Thursday, August 27, 2020

Wikipedia - Incompatibilism & Compatibilism













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Incompatibilism

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Incompatibilists agree that determinism leaves no room for free will. As a result, they reject one or both.
Incompatibilism is the view that a deterministic universe is completely at odds with the notion that persons have a free will; that there is a dichotomy between determinism and free will where philosophers must choose one or the other. This view is pursued in at least three ways: libertarians deny that the universe is deterministic, the hard determinists deny that any free will exists, and pessimistic incompatibilists (hard indeterminists) deny both that the universe is determined and that free will exists.
Incompatibilism is contrasted with compatibilism, which rejects the determinism/free will dichotomy.

Libertarianism

Main article: libertarianism (metaphysics)
Metaphysical libertarianism argues that free will is real and that determinism is false. Such dualism risks an infinite regress however;[1] if any such mind is real, an objection can still be raised using the standard argument against free will[clarification needed] that it is shaped by a necessity or chance.[clarification needed] Libertarian Robert Kane (among others) presented an alternative model:
Robert Kane (editor of the Oxford Handbook of Free Will) is a leading incompatibilist philosopher in favour of free will. Kane seeks to hold persons morally responsible for decisions that involved indeterminism in their process. Critics maintain that Kane fails to overcome the greatest challenge to such an endeavor: "the argument from luck".[2] Namely, if a critical moral choice is a matter of luck (indeterminate quantum fluctuations), then on what grounds can we hold a person responsible for their final action? Moreover, even if we imagine that a person can make an act of will ahead of time, to make the moral action more probable in the upcoming critical moment, this act of 'willing' was itself a matter of luck.
Libertarianism in the philosophy of mind is unrelated to the like-named political philosophy. It suggests that we actually do have free will, that it is incompatible with determinism, and that therefore the future is not determined. For example, at this moment, one could either continue reading this article if one wanted, or cease. Under this assertion, being that one could do either, the fact of how the history of the world will continue to unfold is not currently determined one way or the other.
One famous proponent of this view was Lucretius, who asserted that the free will arises out of the random, chaotic movements of atoms, called "clinamen". One major objection to this view is that science has gradually shown that more and more of the physical world obeys completely deterministic laws, and seems to suggest that our minds are just as much part of the physical world as anything else. If these assumptions are correct, incompatibilist libertarianism can only be maintained as the claim that free will is a supernatural phenomenon, which does not obey the laws of nature (as, for instance, maintained by some religious traditions).
However, many libertarian view points now rely upon an indeterministic view of the physical universe, under the assumption that the idea of a deterministic, "clockwork" universe has become outdated since the advent of quantum mechanics.[citation needed] By assuming an indeterministic universe libertarian philosophical constructs can be proposed under the assumption of physicalism.
There are libertarian view points based upon indeterminism and physicalism, which is closely related to naturalism.[3] A major problem for naturalistic libertarianism is to explain how indeterminism can be compatible with rationality and with appropriate connections between an individual's beliefs, desires, general character and actions. A variety of naturalistic libertarianism is promoted by Robert Kane,[4][5] who emphasizes that if our character is formed indeterministically (in "self-forming actions"), then our actions can still flow from our character, and yet still be incompatibilistically free.
Alternatively, libertarian view points based upon indeterminism have been proposed without the assumption of naturalism. At the time C. S. Lewis wrote Miracles,[6] quantum mechanics (and physical indeterminism) was only in the initial stages of acceptance, but still Lewis stated the logical possibility that, if the physical world was proved to be indeterministic, this would provide an entry (interaction) point into the traditionally viewed closed system, where a scientifically described physically probable/improbable event could be philosophically described as 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). Lewis mentions this only in passing, making clear that his thesis does not depend on it in any way.
Others may use some form of Donald Davidson's anomalous monism to suggest that although the mind is in fact part of the physical world, it involves a different level of description of the same facts, so that although there are deterministic laws under the physical description, there are no such laws under the mental description, and thus our actions are free and not determined.[7]

Hard determinism


Schopenhauer said "Man is free to do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills" The Hard Determinist says that obviously, then, there is no 'free will'
Main article: hard determinism
Those who reject free will and accept determinism are variously known as "hard determinists", hard incompatibilists, free will skeptics, illusionists, or impossibilists. They believe that there is no 'free will' and that any sense of the contrary is an illusion.[8] Of course, hard determinists do not deny that one has desires, but say that these desires are causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. According to this philosophy, no wholly random, spontaneous, mysterious, or miraculous events occur. Determinists sometimes assert that it is stubborn to resist scientifically motivated determinism on purely intuitive grounds about one's own sense of freedom. They reason that the history of the development of science suggests that determinism is the logical method in which reality works.
William James said that philosophers (and scientists) have an "antipathy to chance."[9] Absolute chance, a possible implication of quantum mechanics and the indeterminacy principle, implies a lack of causality.[citation needed] This possibility often disturbs those who assume there must be a causal and lawful explanation for all events.

