Simplified argument vs free will

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Now to question the premises.

1. In order to make a choice, we must have a want that we believe to be relevant to that choice. To illustrate this, imagine a being who has no wants. If you present him with two options he has no want for either. He has no want to choose and no want to not choose, so the choice is irrelevant to him.

But he can still choose. Why must he have a want to choose? What forces him to not choose?

Now imagine a being who only has one want: to drink milk. He can now make only one choice: to drink milk.

Or he can deny his desire. I'm not saying he can choose to want not to drink (which would mean more than one want). Simply that given a single want and the possibility to achieve it in and of itself does not necessitate choice.

2. When we believe we have multiple wants related to a choice we will choose what we want more.

This implies that every choice satisfies a single want. Which isn't true.

3. In order to change the importance of a want, we must have a more important want that is relevant to doing so.This is a consequence of statements 1 and 2.

Statement two is incorrect, and statement one contains a logical flaw under certain interpretations of deontic modal logic.

4. All of our choices can be traced back to our original wants. This is a consequence of statements 1, 2, and 3, the result of wants leading to choices and changing the importance of other wants.

The problem with 3 and 4 is the notion of agency involved in changing wants and the notion of original wants. If I want to quit smoking but I am in one moment tempted by the offer of a cigarette, I have conflicting "original wants." The choice I make is the result several coinciding "wants" which I consider before determining a choice.

5. We did not choose to have our original wants. This is necessary because of statement 1 and is made obvious by the fact of birth.

But 1 precludes recursive or looping choices. There's nothing in any of these propositions which precludes one from choosing to choose a want, which would negate 5.

 

[Orias]

1. In order to make a choice, we must have a want that we believe to be relevant to that choice.

Sure, or a need.

But to me thats just making a want and need the same thing, under the circumstance you provided below I can't really tell the difference.

Now imagine a being who only has one want: to drink milk. He can now make only one choice: to drink milk. If he believes milk is in his mouth he will choose to drink it every time until he explodes or something else stops him, because it's his only want.

2. When we believe we have multiple wants related to a choice we will choose what we want more.

So this excludes multiple wants related to multiple choices?

To illustrate this imagine a being who has only two wants: to drink milk and to not drink milk. These wants contradict each other, so if they are of equal importance to the being they will cancel each other out and it will be as if the being has no wants at all.

On the other hand, if the want to drink milk is more important to the being than the want to not drink milk, he will drink milk just as if he didn't have the want to not drink.

3. In order to change the importance of a want, we must have a more important want that is relevant to doing so.

What if these wants are more important because they are needs, on top of that, what if they are all equally necessary to completeing a function?


This being you keep bringing up falls awfully short on the realistic scale.

This is a consequence of statements 1 and 2. For example imagine a being who has only three wants: to drink milk, to not drink milk, and to be comfortable. If the want to be comfortable is most important, it will change the importance of the other two. So if the being is uncomfortable because his stomach is empty, the want to be comfortable will make the want to drink milk more important than the want to not drink milk, until the stomach becomes uncomfortably full and so on.

4. All of our choices can be traced back to our original wants.

This makes me wonder if all choices are willed.

This is a consequence of statements 1, 2, and 3, the result of wants leading to choices and changing the importance of other wants.

Which seems to be saying that you did not want to say any of this.

5. We did not choose to have our original wants.

I'll give you that, but you are now chosing such things.

This is necessary because of statement 1 and is made obvious by the fact of birth.

I simply want the same thing you do.

We are not responsible for what led to all of our choices.

All I am getting from this is that babies need enabling and care, so they grow up to do as they will.

We don't have free will when we are born but then again we don't not have it as we advance in life. Unless airplanes and rockets are a myth.


I think a better argument against free will would be...

1. Jump off a bridge see how far you fly.
2. Go kill a man and chose how it affects you.
3. Tell me something you don't want to tell me.

 

[Koldo]

As I said before, the the way this is phrased removes will or agency from the change of relevance.

It doesn't remove will or agency from change of relevance, rather it packages them all together.
If you accept premise #1, agency can only change the want through a 'want'.
It is impossible to consider that any choice/change of relevance can be made without a 'want' ,if you accept the premise #1.

