I normally avoid the whole "free will" debate here. If only because I recognize that within certain groups it is one of the few philosophical topics that really polarize people. We have this inclination that we have to have free will of an fundamental ontological sort or else something horrible is afoot. Really though people confuse free will and fatalism. Fatalism is the idea that there is nothing you can do that will affect outcomes. The future is fixed in a way you can't affect. Most determinists don't argue that. They'd say if you'd act differently then the future would be different. Now among Mormon philosophers, I'd say that most adhere to some view of libertarian free will. (The idea that free will is a fundamental ontological property) Still there are a few of us that don't. I'll be addressing free will when we get to it in Blake's book. So I'll not say much now. However I did come across a great paper on compatibilism I thought I'd link to.
The Paper is "Is Hard Determinism a Form of Compatibilism." The reason I bring this up is that the various kinds of determinism are often taken to be quite different positions relative to free will. Further the paper clarifies a few issues that some might be confused about. To quote from the abstract:
Most philosophers now concede that libertarianism has failed as an account of free will. Assuming the correctness of this concession, that leaves compatibilism and hard determinism as the only remaining choices in the free will debate. In this paper, I will argue that hard determinism turns out to be a form of compatibilism, and therefore, compatibilism is the only remaining position in the free will debate. I will attempt to establish this conclusion by arguing that hard determinists will end up punishing or rewarding the same acts (and omissions) that the compatibilists punish and reward. Next, I will respond to several objections that attempt to pry apart hard determinism and compatibilism. It will emerge not only that hard determinism and compatibilism are identical at the practical level, but also that the key terms employed by the hard determinist have the same meaning as equivalent terms (“free,” “morally responsible,” and “retributive punishment”) employed by the compatibilist. I conclude that hard determinism genuinely is a form of compatibilism.
Clark,
The section that you cite in this blog states that "Most philosophers now concede that libertarianism has failed as an account of free will." Who and how? As I've seen things, the failure of libertarianism is largely connected with the deterministic/mechanistic view itself; without assuming that presupposition, I don't see the obviousness of the failure of libertarianism.
Kevin Winters
You know Kevin, I thought I'd put the link to the blog that I got that paper link from and I guess I didn't. Now I can't find it. I'd say, however, that many of the papers at the Determinism and Freedom website offer very persuasive arguments against libertarian freedom and are the seminal papers on the topic. I'm simply not versed enough in that particular field to know what the "general consensus" is at the moment. I know the main argument for libertarian free will is responsibility. However there are good arguments for reconciling responsibility and determinism.
The Garden of Forking Paths is a pretty good blog just focused on these sorts of issues. There appear to be arguments from both sides and the focus is clearing on arguments rather than just positions. (I admit I probably focus on positions here rather than arguments, although there are reasons for this)
I admit that my own position is that the whole debate is a bit of a meta-debate that only makes sense given certain assumptions. I tend to see those assumptions as partially determined by the way one orients ones mode of discourse. As you may recall we had a discussion along those terms I believe last fall on LDS-Phil. In that regard I admit to being influenced by Nietzsche and his comments on the free will debate. Perhaps that, more so that mere "politics," affects my relative disinterest in the debate.
By the way Kevin, how did your panel on process philosophy go? I want to pick your mind on it one of these days when I have time. I've been doing a fair bit of reading on it and think my objections are coalescing in a more cogent fashion. (Although I'm not sure that is true - as often as not my feeling of most particular process philosophies just seems that nagging feeling of "something is wrong here, I just can't put my finger on where.") Anyway, let me know. If you're interested and email me a summary of it and any philosophical presentations you went on, I'll post them here on my blog.
One more thing more related to this particular thread. Over at Garding of Forking Paths there is a fairly good discussion that touches upon who is "winning" in free will debate. It sounds like the determinists were ahead but that Strawson's arguments have perhaps changed that. Oh, and there is one other discussion there that is quite interesting and perhaps even more relevant. The general consensus, as I read it, based upon the blog writers, is that perhaps a change of terminology is necessary.
