Why Free Will Is Incompatible with Human Experience

@tomr,

tomr wrote:

Now your friend suggests that there is a restaurant you need to try. In no way is this suggestion forcing you to go just because you decide to take the advice. The friend is simply giving you information and perhaps being your friend he or she might have a good idea what you like. You have a desire to go to the restaurant possibly because you like the type of food there or because its close and you could walk there or both. So based on whatever reasons be they those I give or someother you desire to go. Just as in the example above with the robber, you need to make sure that the reasons for desiring to go to the restaurant are a choice by you. If these reasons are not your own, then since they are what determined you wanted to go to the restaurant you were forced to go by reasons that were not yours.

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I have the suspicion (in fact it is more than a suspicion) that you are simply assuming that simply because my desire to visit restaurant had a cause (in this case, the suggestion of my friend) that in virtue of that, my action is not one of free will, and I really see no reason to think that is true.

I do not assume that because your friend has given you knowledge about a restaurant that this forces you to do anything. What I am doing is trying to find out where the desire to go to the restaurant comes from. I want to find the point in a thought process where we no longer give input to the reasons or desires that is the cause of what actions we make. I argue because we cannot have ultimately choosen the desire to do something that we cannot have free-will.

The way I came up with this argument was only to ask the question,"Why do I want that?" to myself over and over again. If I found a deeper reason or desire for something I chose I would ask that question again. I think that the reason it is so difficult to convey my argument is because it is odd to do this, to ask this question over and over again until you can give no answer. I would suggest that you try to find out where your own choices ultimately come from by questioning the desires of the choices that you make be they complex or barely choices at all.

I have no idea what you mean when you talk of my reasons for going to the restaurant "being my choice". If you are asking whether I went to the restaurant because my friend suggested it, I already answered that question. The answer is yes. You mean that I might have had some other reasons for going? Yes, I might. But I didn't. The point is still, nothing compelled me to go to the restaurant. Certainly not my friend's suggestion. So what would make you think that I did not go of my own free will? I don't know the answer to that question, but I suspect that your reason is merely that I had a reason for going, and for some reason which is hard to understand, you believe that just because I had reasons for going, I did not go of my own free will. But if that is true, then why do you think that? Why do you think that just because I went to the restaurant for some reason, that I did not go of my own free will? Now, let me add that there are reasons, and then there are reasons. If I went at my friend's suggestion, but if I also knew that if I did not follow his suggestion I would displease him, and I did not want to displease him, and, supposing too, that I did not want to go to the restaurant (maybe because I did not like the kind of food served there) but I went anyway so as not to displease my friend, then, if that was the story, and it it wasn't just that I went at my friend's suggestion, then, in that case, it would make perfectly good sense for me to say that I did not go of my own free will, but under some compulsion. But a vital factor there is, of course, that I did not want to go, but was going only to please my friend. It seems to me that generally speaking, it makes sense to say of someone that he did not do something freely only if he did not want to do that thing, but is compelled to do it. But then, the mere fact of his having reasons for doing what he did seems quite irrelevant. For, after all, a reason for doing what he did might very well be that he wanted to do it, and if he did what he wanted to do, how would it be possible that he did not do it of his own free will?

But now I need to address your question, "where does the desire to go to the restaurant come from?. My reply is, why does that make a difference? But let me add that, of course, as I have already pointed out, if my desire to go to the restaurant is caused by my wanting not to displease my friend, but, on the other hand, I did not really desire to go, then I had conflicting desires. And it turned out that I would prefer to go to the restaurant rather than to offend my friend. Well, what that means is that I was compelled to make the choice I made, since doing so was the lesser of two evils. So I did not go to the restaurant of my own free will, since I was compelled to go. Now, of course, there are causes for making that choice, since I could have made the choice of not going to the restaurant and offending my friend. But now I ask again, as I did earlier, why does the mere fact that there were causes for doing what I do, regardless of any other consideration, lead to the conclusion that what I did was not done of my own free will. After all, one of the causes of what I did, whether it was going to the restaurant or not going, was my choosing to do the one or the other. It was up to me what I would do, and if I had not chosen to do what I did, I could have chosen to do what (in the event) I did not do. And, as long as it was up to me what I did (even if, I hasten to add, there were reasons I chose to do what I did) then I fail to see why what I did, I did not do of my own free will. (Is it your view that only if I had no reasons for doing what I did would I then have free will? What would be the argument for that, and why would that kind of reasonless choice be the kind of free will anyone would want to have, anyway?)