 

[Koldo]

But he can still choose. Why must he have a want to choose? What forces him to not choose?

He can't choose because he is incapable of doing it.

Example: Select between A and B without wanting to.

You can't. It becomes self-evident once you try it.

Or he can deny his desire. I'm not saying he can choose to want not to drink (which would mean more than one want). Simply that given a single want and the possibility to achieve it in and of itself does not necessitate choice.

He can't deny his own desire unless that is what he wants to do.

This implies that every choice satisfies a single want. Which isn't true.

He is being simplistic on that sentence.
Read the topic name : Simplified argument vs free will
This kind of thing was to be expected, right?

The problem with 3 and 4 is the notion of agency involved in changing wants and the notion of original wants. If I want to quit smoking but I am in one moment tempted by the offer of a cigarette, I have conflicting "original wants." The choice I make is the result several coinciding "wants" which I consider before determining a choice.

Original wants go way back to your origin.
Your desire to smoke is not an original want, but rather a 'want' that arised from the 'original wants'.
Also, to determine a choice you have to make use of a 'want' in itself.

But 1 precludes recursive or looping choices. There's nothing in any of these propositions which precludes one from choosing to choose a want, which would negate 5.

From what i have read from your posts you seem to misinterpret a crucial point of the argument against free will. And this becomes rather problematic.

I will try to clarify this point. Because it is possibly going to be the central focus of your debate.

You consider that such a thing as an agency exists that is able make choice between 'wants', and that this agency is completely unrestricted in its action. This is to say that you believe that such agency can make choices between 'wants' or influences without in itself being restricted by a 'want'.

The OP rests on the position that this kind of agency is incoherent. To simply put, it is non-existent. It is incoherent because the only means for a person to select between options is by using its 'wants'. According to the point the argument is trying to state every choice, including choices between 'wants' are ruled by other 'wants'. Therefore when someone chooses between 'wants' he is just making use of another 'want'.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

It doesn't remove will or agency from change of relevance, rather it packages them all together.

By removes, I mean that the phrasing (namely, the use of a particular collocation lexemes must and have, rather than something like "we can change..."[/quote]

If you accept premise #1, agency can only change the want through a 'want'.
It is impossible to consider that any choice/change of relevance can be made without a 'want' ,if you accept the premise #1.

I don't accept premise 1 as I said in my latest post. First, there is the trivial objection to the deontic modality in 1: why must wechoose a want? Second, none of the premises address the possibility of choosing to choose a want, which would negate 4 and 5.

 

[Koldo]

By removes, I mean that the phrasing (namely, the use of a particular collocation lexemes must and have, rather than something like "we can change..."

I don't accept premise 1 as I said in my latest post. First, there is the trivial objection to the deontic modality in 1: why must wechoose a want? Second, none of the premises address the possibility of choosing to choose a want, which would negate 4 and 5.

That reply was made to your other post where you still had all premises accepted. Also, I have already answered these questions in my previous post,
so we can continue from there.

 

[CarlinKnew]

I think Koldo is my long lost twin. At any rate there are some interesting responses on both sides. Thanks everyone who actually read and considered the original post.

 

[idav]

I think Koldo is my long lost twin. At any rate there are some interesting responses on both sides. Thanks everyone who actually read and considered the original post.

It was broken down very nice with the wants. I noticed that in the beginning of the first premise you say that a person has two choices but you end up presenting a third choice which helps break the dichotomy of just choosing either A or B. I think that not choosing or ignoring certain wants is crucial in being able to have a free choice.

 

[Skwim]

What does it mean for a cause to be "interior to, within, the self"? For instance, if I pick up a rose because I want to smell the scent, are we to distinguish between "because I want to smell the scent" as a cause that "makes" someone do something, and the person having a reason for doing what they do?

When I said "Not saying some exterior causal agent must necessarily be involved," I was merely acknowledging your claim that "The important part is that we do them, not some exterior causal agent." So I'm a bit puzzled that you're not understanding how your own referent, an "exterior causal agent" differs from your "we" (self) "The important part is that we do them," It's a distinction you set forth.