Clark,
The panel seemed to go well. I'm currently doing a little more work on my paper before I put it online, but I'll be sure to let you know when I get it up. And as for talking about process thought, you know I'm always happy to push my own agenda on that matter. ;o)
As for the determinism/free will issue, I'm wondering what your thoughts are on the final section in my Moreland review. There I argue (in my mind quite explicitly) for a libertarian notion but with an acknowledgement of the necessity of some form of determinism (I believe Hartshorne refers to it as 'relative determinism' in his "Freedom Requires Indeterminism and Universal Causality" [I quote this in my review]). Perhaps the primary issue is that of an existentialist notion of radical freedom rather than libertarianism in and of itself. I'll read through the discussion you posted and get back to you.
Kevin Winters
Clark,
I've read through most of the discussion on The Garden of Forking Paths and am still unclear on exactly why libertarian notions of freedom are inherently contradictory or incoherent. It seems that the posters, along with most philosophers today (I think), hold that causa sui is impossible. This, at least in my experience, stems from the modernistic/Cartesian notion of matter that still has a presence today (even though many of its major concepts have been altered/contradicted/re-defined).
Consider the following--all of reality is causa sui, but due to a lack of organization and complexity, the entities studied by physics lack any conscious or even semi-conscious notion of its possibility. I've been thinking the last day about the Heidegerrian notion of time and the Whiteheadian view of temporality. In listening to a part of Dreyfus' lectures on Merleau-Ponty (titled "Todes and Merleau-Ponty on temporality part 1 of 2"), Merleau-Ponty/Todes take a quasi-Kantian view of temporality--that it is inseparable and incoherent apart from a human experiencing the 'flow' of time through thrownness/falling/projection. I think I agree with them--if we define temporality in terms of human comportment then subatomic particles are not temporal; they do not have a temporal, temporally-aware, or historically relevant existence. Within the life of a subatomic particle--a Whiteheadian would probably argue--the only thing of importance is the immediately past moment. But since such entities "are vehicles for receiving, for storing in a napkin, and for restoring [influences/causes] without loss or gain" (PR, 177), the forces prior to the immediate past are irrelevant for that entity; 'hybrid physical feelings'--as the vehicles for perpetuating novelty--are not possible (or are incredibly negligable).
As I argued in my review, the past history is important for freedom--it sets up the possibilities for action within which an acting agent can 'choose' a way of being. But in order for there to be a 'choice' among alternatives, the past cannot be deterministic--it cannot be necessary and sufficient for a single possible action. This, of course, is where indeterminacy comes in--without some form of indeterminacy there would be no 'possible actions' only 'pre-determined realities.'
I won't go any further, as the above is expanded in my review (though now I see a few ways to improve on it), but I think it far from clear that indeterminism 1) requires non-freedom or 2) is irrelevant for discussions of free will. In short, I'm simply not convinced that determinism is the only viable option.
Kevin Winters
One brief comment. It seems that there are two traditions of time. One tied to psychology that arises in Augustine although presumably people thought of it before (or perhaps not). It seems it is that sense of time that ends up influencing Kant and which the tradition brings to Whitehead. Then there is the "objective" sense of time we get in physics. Whitehead and others try to define physical time in terms of psychological time. However, as I see it, they are different phenomena. I tend to view them more from what I perceive as the Heideggarian perspective in which each is a different mode of something more fundamental. To define one in terms of the other or vice versa is to fundamentally distort things. I'll not say whether Whitehead does that, as I'm simply not well enough versed in him to say. It sometimes *seems* like he does that with his sort of Jamesian reading of Leibniz. But I get him wrong enough that he may not.
I do think though that your analysis tends to consider the more Augustinian approach to time as deems it fundamental. I'm simply not at all convinced that is correct.
Regarding indeterminism, I agree that it isn't obvious that indeterminism requires non-freedom. However certainly many ontological positions of non-freedom do. Whether one can coherently explain how both are possible seems difficult if one adopts libertarian freedom. i.e. how can there be responsibility if fundamental ontology is essentially indeterminate in the strong sense? It seems to me that indeterminism is just as problematic to strong claims of freedom as determinism is. To explain it via some sort of emergence is just as problematic as adopting compatibilism.
