final exam Philosophy

Jess suffers from a severe form of psychosis in which she visualized that her teachers are either things to be given donuts to or stabbed. She lacks any empathy to feel what her actions do to people. Can we hold Jess morally responsible? Say Myles works at Kroger. A psycho has infiltrated his house and is holding his family at gun point. Unless Myles rips off three hundred bucks from the Kroger register, the psycho will kill his family. Can we hold Myles morally responsible? Now, in many ways, we often say that we are holding you morally accountable because a person has “free-will”?

1. The Key Definitions: Morally Responsible vs. Causally Responsible

Being morally responsible means to judge someone as morally deserving praise or blame for their actions.

This is a different sense of responsibility than causal responsibility. Typically, people are not to blame if they could not have done otherwise (that’s having free will)

Causal responsibility is a bit different. To be causally responsible is to be that which makes something happen. The billiard ball can cause the 8-ball to fall in the side pocket, even though the billiard ball does not have free will.

Free-will is an old-fashioned term (invented by Augustine) that posits the faculty of making a free choice.

“To say that one event causes another event is to say that given the first event occurs, it is physically necessary that the second event occur” (200).

Determinism is the view that every event that happens is physically necessary, given the laws of nature and the condition of the world in the past. It is physically impossible to imagine that things could have occurred differently.

Determinism = causal determinism.

2. Questions and the Theories in the Free Will Problem

A. Libertarianism

B. Hard Determinism

C. Soft Determinism (sometimes called compatibilism)

D. Free-will either-way-theory

E. No-free will either way theory

F. Subjectivism

2. Questions to be answered in this chapter

1. Are all human choices caused?

2. Do we ever have free will, that is, do we ever make choices that are enough under our control to make us morally responsible?

3. Can caused choices be free?

4. Can uncaused choices be free?

3. Six Theories A. Libertarianism is the view that we sometimes choose freely and at those times are morally responsible for our behavior.

- caused choices cannot be free,

- we exercise free choice only when we make uncaused choices.

B. Two types of views about how uncaused free choices might occur:

1. Event-causation libertarianism holds that free choices occur in part due to our reasons and in part due to uncaused events in choosers’ minds.

a. Uncaused events are thought to be unpredictable as described in quantum mechanics

b. Subatomic indeterminism about quantum particles is thought to characterize the neural structure of our brains.

c. Bob Kane advocates this view: quantum indeterminacy causes our brain to have uncaused free choices.

2. Agent-theory libertarianism- posit a unique type of causation of the person/agent that is different from event-to-event causation.

a. Agent causation vs. Event-causation

1. Event-causation is a typical determined causation between A and B.

2. Agent causation belongs to the power of an agent to bring a cause into the world, a power completely denied to physical objects that underlie event-causation.

C. Hard determinism is the thesis that free choices are incompatible with our choices being caused and all our choices caused, so none of our choices are free (and we are never morally responsible)

1. No moral responsibility, no free-will.

2. We can no longer justify the concept of punishing criminals for misdeeds since nobody is responsible; all ideas of retribution and some psychological attitudes might have to be surrendered to the determinist.

D. Soft Determinism (the most popular amongst philosophers, and also called compatiblism) is the thesis that all choices are caused, but that many of our choices are free.

1. A synthesis between libertarianism and determinism

2. Caused choices can be free and some of them are.

3. The burden soft determinists have is to show how we can be morally responsible for caused choices.

4. Solution to (3): freedom is the ability to do what one wishes/desires

5. Hume, Locke, and Hobbes: they were compatibilists=soft determinists

6. Although choices are caused, there are two types of causes:

a. Freedom-enhancing causation: our desires determine our choices and we choose as we wish

b. Freedom-destroying causation, we are forced to choose in ways we do not want to choose

1. Many things can count as freedom-destroying causation: external compulsion such as acting under duress, e.g. being taken hostage etc.

