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Many readers continue to find my position on free will bewildering. Most of the criticism I've received consists of some combination of the following claims:
All of these objections express confusion about my basic premise. The first is simply false -- my argument against free will does not require philosophical materialism. There is no question that (most) mental events are the product of physical events -- but even if the human mind were part soul-stuff, nothing about my argument would change. The unconscious operations of a soul would grant you no more freedom than the unconscious physiology of your brain does.
If you don't know what your soul is going to do next, or why it behaved as it did a moment ago, you are not in control of your soul. This is obviously true in all cases where a person wishes he could feel or behave differently than he does: Think of the millions of good Christians whose souls happen to be gay, prone to obesity, and bored by prayer. The truth, however, is that free will is no more evident when a person does exactly what, in retrospect, he wishes he had done. The soul force that allows you to stay on your diet is just as mysterious as the one that obliges you to eat cherry pie for breakfast.
The second concern also misses the point: Yes, choices, efforts, intentions, reasoning, and other mental processes influence our behavior -- but they are themselves part of a stream of causes which precede conscious awareness and over which we exert no ultimate control. My choices matter, but I cannot choose what I choose. And if it ever appears that I do -- for instance, when going back and forth between two options -- I do not choose to choose what I choose. There's a regress here that always ends in darkness. Subjectively, I must take a first step, or a last one, for reasons that are inscrutable to me.
Einstein (following Schopenhauer) once made the same point:
Honestly, I cannot understand what people mean when they talk about the freedom of the human will. I have a feeling, for instance, that I will something or other; but what relation this has with freedom I cannot understand at all. I feel that I will to light my pipe and I do it; but how can I connect this up with the idea of freedom? What is behind the act of willing to light the pipe? Another act of willing? Schopenhauer once said: Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will (Man can do what he will but he cannot will what he wills). (Planck, M. Where is Science Going?, p. 201)
But many people believe that this problem of regress is a false one. For them, freedom of will is synonymous with the idea that, with respect to any specific thought or action, one could have thought or acted differently. But to say that I could have done otherwise is merely to think the thought, "I could have done otherwise" after doing whatever I, in fact, did. Rather than indicate my freedom, this thought is just an epitaph erected to moments past. What I will do next, and why, remains, at bottom, inscrutable to me. To declare my "freedom" is tantamount to saying, "I don't know why I did it, but it's the sort of thing I tend to do, and I don't mind doing it."
And this is why the last objection is just another way of not facing up to the problem. To say that "my brain" has decided to think or act in a particular way, whether consciously or not, and my freedom consists in this, is to ignore the very reason why people believe in free will in the first place: the feeling of conscious agency. People feel that they are the authors of their thoughts and actions, and this is the only reason why there seems to be a problem of free will worth talking about.
Each of us has many organs in addition to a brain that make unconscious "decisions" -- but these are not events for which anyone feels responsible. Are you producing red blood cells and digestive enzymes at this moment? Your body is, of course, but if it "decided" to do otherwise, you would be the victim of these changes, rather than their autonomous cause. To say that I am "responsible" for everything that goes on inside my skin because it's all "me," is to make a claim that bears no relationship to the feelings of agency and moral responsibility that make the idea of free will an enduring problem for philosophy.
As I have argued, however, the problem is not merely that free will makes no sense objectively (i.e. when our thoughts and actions are viewed from a third-person point of view); it makes no sense subjectively either. And it is quite possible to notice this, through introspection.
In fact, I will now perform an experiment in free will for all to see: I will write anything I want for the rest of this blog post. Whatever I write is, of course, something I have chosen to write. No one has compelled to do this. No one has assigned me a topic or demanded that I use certain words. I can be ungrammatical, if I pleased. And if I want to put a rabbit in this sentence, I am free to do it.
But paying attention to my stream of consciousness reveals that this notion of freedom does not reach very deep. Where did this "rabbit" come from? Why didn't I put an "elephant" in that sentence? I do not know. Was I free to do otherwise? This is a strange, and strangely vacuous, question. How can I say that I was free to do other than what I did, when the causes of what I did are invisible to me? Yes, even now I am free to change "rabbit" to "elephant," but if I were to do this, how could I explain it? It is impossible for me to know the cause of either choice. Either is compatible with my being compelled by the iron law of determinism, or buffeted by the winds of chance; but neither looks, or feels, like freedom. Rabbit or elephant? Or why not write something else entirely?
And what brings my deliberations on this matter to a close? This blog post must end sometime -- and now I find that I want to get lunch. Am I free to resist this feeling? Well, yes, in the sense that no one is going to compel me at gunpoint to eat lunch this minute -- but I'm hungry, and I want to eat it. Can I resist this feeling for a moment longer? Yes, of course -- and for an indeterminate number of moments thereafter. But I am in no position to know why I make the effort in this instance but not in others. And why do my efforts cease precisely when they do? Now I feel that it is time for me to leave in any case. I'm hungry, yes, but it also seems like I've made my point. In fact, I can't think of anything else to say on the subject. And where is the freedom in that?
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Example: you are hungry -- not free will
Do you dare to eat a peach (haha)? -- free will
Do you dare to eat it now? -- free will
You may be hungry 3 times a day, is that cultural imprinting
So -- existence of free will, yes? Answer might be "maybe, sometimes, in some ways and situations
Personally
Please...
http://you
Another great article Sam. Thanks.
I'm often guilty of not doing my homework before commenting
The question raised is, what reason can be given to prefer any explanatio
He states clearly by using words like inscrutabl
This is a quality control argument raising the bar on the subject of freedom and determinis
Thanks Mr. Harris!
Remember the fallacy in the word natural. If being natural is right, then of course you must be right. It’s used on any side of an argument because there is nothing that exists beyond nature’s scope. Unfortunat
And to what end is all of this anyway? So lets say we don't have free will... ok. so what? We aren't predictabl
Seems to me someone is upset that people don't agree and is just trying to beat this horse deader than dead.
But yeah, the question of "So what?" is relevant. Either way, so what?
I often squish out sideways..
I find his logic to be gibberish , and he writes in circles.
What is it called when you make a circular argument by accusing someone of making a circular argument? I feel like calling that circular would be similar to dividing by zero.
Mr. Harris poses thoughtful and difficult questions, and I applaud his reasoning. Your dismissal, to the contrary, I regard as gibberish.
-You have that backwards, sir.
B. "The unconsciou
-Not true, your freedoms or lack of freedoms will be expressed according to your beliefs "do".
C. "If you don't know what your soul is going to do next, or why it behaved as it did a moment ago, you are not in control of your soul."
-"Control of..." is for despots like Ghadafi.
D. "...Christ
-As brains are not the mind, "souls" are not fat, bored, Republican
misinterpr
E. "The soul force that allows you to stay on your diet is just as mysterious as the one that obliges you to eat cherry pie for breakfast.
-In context, the soul doesn't exercise 'free will'. The physical representa
person, exercises free will. The person can go against the souls "advice", and often does.
F. "Yes, choices, efforts, intentions
behavior..
-Behavior results from "beliefs" about what a person can or cannot do.
A man will not "act" contrary to what he believes.
So much for the space for you--and I.
You have stirred my sympathies