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Thelonious_Cube t1_j99abqg wrote

Reply to comment by jamesj in Compatibilism is supported by deep intuitions about responsibility and control. It can also feel "obviously" wrong and absurd. Slavoj Žižek's commentary can help us navigate the intuitive standoff. by matthewharlow

> free will as commonly understood

Are you certain that the way free will is commonly understood is coherent?

I don't think it is

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jamesj t1_j99bqfk wrote

I think it could be true that people exercise real choice. But I don't think it is consistent with determinism.

https://cogsci.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Thesis2018Hietala.pdf

Scholarly definitions aside, ordinary people generally understand free will as the ability to choose a desired course of action without restraint (Monroe, Dillon & Malle, 2014; Feldman, Wong & Baumeister, 2014; Feldman, 2017). Even if some scholars conceptualize free will in abstract, metaphysical terms (Greene & Cohen, 2004; Montague, 2008; Bargh, 2008), people tend to link free will most closely with the psychological concept of choice, not metaphysical concepts (Vonash, Baumeister, & Mele, 2018).

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Thelonious_Cube t1_j99e3sn wrote

And they also believe that their free choices should be governed by their values and preferences which are a product of their upbringing

> ordinary people generally understand free will as the ability to choose a desired course of action without restraint

And that is perfectly compatible with determinism

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jamesj t1_j99ebw7 wrote

  1. If someone acts of her own free will, then she could have done otherwise.
  2. If determinism is true, no one can do otherwise than one actually does.
  3. Therefore, if determinism is true, no one acts of her own free will.

Is the standard argument.

What's your argument for your claim?

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Thelonious_Cube t1_j9e0xid wrote

That "could have done otherwise" means there's a possible world in which a different choice was made, not that determinism is false.

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jamesj t1_j9e2cn6 wrote

In practice I live in only one world. My position is that I couldn't have done otherwise and any other very-nearly-mes in other worlds also couldn't have.

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Thelonious_Cube t1_j9e2jnx wrote

That ignores the purpose of possible-world thinking

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jamesj t1_j9e35d1 wrote

Theorizing worlds doesn't make them true. The fact we can imagine other worlds doesn't make them exist. They could exist, they might exist, but I'm still not in control of which one I end up in, even if they do exist.

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Im-a-magpie t1_j9jy5yo wrote

>And that is perfectly compatible with determinism

It isn't though. The ordinary concept of free will (the way most people use the term) is directly on contradiction with a deterministic universe

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Thelonious_Cube t1_j9mg1io wrote

No, it's not - the ordinary concept is vague and contradictory

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Im-a-magpie t1_j9toado wrote

The ordinary concept is simple libertarian free will. There's nothing contradictory about it. Most people just reject a deterministic universe. Compatibilism is motivated by some desperate need to preserve our intuitive notions of justice, morality and ethics instead of accepting that those intuitions are flawed and don't reflect reality.

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Thelonious_Cube t1_ja1lvwc wrote

No, that's not correct.

The ordinary concept also includes the idea that one's choices are a product of one's taste, values and experience - therefore tied to the causal history of one's life.

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Im-a-magpie t1_ja1uetw wrote

But also that you could, for whatever reason, choose to go against those things.

E: Also people believe taste, values and such are the product of conscious choice.

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