even
even if there are no constraints. What all this comes down to what is
called action theory.

Let me elaborate this point. The word "rationality" originated, I
believe, with the Scottish Enlightenment, and what it meant was actions
in the world that result in an increase in one's talents. This view saw
one's environment as storehouse of opportunities (the marketplace), and
you place your talents (property, which it was assumed you had) in
relation to those market opportunties, and if you are being "rational",
if as a result you profit.

Note the following here: a) The world is alien to you; you are not
engaged in it nor did you participate in building it, but it is merely
an external object of opportunity having nothing to do with you. Your
environment is alien. b) The human situation is represented as the
action of individuals, as social atomism, but the effect of that
interaction of social atoms is the emergence of new value (wealth of
nations). That is, it is not a zero-sum game. See Adam Smith's
explanation based on a division of labor (increase in productivity made
possible by an expansion of the market). c) The human condition is
represented in terms of a newly discovered system, "economics", which
exists because there is a system effect (wealth of nations), that arises
from individual participation in it, trucking and bartering. d) The aim
in life is to enrich yourself (in lieu of the traditional struggle for
salvation), but this is not at the expense of others because trucking
and bartering creates new value.

Today we would call this "optimal choice theory". It is fundamental to
bourgeois ideology and presumes an alien relation between people and
world; an alien relation between people themselves in that it becomes
instrumental (the money nexus; you enter social relations for selfish
reasons). However, not quite yet an alien relation been individual and
society, for concept, "society" didn't quite yet refer to a distinct
whole with its own properties. For example, another new word
"civilization" referred not to a separte entity, but a condition of
society (an aggregate of individuals).

Of course there's a lot of superstition around. I suppose it arises from
a psychic sense of powerlessness. The sense of one's own helplessness by
default puts matters in the hands of outside forces. I mention this
because it suggests we probably have to distinguish pathological
situations of helplessness from what is normal or what is the
possibility inherent in contemporary life. Because people of the past
had relatively little or no confidence in free will, or because people
in certain situations lose confidence in it, does not mean that it is
not a real human capacity.  So doubts about free will may only represent
a pathological sitution.

So far my responses to you have been amateur speculations, but now you
bring me into waters in which I'm really more comfortable. I'll do my
best to reply without writing a series of books ;-)

First of all, "the materialists" is a problematic term. Virtually all
scientists are generally classified today as materialistic monists. That
is, in science they reject the ontological dualism that lends relevance
or reality to objective ideas or to the supernatural. Some people remain
dualists, but not most people and not science in general. And such
dualism that survives might be dismissed as pathological rather than
normative.

Predictability in the sense of Leibniz or that of positivism suggested
that a perfect knowledge of an initial condition would enable us to
unequivocally predict its outcome. That was the prevailing ideology in
the 19th and into the 20th century, but it died. Especially since World
War I, people know very well that things are to variying degrees
unpredictable. The deductive logic of positivism is now seen as only
operative for absolutely closed systems, which are considered non-real
hypotheticals. We generally speak of causation in probabilistic
terms. For example, look at the language of historians, or consider the
role of standard deviation in the physics lab.

As for randomness, it is hazardous to argue from one domain (quantum
uncertainty) to some other domain (human behavior). Each domain or level
has its own characteristics, and how we get from micro behavior to macro
is a problem (see on this issue, statistical mechanics). However, there
are reasons in the macro world to presume uncertainty without having to
appeal to QM. Besides observing it all around us every day, there is the
N-Body problem and the fact that all things are processes and therefore
have fuzzy determinations. There are inumerable ways in which randomness
plays a key role in a variety of scientific explanations. It is a fact
of life that everyone knows very well is present, and it only became
problematic for a while when bourgeois Enlightenment and postivisist
ideology was dominant and contradicted it.

Or, take Marx, a materialist surely, in his _The Eighteenth Brumaire of
Louis Napoleon_ (1852)

  "Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they
  please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves,
  but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted
  from the past."

That's a fairly standard view: circumstance only constrains the exercise
of our free will and does not deny it.

Another point. From the moment of the Big Bang? The present universe
would certainly be unpredictable from a perfect knowledge of the Big
Bang. The reason is that systems are often "emergent", and in
particular, the universe. Their properties are _not_ entirely
predictable from an initial state. They manifest novelties, improbable
outcomes. Nature is inherently creative in that respect. A perfect
knowledge of the supernova from which our planetary system evolved,
would not allow you to predict New York City. Natural sciences such as
meteorology, cosmology, evolutionary biology, geology, etc., are called
evolutionary sciences because of their concern if for emergent systems
and focus on causal explanation rather than preduction.

You also bring up time. The past no longer exists and the future does
not yet exist, and some have argued that even the present does not
exist, but is merely a mental convenience. The past exists in the
present only as constraining structures that are not the past, but only
the traces or marks of its passing. The future exists only as a
potential in the present ...

read more »

On Jul 23, 5:14 am, Haines Brown <bro...@teufel.hartford-hwp.com>
wrote: