Free will and ethics
This is a really broad question but I will keep it short. I have recently finished reading Spinoza's Ethics and one of the things he tried to push is the idea that free will is just an illusion. I have heard of this idea many times before from different philosophers and I generally agree with it by now. I have for now settled with the argument that we cannot control our desires which guide our decisions, thus we are not really free. Now my question is what does the absence of freedom mean for ethics and how can our actions be judged if we cannot really control them.
Comments (66)
For me this is pretty straightforward. How can you be held responsible for something for which you are not responsible? Since we do attribute responsibility to people for actions it is pretty clear that we do ascribe free-will to them also.
I think it comes down to the definition of free will. If we define free will as something absolute, I don’t think we have it. But for everyday life we might want to use some more practical definition. I like to think that if we cannot comprehend the underlying causes for someone's behaviour, then it is acceptable to judge the person. We can say he was responsible for his actions. We can even say he did it out of his own free will.
We can also hold people responsible in the sense of rehabilitation: whether you have a choice to do so or not, you are prone to cause harm, so we’re going to do things to you to recondition you to behave differently in the future.
But wait. We are ourselves also people just like those we’re judging. Can we not therefore also judge ourselves, and do things to ourselves to recondition ourselves to behave differently in the future? Is that not then free will: the ability to change what we desire or at least which desires we act on? It’s not an indeterministic process, sure, but how exactly would indeterminism help us recondition ourselves, rather than at most hindering the process but most likely having no noticeable effect at all?
The Buddha came to the same conclusion. So, he showed people-driven-by-desires, how to break free from the tyranny of evolutionary appetites. Self-control is indeed difficult. But it's not true that we cannot control our urges, it's just that many people don't have the moral character to take charge of their own lives. In that case, they may be acting unethically, not because FreeWill is an illusion, but due to moral weakness. If you'd like to see an alternative view, check-out my reply on the FreeWill thread linked below.
When does freewill start? https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/444760
Argument by assertion. Where's your argument for "we cannot control our desires"? Because behavioral psychology attests that we can. Studies show we can. Children can learn to control their desires/emotions.
Quoting Leiton Baynes
Repeated assertion. Let's talk first about control of desires before we talk about freedom of the will.
What is it that motivates them to do so?
I’ve read Spinoza’s ethics as well and enjoyed its brilliance, though I don’t buy the idea that there’s no such thing as human agency. But IF you buy that idea that humans are puppets to their emotions, needs, upbringing, biology etc, THEN that includes judges. They judge because they can’t do otherwise, they are programmed to judge, PERIOD.
Internal and external 'rewards or goals' can motivate anyone. Yes, then we can argue that 'okay, so there are other desires that control these desires'. But here's where we can investigate 'control' -- if it's truly that desires rule our mind and action, then no 'other' motivating factors, no matter how great, would change that. But other factors can and do change the way we behave and think.
The important point here is human agency is sound and alive. While admittedly, as my post above, that other motivation/desires influence our thinking and behavior, the fact that we do make decisions should be the key here.
For the issue of free will, I understand that it actually means the freedom to choose but from pre-existing options since “freedom to choose” presupposes the existence of things to choose from but in addition to a sane and stable mind able to actually make choices!
Thus the illusion would not really be with the possibility of “free will” per your Spinoza’s quote but more with one thinking he is able to CREATE his own options to choose form.
Hence the only way I see there can be an absence of “freedom to choose” is when an individual is under certain insuperable influences that have taken control of him like being subjected to high doses of psychotic drugs or heavily impaired by an ailment that prevents him from rationally making the decisions himself. And here, we can have many interesting scenarios.
For instance, if the individual was tied and forced to take these drugs, the ethical blame would obviously be on those who forced him to do so. But this would be different if he himself took the choice to take the drugs knowing beforehand their potential consequences.
Another scenario but from an occult or metaphysical point of view, where things like mesmerism are considered, the mesmerist would be ethically held responsible for what the mesmerised individual did.
How does a 'motivating factor' cause behaviour without a the 'desire' toward a certain response?
I don't think "cause" is the right word here. And I don't understand your question because I said in my previous post that there are desires that drive other desires. Our issue is "control" and, to borrow from Olivier5 post, agency. So please clarify.
Well, if you don't think 'cause' is the right word then you've begged the question. You can't genuinely pursue the question of free-will from the presumption that our actions are not 'caused', you've already presumed your conclusion.
