Relocating the Problem of Free Will

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Relocating the Problem of Free Will

• Eddy Nahmias
• Georgia State University
• enahmias_at_gsu.edu
• 2006 Inland Northwest
• Philosophy Conference

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The Traditional Problem

• Free Will vs. Determinism
• Main positions defined (and named) in terms of
  their response to this problem

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The Traditional Positions
(The Possibility Question) Is free will
compatible with determinism? YES
Compatibilists NO Incompatibilists
(The Actuality Question) Do we YES have free
will? NO
Compatibilist Skeptic?
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Why Other Threats to Free Will Matter

• More globalother theses may threaten
  compatibilist conditions for free will and moral
  responsibility (e.g., reasons-responsiveness,
  identification), hence
• Threaten not only compatibilist theories, but
  also
• Threaten necessary conditions for most
  libertarian theories (and a type of freedom most
  libertarians admit is valuable)
• Threaten fall-back position of metaphysical
  flip-floppers like Peter van Inwagen

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Why Other Threats Tend to Get Ignored

• Philosophers focus on possibility question and
  arguments for and against compatibility of free
  will and DETERMINISM (and sometimes
  indeterminism).
• Consequence argument, Frankfurt cases, Mind
  argument, and now manipulation arguments.
• Then, turning to the actuality question,
  libertarians focus on indeterminism (e.g., Kane)
  or agent causation (e.g., OConner, Clarke)
• while compatibilists build up stringent
  sufficient conditions meant to be compatible with
  determinism, usually without considering whether
  we humans in fact satisfy them

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Other Potential Threats (Flank Attacks) to Free
Will and Moral Responsibility

• Eliminativism about agents (selves)
• Eliminativism about (conscious) mental states
• (Metaphysical) Epiphenomenalism regarding
  (conscious) mental states (e.g., Exclusion
  argument)
• (Scientific) Epiphenomenalism about role of
  conscious deliberation, reasoning and reasons
  (e.g., Libet, Wegner)
• Lack of self-knowledge, rationalization (e.g.,
  Social Psychology, Haidt, etc.)

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• Like so many he might do almost anything on
  impulse, feeling nothing much. The logical
  explanations for his actions, invented at
  leisure, always came afterwards.
• --Kurt Vonnegut, Galapagos
• Roger Shank When people try to rationally
  analyze potential options, their unconscious,
  emotional thoughts take over and make the choice
  for them. We do not know how we decide things
  Decisions are made for us by our unconscious
  mind, consciousness is in charge of making up
  reasons for those decisions that sound rational.

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Other Potential Threats (Flank Attacks) to Free
Will and Moral Responsibility

• Eliminativism about agents (selves)
• Eliminativism about (conscious) mental states
• (Metaphysical) Epiphenomenalism regarding
  (conscious) mental states (e.g., Exclusion
  argument)
• (Scientific) Epiphenomenalism about role of
  conscious deliberation, reasoning and reasons
  (e.g., Libet, Wegner)
• Lack of self-knowledge, rationalization (e.g.,
  Social Psychology, Haidt, etc.)
• Bypassing threats (theses that suggest our
  choices and actions are caused by forces that
  bypass our conscious mental life).
• Degrees of freedom (Compatibilist Worrier?)

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Outline of Talk

• Incompatibilist arguments gain intuitive force by
  conflating determinism with bypassing threats
• Determinism ? Bypassing
• Pre-philosophical intuitions do not respond to
  determinism as a threat to free will or moral
  responsibility, but do respond to bypassing
  threats.
• So, its time to relocate the (central) problem
  of free will.
• OK, or at least to divert some attention to other
  potential problems

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Pumping Incompatibilist Intuitions

• An agent would not be morally responsible at all
  if he was caused necessarily, predetermined, to
  try to do what he did, by his brain state, and
  that in turn by some prior state, until we come
  to causes outside the agents body and ultimately
  to causes long before his birth. (Richard
  Swinburne)
• What am I but a helpless product of nature,
  destined by her to do whatever I do and to become
  whatever I become? (Richard Taylor)
• Determinism means that our self-monitoring and
  self-critical capacities, so essential to human
  nature, might as well dry up and wither they
  would no longer have any function. (Joel
  Feinberg)
• In those rides that amusement parks sometimes
  provide, in which one sits in a car that follows
  a track through some darkened room of illuminated
  objects, the car sometimes has a steering wheel.
  If one turns the wheel in the directions
  suggested by the environmentdirections in which
  the car is actually goingone can easily get the
  feeling that one is steering the careven though
  one knows all along that he is not. A child might
  think he actually was steering the car. (Carl
  Ginet)

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Bypassing Threats

• Fatalism (certain events happen regardless of
  your choices)
• Coercion (choices made despite your own reasons
  and preferences
• except in Frankfurt cases)
• Epiphenomenalism (choices not caused by your
  mental states)
• Weak threat choices nevertheless correspond with
  your reasons and preferences
• Strong threat your reasons and preferences are
  unknowingly shaped by forces you would not accept
  (confabulation, rationalization)

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Determinism ? Bypassing

• Bypassing without determinism (e.g.,
  Indeterministic Epiphenomenalism)
• Determinism a complete description of the
  universe at one time and the laws of nature
  entail a complete description of the universe at
  any other (later?) time.
• Determinism without bypassing (conscious mental
  states, deliberation, as causally efficacious in
  choice and action)
• Dualist determinism

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No Psychological Laws?

• Determinism a complete description of the
  universe at one time (Po) and the laws of nature
  (L) entail a complete description of the universe
  at any other time (P). ? (Po L) ? P
• van Inwagen uses the state of the entire
  physical world at an instant for Po
• and stipulates that psychological laws not be
  included in the conception of laws of nature (L)
  to be used in the argument the laws of nature
  would be just as they are even if there had never
  been any human beings or other rational animals.
• As such, NL has much more intuitive force (e.g.,
  contra David Lewis view).

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Determinism and the Exclusion Argument

• Both suggest there are sufficient conditions for
  our choices other than our mental states so that
  our mental states appear to be unnecessary
  overdetermining causes.
• Determinism as a type of supervenience Present
  states supervene on past states laws
• ?? (Po L) ? P has same logical structure as
• ?? Physical ? Mental
• Mistake in both cases is to think mental states
  are pre-emptedrelationship between mental states
  and subvening physical states (or long-past
  states) is not a case of coincidental
  overdetermination or pre-emption. Strong
  metaphysical relationship between the relevant
  states (strongest in case of identitynotice
  backwards determinism parallels identity theory
  present states and laws entail past states).

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Experimental Philosophy

• Regardless of whether incompatibilists have
  wittingly or unwittingly pumped intuitions by
  conflating determinism with bypassing threats, I
  think ordinary intuitions are pumped in this way.
• But what do I know?
• This is a testable claim that should be
  testednot from the philosophers armchair but by
  surveying the relevant intuitions of
  non-philosophers.
• Folk intuitions cannot tell us which theory of
  free will is correct, but they can help
• Situate burden of proof (especially on
  metaphysically demanding incompatibilist
  conceptions of free will)
• Determine if revision of our ordinary concepts or
  folk theories is called for
• Explain psychological sources of our conflicting
  intuitions (and hence the philosophical debates
  themselves?)

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Compatibilist Intuitions?

• Describe deterministic scenario (without
  suggesting bypassing) and ask if agents in such
  scenarios act of own free will and are morally
  responsible.
• Scenario Imagine there is a universe that is
  re-created over and over again, starting from the
  exact same initial conditions and with all the
  same laws of nature. In this universe the same
  conditions and the same laws of nature produce
  the exact same outcomes, so that every single
  time the universe is re-created, everything must
  happen the exact same way. For instance, in this
  universe a person named Jill decides to steal a
  necklace at a particular time, and every time the
  universe is re-created, Jill decides to steal the
  necklace at that time.
• One of three scenarios in Nahmias, Morris,
  Nadelhoffer, and Turner (forthcoming in PPR).
• Across scenarios and types of actions, 2/3 to 3/4
  of non-philosophers say agents (e.g., Jill) are
  free and responsible.
• Caveats

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Folk Psychological Determinism?

• It appears, not only that the conjunction
  between motives and voluntary actions is as
  regular and uniform as that between the cause and
  effect in any part of nature but also that this
  regular conjunction has been universally
  acknowledged among mankind, and has never been
  the subject of dispute, either in philosophy or
  common life. --David Hume
• Shaun Nichols used two scenarios that describe
  similar planets with psychological (though not
  exact physical) duplicates. Almost all subjects
  responded that, given the same mental states
  (thoughts, desires, perceptions) and
  circumstances, the psychological duplicates would
  make the same decision.
• Nichols concludes, This provides some
  rudimentary support for Humes claim that people
  really accept psychological determinism.

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A New Experiment

• Folk psychology (mindreading) is deterministic
  but non-reductionistic, requiring role for
  conscious beliefs, desires, reasons, plans, and
  deliberations to cause choices and actions.
• So, not threatened by non-reductionistic
  determinism but may be threatened by
  neuro-reductionistic picture of the mind.
• Some scientists present their research as posing
  a threat to free will (not because deterministic
  but because reductionistic).
• Crick You, your joys and your sorrows, your
  memories and your ambitions, your sense of
  personal identity and free will, are in fact no
  more than the behavior of a vast assembly of
  nerve cells and their associated molecules
• Dawkins But doesnt a truly scientific,
  mechanistic view of the nervous system make
  nonsense of the very idea of responsibility,
  whether diminished or not?

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Neurobiological Reductionism vs.

• Scenario Imagine there is another universe
  similar to ours, in which there is a planet,
  named Erta, similar to ours in many ways. The
  landscape and life there look much like Earth,
  and there are advanced life forms (Ertans) who
  look, talk, and behave much like we do. However,
  the Ertans science has advanced far beyond ours.
  Specifically, the Ertan neuroscientists have
  discovered exactly how Ertans brains work. The
  neuroscientists have discovered that every single
  decision and action Ertans perform is completely
  caused by the particular chemical reactions and
  neurological processes occurring in their brain
  at the time, and that these chemical reactions
  and neurological processes in the brain are
  completely caused by earlier events involving
  their particular genetic makeup and physical
  environment. So, whenever Ertans act, their
  action is completely caused by the particular
  chemical reactions and neurological processes
  occurring in their brain at the time, and these
  brain processes are completely caused by earlier
  events that trace back to their particular
  genetic makeup and physical environment.