Oh, one more quick comment. By asserting for subatomic particles that the only thing of importance is the immediate past seems problematic in certain cases. For instance it seems to me that a Whiteheadian approach to subatomic particles must involve problematic temporality when interpreting Feynman diagrams. i.e. a particle's event determines itself out of future events as well as past events. But I confess that I'm not at all familiar with Whiteheadian interpretations of post-Whitehead quantum mechanics. And certainly one can interpret Feynman diagrams as being mere mathematical artifacts. (If you aren't familiar with Feynman diagrams, virtual particles often go backwards in time)
BTW - for the comments use HTML and not the form that some BBSes use. I converted your hyperlink for you.
Clark,
It could be said that I am using a psychological model for subatomic particles, but the vast difference in function between human existence and particles should warn us not to take the comparison without a grain of salt. Whitehead defines 'mind' in its most basic form as 'novelty.' This expresses itself in the indeterminism of a system and the fundamental ability of actual occasions to indwell with/among each other whereby new realities can be created. But this view of mind must be differentiated from how human's 'think.'
Let me also say that I agree with the Heideggerian notion of time--I think the phenomena of human historicity is quite different from the temporality of (low grade) physical systems. The relation of the past and its relevance for the future is probably the starkest difference. Simply put, those factors that play a part in human historicity simply cannot play a part (or a large part, being so infinitesimal as to be completely insignificant) in the temporality subatomic particles (yes, I am differentiating the terms 'historicity' and 'temporality' in an un-Heideggerian sense).
As for responsibility, in my review I used the sense of appropriation of the past (with human agents) as the basis for responsibility and morality. Though the past (which includes past free actions) gives a set limit of what may occur, the agent can still choose among those options and I still choose how to appropriate it. This, I think, would make sense to anyone but those who hold to an existentialist view of 'extensive freedom'--the past inherently provides a limit point of possibility, but that doesn't necessarily squelch novelty.
Lastly, in relation to the Feynman diagrams, I'm not sure how to respond as I'm unfamiliar with them. But you might be interested in a a few works on a process view of quantum theory, found here--http://www.ctr4process.org/publications/PSS/index.htm. There's also the "Philosophy of Nature and Quantum Reality" (Ian Thompson) that you give on the first page of your blog--http://www.generativescience.org/books/pnbp.pdf. Lastly, Timothy Eastman and Hank Keeton have co-edited a book on process thought and physics--Physics and Whitehead: Quantum, Process, and Experience--that may prove useful.
One problem I've quickly seen with process philosophy that was helped by the Rescher book is to recognize that it is not really that specific a movement. When Leibniz, Peirce, James, and Whitehead are all promoting process thought, then "process" becomes so vague as to be somewhat unhelpful. In a way almost worse than similar vague terms such as postmodernism.
Certainly physics can and frequently is conceived of in terms of process. I fully agree with that. However I think we must keep somewhat separate the notion of process from Whitehead's particular philosophy. The latter book, as you mention, may well be interesting. However I suspect that it will require a certain view of quantum theory that may not at all be uncontroversial. (I say that without having read it - but it isn't as if there aren't many interpretations of quantum theory)
I stumbled across this citation of my paper, "Is Hard Determinism a Form of Compatibilism?" I am naturally pleased that it has drawn some attention! However, the link to the paper didn't work (for me, at least). Try:
http://staff.aub.edu.lb/~jk09/compatibilism.pdf
Clark asked me to clarify why I claimed that most philosophers think libertarianism has failed. Let me preface these remarks by saying that if I had it to do over again, I would have put a less contentious statement in my abstract, and cast the argument as follows: "if you reject libertarianism, then you should be a compatiblist, because hard determinism collapses into compatibilism." Nevertheless, I think it is true that libertarianism has fallen out of favor in mainstream analytic philosophy. What are the reasons for this? Some of it is sociological; some of it deals with the very real difficulties of the libertarian position.
First, the sociological aspect. As a matter of fact, theism is a marginal position in contemporary analytic philosophy. (For example, Alexander Pruss at Georgetown University argues that possible worlds are ideas in the mind of God. Although I would have to say, offhand, that this idea is no less plausible than David Lewis's theory that possible worlds *really do exist*, I would bet any sum that Pruss's theory will gain nowhere near the prominence of Lewis's. Other theistic positions--say, divine command theory as a viable metaethical or ethical theory--are more or less ignored in mainstream analytic journals.) Right away, then, one of the primary supports for libertarianism has been undercut, for most analytic philosophers. Why? This deals with, as Clark says, one of the strongest arguments for libertarianism--the argument from responsibility.
Most theists hold that God holds humans responsible for their actions. Ergo, humans *must* have moral responsibility. Given this, and given the powerful incompatibilist arguments, it seems that libertarianism must somehow be true (even if the precise details are difficult for us to understand). But if you are not a theist, then you see the argument from responsibility as begging the question: what is at issue in the free will debate is precisely the question of whether we are responsible for our actions. Thus, an argument for the existence of free will cannot presuppose the existence of moral responsibility--that begs the question. And so one major support for libertarianism is undercut. I think this is one of the main reasons why (again, as a matter of sociological fact) libertarians tend to be theists, and compatibilists not. And since, as I said, contemporary analytic philosophy is pretty secular, this means most analytic philosophers will reject this initial argument for libertarianism.
Moving ahead, we also note that libertarianism is difficult to reconcile with a scientific outlook. Mainstream analytic philosophy has an overwhelmingly naturalist or physicalist (which is not to say reductionist) bent. Very few mainstream analytic philosophers are willing to countenance, for example, dualism in the philosophy of mind. But again, it is difficult to reconcile libertarianism with physicalism. If the mind is the product of the brain's functioning, then we have two options: first, we may regard the brain as a deterministic physicalist system, in which case we must concede the truth of determinism. (This is oversimplified, but I'm not trying to write a monograph here.) On the other hand, a physicalist might appeal to results in quantum mechanics to say that physical determinism is false. But this gives no comfort to the libertarian: quantum events are random, and this is not the sort of indeterminism which will help the libertarian. (I should note that at least one attempt to reconcile libertarianism with physicalism via quantum indeterminacy has been made: Robert Kane's The Significance of Moral Responsibility, and his "Free Will: Ancient Dispute, New Themes," which I believe was written specifically for the 11th edition of Feinberg and Shafer-Landau's Reason and Responsibility. I have read the latter, and don't find it convincing; but of course, that's not an argument, it is merely a report of my psychological state.) Thus, it seems that prima facie, the libertarian must be a dualist, which is itself a theory facing a whole slew of difficulties.
More scientific difficulties: the whole idea of indeterministic causation is puzzling, from a scientific point of view. The libertarian is postulating a type of causation which is not really observed in nature: causation that is non-deterministic, but non-random. (There is probabilistic causation in nature, and I know that some libertarians have attempted to make use of this type of causation, but I'm not sure this is a good account of libertarian free will: for me to choose X freely is for me to incline with (say) 90% probability to do X? And is there also on a probability of my inclining myself to become inclined to do X? Again, a regress looms.) Thus, it is difficult to reconcile libertarianism with a scientific outlook.
Other than that, there are the traditional problems with the notion of agent causation. Libertarians postulate agent causation to solve a regress problem. The regress problem is familiar: every event (including my choice to do X) has a cause. This cause is another event, which itself requires a cause, which is an event. The regress goes back in time, before I was born, and so I have no ultimate control over the series of events, and am therefore not free. The libertarian says that every event has a cause, but not every cause is an event. Some causes are agents, which cause actions directly. But the familiar problem with this account is this: my causing the action is itself an event, and requires a cause. If we say that the cause is me (the agent), then we have another event that needs explaining: my causing the event which is the causing of my action. Another regress looms.
Further puzzles loom: A paradigm example of a free action is an action done for a reason. But different people find different reasons plausible or appealing. Some people find appeals to design in nature good reason to believe in the existence of God; but such arguments leave me cold. Why is this set of reasons appealing to me rather than that set? Did we choose (freely!) to find this set of reasons appealing rather than those? Then on what basis did we choose this set rather than that set? For no reason? Then the choice is arbitrary. Or did we choose this set based on another reason? Then we have a regress. Ultimately, anti-libertarians cannot get passed the fundamental dilemma of free will: if it is caused, then it is determined; if it is uncaused, it is random. If the former, determinism is true and libertarianism false. If the latter, then our actions (if uncaused) are random, and not free. Libertarianism is therefore judged to be false.
Some libertarians (including van Inwagen in his book Metaphysics) declare free will to be a mystery; but since they are committed, by their theistic commitments, to the existence of free will, they choose the libertarian mystery over the compatibilist mystery. And I agree compatibilist free will is a mystery. In the introduction to my paper, I write: "Although hard determinism is scarcly more popular than libertarianism, many philosophers reject it not because of its philosophical implausibility, but because they fear the ocnsequences of its being true." Thus, while I think libertarians are often driven to libertarianism by their theistic commitments, I think many determinists embrace compatibilism not because of compatibilism's plausibility--I sometimes think compatibilism has just as many problems as libertarianism--but because they are wedded to the idea of free will and responsibility.
It was partially because of this perceived (by me) deadlock--neither libertarianism nor compatibilism seems plausible--that I was moved to write the paper Clark has linked to. Thinking seriously about the possibility of hard determinism, I began to be more and more convinced that the hard determinist would not really be any different from a compatibilist, when it came down to it--she would still punish and reward certain actions, she would label actions using words which could plausibly be translated as "respnsible," "free," "punishment," etc. Thus, there is a sort of necessity to the compatibilist position: if you reject libertarianism and compatibilism, you end up being a compatibilist in the end anyhow.
In any case, this is why I say that libertarianism has fallen out of favor in contemporary philosophy. The arguments I recite above are contentious, as is everything in philosophy, but I think that they represent a fair summary of why contemporary compatibilists reject libertarianism.
First, many thanks to Jeremy for expanding upon his comments. I didn't expect such a long and informative explanation. I should add that my own initial discomfort with the libertarian position came due to the same problem of the twin horns of causality. As Jeremy put it, "if it is caused, then it is determined; if it is uncaused, it is random." I changed my view after reconsidering Nietzsche's arguments on causality as well as Heidegger's whole critique of metaphysics. It seems that both this response to the libertarian as well as the libertarian arguments themselves hinge on a view of causality as primordial (to use the Heideggarian term) Yet if causality isn't fundamental, then the whole appeal to causality in various guises seems problematic.
This partial rejection of causality may seem surprising to some who know me, since my background is actually much stronger in physics than in philosophy. However even in physics there are naive readings which can suggest this approach. Consider the Hamiltonian within either classical physics or quantum mechanics. We can see the Hamiltonian as the evolution of the mechanical system independent of considerations of causality. Of course typically we do reformulate the math so as to be able to consider causality and I doubt many physicists would want to give up causality. Still if there is a trend in physics since Newtonian physics it is for the very notion of causality to become more open and not less open.
There is one anti-libertarian argument I didn't mention. This argument can be traced back to Hume, at least, is advanced by Strawson, and is neatly summarized by Saul Smilansky:
"The reason why libertarian free will is impossible, in a nutshell, is that the conditions required by an ethically satisfying sense of libertarian free will, which would give us anything beyond sophisticated formulations of compatibilism, are self-contradictory, hence cannot be met. This is so irrespective of determinism or causality. Attributing moral worth to a person for her action requires that it follow from what she is, morally. The action cannot be produced by a random occurrence and count morally. We might think that two different things can follow equally from a person, but which one does, say, a decision to steal or not to steal, again cannot be random but needs to follow from what she is, morally. But what a person is, morally, cannot be under her control. We might think that such control is possible if she creates herself, but then it is the early self that creates a later self, leading to vicious infinite regress."
source: http://philo.haifa.ac.il/faculty_pages/smilansky/Free_Will_two_radical_proposals.htm
This argument has the advantage of, as Smilansky notes, not taking a stand on the causation issue. Rather, it relies on Hume's observation that if an action is to count for or against a person, morally, then the action must stem from the person's character. This might undercut your move re: causation. Maybe.