2. Internal compulsion like addiction, kleptomania etc.

7. Harry Frankfurt’s first/second order desires

a. First-order desires represent our immediate desires, such as to smoke.

b. Second-order desires are those evaluations of our first-ordered desires and insofar as I wholeheartedly identify my evaluation with my first-ordered desire, it can be said that I enjoy free will.

8. Practical examples of typical political freedoms are the type of things that enhance our ability to be free.

E. Free-will-Either-Way Theory

1. largely unrecognized in the history of philosophy

2. Process:

a. agree with soft determinists that caused choices can be free and agree with the libertarians and hard determinists that uncaused choices can be free.

b. Thus, free-will-either-way theorists do not worry about determinism

c. For any choice that is caused, these thinkers believe that it can be free in a way that meets soft determinism

d. For any choice that is uncaused, it can be free if it meets an acceptable libertarian criterion.

e. Given c) and d), we can be free either way.

F. No-free-will-either-way Theory: we can’t be free either way. Strawson’s argument puts this point the best.

1. it’s the reverse of free-wll-either-way theory

2. Strawson’s Argument from the Impossibility of Responsibility

a. To be responsible for our choices, we must be responsible for the psychological states that go into our choices.

b. To be responsible for these psychological states, we must responsibly choose them.

c. To choose our psychological states responsibly we must use some principles for choosing them and we must be responsible for having those principles.

d. To be responsible for our principles of choice, we must consciously choose our principles by following some higher-level principles of choice. And so on.

e. Therefore to be responsible for our choices we must complete an infinite regress of choices of principles of choice.

f. It’s logically impossible to complete an infinite regress.

g. [Therefore, we cannot possess free-will] [supplied by me]

3. “In sum, Strawson believes to be responsible we would have to be responsible we would have to choose how we wish to be, but we must already exist in ordert to make that choice. We can never get outside of ourselves and choose how we shall be. Thus, whether our choices are caused or not, freedom and moral responsibility are impossible. (208)”

G. Subjectivism is the thesis that free will and moral responsibility is simply the expression of our feelings and has no basis in facts lying outside those feelings.

1. Freedom is only what is “enough under our control for us to be morally responsible for them” (209).

2. What qualifies for enough under our own control is expressing our moral attitudes.

3. Moral attitudes do not correspond to objective facts that we can all have access to like we have access to the chalkboard is green.

4. Instead, moral responsibility is not true or false, but only mere responses to a determinate world.

5. Subjectivists reading of others:

a. Incompatibilists/Libertarians simply show their subjective dread of determinism since they want to be so free!

b. Compatibilists simply show their subjective love of determince since they only want freedom to come through a deterministic world.

Summary of the Six Theories

Let D/C mean “don’t care”

Let Huh mean “this question makes no sense to the theory.”

Lib HD SD FWEW NFWEW SUBJ

Are all choices caused? No Yes Yes D/C D/C D/C

Do we ever have free will? Yes No Yes Yes No Huh?

Can caused choices be free? No No Yes Yes No Huh?

Can uncaused choices be free? Yes Yes No Yes No Huh?

What is Determinism?

Fichte’s long quote:

“[Any possible forms of nature] were preceded by those conditions which did precede them, and by no others; and because the present could arise out of those and out of no other possible conditions” (Fichte cited by Double, p. 211).

“Nature proceeds throughout the whole infinite series of her possible determinations without pause; and the succession of these changes is not arbitrary but follows strict and alterable laws [of nature]” (Fichte cited by Double, p. 211).

1. Determinism is not fatalism.

2. Fatalism is the belief that nothing we can do can influence the direction of our lives, and it is largely an attitudinal disposition in relation to our own actions; therefore fatalists can be determinists or indeterminists.

3. It is just that our choices are caused, and those causes were caused, and so on.

4. Preliminary Concern: Determinism does not entail that we can predict the future.

a. according to determinism, every event is the necessary result of laws that govern all events and the condition of the universe immediately before the event.

b. Determinism must be understood as a metaphysical claim about the structure and content of nature, and is independent about what anyone can know if it is true or not.

c. Following b) all events might be in principle predictable, but whether or not a particular event is predictable is an epistemological problem independent of determinism as a metaphysical principle.

d. Predictability of an event follows only insofar as the knower does not interact in any significant degree with the object under consideration.