The activity of our brains does not bear little labels with 'desire', or 'motivating factor' on them. These are categories applied post hoc to the processes we experience and are largely socially mediated rationalisations for much more complex neural activity.
To say 'we are free to choose courses of action' is trivial in neural term, all our brain does is select courses of action, it's quite literally it's only job. The key part in that proposition is not the selecting of courses of action, but the 'we'. what is this 'we' doing the selecting, as opposed to what? Our spinal chord?
This idea that our instinctive desires are something other from us and 'we' control them are just warmed-over Christian original sin narratives.
Quoting Isaac
Sorry for taking a long time to respond.
First, let's hold off on talking about free will here. I'm requesting that someone, anyone respond to the issue of "control of desires". I'm denying that we don't have control of our desires. Do we or do we not have control of our desires. Please answer this.
Second, I don't know what you're talking about in the second quote. "something other from us". What's that? I haven't started talking about where the desire resides, etc.
I'm not talking about original sin narratives. How is this brought here?
Let's get back to the basic discussion of desires.
In the context of everyday life, I like to think that we do control our desires: sometimes I can prevent myself from eating the chocolate bar, and sometimes I get overrun by my desires.
But then, when I dig deeper and try to see what it is that motivates me to prevent me from eating the chocolate bar, it’s hard to see anything else but just another desire. Perhaps this time there was more rational thought involved in the action, perhaps it was a more long-term desire, e.g. to stay healthy, but it’s hard to see any fundamental differences.
What does that mean? That we're under the impression that we're free but that we're actually not? I agree that legal institutions work under the assumption that we are free.
Could it be that the law explains, by way of provenance, the existence and perpetuation of this belief that we have free will.
That doesn't seem add up because the law, through punishment, people through rewarding, our actions, fall within the causal web. After all, the law, all said and done, is simply a product of our natural instincts, instincts that demand retribution for wrongs or reward for rights and instincts are decidedly not something we have power to change. At the end of the day then it appears that our belief in our freedom, its origin in law, justice, morality, is completely erroneous for any system of justice begins its journey into our lives by assuming free will - that a suspect committed an act on his own volition - but that's followed by punishment which is but a natural, completely deterministic reaction to a wrong.
In essence then the only point of origin (morality) for the belief in free will is a dud. Morality starts off by assuming free will but how it reacts to moral acts is deterministic in nature. You can't have the cake and eat it too, right?
Okay, we're getting somewhere. Thank you, Jarmo.
And is it just another desire, then another desire, like infinite regress? We might think this way, except that we couldn't choose to be born, for one thing, among many things. There is no motivation prior to birth, no agency prior to anything. So, why is it that now we have a wealth of choices deep within us, allowing us to choose to act or not to act, or to change our course of action, or to keep going on the same path? How are these desires and motivation got into our system? And let's not forget here that breathing is done without having to be constantly aware of it, salivating is instinctive, our biological needs will happen during deep sleep and coma.
Trust me, there isn't an infinite amount of choices we can make. Yet conformity is an issue with JS Mill, herd mentality with Nietzsche, habits with Hume. Why? What were they talking about here? Were they insinuating something else besides motivation or desire?
Good post MF.
Is free will apart from other things then? Where does it reside?
Truly, to conceptualize something as illusory, that something must have some form for us to know what we're talking about. If it is existence we mean by free will, heck a unicorn is understandably conceptually illusory. But free will?
We certainly do for the simple reason that nothing else controls our desires. Your desires are produced, regulated, and controlled by only one being. Even the seemingly automatic movements, such as the heart beat, are produced, regulated and controlled by the same being.
I'm still trying to figure out the birthplace of the "false impression" that we have free will, let's call it B for convenience. B appears to be intimately tied to morals and its offshoot, the law. Free will is a big deal in ethics and justice - both would wink out of existence if we lacked free will. Do you have any ideas where else free will is as critical? If we could get a fix on the provenance of B it'll go a long way in solving the puzzle of free will.
Freedom is often misunderstood as an objective absence of limitations. It isn’t that there are no limitations, but that we don’t feel limited by them. And it isn’t that this freedom is a property of the individual organism, but is exercised in one’s individual awareness, connection and collaboration with reality. Freedom of the will begins as an apperception of variable potential, inspiring imaginable possibilities in these conceptual structures that determine and initiate action.
And is this being the 'will'? I would think so.
I think we're duped to believe that there is a thing called 'will' and then another called 'free will'!