Moral implications

Since many believe that free will is necessary for moral responsibility, this may imply disastrous consequences for their theory of ethics.
As something of a solution to this predicament, it has been suggested that, for the sake of preserving moral responsibility and the concept of ethics, one might embrace the so-called "illusion" of free will. This, despite thinking that free will does not exist according to determinism. Critics argue that this move renders morality merely another "illusion", or else that this move is simply hypocritical.
The Determinist will add that, even if denying free will does mean morality is incoherent, such an unfortunate result has no effect on the truth. Note, however, that hard determinists often have some sort of 'moral system' that relies explicitly on determinism. A Determinist's moral system simply bears in mind that every person's actions in a given situation are, in theory, predicted by the interplay of environment and upbringing. For instance, the Determinist may still punish undesirable behaviours for reasons of behaviour modification or deterrence.

Hard incompatibilism

Hard incompatibilism, like hard determinism, is a type of skepticism about free will. 'Hard incompatibilism' is a term coined by Derk Pereboom to designate the view that both determinism and indeterminism are incompatible with having free will and moral responsibility.[10] Like the hard determinist, the hard incompatibilist holds that if determinism were true, our having free will would be ruled out. But Pereboom argues in addition that if our decisions were indeterministic events, free will would also be precluded. In his view, free will is the control in action required for the desert aspect of moral responsibility—for our deserving to be blamed or punished for immoral actions, and to be praised or rewarded for morally exemplary actions. He contends that if our decisions were indeterministic events, their occurrence would not be in the control of the agent in the way required for such attributions of desert.[11] The possibility for free will that remains is libertarian agent causation, according to which agents as substances (thus not merely as having a role in events) can cause actions without being causally determined to do so. Pereboom argues that for empirical reasons it is unlikely that we are agent causes of this sort, and that as a result, it is likely that we lack free will.[12]

Experimental research

In recent years researchers in the field of experimental philosophy have been working on determining whether ordinary people, who aren't experts in this field, naturally have compatibilist or incompatibilist intuitions about determinism and moral responsibility.[13] Some experimental work has even conducted cross-cultural studies.[14] The debate about whether people naturally have compatibilist or incompatibilist intuitions has not come out overwhelmingly in favor of one view or the other. Still, there has been some evidence that people can naturally hold both views. For instance, when people are presented with abstract cases which ask if a person could be morally responsible for an immoral act when they could not have done otherwise, people tend to say no, or give incompatibilist answers, but when presented with a specific immoral act that a specific person committed, people tend to say that that person is morally responsible for their actions, even if they were determined (that is, people also give compatibilist answers).[15]

See also

References

  1. ^ Libertarian free will asserts that human actions do not have causes and are chosen consciously - i.e. are not random. This begs the question: what causes these actions? Since they can't be chosen at random by, as explained above, this question can be asked for each subsequent answer to it, thus forming an infinite regress. Similarly, in the 20th century, in the Frankfurt's concept of hierarchical mesh. Similarly, G. Strawson (1998, 2004), Free will, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  2. ^ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/incompatibilism-theories/
  3. ^ Williams, Peter S. (Summer 2002). "Why Naturalists Should Mind about Physicalism, and Vice Versa". Quodlibet. 4 (2–3). Archived from the original on 2011-05-25. Retrieved 2010-08-28.
  4. ^ summary of Kane's views by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  5. ^ Kane, Robert. “Free Will: New Directions for an Ancient Problem.” (2003). In Free Will, Robert Kane (ed.) (2003) Malden, MA: Blackwell
  6. ^ Lewis, C.S. (1947). Miracles. p. 24. ISBN 0-688-17369-1.
  7. ^ Sosa -- Free Mental Causation! (MS Word)[permanent dead link]
  8. ^ Saul Smilansky, Free Will and Illusion, Oxford, 2000
  9. ^ William James, The Dilemma of Determinism, p.153
  10. ^ Pereboom, Derk (2001). Living without Free Will. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  11. ^ Pereboom, Derk (2014). Free Will, Agency, and Meaning in Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  12. ^ Derk Pereboom, "Defending Hard incompatibilism", Midwest Studies 29 (2005), pp. 228–47.
  13. ^ Eddy Nahmias, Stephen Morris, Thomas Nadelhoffer, and Jason Turner. (forthcoming).Incompatibilism Intuitive?,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.
  14. ^ Hagop Sarkissian, Amita Chatterjee, Felipe De Brigard, Joshua Knobe, Shaun Nichols, Smita Sirker (forthcoming)."Is belief in free will a cultural universal?" Mind & Language
  15. ^ Shaun Nichols and Joshua Knobe. (forthcoming).“Moral Responsibility and Determinism: The Cognitive Science of Folk Intuitions.” Archived December 11, 2009, at the Wayback Machine Nous.