5. Does “All events are caused” take a truth value?

a. It’s a non-truth valued statement and is held pragmatically to keep scientists asking questions.

1. “All events are caused” really means “Let’s always look for causes.”

b. Determinism is neither provable nor disprovable.

1. We can never be certain that every event is caused, beause the next event we examine might be uncaused.

2. We can never be certain that any one individual event is uncaused, because maybe it has a cause that we have failed to find.

3. Given restrictions 1 and 2, “all events are caused” can only be a recommendation (a pragmatic one at that) to sustain scientific inquiry.

6. Three Arguments for Determinism : Philosophical views about the causality of nature are a philosophical question that science must assume methodologically (but not ontologically)

- “All phenomena are caused” is a philosophical belief.

a. The Progress of Science Argument for Determinism

1. Science proceeds by discovering causal laws.

2. Causal laws predict and explain the phenomena under its scope.

3. Thus, the more science discovers, the more it seems “Determinism is true”

Criticism: Is it dogmatic to think that all phenomena must have a cause? - Uncaused events isn’t that unreasonable.

- What do you think? Are there uncaused phenomena?

b. Argument from Everyday Thought for Determinism

1. We experience a regular world.

2. Take for instance a piece of chalk: If we throw a piece of chalk up a 100 times, then we can expect it to fall to earth a 100 times.

3. From this example (and the set of all other experiences of normal-sized objects), therefore, we must assume determinism to be true about the everyday world.

Thought experiment: You walk to the Student Union and you drop a penny on the sidewalk. Wait a second, do we really need a thought experiment for this argument? Let’s just leave it as it is.

c. Argument from Rhetorical Question (Could just think of this as an a)

1. If there are regular causes, then they must either be supernatural or natural.

2. There are no supernatural or natural causes.

3. Therefore, there are no regular causes.

4. Premise 3 leads to a universe where causation is like “magic.”

5. The result of 4 is plausible, but not likely given that both personal experience and science lead us to conclude otherwise.

d. These arguments do not prove: “All events are caused,” but that doesn’t necessarily hurt the thesis “All choices are caused” that soft determinists and hard determinists require to be true.

7. Arguments for “All choices are caused”

a. Motive Argument

1. Persons have motivations when making a decision to act.

2. The strongest motive at any time will be the determined result of various psychological states.

3. Therefore, conscious choices are always determined = All choices are caused.

Possible Objection: When we choose what to do “out of prudence” and not from psychological states.

Thought experiment: When Sally graduates with her English degree, she realizes that the world out there is different than what she loves in English classes. She wants to go study cultural theory and literature in graduate school. However, she takes a job at the Savannah Morning News such that it is the prudent thing to do. She does not act on her strongest desire, but does what is prudent.

b. Argument from Brain Science

1. Human behavior is a product of the brain.

2. The brain is a determined system.

3. Therefore, human behavior is determined = All choices are caused.

Possible objection: Consciousness is an emergent system from the brain (Notice here that a premise from the Mind/body problem relates metaphysically to the free-will problem)

Indeterminist Arguments

1. The Objection from Quantum Physics- Think like event-causation libertarian R. Kane: Indeterminism within the atom may be amplified in explanation to contribute to uncaused choices in the brain at times of conflicting information.

A. Three Objections:

1. The unpredictability of certain quantum events can support that these events are not caused, yet it could also be that the unpredictability is

A matter of luck

Our inability to know

2. Although amplifications of indeterminism from single subatomic events to brain events is possible, a far more probable resut is that any indeterminacies occurring inside the atom would cancel each other out rather than be amplified.