My "An operative agent can be either exterior . . . ." equates with your "exterior causal agent"

And my "or interior to, within, the self." equates with your "we"

As I said earlier, we don't do things without reason, but what's significant to self-determination is that we do it.

Yes, self-determination does exist in the sense that no one else or nothing external to ourself may be determining what we do. I'm just saying that what one did one had to do. One could not have not done it. There is no possibility to have done differently. One's will, or whatever you want to call it, was not free to do otherwise.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

He can't choose because he is incapable of doing it.

Example: Select between A and B without wanting to.

You can't. It becomes self-evident once you try it.

Interestingly a similar example has been used to show something quite different: "Don't think of an elephant." Most people cannot not think of an elephant. But this doesn't negate 1 except trivially. It's just interesting, particularly because usually the question is "don't think of the word elephant" and the response is to picture and elephant.

A more serious critique is of the type found in the following excerpt from Yaffe's paper in Philosophical Perspectives: "My discussion is informed by a distinction between desire and will. On one natural conception of the will—although not the conception that I will be using here—all desires or desiderative attitudes are acts of will. This is to countenance a distinction between beliefs—attitudes with mind-to-world direction of fit—and desires—attitudes with world-to-mind direction of fit—while denying there to be any important difference between willings and desires. On this conception, to want something is to will it. For my purposes here, however, it is important to note subcategories among the generic category of mental states with world-to-mind direction of fit. “Desires”, as I will be using the term, are occurrent mental states that motivate us to act in ways useful (relative to our beliefs) for their satisfaction, but which are not governed by the same norms of consistency and coherence that govern willings. It is irrational, for instance, to will both A and not-A, while it is not irrational to desire a state of affairs and at the same time desire that it not occur. While there may be certain norms of rationality that govern desires, they are not the norms of consistency and coherence that govern choices. So, I divide the class of motivational states as follows: All motivational states have a world-to-mind direction of fit. Among those, some are governed by certain standards of rationality such as coherence and consistency and some are not. Those that are are willings, and this class includes a fairly wide range of mental states—choices, volitions, intentions—that may differ from one another but not in ways that are important for our purposes. Those that are not are to be called “desires”. It follows that it is possible not to will, or even to will contrary to, an action that one performs."

He is being simplistic on that sentence.
Read the topic name : Simplified argument vs free will
This kind of thing was to be expected, right?

True. But at what point does simplification remove points essential to the argument?

Original wants go way back to your origin.
Your desire to smoke is not an original want, but rather a 'want' that arised from the 'original wants'.
Also, to determine a choice you have to make use of a 'want' in itself.

So "original wants" here is being used as it is in biological arguments concerning free will, i.e., every organism is ingrained with certain "wants" which can lead to more complex ones? Either way, it doesn't really matter for my point. Accepting 3 in the sense that we can self-determine wants is a form of free will. This is explicit (if I recall correctly) in Gert and Duggan's paper in Nous "Free Will as the Ability to Will."

From what i have read from your posts you seem to misinterpret a crucial point of the argument against free will. And this becomes rather problematic.

I will try to clarify this point. Because it is possibly going to be the central focus of your debate.

You consider that such a thing as an agency exists that is able make choice between 'wants', and that this agency is completely unrestricted in its action.

Not completely unrestricted, no.

This is to say that you believe that such agency can make choices between 'wants' or influences without in itself being restricted by a 'want'.

The OP rests on the position that this kind of agency is incoherent. To simply put, it is non-existent. It is incoherent because the only means for a person to select between options is by using its 'wants'. According to the point the argument is trying to state every choice, including choices between 'wants' are ruled by other 'wants'. Therefore when someone chooses between 'wants' he is just making use of another 'want'.

I understand the argument. I just disagree. Let me expand on what I said earlier on choosing to choose (which was simplistic, in line with the simplistic nature of this thread, and I fear I too fell subject to the dangers of being too simplistic to make the right point).