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What is human experience worth to us philosophers ? Is a gnosticus a Humanist ?

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What is human experience worth to us philosophers ? Is a gnosticus an eery Humanist ? What about the hermetic approach to wisdom ?

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@kennethamy,

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I have no idea what you mean when you talk of my reasons for going to the restaurant "being my choice.

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But now I need to address your question, "where does the desire to go to the restaurant come from?. My reply is, why does that make a difference?

I can only answer you by saying what I have already said. In every choice that people make there is a command we make to have one thing over others. Now I am talking about a choice that happens in your thoughts not any physical action. This command is the desire and whether it is a formal thought like " I want that" or it is someother type of thought, the command is your experience of wanting something. A reason is something that backs up the desire or justifies it.

As I said before but in different terms, the command to go to the restaurant selects from options to go there. Options like "do not go to the restaurant" and "go to the bank", if these options were not there and the only option you had was to go to the restaurant then you could only make the command to go to the restaurant because for some reason thats all you have knowledge of being able to do in this particular case. This is not how choices work and in fact having only one option is not a choice. I am just showing why having not picked something out from a group of options is not a choice and that making a command to have the thing that is your only option is forced. (You might be thinking,"Why cant I choose not to go to the restaurant?". Its because in this particular example the option to not go does not exist to you since it never entered your thoughts. Having only one option means the command will be that option. You could not even command not to make a choice because it is not an option either.)

Now say you have your options back and you can " go to the bank", "go to the restaurant" and "not go to the restaurant". You command to go to the restaurant because you want to try the food there. Now if that command is a thought in your head that you did not choose, where were your alternatives to that command to go to the restaurant because you want to try the food there? There was no choice, no options to choose from, and so no possible alternatives to what you wanted to do. Since you, your thought process, your will, had no control over what you wanted to do you were forced to do it.

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@tomr,

tomr wrote:

Quote:
I have no idea what you mean when you talk of my reasons for going to the restaurant "being my choice.

Quote:
But now I need to address your question, "where does the desire to go to the restaurant come from?. My reply is, why does that make a difference?

I can only answer you by saying what I have already said. In every choice that people make there is a command we make to have one thing over others. Now I am talking about a choice that happens in your thoughts not any physical action. This command is the desire and whether it is a formal thought like " I want that" or it is someother type of thought, the command is your experience of wanting something. A reason is something that backs up the desire or justifies it.

As I said before but in different terms, the command to go to the restaurant selects from options to go there. Options like "do not go to the restaurant" and "go to the bank", if these options were not there and the only option you had was to go to the restaurant then you could only make the command to go to the restaurant because for some reason thats all you have knowledge of being able to do in this particular case. This is not how choices work and in fact having only one option is not a choice. I am just showing why having not picked something out from a group of options is not a choice and that making a command to have the thing that is your only option is forced. (You might be thinking,"Why cant I choose not to go to the restaurant?". Its because in this particular example the option to not go does not exist to you since it never entered your thoughts. Having only one option means the command will be that option. You could not even command not to make a choice because it is not an option either.)

Now say you have your options back and you can " go to the bank", "go to the restaurant" and "not go to the restaurant". You command to go to the restaurant because you want to try the food there. Now if that command is a thought in your head that you did not choose, where were your alternatives to that command to go to the restaurant because you want to try the food there? There was no choice, no options to choose from, and so no possible alternatives to what you wanted to do. Since you, your thought process, your will, had no control over what you wanted to do you were forced to do it.

No one commanded me to go to the restaurant. It was my decision. What makes you think I was commanded to do anything? Where did that spout from? How does a thought command me to do anything? Perhaps I had better remind you of the circumstances: my friend recommended the restaurant; I decided to go to the restaurant because of his recommendation. There were no commands, no orders. And the only thought involved was my decision to go to the restaurant whose cause was my friend's suggestion. The rest of what you wrote is pure invention on your part. It is a theory you have about human action to which you fit all of the facts, so that a person's decision becomes (for you) a command. But that is something you invented. Not something supported by any facts. You are in (what Wittgenstein called) "the grip of a theory", apparently a theory whose grip on you is so strong that you cannot even conceived of it being a theory you invented which needs support which you have not, so far, given. It is just nonsense to say I had no alternative but to go to the restaurant. That is something you invented too. I needn't have gone at all. I was under no compulsion to go. It was only a suggestion by my friend and there was no compulsion to follow it. If you think there was, you have invented it because it fits in with some theory of yours which you have not argued for, and which is entirely innocent of the facts. In other words, it is a dogma held by you.