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Compatibilism

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This article is about the philosophical view on free will. For other uses, see Compatibility.
Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are mutually compatible and that it is possible to believe in both without being logically inconsistent.[1]
Compatibilists believe freedom can be present or absent in situations for reasons that have nothing to do with metaphysics.[2] They say causal determinism does not exclude the truth of possible future outcomes.[3]
Similarly, political liberty is a non-metaphysical concept.[4] Statements of political liberty, such as the United States Bill of Rights, assume moral liberty: the ability to choose to do otherwise than one does.[5]

History

Compatibilism was championed by the ancient Stoics[6] and some medieval scholastics (such as Thomas Aquinas). More specifically, scholastics like Thomas Aquinas and later Thomists (such as Domingo Báñez) are often interpreted as holding that a human action can be free even though the agent in some strong sense could not do otherwise than he did. Whereas Aquinas is often interpreted to maintain rational compatibilism (i.e., an action can be determined by rational cognition and yet free), later Thomists such as Báñez develop a sophisticated theory of theological determinism, according to which actions of free agents, despite being free, are, on a higher level, determined by infallible divine decrees manifested in the form of "physical premotion" (praemotio physica), a deterministic intervention of God into the will of a free agent required to reduce the will from potency to act. A strong incompatibilist view of freedom was, on the other hand, developed in the Franciscan tradition, especially by Duns Scotus, and later upheld and further developed by Jesuits, esp. Luis de Molina and Francisco Suárez. In the early-modern era, compatibilism was maintained by Enlightenment philosophers (such as David Hume and Thomas Hobbes).[7]
During the 20th century, compatibilists presented novel arguments that differed from the classical arguments of Hume, Hobbes, and John Stuart Mill.[8] Importantly, Harry Frankfurt popularized what are now known as Frankfurt counterexamples to argue against incompatibilism,[9] and developed a positive account of compatibilist free will based on higher-order volitions.[10] Other "new compatibilists" include Gary Watson, Susan R. Wolf, P. F. Strawson, and R. Jay Wallace.[11] Contemporary compatibilists range from the philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett, particularly in his works Elbow Room (1984) and Freedom Evolves (2003), to the existentialist philosopher Frithjof Bergmann. Perhaps the most renowned contemporary defender of compatibilism is John Martin Fischer.

Defining free will


Arthur Schopenhauer
Compatibilists often define an instance of "free will" as one in which the agent had freedom to act according to their own motivation. That is, the agent was not coerced or restrained. Arthur Schopenhauer famously said, "Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills."[12] In other words, although an agent may often be free to act according to a motive, the nature of that motive is determined. This definition of free will does not rely on the truth or falsity of causal determinism.[2] This view also makes free will close to autonomy, the ability to live according to one's own rules, as opposed to being submitted to external domination.

Alternatives as imaginary


Saying "there may be a person behind that door" merely expresses ignorance about the one, determined reality
Some compatibilists will hold both causal determinism (all effects have causes) and logical determinism (the future is already determined) to be true. Thus statements about the future (e.g., "it will rain tomorrow") are either true or false when spoken today. This compatibilist free will should not be understood as some kind of ability to have actually chosen differently in an identical situation. A compatibilist can believe that a person can choose between many choices, but the choice is always determined by external factors.[13] If the compatibilist says "I may visit tomorrow, or I may not", he is saying that he does not know what he will choose—if he will choose to follow the subconscious urge to go or not.

Non-naturalism

Not to be confused with Religious naturalism.
Alternatives to strictly naturalist physics, such as mind–body dualism positing a mind or soul existing apart from one's body while perceiving, thinking, choosing freely, and as a result acting independently on the body, include both traditional religious metaphysics and less common newer compatibilist concepts.[14] Also consistent with both autonomy and Darwinism,[15] they allow for free personal agency based on practical reasons within the laws of physics.[16] While less popular among 21st century philosophers, non-naturalist compatibilism is present in most if not almost all religions.[17]

