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Nickesponja t1_jdrb3z2 wrote

Such a confused argument. The "can" in "ought implies can" is about ability, not free will. This guy's argument arrives at the conclusion that "if determinism is true, then all of our beliefs are true", and he still doesn't understand why it kept getting rejected?

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DrPlatypus1 t1_jdrdwll wrote

The argument demonstrates one way in which determinism is incompatible with standard assumptions of epistemology and moral responsibility. Also, "ought implies can" is about free will, no matter how much silly compatibilists want to pretend otherwise.

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Nickesponja t1_jdreedo wrote

No determinist alive believes that determinism implies that all of our beliefs are true. Hence it's a useless argument.

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Kangewalter t1_je7cukn wrote

That's an intermediate conclusion that Huemer makes, not a premise. You can't just dismiss an argument on the basis that you don't believe in the conclusion. I'm not sure Huemer's argument is sound, but it definitely doesn't depend on whether people who consider themselves determinists believe in the truth of the conclusion. The implausibility of the conclusion is exactly what makes the argument useful and philosophically interesting, because it is supposed to make the determinist position untenable!

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DrPlatypus1 t1_jdrjcpw wrote

Well, no advocate of any position believes the arguments against their view are correct. There's still value in explaining why their views are wrong so that others don't make the same mistake they did.

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Nickesponja t1_jdt0o9a wrote

My point is, consider the following argument:

  1. If the argument above is correct, then if determinism is true, all of our beliefs are true
  2. But clearly, determinism can be true without all of our beliefs being true
  3. Therefore, the argument above is not correct

1 is uncontroversial, 2 is obvious. Hence, there's something wrong with the original argument. Which is probably why it was rejected several times.

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DrPlatypus1 t1_jdvdw98 wrote

If the above argument is correct, then determinism either entails that all of our beliefs are true, or that we shouldn't try to believe what is true. I assume most determinists would deny that we should try to believe what is true, given those options. But if they do that, then they undermine the entire basis of rational discussion and argumentation. So, they have no basis for saying anyone should believe determinism, or, indeed, accept any arguments for anything.

Rationality is about making choices for good reasons. Determinism is incompatible with making choices for reasons at all. The argument is pointing out that this doesn't just negate the legitimacy of moral judgment, or even prudential judgment, but of epistemic judgment as well. Determinism entails that all human beliefs are arational. This entails that all enterprises seeking to judge or affect people's beliefs are as well.

Determinism is incompatible with everything we know about ourselves as rational and moral beings. It's a wildly implausible view. There are also absolutely no good arguments for it. The fact that modern support for naturalism gets people to believe it anyway is comparably as embarrassing to the fact that followers of Parmenides got talked into believing that people can't move. Crappy methods lead to crazy results the followers of them are blind to.

We can walk. We can choose whether to walk or run. We can be irrational and immoral in our choice to walk to a drowning child instead of run. We can be irrational in any choice to believe in whatever crappy view forces us to deny any of these things. Determinism forces us to deny obvious facts about human nature, and it renders rational discussion and judgment impossible. It's a really stupid view. People who choose not to recognize this are wilfully blind to the obvious entailments of their view. It's important not to let that blindness spread to others.

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Nickesponja t1_jdvfd6y wrote

No, the premise of the argument isn't "we should try to believe what's true", it's "we should only believe what's true". A determinist can maintain the former while rejecting the latter. In fact, I don't see why anyone would accept the latter. There are situations where it's impossible to believe only the truth (say, if you're being tricked or lied to in a convincing manner), so saying we have a moral obligation to believe only the truth is absurd (at least, if you accept that ought implies can).

But of course, more generally, a determinist won't accept that ought implies can if by "can" you mean that we have free will to do one thing or the other. But again, that's just obvious.

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Kangewalter t1_je7ecgi wrote

Why would you think Huemer interprets P1 in that way when he explicitly has the ought implies can principle as P2? Obviously, if you can't believe the truth about something (because you don't have access to information, for example), you can't be obliged to believe it. In the comments, Huemer is explicit that P1 is meant in the sense of "if P is false, then you should refrain from believing it."

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Nickesponja t1_je94cjb wrote

> if P is false, then you should refrain from believing it

But this is just false if ought implies can, because there are plenty of situations where you can't help but believe falsehoods (say, when you're being convincingly tricked).

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Kangewalter t1_je7krv2 wrote

You are begging the question. Whether we believe only truths if determinism is true is exactly what is in question. You have to show that Huemer's inference to this conclusion is invalid or that one of the premises is false, not simply stipulate that the conclusion is false.