Jeremy et al.:
It seems to me that the claim that an action cannot spring from our own will, personality and/or character unless determinism is true arises from a failure to countenance additional possibilities. You are correct that indeterminism is inconsistent with libertarian agency -- but I don't know of any libertarians who disagree. I have argued at some length (followng Charles Hartshorne) that there is a third notion that is neither deterministic nor indeterministic. The notion is one of creative synthesis in which a person interacts with a causal nexus formed by the "prior moment of causal data" that are synthesized into a new moment of consciousness as a result of human creativity and imagination (in the Kantian sense). I approach the issue from my background in psychobiology (or neurophysiology) philosophy of law and philosophy of religion. I agree that a vast majority of philosophers of religion are libertarians -- and very likely for the very reasons you suggest. I argue that any coherent determinism collpases into hard determinism and not compatibilism. I also suggest that a physicalist view of the self is not incompatible with libertarian agency given the possibilities opened by chaos theory which comes in both deterministic and probabilistic forms. As for the post-modern turn that reconsiders the "dis-appearance of the self-reflective self," I suggest that attributions of moral responsiblity still require a recognition that there is an identifiable agent that is accountable for discrete acts. For example, if I run into a car there is an "I" that is responsible or accountable for doing so. In any event, it seems to me that libertarian agency is crucial to LDS commitments given notions of intelligence, agency, choice, moral accountability, repentance, etc.
Jeremy and Clark:
It seems to me that the argument given by Koons for compatibilism is in fact a pragmatic argument to reject the deterministic world-view altogether. Let me explain why. Koons argues that libertarianism has failed and thus only compatibilism and hard determinism are live options. However, he concludes that there is really no difference between hard determinism and compatibilism even though hard determinism entails that we are in fact not free in a compatibilist sense. Even if hard determinism is true (and he accpets that it is), and therefore we in fact are not free, we must still, as a pragmatic matter, act as if we are. Even if hard determinism is true and is in fact entailed by determinism, we must still deliberate, reason, hold ourselves and others morally responsible, consider alternatives as if they were open etc. Yet these actions can only make sense if we in fact have some sort of freedom -- he avers at least a compatibilist freedom. Thus, he concludes that they amount to the same thing. We must be compatibilists.
However, it seems to me that the more reasonable conclusion to draw from Koons' article is that the entire deterministic world view is highly problematic. Compatibilist freedom is not real, it is merely illusory if determinism is true. The fact that we act in a certain way doesn't change the entailment of the argument. However, I suggest that any world view that we cannot consistently live, that we could not pragmatically make sense of given the kinds of beings that we actually are, is not feasible.
In fact, elucidating the view of the world that entails determinism in a sense that is coherent is extremely difficult -- and so far as I am concerned, no one has yet succeeded in doing it. Just providing notions of causation and natural law that could coherently entail causal determinism seems to be a task that hasn't yet been accomplished. For background on that issue, I would suggest a careful review of the article "Causal Determinism" found here http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/ Indeed, let me observe that the problems with eludicating concepts such as causation and natural law that entail determinism make the problems with libertarianism pale in comparison.