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@kennethamy,

Do you agree that your free choice must be determined by your intention?

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@litewave,

litewave wrote:

Do you agree that your free choice must be determined by your intention?

When I make a choice (free or not) I often intend to make it. But sometimes I just choose something. Just like that.

But I don't want to quibble with you. All right, many of my choices are the result of my intention to make that choice. My choices generally do not occur out of there blue. But so what? Suppose I choose vanilla rather than chocolate, and it isn't an accident, I intended to choose vanilla. Then what? What has that to do with whether my action was free, which is to say, not compelled. You seem to think that because my choice was intended that I was forced to make that choice. But what makes you think that?

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@kennethamy,

Re][/quote]

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@kennethamy,

Quote:

When I make a choice (free or not) I often intend to make it. But sometimes I just choose something. Just like that.

But I don't want to quibble with you. All right, many of my choices are the result of my intention to make that choice. My choices generally do not occur out of there blue. But so what? Suppose I choose vanilla rather than chocolate, and it isn't an accident, I intended to choose vanilla. Then what? What has that to do with whether my action was free, which is to say, not compelled. You seem to think that because my choice was intended that I was forced to make that choice. But what makes you think that?

I think that a free choice should indeed be determined by an intention, rather than be unintentional.

Now the question is, did you freely choose your intention too?

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@litewave,

litewave wrote:

Quote:
When I make a choice (free or not) I often intend to make it. But sometimes I just choose something. Just like that.

But I don't want to quibble with you. All right, many of my choices are the result of my intention to make that choice. My choices generally do not occur out of there blue. But so what? Suppose I choose vanilla rather than chocolate, and it isn't an accident, I intended to choose vanilla. Then what? What has that to do with whether my action was free, which is to say, not compelled. You seem to think that because my choice was intended that I was forced to make that choice. But what makes you think that?

Now the question is, did you freely choose your intention too?

I am not sure what an intentional or an unintentional choice is. When I choose to do something it is not accidental, if that is what you mean. To ask someone, when he makes a choice (say) lamb chops, whether his choice was intentional is to suggest that his choosing lamb chops is something you did not expect him to do, and you were questioning whether he thought he was choosing something else, but accidentally chose lamb chops instead.
I think that a free choice should indeed be determined by an intention, rather than be unintentional. So, when I choose something, unless there is some reason to think that I did it by accident, or I was forced to do it, we can assume I meant to choose what I chose.

Again, you ask whether I chose my intention just as if it was clear what you are asking. I really don't know what it is to choose my intention, which is not to say that I don't do it. It is to say that the notion makes no sense to me. Suppose when looking over the menu, I say, "I guess I will have the lamb chops". If you ask me whether that means I intend to have the lamb chops, I will (I suppose) say yes, but wonder why you asked. But if you ask me whether I choose my intention to have the lamb chops, I think I would look at you in bafflement, since I really would not understand what it was you were asking.

Why, I wonder, if I choose the lamb chops, and I make that choice because I happen to like lamb chops, is there even a question about whether I chose the lamb chops of my own free will (which is, I suppose, what you are getting at). To ask whether I chose the lamb chops of my own free will is to suggest that maybe I did not want the lamb chops, fur someone (or something) was forcing me to choose the lamb chops. But what reason would you have to assume such a thing.

Your problem, I think, is that you confuse being caused to do something with being compelled or forced to do something, so that once I allow that my choice had causes (which it,no doubt did) you jump to the conclusion that I was forced to make that choice, and then conclude I did not make that choice of my own free will. Your mistake is to conclude that because my choice was caused, that my choice was compelled, and that is because you (as I just said) confuse being cause to make a choice with being compelled to make a choice. One you notice that compulsion and causation are different things, you won't jump to the conclusion that because my choice was caused it was compelled, and you won't think that because my choice was caused that I did not choose freely.

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@kennethamy,

Quote:

There were no commands, no orders. And the only thought involved was my decision to go to the restaurant whose cause was my friend's suggestion.

The command is the thought "I want to go to the restaurant." that you picked from a group of options for whatever reasons. Command does not mean a statement forced upon you. It only means a statement to pick from your options. I am not saying that your friend ordered you or forced you to do anything.

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How does a thought command me to do anything?

