But that isn’t free will, it’s just signals originating in your brain and moving down to control your foot.
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We don’t have to call anything “free will”.
If you want to say that we have free will only if we “could have done otherwise” then you’re welcome to.
Whereas I’m happy to use (1) and (3) to distinguish things I choose to do (like reply to you) and things I don’t choose to do (like beat my heart).
This isn’t mutually exclusive.
Both me moving my foot and my heart beating are caused by signals originating in my brain, but there’s a meaningful difference between both of these; my will controls my foot in a way that it doesn’t control my heart. That difference suffices as an application of free will (in the case of moving my foot).
I mean, I am not sure why I would think this is true. If all your movements are causally determined, I don’t see how your foot moving and your heart beating are actually metaphysically different. Your foot just relies on sensor input before moving, and your heart beating is based on an internal timer. This is why I said it feels like you are saying you have free will because it feels like it.
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The brain has many different processes, e.g. memories, pain, thoughts, etc.
One of the brain’s processes is named “conscious will”.
Some things the body does (e.g. walking) are causally determined by the conscious will parts of brain activity and some things the body does (e.g beating the heart) are causally determined by the non-conscious non-will parts of brain activity.
Having free will just means that some of the things our body does is causally determined by the conscious will parts of brain activity.
We only lack free will if everything the body does is causally determined by the non-conscious non-will parts of brain activity.
Correct, but we already do.
That’s not what I want, that’s what the vast majority of people (non-philosophers) say.
It also maps with a third notion of free will that I call “the feeling of free will”. Every human has this phenomenological feeling of “I’m behind the steering wheel of my own decisions”. Probably every conscious being has this feeling. That’s not a philosophical question, that’s a fact.
The philosophical question is whether the metaphysics behind this feeling do in fact exist in reality.
What you choose to call “free will” has nothing to do with the undeniable fact of this feeling, nor with the common usage of the term.
Sure. I’m saying that “I’m behind the steering wheel of my own decisions” doesn’t require libertarian free will or that I “could have done otherwise”, and is compatible with physicalism and determinism.
If the pronoun “I” refers to causally-determined physical process X and if X is causally responsible for action Y then I am causally responsible for action Y.
That’s your opinion. For most people if the steering wheel could only have gone left in a given circumstance, then they aren’t really in control. So the feeling of free will doesn’t map with the reality.
Your “I” and my I are different. You say your “will” is the causal origin of your foot moving, I say your foot moving and your “will” are the same thing. You invent a story in which you somehow caused your foot to move, but in reality very often you become aware of the movement after you had a chance to concoct a story. For example if you manage to catch a falling vase before it hits the ground, it’s a certainty your arm moved before you (the real you) had a chance to even be conscious about it.
You can call the nebulous trillions of reasons why your brain made a decision “will”, that doesn’t change the fact that for most people if they couldn’t possibly be truly in control of that decision (they could not have chosen otherwise), then they don’t have free will.
I’m glad that most philosophers take that position, as in most debates I’ve been in all parties start with the premise that “free will” defines something coherent that could exist in a universe. Questioning that is often off the table.
But personally, I don’t think free will is redeemable now, it has too much baggage.
People have in mind this concept of a decision coming from nowhere, that nonetheless needs to be reasoned (so randomness doesn’t count) and also that if you say it doesn’t exist then you must be a fatalist.
I definitely prefer terms like volition and choice.
You talk about “controlling” the decision, but what does that mean? Two plausible explanations:
- I “controlled” my decision to move my foot if I could have decided to not move my foot
- I “controlled” my decision to move my foot if my conscious will causally determined my foot to move
I’m content with (2), which is compatible with physicalism and determinism; I don’t need (1).
I’d even argue that (1) is quite a bizarre requirement. Defining the actual application of free will in terms of something that didn’t actually happen is an odd choice. Especially as the truth of counterfactuals is problematic in its own right (on logical grounds, even), independently of any discussion about free will and physics.
That is not possible. If a causes b, then a has to happen before b, and in this case it cannot.
You subconscious makes the decision to move your foot, you become conscious of the decision afterwards. In many cases you become conscious of the decision after the foot has already moved. In other cases it’s roughly at the same time.
Your consciousness cannot go back in time and influence the decision-making process, therefore your consciousness cannot causally determine anything.
You cannot have your cake and eat it too. Either you exclude the consciousness from what you call “you”, or you accept you are a consciousness and you can’t causally determine anything.
How does that differ from will?
I’m a compatibilist also, and I would say Free Will requires that I could have done otherwise if I counterfactually had wanted to do otherwise.
There are two separate claims to consider:
- If our conscious will determines our behaviour then we have free will even if our conscious will is causally determined
- Our conscious will does not determine our behaviour
It is possible that both (1) and (2) are true.
Previously you argued that (1) is a misuse of the term “free will” whereas now you are arguing only that (2) is true.
I don’t know if (2) is true. I have read of some studies that suggest that it is, although I recall recently reading that these studies have some problems.
For the purpose of this discussion I’m only really interested in arguing that (1) is true, i.e. that free will is compatible with determinism.
I don’t believe it is. If determinism is true, then everything that happens has a 100% chance of happening. Where’s the freedom?
The freedom is that my actions are causally determined by my will, rather than by some unconscious brain activity. It’s the difference between me walking and my heart beating. My will determines the former but not the latter, even if my will in turn was causally determined by something else.
It sounds like you’re saying that in spite of being puppet, you have free will because you’re conscious.
I don’t think the heart beat/walking really works, though. Walking requires a symphony of electrical activity from the motor cortex. If you had to consciously control all of it, you wouldn’t be able to walk. And you can influence your heart rate by your thoughts.
No, I’m saying that I can be causally responsible for my actions even if I am causally determined.
The pronoun “I” refers to something, and if this thing causes me to walk then I cause myself to walk. That’s all it take to have free will, and obtains even if this something that the pronoun “I” refers to is itself causally determined by antecedent events.
The idea that if physicalism and determinism is true then I’m not causally responsible for my actions sneaks back in some non-physical notion of the self acting as a “backseat passenger”, but this non-physical self is excluded by physicalism.
How would that be different from saying a conscious puppet has free will?
I don’t really think physicalism has much bearing on any of it. An idealist can be a hard determinist. It doesn’t matter what the underlying stuff is.
As I already explained, most people would disagree with that.
I argued 2) because you claimed a person would consider a decision to be in their control if their conscious will was the cause of the decision, which is clearly not possible.
This is why most thinkers have given up on the idea of the ability to choose otherwise. Your consciousness cannot will a decision already made to be different.
That would require a decision about a decision to be made before the decision, which would require a third-order decision, and so on. It’s an infinite regress.
That’s why the notion is nonsensical. Even in an indeterministic universe you cannot make a decision about a decision, and that’s the reason there cannot be an ability to choose otherwise.
That’s libertarian free will. What modern philosophers did is change the definition of free will so it can exist in the universe, that’s compatibilist free will, which is basically volition.