To choose is a mental action. An individual making a choice is engaging in an action. However, that individual is also aware of the fact that they are making a choice. S/he knows that s/he is choosing. In fact, one could say sh/e is "choosing to choose" by 1) being aware of making a choice and 2) making that choice. But both the choice to make the choice and the choice itself are happening simultaneously. What want is causing the choice to make the choice?

Then there is the objection similar to the type I quoted above. An example from a paper by Balaguer runs as follows:
"First, let us suppose that Ralph, a life-long resident of Mayberry, North Carolina, is trying to decide
whether or not to move to New York City. He has safety-and-stability-based
reasons for wanting to stay in Mayberry (he’s been offered a position as
assistant day-shift manager at the local Der Wienerschnitzel and is clearly
being groomed for the manager position, and his sweetheart, Robbi Anna,
has offered him her hand in marriage); and he has fame-and-fortune-based
reasons for wanting to move to New York (he longs to be the first person to
start at middle linebacker for the Giants while simultaneously starring on
Broadway in a musical production of Sartre’s Nausea). He deliberates for
several days, considering all of his reasons for choosing, but he is unable to
come to a view as to which set of reasons is stronger. He feels genuinely torn.
But Robbi Anna and Der Wienerschnitzel, Inc., are waiting, and he feels
he has to make a decision. (He may actually have a deadline, but this isn’t
necessary for the example.) Finally, he decides to move to New York, but
not because he comes to believe that his reasons for moving to New York
outweigh his reasons for staying in Mayberry. He was unable to come to
a view either way on that question, and in the end, he just decided to go.
Period."

 

[Willamena]

When I said "Not saying some exterior causal agent must necessarily be involved," I was merely acknowledging your claim that "The important part is that we do them, not some exterior causal agent." So I'm a bit puzzled that you're not understanding how your own referent, an "exterior causal agent" differs from your "we" (self) "The important part is that we do them," It's a distinction you set forth.

My "An operative agent can be either exterior . . . ." equates with your "exterior causal agent"

And my "or interior to, within, the self." equates with your "we"

Then in what way is "we" an operative agent that can direct "we" causally, as it seems you said in post #32?

Yes, self-determination does exist in the sense that no one else or nothing external to ourself may be determining what we do. I'm just saying that what one did one had to do. One could not have not done it. There is no possibility to have done differently. One's will, or whatever you want to call it, was not free to do otherwise.

I've yet to see any logical argument in favour of such fatalism.

 

[Skwim]

Then in what way is "we" an operative agent that can direct "we" causally, as it seems you said in post #32?

Sorry if I confused you. As I said in post #32, with slight rephrasing for better understanding:

"what we do [is caused], and because that particular cause [determines what we do] we can do no differently than what it directs."
​

I've yet to see any logical argument in favour of such fatalism.

Assuming you consider a deterministic universe to offer up a fatalistic view, if you recall, last June I presented an OP, A challenge to show me wrong where I attempted to do just that, and in which you participated. (see post #36)

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

That reply was made to your other post where you still had all premises accepted. Also, I have already answered these questions in my previous post,
so we can continue from there.

I agree, and I responded to your previous post in greater depth (hopefully clarifying my position).

 

[idav]

An operative agent can be either exterior or interior to, within, the self. "Agent" here is synonymous with 'cause."

One thing to consider within the mind is that their are multiple agents running. There is are cases when our mind doesn't reconcile this and our left hand have mind of their own compared to the right hand. One decision coming from the logical side and one decision coming from the emotional side. We make choices between these types of things all the time. This is what makes us illogical, emotional and volatile. When something breaks we are doing retarded things. Thats what separates us from machine like cpt Kirk vs Spock.

 

[Willamena]

Assuming you consider a deterministic universe to offer up a fatalistic view, if you recall, last June I presented an OP, A challenge to show me wrong where I attempted to do just that, and in which you participated. (see post #36)

My post #36 doesn't argue for fate any more than for a destiny determined by our own free decisions. I've still yet to see an argument.

Edit: Fate is not determinism. Fate involves a free agent being condemned to know a path they cannot deviate from. I'm just saying that no such argument has reached my eyes or ears to justify that there is only one path, there are free agents, and they are condemned to travel this one path.