If the thought was not your decision to have. If you have the thought and something else put it in your head. Take this analogy, when a computer is given input it then follows a series of operations. The input was not the computer's decision because the computer acts on the input. It is the same with people. If we do not put the thought in our head by choosing it, how can it be our thought. It was the only option just as the input was for the computer. Just because you have the experience of thinking does not mean you chose the thoughts you have.

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The rest of what you wrote is pure invention on your part. It is a theory you have about human action to which you fit all of the facts, so that a person's decision becomes (for you) a command.

In every decision there is a want, desire, preference, command, etc... that you give that says give me that option. If there was no want there is no choice. It is in the dictionary and it is what I do everytime I decide in my head. If you do not ultimately choose to want what you did then it was a thought in your head without your input. You seem to think this is not enough that my logic is flawed. Tell me why it is and give real reasons my logic is flawed. To say I invented this, that I am doing something that someone else talked about before "the grip of a theory" with no explaination, or that the argument is "nonsense" without any real counterargument is not telling me what I need to understand why you say I'm wrong.

1 Reply

@tomr,

tomr wrote:

Quote:
There were no commands, no orders. And the only thought involved was my decision to go to the restaurant whose cause was my friend's suggestion.

The command is the thought "I want to go to the restaurant." that you picked from a group of options for whatever reasons. Command does not mean a statement forced upon you. It only means a statement to pick from your options. I am not saying that your friend ordered you or forced you to do anything.

Quote:
How does a thought command me to do anything?

If the thought was not your decision to have. If you have the thought and something else put it in your head. Take this analogy, when a computer is given input it then follows a series of operations. The input was not the computer's decision because the computer acts on the input. It is the same with people. If we do not put the thought in our head by choosing it, how can it be our thought. It was the only option just as the input was for the computer. Just because you have the experience of thinking does not mean you chose the thoughts you have.

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The rest of what you wrote is pure invention on your part. It is a theory you have about human action to which you fit all of the facts, so that a person's decision becomes (for you) a command.

In every decision there is a want, desire, preference, command, etc... that you give that says give me that option. If there was no want there is no choice. It is in the dictionary and it is what I do everytime I decide in my head. If you do not ultimately choose to want what you did then it was a thought in your head without your input. You seem to think this is not enough that my logic is flawed. Tell me why it is and give real reasons my logic is flawed. To say I invented this, that I am doing something that someone else talked about before "the grip of a theory" with no explaination, or that the argument is "nonsense" without any real counterargument is not telling me what I need to understand why you say I'm wrong.

But why call my decision a command when it isn't one? Calling it a command leads you to think that the decision is not free one. But you have no reason to call my decision a command, and therefore, you have no reason to think my decision is not free. It is up to you to justify calling my decision a command. So you seem to be just confusing yourself. Your computer analogy will not do, for I am not a computer.

I don't give myself commands. That is bizarre, and something you are making up. I do want to do things, and I do those things as the result of wanting to do them (although, we should also remember that I sometimes do things I do not want to do, as well). But the picture you draw of human action (one in which someone, I?) give commands to someone (I again?) is a picture I don't even begin to recognize. That is why I say it is pure invention to conform with a certain model you have of human beings which seems to me simply contrary to the facts of human action. You have persuaded yourself (probably because you over analogize computers and people) that someone is constantly pressing your control key, and that you are responding to it. Just as if you were both the controller of a piece of machinery, and (somehow) also the piece of machinery you are controlling. It is a picture of something (perhaps) but not one of human action.

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@kennethamy,

I suppose that in your hypothetical example you chose lamb chops because you felt a desire, or intention, to have lamb chops. Maybe you think that following your desire is an act of free will but it is an act that is caused by something over which you have no control, and therefore you ultimately don't have control over your act. And that's what people usually do not regard as a free will act.

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@litewave,

litewave wrote:

I suppose that in your hypothetical example you chose lamb chops because you felt a desire, or intention, to have lamb chops. Maybe you think that following your desire is an act of free will but it is an act that is caused by something over which you have no control, and therefore you ultimately don't have control over your act. And that's what people usually do not regard as a free will act.

Maybe you think that following your desire is an act of free will but it is an act that is caused by something over which you have no control, and therefore you ultimately don't have control over your act.

But that argument is simply fallacious. Why do you think that because I may have had no say (but I might have too) in what I desire, that when I do what I desire to do, I am not doing what I am doing freely. I cannot see that inference is a valid one. Why, if I do as I want to do, and, as long as what I want to do is not force on me, am I not acting freely whether or not I am able to decide what I want to do? Have you an argument to support that, or is it supposed to be self-evident? To tell someone who has "commanded" lamb chops from the waiter that he is not going to eat his chops of his own free will because although he desires those chops, he did not choose his desire, seems to me quite loony. That is not how we use or think about the term "free will" and I see no good reason to do so. Have you a good reason to do so?