In any event, the libertarian view of free will suggests that the world is not deterministic in a sense that requires causal determinism that would threaten free will. The only world view that really allows for the real alternatives that we experience in choice is the libertarian view. Koons assumes that libertarianism has been shown to have failed. That is of course news to philosophers of religion -- and just given a nose count I believe that they outnumber the secular action theorists about two-to-one (based upon the numbers of the various sections of the American Philosophical Association). I could be wrong -- but even then truth is not decided by democracy. Thus, the argument that Koons gives for ignoring libertarianism (i.e., that actions theoriest assume a deterministic world view incompatible with libertarian agency) seems to commit the logical fallacy of deciding what is true by popular vote. Nevertheless, it seems that the voting may well go the other direction!
Just to clarify for any readers not familiar with the issues, one can be a determinist without being a causal determinist. The causal determinist says that any particular state of affairs causes a unique new state of affairs in connection with law. However one could say that for a given state of affairs there exists but one possible state of affairs following it without arguing that the prior state of affairs causes it.
Leibniz obviously moves in that direction. He has causality but it is an illusion. It appears there is causality but it is actually merely the manifestation of a more primordial "pre-established harmony."
The reason I bring this up is both to point out the issue of whether causality is truly primordial as well as to point out that there may be a truth about the future without the future being determined causally. This way of thinking is, in a way, a midway between the traditional debate of the libertarian and the compatibilist. I also think that it is a reasonable realist interpretation of quantum mechanics without adopting the multiple worlds interpretation.
Blake,
Thanks for your helpful remarks. Let me try to respond to some of them.
First, I don't think I am making the fallacy of appealing to the opinion of the majority. Clark asked me to explain why I claimed that most philosophers reject libertarianism, and I tried to do this. I reject libertarianism not because it is unpopular, but because I don't think it can be made to work.
Further, I don't think that libertarian's failure is tied exclusively to the truth of causal determinism. As I noted in my previous post, libertarianism has an internal incoherence which is separate from worries about causal determinism. This incoherence deals with the issue of reasons for action. Presumably, the paradigm case of a free action is action following deliberation, at which point one acts for a reason. But as I noted, different people find different reasons appealing: A eats tofu *because* tofu production doesn't result in the death of animals. But A's reason need not be convincing to B; rather, B eats meat *because* it tastes good. You might call our disposition to be convinced by and act on certain sorts of reasons our character. But do we freely choose our character? If so, and if this choice is not merely to be arbitrary (i.e., if it too is to be on the basis of reasons), then this choice can only be on the basis of a previous character, which, if itself chosen, must be on the basis of a previous character, etc.
Finally, I must confess (*hangs head*) that I am a pragmatist. But I am, of course, a sophisticated pragmatist! I don't think we should believe false things because it is useful to believe them. (I recently saw an article in, I think, The Journal of Value Inquiry arguing that we should believe in free will because it is useful to do so, even though such beliefs are literally false. I think one is right to reject this crude sort of pragmatism.) Instead, I think that appeal to our interests can justify us in adopting certain sorts of behaviors (conforming to moral rules, punishing anti-social behavior, etc.). Also, appeal to our interests can license us to adopt new predicates in our language (e.g., 'morally good,' 'free,' etc.), when these predicates serve a supporting role to these new sorts of behaviors. But pragmatic considerations can never justify us in believing things that are literally false (e.g., "Zeus wants us to sacrifice goats to him") or to posit the existence of some causally efficacious, but previously unobserved, entity or property. Further, these new predicates must be connected in some way to properties which we have good (non-pragmatic) reason to believe exist. (For example, Harman argues that moral properties do not figure in our best causal explanations. I think that, for example, for a moral property to be legitimate, it must be eliminable in our best causal explanations. This just means that we can't pretend like there are causally efficacious moral properties, when in fact there are not. Rather, moral predicates are merely useful devices for grouping properties which we already have good, non-pragmatic reasons, for believing exist.) I realize this summary is probably too brief to give one an idea of the view in question. I don't think that in my free will paper I do a sufficiently good job of making any of this clear (although I endeavor to do so in another paper: http://staff.aub.edu.lb/~jk09/normative_facts.htm
But that paper was also published several years ago, and the account is still a bit crude and undeveloped in it.). This is all part of an attempt to make sense of norms, etc., in a naturalistic world picture. But I won't write any more about this, since this is a research project that will not be terribly appealing (nor perhaps even very interesting) to an audience that doesn't accept my naturalistic presuppositions.
