Free Will: Randomness

[packbat]

[Poll #1058418]

(No, "something"-made-it-happen ain't an option. I already said that no thing made it happen.)

Edit: Note that the scenario described involves causal indeterminism, not predictive indeterminism.

I raise this hypothetical for a simple reason: one of my fellows in my PHIL282 class just told me that he believes it would not be random. And that, for me, finally makes free-will libertarianism make sense.

See, in class, we've basically just started talking about the second half of what these individuals must prove. For the record, people holding this position state two major claims: that determinism, were it true, would imply that no free will exists; and that indeterminism, which is true, allows free will to exist.

In fact, the naive example of the libertarian position (which does not make it false, only naive) is simply that free will looks like the hypothetical in the poll.

Many people, of course, balk at this - in fact, there's a name for the noises they make when they do: the Luck or Arbitrariness Objection. This counterargument, in fact, is barely more than pointing at the scenario and saying, "that's not what a free choice looks like". Further, a lot of philosophers - e.g. Daniel Dennett (whose stance I prefer), Robert Kane (whose textbook is assigned for this class), the professor - are inclined to accept the force of this objection. Some of them - Kane - choose to argue around it. But until I talked to this guy from my class, I had no gut knowledge that a person could simply reject it.

"Yeah, that is what free will looks like," these people say. "If it were caused by anything - if anything made it so the other one didn't happen - it wouldn't be free," these people say. And however you cut it, that's it - there's nothing left to say.

Comments

[roaminrob.livejournal.com]

(Incidentally, after re-reading zwol's posts, my argument was utterly different. My bad.)

It means not being ultimately responsible for your actions, but I can live with that.

I don't agree with that.

[packbat.livejournal.com]

...actually, I'm not sure of it either. I guess I'm thinking about manipulation situations - e.g. when someone was raised in such a way that it is impossible for them to have any desires other than those chosen for them.

[roaminrob.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm cooler with that. I think that ultimately every person still has that decision that they can make, and a person can still choose to do good, or do bad. I might predict their choice based on their circumstances, but it's still a choice.

I'm also willing to accept a lot of mitigating circumstances surrounding a choice.

You killed a person. That's bad.
That person was about to kill my daughter.
Well, OK, then.

Or,

You're addicted to drugs.
I was born into it before I knew any better. I can't just stop.
Well, OK. But you have to try.

[packbat.livejournal.com]

Right, that's it. I can believe that this killer and that addict are less blameworthy for the actions - that the actions are less likely to indicate properties of their characters going forward - because they are performing them under such extreme circumstances. It's like when a teacher gives an exam with so much material the average grade is a 16%: even someone with a comprehensive grasp of the material will not do 'well' by absolute standards.