The Garden of Forking Paths has up a rather good overview of the free will debate with most of the big names in the topic contributing. They post for questions which seem to be a natural "progression" of the questions for free will. The first is whether there is Libertarian free will. The second is whether we can have responsibility without Libertarian free will. The third is whether there are problems if we don't have responsibility of the sort we intuit. The last is what the implications of our answers to the prior questions ought be. It's quite interesting and probably well worth a read for anyone interested in the free will issue.
As I've said before, I usually run with a different crowd (philosophically speaking), but aren't the answers to these questions considered pretty well settled? At least for those who have read Nietzsche? I'm a bit amused (and bemused) at the sight of seemingly intelligent folks taking a notion like "free will" seriously. Strange stuff...
Half the fun is going through the arguments, is it? (grin) When the discussion first came up I confess that I didn't find it interesting. But I found the response of pointing to Nietzsche wasn't convincing to people either. Further, just because Nietzsche said it doesn't make it so. The more interesting approach is via Heidegger I think, especially his later writings. Of course if you're open to science then you just point to the requirement within modern equations of gravity for a substantial space-time. (i.e. four-dimensionalism)
The response of pointing to Nietzsche isn't aimed at convincing-- it is aimed at problematizing the assumptions. Most discussions of Free Will are predicated on embarrassingly naive notions of "self","causality" and "nature"-- it's not that the answers are wrong, but that the questions are feeble. The only analogue I can think of is if you found a group of scientists trying to discuss the world in terms of phlogiston and ether, or the four basic elements of earth, water, fire and air.
You get at this yourself in your comment on "useless foreknowledge"--
"The real issue ends up being whether choice has to be conscious and what counts as reasons for a choice."
If we recast this issue in Derridean terms, the problem looks very different-- Derrida distinguishes between a "calculation" (which follows a rule-based algorithm, and thus can be predicted) and a "decision" (which must, by necessity, pass through a moment of "undecidability", and hence cannot be predicted). Put in these terms, the question of "reasons" gets recast as either trivial (in the case of a calculation) or irreducibly Other (in the case of a decision).
Needless to say, the notion of "choice" is weak when applied to humans (can I "choose" to want ice cream now? If I pick a random number, can I "choose" which one to pick?) and absurd when applied to an omniscient god.
Oh, Nietzsche is definitely very significant in my thought. My point is just that it isn't too helpful towards others. But I tend to think that the elements from which the discussion is conducted in the analytic tradition aren't primordial, to use Heidegger's term. Indeed I think Heidegger's comments in various places are even better than Nietzsche's. I've quoted several on this blog. My favorites are in the last chapter of The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic.
I've closed comments in order to avoid spam since I don't check this older blog as much anymore.
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