Mele Part II

Posted on April 2, 2008
Filed Under Free Will, Philosophy |

This is Mele Part II otherwise known as the post where I take back nearly everything I said only a couple of days ago. You may remember from my last post that I characterized Mele as missing the point. Indeed I basically painted him as a nominalist. Now that I’ve thought about that chapter for a few days I think I completely misread him.

Free Will and LuckHere’s where I think I went wrong.

Consider two possible universes that are exactly the same up to time t. Then at time t + 1 we have the choice and the worlds bifurcate. Let’s say our agent chooses to eat chocolate ice cream in one universe and vanilla ice cream in an other.

Now let us allow all the requirements that an agent libertarian free will proponent (or alfw for short) requires for there to be authentic free will. That’ll include things the the ability to reason. Open futures. And so forth.

If all those things are had what distinguishes the universes where the choice was made via luck from the universes with an agent libertarian freely willed choice?

Nothing.

Now we can say that the difference is that in one case the relations between the worlds at t and t + 1 are due to causality originating in the libertarian free will agent. Likewise we can say that in the other case it’s pure indeterminacy or luck. However Mele’s point is that there is nothing we can point to and say, “this is what distinguishes the two.”

Put an other way if the alfw proponent argues that there is this mysterious origination that is different than luck one has to ask why? It seems it’s pure demand without showing any philosophical problem.

Now the alfw proponent will suggest that our intuitions about what is necessary must reject luck. Thus this mysterious ‘free will’ kind of relation is demanded. And what I will stick with from my previous post is that Mele simply doesn’t engage with this in any serious way.

However what I think Mele is arguing is that beyond intuition Libertarians can point to philosophical problems that demand an open future. Yet no alfw proponent has explained why there is a philosophical need to distinguish luck from free will if they function in an identical fashion beyond having an intuitive need to call them different things.

Put an other way what Mele is asking is what the difference between luck and libertarian agent origination is. Simply saying that we must reject luck because our intuitions demand it but be able to provide nothing with a difference is insufficient.

I think Mele is making a kind of pragmatic move. As Peirce often said, in order for a difference to be a difference it must make a difference. The alfw simply hasn’t shown how what they assert makes a difference. Thus one is very, very tempted to say there is no difference between luck and this origination.

Put an other way, the alfw proponent has to be able to point to something that isn’t circular. That is origination as a demand is circular. It’s basically just saying free will is what I believe it to be.

Comments

8 Responses to “Mele Part II”

Hi Clark,

First let me say that I know nothing about this topic…

So two questions…

Is principle of sufficient reason (PSR) is compatible with libratarian free will. Because buying PSR would eliminate possibility that the difference between two worlds is based on luck.
But on other side, I guess, that would mean that there will have to be reasons for the free will choice.

And the second one is, would Mele (but also I’m interested about you personally and Peirce for that matter) accept a metaphysical argument (as PSR) which would serve to eliminate luck as possibility?

Peirce has a weird view on freedom. It’s basically an Epicurean position where there are ’swerves’ that might be called random but Peirce seems to consider free. I’m not sure that’s sufficient for an agent libertarian free will proponent. But I confess it’s just an area of Peirce I’ve not paid much attention to. Likewise Peirce’s view of consciousness is a tad weird. It’s akin to Leibniz’ monads except that to be conscious is the ‘inside’ view from one of these swerves. That is from the outside it seems like freedom and from the inside it’s a moment of consciousness.

This did end up being influential and I suspect contributed to the American process thinkers. But it’s so odd and has basically no argument behind it that I tend to just brush it over. I think it ends up being akin more to an event libertarian free will position ala Kane. Probably you’re not familiar with that position. It’s actually the position I’m most sympathetic to but it has pretty serious problems.

Maybe I’ll do a writeup on event libertarianism later today so as to clarify exactly what it is.

The issue of sufficient reason gets a tad complex. Leibniz’ principle is, “everything that is, has a sufficient reason for being and being as it is, and not otherwise.” The problem is that this doesn’t, on the face of it, appear reconcilable with any kind of indeterminism. Certainly not randomness. However I think at least some agent libertarians would argue that there is a sufficient reason for why we have one choice and not an other and that is the free choice of the agent. Whether that works or not is an other matter - basically the problem Mele is raising.

BTW - for those interested there was a discussion of some of Mele’s ideas a year and a half ago at Garden of Forking Paths. Mele’s book wasn’t out yet then but some of the issues are discussed.

5 Michael Dorfman on April 4th, 2008 11:26 pm

Clark: If all those things are had what distinguishes the universes where the choice was made via luck from the universes with an agent libertarian freely willed choice?

Nothing.

I seem to remember making a similar point just a couple weeks ago, and you weren’t buying. Do you find it more convincing now?

Yeah - I actually put a comment after yours mentioning that.

I’m still too minds about this. And clearly am still thinking through all this. On the one hand clearly someone can argue for a difference in relation. Yet what practical difference is there? At best perhaps we can splice the kinds of differences ala Scotus.

The argument a free proponent can make is that the the objective probabilities are different. So that while in one case one can’t determine a difference over time the implications are quite different. But while that might resolve the “does it make a difference” charge I’m not sure it resolves the argument from luck.

Or one may argue that the chance explanation is not metaphysically possible, on the base of PSR or something similar. I guess, pragmatist won’t have anything against dismissing of explanations if they are logically or metaphysically impossible.

I don’t think the argument that chance is metaphysically impossible is too plausible though.

Leave a Reply