Once again you fashion the facts to fit your theory. Why should we talk and think the way you think we should talk and think, and not the way we do talk and think. I am not saying that just because we talk and think as we do it is the right way to talk and think. Please note that. But what I am saying is that unless there is a good reason radically to change our ordinary beliefs we should remain with them. And you have given no good reason to change.

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@kennethamy,

Quote:

I don't give myself commands.

Why are we arguing over which word I use for the desire to pick an option. You know I mean a declaration of will like "I want to do something." because I have given this example over and over. If you want to call it one of the other words I use like want or desire do that. I'm using command as a statement not in the sense that something is controlling something but in the sense that you provide a declaration that ends in a period. Are you telling me you do not ever think "I want that."?

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@tomr,

tomr wrote:

Quote:
I don't give myself commands.

Why are we arguing over which word I use for the desire to pick an option. You know I mean a declaration of will like "I want to do something." because I have given this example over and over. If you want to call it one of the other words I use like want or desire do that. I'm using command as a statement not in the sense that something is controlling something but in the sense that you provide a declaration that ends in a period. Are you telling me you do not ever think "I want that."?

Because, as I said, using the term "command" begs the question, since to command me to do something already implies that I must do it whether or not I want to do it, and therefore, already implies that I do not have free will. If that was not your intention, then why did you use the term, "command". It was you, after all, who introduced it. I often think that I want something, but it never occurs to me that I am commanding myself to want that something. Why do you insist that it does? If you think that I am arguing just about words then why don't you just drop the term "command" (or its synonyms) and state your view without using it?

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@kennethamy,

Quote:

since to command me to do something already implies that I must do it whether or not I want to do it, and therefore, already implies that I do not have free will.

If you command something from a group of options and you do not want it then you made another command not to want the first command. Why should you feel forced when you are the one doing the commanding?

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@kennethamy,

Quote:

But what I am saying is that unless there is a good reason radically to change our ordinary beliefs we should remain with them. And you have given no good reason to change.

Yes, the ordinary belief is that when you follow your desire, you act freely. However, the ordinary belief is also that if you act freely you are in control of your act. And these two ordinary beliefs about free will contradict each other.

1 Reply

@litewave,

litewave wrote:

Quote:
But what I am saying is that unless there is a good reason radically to change our ordinary beliefs we should remain with them. And you have given no good reason to change.

Yes, the ordinary belief is that when you follow your desire, you act freely. However, the ordinary belief is also that if you act freely you are in control of your act. And these two ordinary beliefs about free will contradict each other.

Where (or what) is the contradiction? When I act as I desire, I am acting freely. But no one I know of holds that in order to act according to one's desire one must "control" one's desire. . Of course, it is true, that people often exercise self-control, and they, so if I love ice-cream, and desire to eat a quart at one sitting, I do my best to control that desire, and I am glad to say I do. But so do you (I hope) so in that sense we do control our desires (exercise self-control) and in that sense we are free. But since some (even many or most people) can control their desires, why do you say we cannot? And I still don't see the contradiction you are talking about. Where is it? We sometimes do what we want, and we sometimes do control our desires. So what are you talking about?

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@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

litewave wrote:
Yes, the ordinary belief is that when you follow your desire, you act freely. However, the ordinary belief is also that if you act freely you are in control of your act. And these two ordinary beliefs about free will contradict each other.
Where (or what) is the contradiction?

There isn't one. This argument points at a requirement for free will and claims that because human beings meet that requirement, then they dont have free will. Free will also requires an agent, and an analogy of this threads argument is, 'no human chooses to be human, therefore no human has free will', but nobody should accept an argument like:
1) free will requires an agent
2) human beings are agents
3) therefore human beings dont have free will.
So how could it possibly matter that agents dont choose to be the agents that they are and dont choose all of the elements of their evaluation system?

In any case, you may recognise the argument from G.Strawson's argument against ultimate moral responsibility. Strawson also says that free will is required for moral responsibility; be that as it may, it should be clear that lack of free will doesn't follow from free will being a requirement for moral responsibility and a lack of ultimate moral responsibility, and that lack of immediate moral responsibility doesn't follow from a lack of ultimate moral responsibility. So I'm not sure what, if anything, Strawson pointed out.

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