 

[Koldo]

Interestingly a similar example has been used to show something quite different: "Don't think of an elephant." Most people cannot not think of an elephant. But this doesn't negate 1 except trivially. It's just interesting, particularly because usually the question is "don't think of the word elephant" and the response is to picture and elephant.

Irrelevant and completely unrelated. Your example sentence requires imediate action from reader, whereas mine doesn't.

My argument still stands.

A more serious critique is of the type found in the following excerpt from Yaffe's paper in Philosophical Perspectives: My discussion is informed by a distinction between desire and will. On one natural conception of the will—although not the conception that I will be using here—all desires or desiderative attitudes are acts of will. This is to countenance a distinction between beliefs—attitudes with mind-to-world direction of fit—and desires—attitudes with world-to-mind direction of fit5—while denying there to be any important difference between willings and desires. On this conception, to want something is to will it. For my purposes here, however, it is important to note subcategories among the generic category of mental states with world-to-mind direction of fit. “Desires”, as I will be using the term, are occurrent mental states that motivate us to act in ways useful (relative to our beliefs) for their satisfaction, but which are not governed by the same norms of consistency and coherence that govern willings.6 It is irrational, for instance, to will both A and not-A, while it is not irrational to desire a state of affairs and at the same time desire that it not occur7. While there may be certain norms of rationality that govern desires, they are not the norms of consistency and coherence that govern choices. So, I divide the class of motivational states as follows: All motivational states have a world-to-mind direction of fit. Among those, some are governed by certain standards of rationality such as coherence and consistency and some are not. Those that are are willings, and this class includes a fairly wide range of mental states—choices, volitions, intentions—that may differ from one another but not in ways that are important for our purposes. Those that are not are to be called “desires”. It follows that it is possible not to will, or even to will contrary to, an action that one performs.

Did you use small letters to make me have a harder time reading?
There.Done.Fixed!

For starters, I can't make sense of the bolded parts. How can one choose contrary to an action that one performs?

True. But at what point does simplification remove points essential to the argument?

It is not essential until someone thinks it is.
It is always like this.

So "original wants" here is being used as it is in biological arguments concerning free will, i.e., every organism is ingrained with certain "wants" which can lead to more complex ones? Either way, it doesn't really matter for my point. Accepting 3 in the sense that we can self-determine wants is a form of free will. This is explicit (if I recall correctly) in Gert and Duggan's paper in Nous "Free Will as the Ability to Will."

Yes, that is pretty much what the original wants are.
Not necessarily every organism though, considering we are just talking about human beings.

Accepting #3 grants compatibilist free will. Libertarian free will still requires more than what premise #3 grants.

You may quote the important parts of the paper if you want to.

Not completely unrestricted, no.

I understand the argument. I just disagree. Let me expand on what I said earlier on choosing to choose (which was simplistic, in line with the simplistic nature of this thread, and I fear I too fell subject to the dangers of being too simplistic to make the right point).

To choose is a mental action. An individual making a choice is engaging in an action. However, that individual is also aware of the fact that they are making a choice. S/he knows that s/he is choosing. In fact, one could say sh/e is "choosing to choose" by making 1) being aware of making a choice and 2) making that choice. But both the choice to make the choice and the choice itself are happening simultaneously. What want is causing the choice to make the choice?

The 'want' to choose to make the choice. :sarcastic

Then there is the objection similar to the type I quoted above. An example from a paper by Balaguer runs as follows:
"First, let us suppose that Ralph, a life-long resident of Mayberry, North Carolina, is trying to decide
whether or not to move to New York City. He has safety-and-stability-based
reasons for wanting to stay in Mayberry (he’s been offered a position as
assistant day-shift manager at the local Der Wienerschnitzel and is clearly
being groomed for the manager position, and his sweetheart, Robbi Anna,
has offered him her hand in marriage); and he has fame-and-fortune-based
reasons for wanting to move to New York (he longs to be the first person to
start at middle linebacker for the Giants while simultaneously starring on
Broadway in a musical production of Sartre’s Nausea). He deliberates for
several days, considering all of his reasons for choosing, but he is unable to
come to a view as to which set of reasons is stronger. He feels genuinely torn.
But Robbi Anna and Der Wienerschnitzel, Inc., are waiting, and he feels
he has to make a decision. (He may actually have a deadline, but this isn’t
necessary for the example.) Finally, he decides to move to New York, but
not because he comes to believe that his reasons for moving to New York
outweigh his reasons for staying in Mayberry. He was unable to come to
a view either way on that question, and in the end, he just decided to go.
Period."