3. If brain activity is undetermined due to amplified quantum indeterminacies, then uncaused choices might not be the type of free will needed for moral responsibility; this type of causation would not be the type persons are in control of…

2. Argument from Introspection

A. Introspection – means looking at the internal feeling or thought-states…looking inward.

B. Argument from Phenomenological Feeling

1. A person can hold their hand up.

2. That person is also aware of the intention to put it down again even before doing it, and in every instance, I am aware (as a person) of my bodily being, and the intention simultaneously to direct my own actions as I will.

3. Premise 2 is considered introspective evidence (what Double also calls phenomenological feeling)

4. The freedom felt in premise 2 can only be explained if determinism is false

5. I do have phenomenological feelings.

6. Therefore, the inference-to-best-explanation is that determinism is false and I am free.

C. Criticisms

1. Double thinks this argument for indeterminism is worthless: “It runs afoul of the epistemological lesson that things are the way we feel they are” (217).

2. Double thinks that “phenomenological feelings are the data in need of explanation.”

3. The way we feel the world is has no impact on the way it truly is.

a. Indeterminism can be true.

b. Determinism can be true.

D. Phenomenology

1. Double does not understand that his use of the term of phenomenology is not how most people understand the term. It can be understood quite differently, and represents the most powerful tradition in philosophical thought, even more so than pragmatism.

2. Phenomenology is the study of how consciousness intends the world, and is not simply a report on feelings.

a. Intentionality: Consciousness always takes an object and so any intentional mental act always takes an object in the world.

b. Phenomenology reveals this intentional structure of consciousness and is not simply the way things feel they are. Instead, it is a relational way of seeing the world and phenomenology is the method to get at this relational structure of consciousness.

Are we ever free and morally responsible?

A. The belief in moral freedom must be explained

B. William James

1. William James’s Pragmatic Argument

a. If we cannot prove free-will theoretically, then the question of free-will cannot be decided on theoretical grounds.

b. We cannot prove free-will theoretically (as we cannot all metaphysical arguments)

c. Therefore, the question of free-will cannot be decided on theoretical grounds.

d. If the question free-will cannot be decided on theoretical grounds, then it can be believed in on more useful grounds.

e. It can be believed in on more useful grounds.

f. Therefore, the question of free-will can be believed in since it is more useful to think of one as being-free than determined with no freedom.

C. Strawson: because we cannot help acting as if persons are free and morally responsible, then there is no point to thinking that we are not free.

Can Caused Choices Be Free?

A. The Three Arguments in this section all focus on the same thing, as such, I will only reproduce the 2nd Argument Below

B. The Second Argument

(1) If all choices are caused, then no one could have chosen differently.

(2) If no one could have chosen differently, then no one is free or morally responsible

(3) Therefore, if all choices are caused, then no one is free or morally responsible

Thought experiment for the force of this argument: Imagine yourself in prison waiting to be executed for a crime. While waiting through the years of unsuccessful appeals, you begin to read science and philosophy, and you gradually come to believe in hard determinism. As a hard determinist, you are appalled at the unfairness of your impending execution: “Given determinism is true, I could not have chosen otherwise than I did.”

Compatibilist Reply to the Indeterminist Argument

Reply to Second Argument: So long as we choose what we want with self-conscious deliberation, the fact that our choices are caused doesn’t matter. It’s irrelevant. We are still free.

Thought Experiment: Imagine on Earth and on its molecule-for-molecule duplicate, Twin Earth there are two persons who are qualitatively indistinguishable. Jim and Twin Jim. Imagine further they have done the same thing and lived the same lives. There’s only one difference. Jim’s choices are undetermined, libertarian choices, whereas Twin Jim’s choices are determined. If incompatibilism is correct, then Jim is sometimes morally responsible, but Twin Jim never is.

The Compatibilist thinks this is strange.

The Case for Subjectivism

Thought Experiment: If we ask different basketball fans what a good basketball game is, we will get different answers. By analogy, if we ask different people if they are morally responsible or free, we might get different answers since the belief in free-will exists in the eye of the beholder. The belief in free will depends on different people thinking what factors make our choices “good enough” to be free. That varies from person to person.