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Nickesponja t1_je94ljz wrote

Premise 2 in my argument is blatantly obvious. I'm not stipulating some contrived conclusion, I'm just pointing out that clearly, determinism could be true without all of our beliefs being true. There's nothing about determinism that would imply that all of our beliefs are true. This is far easier to defend that any of the premises in Huemer's argument.

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[deleted] t1_jdr81rn wrote

[removed]

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BernardJOrtcutt t1_jdtv6nj wrote

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NotASpaceHero t1_jdrekht wrote

Huemer keeping that consistency in being the worst big name in philosophy. What kind of a crap argument is that? Like someone pointed in the comment, depending on the notion of "can" premise 2 or 3 are clearly false.

If logical possibility, clearly 2 is false. This necessitarian type of hard determinism is a metaphysical thesis. It restrics metaphysical possibility. It's just false that anything logically possible will be done by agents

But if we switch to metaphysical possibility 2 is just clearly false. Child murderer S could have murdered the child, and so they did (necessitarianism). Obviously they shouldn't have. This should be especially clear considering Huemer is a realist. The moral truth that S shouldn't have done that is presumably true independently. Clearly 'ought implies can' just fails on this necessitarian hard determinism.

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4e_65_6f t1_jdrg24t wrote

The argument does not follow:

​

>We should believe only the truth. (premise)

If S should do A, then S can do A. (premise)

If determinism is true, then if S can do A, S does A. (premise)

So if determinism is true, then if S should do A, S does A. (from 2, 3)

So if determinism is true, then we believe only the truth. (from 1, 4)

I believe I have free will. (empirical premise)

So if determinism is true, then it is true that I have free will. (from 5, 6)

So determinism is false. (from 7)

​

Just because you should believe the truth is does not mean you can only believe the truth.

This seems like a phrasing trick. By this logic you can justify any belief as true, determinism does not mean everything you believe is true.

This argument ignores that there is such a thing as a mistaken belief.

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Shield_Lyger t1_jdrwfgy wrote

> If determinism is true, then if S can do A, S does A. (premise)

This does not follow. As I understand it, the definition of hard determinism says "If determinism is true, then if S does A, S did so because of the interaction of physical laws on the prior state of the universe."

This renders Premise 5 ("So if determinism is true, then we believe only the truth. (from 1, 4)") nonsensical, because, from the reformulated #3: "If determinism is true, then we believe what the interaction of physical laws on the prior state of the universe result in us believing."

Therefore "I believe I have free will. (empirical premise)" is meaningless, as while the state of the universe creates that belief, there is no mechanism that allows belief to influence the past state of the universe.

So I'm not sure I understand where this is supposed to lead.

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Kangewalter t1_je7hdlm wrote

The original premise 3 doesn't include an explanation of why S does A. Your reformulation of 3 doesn't just explicate the meaning of determinism, it changes the premise entirely. Huemer doesn't provide a definition of determinism in the text. But whatever determinism is, by his stipulation, if it's true, then at any given time you only ever have one thing that you can do (if S can do A, S does A).

You can define determinism through physical laws and prior states of the universe if you like, but that doesn't really impact the argument. How does the ability of beliefs to influence past states of the universe come into this at all? Huemer reasons that the premises entail that if determinism is true, then free will is true. This isn't meaningless, it's just taken to be a contradiction. Through reductio ad absurdum, he concludes that determism must therefore be false.

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LoveMeSomeEndrick t1_jdsegra wrote

I always took ”free will” as this: We’re in a deterministic trajectory (because our existence was put in motion when Time/Space was created, we left a state of singularity) in which we have a spectrum of free will. Within this ”greater” determinism we have limited amounts which we can ”react” to things occuring within that trajectory, the things we can do as reactions are limited to certain (human) axioms/values. It follows the physicist uncertaincy principle we we can’t measure both the particle and the position at the same time, neither (limited) can we measure our own actions and their effects at the same time at a greater scale, yet we still do effect the bigger whole (butterfly effect).

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rejectednocomments t1_jdrjne3 wrote

Wow. It’s striking how many commenters here are just not understanding the argument. Most of these criticisms are just missing the point.

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bortlip t1_jdsc0re wrote

Enlighten us, please.