Would you agree that if we have a will, it's necessarily a free will? I think the illusion, if any, lies in making a distinction between will, on the one hand, and free will on the other. What do you think if we remove this false distinction? I would go so far as to say, naming it "free" lays down the foundation for a fallacy of a distinction without a difference, intentionally.
Or it is not at odds. Both claims are true.
So, how would one distinguish between the two perspectives? Spinoza did not seem interested in helping others answer that particular question.
We have already agreed to judge our actions, and it is evident that we accept the premise that we are responsible for our own actions (even though we may not be) and hence the laws and the courts of law and your speeding ticket. Try telling a police officer you were not responsible for your actions, and neither he nor you will believe it.
It is curious that people ask this question about negative actions, actions that harm others. If you save a life, are you responsible for your actions? If you perform an act of kindness are you going to say that you were not responsible? What about your MBA or your Diploma?
I would say yes, we can control our actions, though it is more difficult to control our actions, for example, if we are on a 24 hour fast and someone brings us a hamburger or whatever is our favourite thing.
We believe we can control our actions - the question as to whether we actually had a free will is something that our Maker can answer.
Good observation!
It is curious as to why it seems it is always the harmful actions that makes the question of responsibility or obligation relevant to the issue of free will. In Mill's conception of ethics, offense certainly is given a serious thought regarding actions of individuals in a civil society.
And I don't know if this is commonly asked, but when it comes to the question of "do we have an obligation to save a drowning person, and if we choose not to, are we a bad person" sort of deal, right becomes the issue -- as in the right to choose a course of action.
Please explain. Interesting point.
Quoting Possibility
:up:
Spinoza's argument that God is not "free" to change stuff as the whim might occur to him is presented as a projection of a human process on to the Creator. Men ponder alternatives to achieve various ends. To depict the God we are in as sharing the same conditions that we do is presumptuous.
The funny thing about the presumption is that we use it conceive an agency in ourselves. We take the model of coercion and liberty that we must navigate to live and turn it into something beyond our experience.
The lesson on humility is not directed toward saying everything must be as it is as a matter of predestination. That sort of thing is beyond us. The freedom we experience is not something we have, like a property or a hand tool. The difficulty surrounding the possibility is a feature, not a flaw.
From the point of view of understanding causes, this from Ethics, Proposition 8, Scholium 2 points to what is being resisted:
Those who do not know the true causes of things confuse everything. They have no more intellectual qualms about conceiving of trees talking than of people talking. They as easily suppose that human beings are formed from stones as from semen. They imagine any form being changed into any other form. Similarly, people who confuse divine nature with human ?nature readily attribute human emotions to God, especially so long as they also remain ignorant of how emotions are produced in the mind.
-Spinoza: Ethics: Proved in Geometrical Order (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy) (pp. 7-8). Cambridge University Press.
basically imagine this,
"there are three people, Black, White, and Jane, Black and Jane both hate White and want to kill him,
so Black installs a chip in Jane's brain that basically determines, that if Jane is given the chance to kill White she has two options, one, she kills him from her will, thus the chip does not intervene, two, Jane is hesitant and doesn't want to kill White, then the chip will intervene and control her brain to kill White"
this story presents a very interesting case which kind of is based on intent and defeats the principal of alternate possibilities, Jane can do only one thing, and that is kill White, but she either can kill him out of intent or out of control.
if she kills him out of intent, then we would morally blame her, but why is that different from control? she still has no choice?
that's a basic summary
Perhaps you would want to ask what could be true of reality?
1) We are in a dream or a simulation, which does not allow us to have free will. However, if we were outside the dream or a simulation, we would have free will.
2) We are in a dream or a simulation, which does not allow us to have free will. However, if we were outside the dream or a simulation, we would have free will. Nonetheless, at times, a higher being like God (or creator of the simulation) interferes, and allows us to have free will.
3) We are in a dream or a simulation, which does not allow us to have free will. However, if we were outside the dream or a simulation, we would have partial free will, due to a presence of a higher being, like God, who partially controls our free will.
4) We are in a dream or a simulation, which does not allow us to have free will. However, if we were outside the dream or a simulation, we would still have no free will, due to a presence of a higher being, like God, who completely controls our free will.
5) Regardless of whether or not we are in a simulation, we have complete free will (but maybe we could think that we don't because we don't realize the minds full potential), and there could or could not be a higher being, nonetheless, if there were one, it would give us complete free will.
6) Regardless of whether or not we are in a simulation, in either case, we have no free will due to our desires.