[I broke Blake's message up into separate paragraphs for slightly easier reading. My apologies if they aren't ideal. --Clark]
Jeremy:
Thanks for taking the time to give further clarity on some issues that arise from your view. The incoherence argument against libertarian agency deserves a cogent response it seems to me. Now the so-called "incoherence" argument against libertarian free will demonstrates an incoherence only if: (1) reasons are in fact causes in the relevant sense (i.e, that there is only possible world consistent with the reasons); and (2) the reasons arise from prior caused states such as character which are themsevles completely caused by prior causes and reasons and so on. I doubt that either of these assumptions is true.
I treat this issue on pp. 223-41 of my book. First, reasons don't act as efficient or prior causes but as teleological causes if they are causes in any sense. Further, your account (which is the standard account) fails to deal with the role of deliberative imagination in the role of human moral reasoning it seems to me. Consider an example where a person P who considers at time T1 an opportunity to steal a Mars bar from a 7-Eleven at T2. There is a certain causal nexus that exists up to and including T1. Call this the circumstances C that obtain at the time of consideration or deliberation. Now what the agent considers at T1 in C is not merely that he likes Mars bars but does not like to spend his money. These are reasons that are relevant, but these are not the only reasons.
In deliberation we also imagine the consequences and moral import of our actions. What we imagine as consequences need not occur for any specific reasons and need not even be reasonble. In fact, what we imagine in deliberation could be random or only suggested as possibilities. So P imagines what it may be like to get caught, what it is like to eat the Mars bar, how he may gain weight if he eats a Mars bar, how he can carry off the heist, what the risk is etc.
What is imagined arises creatively in the interaction of P with the causal nexus at T1 in C -- but the imagination is not determined. The imagined future has not even happened yet and what is imagined doesn't even exist until created by P in C. There is no an overriding reason or reasons why one scenario or reason occurred to him rather than another. He could consider other things. However, what weight he will give to these reasons that he in fact considers is related to his character, but in a creative way. He is both acting out of and also forming his character in the moment of choosing (otherwise we would all have to have ready-made character at birth that determines every choice we make as you appear to lay it out). So he creatively and imaginatively creates possibilities to consider that he will assess in making the decision whether to steal the Mars bar.
These imagined possibilities are not included in the causal nexus obtained at T1; rather, they are the result of P's creative interaction with his situation. He may steal the Mars bar because he is inattentive to reasons and unconscious to the consequences and his moral feelings. Or he may choose to be more conscious and continue to deliberate past T2, or he may just walk out of the store, or go actually pay for the darned Mars bar. There are several layers of non-determined possibilities when he imagines a future that has not yet occurred. The reasons and his imagination are not given in the causal nexus -- at least not entirely. The reasons he considers are not determined by further reasons to consider them, and reason to consider those reasons and so on ad infinitum.
To avoid the reasons regress we must say that the reasons and scenarios that occur to him in fact occur to him because of his creative interaction and imagination as basic or primary. Nevertheless, the reasons that he gives weight to are in fact a reflection of his character. He chooses at T2 among those reasons and imaginative scenarios he has himself created in interaction with the causal nexus at T1. And there you have it: an explanation where the choice is made for reasons that arise out of and are responsive to character but the reasons themselves are not determined by the prior causal nexus. That seems to me to be a viable explanation of libertarian agency and it does not entail the so-called incoherence you appear to claim. The choice is not arbitrary because the choice made by P arises out of his character; however, the reasons and scenarios that P considered are not determined.
Regarding pragmatism, I don't think it a negative thing. I suspect Blake wouldn't as well since both Whitehead and Hartshorne had high regard for Peirce and James and Blake follows process theology more or less. I admit that I still don't feel I have a sufficient grasp on process thought to say much about it. But I definitely hold Peirce in very high regard. Of course his doctrine of Tychism would be hard to reconcile with traditional sense of causal determinism.
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