The bolded part of the text, which is the most important part of the quote, is merely an interpretation of an event. In other words, it is a weak argument. My interpretation of the event is that he decided to go because ultimately that is what he wanted to do. He felt more inclined to go, and that is why he did.

It is a considerable mistake to think of every 'want' possessing the same degree of strenght. Not every want equals to an urge. Not every want equals to a craving.

Imagine you are in a self-service restaurant. And you just happened to pick up some rice and put it into your plate. You didn't feel the urge to do it, but you felt like you wanted to eat rice.

 

[Falvlun]

Blame on me for leaving that sentence so wide open for different interpretations.

The intended meaning of that sentence was to say that , after we are born, external factors don't have direct control over our actions. In the same manner a human (which in this analogy stands for external factors) doesn't have direct control over the wires of a car while driving.

Also, libertarian free will requires the extra of an agency out of determinism and indeterminism in any given individual.

I am still unclear as to the implications of your meaning. Are you claiming that while external factors don't have direct control, they still have indirect control?

And furthermore, I'm still perplexed by why the anti-freewill crowd feels that if our actions are ultimately controlled by us, how that does not constitute freewill.

The argument against free will take some steps further.
Read premises 4 and 5.

3. In order to change the importance of a want, we must have a more important want that is relevant to doing so.This is a consequence of statements 1 and 2. For example imagine a being who has only three wants: to drink milk, to not drink milk, and to be comfortable. If the want to be comfortable is most important, it will change the importance of the other two. So if the being is uncomfortable because his stomach is empty, the want to be comfortable will make the want to drink milk more important than the want to not drink milk, until the stomach becomes uncomfortably full and so on.

So we can choose between our wants, and decide which one we want on top. That is how I interpret that premise, which doesn't negate freewill in the least.

Unless, as I suspect, there is the hidden premise (not stated, but necessary to your argument) that we are innately imbued with wants over which we have no control.

4. All of our choices can be traced back to our original wants. This is a consequence of statements 1, 2, and 3, the result of wants leading to choices and changing the importance of other wants.

And this is the fatal assumption of the deterministic argument. How do you know that we have a suite of original wants from which spring every single other want? I find it far more probable that these are developed over time, due to our self-awareness of various wants, instincts, needs, etc (nor do I deny that these would be shaped by environmental or genetic factors--- shaped, but not determined.)

Surely we are born with certain instincts, such as the instinct to suckle, etc. But that is a relatively small pool of "original wants". Do you really think my decision to become a lab rat is predicated upon my original instinct to suckle, or to perform reciprocal altruism? We are not governed by instincts. Certainly, too, we are born with predispositions, based upon our genetic make-up, but these are only predispositions-- no matter what popularization of science tells you, there is no "murderer" gene, etc.

This assumption is the ultimate flaw in this whole argument, nor can it follow from the previous premises since they require this premise in order to be true themselves.

 

[Willamena]

Irrelevant and completely unrelated. Your example sentence requires imediate action from reader, whereas mine doesn't.

My argument still stands.

The argument (that "want" is self-evident) ignores that decisions get made for other reasons.

 

[idav]

The argument (that "want" is self-evident) ignores that decisions get made for other reasons.

Correct, 'want' will only be at most half the process.

 

[Willamena]

Correct, 'want' will only be at most half the process.

Say your boss asks you to choose a consultant to work on a particular project. He gives you a scope of work, a list of consultant qualifications, and enlists you to get proposals from each of them. You read through the proposals and select the one with the best combination of meeting the scope, having qualifications, and lowest price.

To suggest that this decision is based on something "wanted" is a complete rationalization, making "want" fit into the picture where it's not needed, and doesn't have to factor in at all (is superfluous).