7) Regardless of whether or not we are in a simulation, we have partial free will and perhaps there are things we can and cannot control due to our desires.
8) Regardless of whether or not we are in a simulation, we are born with partial free will, however, we are able to control our free will by further realizing the minds potential.
And other possibilities, like a combination of these or something new.
I see the point you're trying to make. But this scenario is not the reality we are questioning here. However, if this had been actual event, Jane was put in a predicament where her will was compromised. And yes, she could choose to not kill White, period. She has nothing to do with the chip being in her brain if she didn't agree to it. She could choose not to have the chip in her brain.
How about this -- there is something else that controls our desires. Rationality has been the center of this human ability to go against our desires.
:up:
1. We come to a decision or a judgment about what actually and factually occurred;
2. Based on what we decide happened, we judge a person's moral culpability;
3. We come to a decision or a judgment about what to do with a person that factually broke a law.
Only the second one above should be affected by any lack of free will. We should not comment on a person's morality if they were compelled to act the way they did. However, determinism does not mean that we need to throw away our judicial system entirely. This is true for the following two reasons:
1. The judicial system itself is based on determinism in that is predetermined that if one performs certain acts, then society will respond in certain ways;
2. If a person has performed illegal acts because the person's genes and environment compelled them to act that way, then a change in environment can prevent that person from engaging in the same antisocial acts again.
The real question regarding free will and ethics is what environmental changes are best to bring about the behavior which is favorable to society and the individual. The justice system needs reform to take determinism more into account, but determinism's existence doesn't necessarily mean we need to throw the justice system away.
Maybe we are not in a good position to connect our experience of what is caused with the pursuit of a better life. Spinoza is posing some of the question in reverse. Everything that happens is necessary. The pursuit of change is neither discounted or proved by such an observation. That isn't an argument against Aquinas and Augustine so much as a challenge to them.
Show where one thing ends and another begins.
There are 9, I say 9 senses which are in the domain of empirical observation. The Big five, as I like to call them are what we would call Sensus Externi.
The Small four, Sensus Internus.
Why Big five? Me and you can both watch a firework together. The only way for me to gather data on what it is like to watch a firework, as you, is to use fine data analysis of internal physiological phenomena.
I can be reasonably certain you saw the firework because I saw it too. Big.
I can only be reasonably certain how it made you feel by analyzing computer data, small. I can't trust you telling me without trusting one of your small four to reliably determine what is going on across all the other 8.
That's all I wanted to chime in with. I'm trying to keep out of free will debates as I no longer know where I stand on the issue.
Couldn't agree more. But there's always behavioral cues, Big, that you can gather from me without me being aware, small, I'm giving away my secrets, i.e. liking the fireworks.
Quoting MSC
:) No prob!
Good point! I think observations such as "everything that happens is necessary" is often misconstrued as 'everything' is known, therefore, determined. Note that the observation excludes anything that hasn't happen yet -- or at least this is a fair interpretation. But we will get to the validity of that observation some other time.
Indeed, behavioural cues and what you say definitely contribute to the data set, even if they do fall short of the task of completing the data set.
Quoting Aleph Numbers
Moral absolutism presupposes free will. How? According to moral absolutist's view, there are universal moral principles that are accessible to all of us regardless of culture or situations. So while moral absolutism is contra relativism, it is not necessarily out to destroy it. There is an allowance given to moral relativism -- but only because universal moral principles take into consideration that individual experiences are an inescapable and necessary ingredient to becoming a moral agent.
But this idea that a moral agent, coming out of experiences, can turn around and recognize those universal moral principles is what makes free will real. Or, what makes "will" necessarily free will. We have an awareness, through meditative analysis, if not through coaching, that there are principles that are true regardless of time, place, or culture.
So, to answer the line I quoted above from Aleph -- "..one really has no choice if they want to be as moral as possible": This is simply the opposite of the argument for moral absolutism. We are moral absolutist because we have free will. How? Overcoming our habits, our culture, or situation and recognizing that there are universal moral principles out of which we are moral agents extraordinaire is what it's all about.
You're equating moral beliefs with moral truths, which is the very distinction being considered. Moral realists will argue that there are moral truths separate to our moral beliefs, and that our moral beliefs are only correct if they correspond to moral truths.
So it's not enough to argue that we each have our own moral beliefs; you also need to argue that our moral beliefs are also moral truths to argue that morality is subjective.