Criticism


Compatibilism has much in common with so-called "hard determinism", including moral systems and a belief in determinism itself
A prominent criticism of compatibilism is Peter van Inwagen's consequence argument.
Critics of compatibilism often focus on the definition(s) of free will: incompatibilists may agree that the compatibilists are showing something to be compatible with determinism, but they think that this something ought not to be called "free will". Incompatibilists might accept the "freedom to act" as a necessary criterion for free will, but doubt that it is sufficient. Basically, they demand more of "free will". The incompatibilists believe free will refers to genuine (e.g., absolute, ultimate) alternate possibilities for beliefs, desires, or actions, rather than merely counterfactual ones.
Compatibilism is sometimes called soft determinism (William James's term) pejoratively.[18] James accused them of creating a "quagmire of evasion" by stealing the name of freedom to mask their underlying determinism.[18] Immanuel Kant called it a "wretched subterfuge" and "word jugglery".[19] Kant's argument turns on the view that, while all empirical phenomena must result from determining causes, human thought introduces something seemingly not found elsewhere in nature—the ability to conceive of the world in terms of how it ought to be, or how it might otherwise be. For Kant, subjective reasoning is necessarily distinct from how the world is empirically. Because of its capacity to distinguish is from ought, reasoning can 'spontaneously' originate new events without being itself determined by what already exists.[20] It is on this basis that Kant argues against a version of compatibilism in which, for instance, the actions of the criminal are comprehended as a blend of determining forces and free choice, which Kant regards as misusing the word "free". Kant proposes that taking the compatibilist view involves denying the distinctly subjective capacity to re-think an intended course of action in terms of what ought to happen.[19]
Ted Honderich explains his view that the mistake of compatibilism is to assert that nothing changes as a consequence of determinism, when clearly we have lost the life-hope of origination.[21][clarification needed]

See also

References

  1. ^ Coates, D. Justin; McKenna, Michael (February 25, 2015). "Compatibilism". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved May 10, 2016.
  2. ^ Jump up to:a b Podgorski, Daniel (October 16, 2015). "Free Will Twice Defined: On the Linguistic Conflict of Compatibilism and Incompatibilism". The Gemsbok. Retrieved March 7, 2016.
  3. ^ McKenna, Michael and Coates, D. Justin, "Compatibilism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2019 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming URL = .
  4. ^ Locke, John (1690). The Second Treatise of Civil Government.
  5. ^ The Monist, Vol. 70, No. 4, Thomas Reid and His Contemporaries (OCTOBER 1987), pp. 442-452 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27903049 Accessed: 06-12-2019 22:28 UTC
  6. ^ Ricardo Salles, "Compatibilism: Stoic and modern." Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 83.1 (2001): 1-23.
  7. ^ Michael McKenna: Compatibilism. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edward N. Zalta (ed.). 2009.
  8. ^ Kane, Robert (2005). A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will. Oxford University Press. p. 93. ISBN 978-0-19-514970-8.
  9. ^ Kane 2005, p. 83
  10. ^ Kane 2005, p. 94
  11. ^ Kane 2005, pp. 98, 101, 107, 109.
  12. ^ Schopenhauer, Arthur (1945). "On the Freedom of the Will". The Philosophy of American History: The Historical Field Theory. Translated by Morris Zucker. p. 531.
  13. ^ Harry G. Frankfurt (1969). "Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility," Journal of Philosophy 66 (3):829-39.
  14. ^ Ridge, Michael (3 February 2014). "Moral Non-Naturalism". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Retrieved 3 June 2019.
  15. ^ Lemos, John (2002). "Evolution and Free Will: A Defense of Darwinian Non–naturalism". Metaphilosophy. 33 (4): 468–482. doi:10.1111/1467-9973.00240. ISSN 1467-9973.
  16. ^ Nida-Rümelin, Julian (1 January 2019). "The Reasons Account of Free Will A Libertarian-Compatibilist Hybrid". Archiv fuer Rechts- und Sozialphilosphie. 105 (1): 3–10. doi:10.25162/arsp-2019-0001.
  17. ^ Stump, Eleonore (1996). "Libertarian Freedom and the Principle of Alternative Possibilities". In Howard-Snyder, Daniel; Jordan, Jeff (eds.). Faith, Freedom, and Rationality. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. pp. 73–88.
  18. ^ Jump up to:a b James, William. 1884 "The Dilemma of Determinism", Unitarian Review, September, 1884. Reprinted in The Will to Believe, Dover, 1956, p.149
  19. ^ Jump up to:a b Kant, Immanuel 1788 (1952).The Critique of Practical Reason, in Great Books of the Western World, vol. 42, Kant, Univ. of Chicago, p. 332
  20. ^ Kant, Immanuel 1781 (1949).The Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Max Mueller, p. 448
  21. ^ Honderich, Ted 1988 The Consequences of Determinism, p.169

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