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rejectednocomments t1_jdsjfjf wrote

If you actually read what he says, Huemer is offering a refutation of hard determinism, by which he means the view that no one could act otherwise. He evenly explicitly says he is not objecting to compatibilism (since compatibilists don’t deny the ability to do otherwise, but simply analyze it in a way consistent with determinism).

So, read the argument with that conclusion in mind.

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flipflipshift t1_jdti5xv wrote

I tried this to see if the argument follows. I pretend I have a completely deterministically simulated universe with one entity (person A) speaking in this way to another (person B).

Person A says "We should only believe the truth". I say to myself "it makes sense that this person's synapses make him say this; societies that flourished were ones based on trust and trust comes from a history of honesty with each other and oneself".

Person A then says "Whatever you (person B) should do is something you can do". Person A's synapses may have been motivated to say such a thing because societies that flourished held people responsible for what they did. They did not overthink one's ability to actually dictate their future which I know to be false. This statement by person A is therefore false.

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bortlip t1_jdsk31s wrote

>If you actually read what he says

Nevermind. I don't care what you think.

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ImFromSomewhereElse t1_jdsc94n wrote

Seconded. If all of us are missing the point, perhaps you can rephrase it the way you understand it.

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orkinman90 t1_jdrtk3j wrote

A logical proof only works if your premises are acceptable. To say that "people can argue with anything" is to admit that logical proofs are worthless. If logical proofs are worthless, why are you making one?

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Beginning-Lawyer-463 t1_jdt47j5 wrote

Guys, please correct me, but wouldn’t it be possible to substitute some area x of rational inquiry for the ‚free-will debate‘ and some belief y about x for the minimal free will thesis, work through the argument and obtain conclusion 7: if determinism is true, then y is true?

Because up to step 7, I think at no point does the argument rely specifically on the fact that we‘re talking about the free-will debate and MFT-belief, so we could substitute anything we like as long as it’s compatible with premises 1-3. Maybe I misunderstood something, but if that‘s true this argument is really weird because you could derive any statement of the form ‚determinism implies y‘ where y is some belief about an area of rational inquiry.

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quiettown999 t1_je1dy89 wrote

Premise 3 is false.

If person can choose A he can equally choose B or C or D etc. However the person only does one. The rest are all fantasy.

Determinism demands an outcome, and humans are the function. A becomes B with[out] you.

Sabine Hossenfelder's video on free will discusses this much more succinctly, with an ontological framework that has some basis in the metaphysical.

Huemer fails to address human perception's role in deciding the epistemology of this argument.

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RocketStrat t1_je1kxxf wrote

“...if you think determinism is true, you’re in an inherently self-defeating position.” Well, no. Determinists have lots of reasons that aren't necessarily 'self defeating'.

I began working through ways in which the logic of the argument fails, but gave up, not because the argument is a good one, but because untangling the many assumptions and sketchy moves and definitions here would take too long.

I suspect the fundamental problem with this is in the attempt to discuss something about lived human experience using rules of logic, which have their limits, and which are the product of a particular kind of thought in a particular historical and philosophical context. That leaves a lot of life out.

I'm not sure I remember this right, but was it not Kant who suggested that we can't tell if we have free will or not, but that the best course of action is to act as though we do (?)

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AndyDaBear t1_jef4l76 wrote

I am a believer in Free-Will, but do not think this argument proves Free-Will. My objections are as follows:

  1. If it is true that determinism is self defeating for the intuitive reasons suggested, this does not necessarily mean determinism is false. It just means that IF determinism is true then there is no valid argument for anything including determinism and everything else.
  2. I do not think it obvious if determinism and free will are a real dichotomy, and I do not think every one agrees with the particular meaning of either term but understand them somewhat differently. For example for my own working definition of Free-Will and Determinism they are not exclusive.
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bortlip t1_jdrb2ea wrote

It seems tht even just 1 and 2 together are self defeating.

  1. We should believe only the truth. (premise)
  2. If S should do A, then S can do A. (premise)

Can't we then say:

Conclusion: We can only believe the truth. Nothing we believe is false.

EDIT: Instead of downvoting, I'd love to hear why this is wrong.

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Kangewalter t1_je711a0 wrote

You're interpreting "we can only believe the truth" as "it is impossible for us to believe anything but the truth", while the relevant sense is clearly "it is possible for us to hold true beliefs without any false beliefs." Huemer does infer the former is true if determinism is true in step 5, but he needs the third premise for that (If determinism is true, then if S can do A, S does A.)

Also, the conclusion isn't necessarily self-defeating, it just seems implausible.

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