Quoting Michael
Does a statement of subjective preferences not correspond with the reality of one's beliefs? Is a moral belief held by a culture not a moral truth for them, even if it is subjective? Perhaps it doesn't correspond to a moral fact, but it seems to me to be a truth nonetheless. When one says "x is acceptable behavior for us", with reference to one's culture, this is a moral truth - for the culture in question this is a statement of what is permitted for that culture. This is more than just a belief. I think the term you are looking for is "moral fact", not moral truth.
Not necessarily. One culture might believe that there are men living on the moon. They'd be wrong. That culture might believe that killing the sick is morally acceptable. They might be wrong.
That there are things permitted for that culture is not necessarily that there is nothing more to morality than what each particular culture permits. It may be that some things are (objectively) wrong even if a particular culture permits them.
"Moral truth" and "moral fact" are interchangeable for me. If they mean something else to you then reconsider my previous post using "moral fact" rather than "moral truth".
Quoting Michael
I don't mean to be pedantic, but I think it's a useful delineation. Truth can be subjective, but facts are, obviously, objective.
Quoting Michael
Quoting Michael
It seems useless to me to speculate about how any action could possibly conflict with an unknown moral fact. Maybe there is the fact: one should allow any culture to act according to their subjective morality.
One could also argue from the point of the relativist that the realist has to demonstrate the existence of moral facts. Do they exist out in the universe, or are moral claims tied to some observable entity? Where is the reasoning?
What makes you think that it's unknown? There are plenty of moral philosophies which seek to make moral facts known, e.g. utilitarianism or the categorical imperative.
Why? If it is a moral fact that killing the sick is wrong and if we have a moral duty to stop others from doing wrong then we have a moral duty to prevent a culture from acting according to a subjective morality that permits killing the sick.
But even if we should allow any culture to act according to their subjective morality, it doesn't then follow that there aren't (objective) moral facts.
You're more than welcome to act as if men are living on the moon, but there aren't.
The realist has to demonstrate the existence of objective moral facts and the anti-realist has to demonstrate the non-existence of objective moral facts. Everyone has the burden to support their claims.
In the case of @Roy Davies he tried to argue that objective moral facts don't exist because different cultures have different moral beliefs. I simply explained that his conclusion doesn't follow.
What does it even mean to say this! Absolutism claims universal moral truths -- not that you are put in shackles to follow them.
So, if morality is absolute, then surely it should be absolute across the board, not just for humans?
It could very well be. My point is only that your remark that different cultures have different beliefs doesn't mean that morality is subjective.
So, morality is optional, then?
The existence of moral principles is not like proving the existence of physical entities. Obviously, there is a distinction. Some truths can be understood through rational deliberation or meditation. A priori arguments can help with the understanding, and so can empirical ones. But one thing that prevents us from admitting the validity of a universal principle is the constant use of induction or anecdotal accounts of experience, especially in the first person perspective.
I gather that by "demonstrate", you mean to show it in actions or point to some empirical entities. Or do you mean through argumentation, or a question-and-answer that results in either contradiction or validity of one's moral view?
The Buddha disagreed with you. He noted that the average person was not in control of his desires, hence was essentially a zombie driven by evolutionary programming, and thence was suffering the frustration of unfulfilled desires. Of course that's a modern interpretation. But he discovered that he could control his own mind & body simply by focusing his attention inwardly (introspection). So his ethic was based on the possibility of Self-Control, taking personal responsibility for your own actions. Even serious meditators cannot claim to be totally free, though. But they are more aware of their innate programming than others. Which makes them like the one-eyed man in the land of the blind. :smile:
Indeed, we are animals who have evolved through millenia. Our first question always has to be "how is what I am thinking now biased by my evolutionary programming?" It is possible that we can never be even slightly free from this in the same way we can never really be free from the effects of gravity. But we can be aware that everything we do and say is most likely biased and act accordingly with humility and critical thought.
On that note, people are generally very good at tying themselves in logical knots to justify previously made decisions.
Yes. Robert Wright, in Why Buddhism is True, used the Matrix movie as an analogy to the state of humans enslaved by their evolutionary programming. He assumes that we have enough freewill to make a choice between genetic programming and self-programming. :smile:
Buddhist Meditation : "Wright begins his analysis of Buddhist Mindfulness Meditation by reference to the modern meme of taking the “Red Pill”, as illustrated in the movie The Matrix. The implication is that deluded humans have a choice to wake-up to harsh reality, and take charge of their own lives, or to remain in their illusory dream-state as slaves to outside forces."
http://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page51.html