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Psychological Determinism

• Scenario Imagine there is another universe
  similar to ours, in which there is a planet,
  named Erta, similar to ours in many ways. The
  landscape and life there look much like Earth,
  and there are advanced life forms (Ertans) who
  look, talk, and behave much like we do. However,
  the Ertans science has advanced far beyond ours.
  Specifically, the Ertan psychologists have
  discovered exactly how Ertans minds work. The
  psychologists have discovered that every single
  decision and action Ertans perform is completely
  caused by the particular thoughts, desires, and
  plans they have at the time, and that these
  thoughts, desires, and plans are completely
  caused by earlier events involving their
  particular genetic makeup and upbringing. So,
  whenever Ertans act, their action is completely
  caused by the particular thoughts, desires, and
  plans they have at the time, and these thoughts,
  desires, and plans are completely caused by
  earlier events that trace back to their
  particular genetic makeup and upbringing.

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Experimental Questions

• Participants then circled either Yes, No or
  I dont know to two experimental questions
• (1) Now pretend that the scenario above is true
  and it accurately describes the Ertans. Assuming
  that is the case Do you think that when the
  Ertans act, they can act of their own free will?
• (2) Do you think that Ertans deserve to be given
  credit or blame for their actions?

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Conclusions

• Libertarian interpretation of these results
• Compatibilist interpretation the folk are
  compatibilist worriers
• Impetus to shift debate (relocate the central
  problem of free will) away from determinism
  towards bypassing threatsepiphenomenalism
  (exclusion argument), eliminativism, mental
  causation and
• Scientific threats to free will
• Relocating the problem of free will

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Background For all of these questions, you are
to imagine that the earth is only one of 10,000
planets that are very similar. All of these
planets are governed by the very same laws of
nature (e.g., laws of physics, biology,
psychology) as on earth. They are also part of
very similar solar systems. And many of the
individuals on earth have very similar parallel
individuals on these other planets. But none of
the planets is exactly the same as earth or as
any of the other 10,000 planets. Question 1.
On each of the 10,000 planets, there is a person
named Jerry Grames. There are some physical
differences between all these different Jerrys,
but the physical differences are not readily
detectible, and everything they have experienced
throughout their lives has looked and sounded
exactly the same. Indeed, at the psychological
level, all of these different Jerrys have been
exactly the same up until now. That is, they
have all had the same beliefs, desires, thoughts,
perceptions, and intentions. Each of them has
wanted to learn a new skill, and each of them has
just been considering the idea of learning to
walk a tightrope. At this moment, the Jerry on
earth decides to learn to walk a tightrope. How
many of the other Jerrys do you think decided the
same thing?
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Scenario Imagine that in the next century we
discover all the laws of nature, and we build a
supercomputer which can deduce from these laws of
nature and from the current state of everything
in the world exactly what will be happening in
the world at any future time. It can look at
everything about the way the world is and predict
everything about how it will be with 100
accuracy. Suppose that such a supercomputer
existed, and it looks at the state of the
universe at a certain time on March 25th, 2150
A.D., twenty years before Jeremy Hall is born.
The computer then deduces from this information
and the laws of nature that Jeremy will
definitely rob Fidelity Bank at 600 PM on
January 26th, 2195. As always, the
supercomputers prediction is correct Jeremy
robs Fidelity Bank at 600 PM on January 26th,
2195.
2150 2170 2195
Computer Jeremy Jeremy makes is born robs
bank prediction
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Scenario Imagine there is a world where the
beliefs and values of every person are caused
completely by the combination of ones genes and
ones environment. For instance, one day in this
world, two identical twins, named Fred and
Barney, are born to a mother who puts them up for
adoption. Fred is adopted by the Jerksons and
Barney is adopted by the Kindersons. In Freds
case, his genes and his upbringing by the selfish
Jerkson family have caused him to value money
above all else and to believe it is OK to acquire
money however you can. In Barneys case, his
(identical) genes and his upbringing by the
kindly Kinderson family have caused him to value
honesty above all else and to believe one should
always respect others property. Both Fred and
Barney are intelligent individuals who are
capable of deliberating about what they do. One
day Fred and Barney each happen to find a wallet
containing 1000 and the identification of the
owner (neither man knows the owner). Each man is
sure there is nobody else around. After
deliberation, Fred Jerkson, because of his
beliefs and values, keeps the money. After
deliberation, Barney Kinderson, because of his
beliefs and values, returns the wallet to its
owner. Given that, in this world, ones genes
and environment completely cause ones beliefs
and values, it is true that if Fred had been
adopted by the Kindersons, he would have had the
beliefs and values that would have caused him to
return the wallet and if Barney had been adopted
by the Jerksons, he would have had the beliefs
and values that would have caused him to keep the
wallet.
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