Subject: Compatibilism

From: [email-masked] (ASP-Disc)
Date: Sun, 5 Feb 1995 20:24:18 -0500

From: Ben "Top o' the Food Chain" Kovitz <[email-masked]>

Bryan Caplan wrote:

>                                                   I think it's pretty
> clear that the compatibilist is just a hard-core determinist who
> doesn't like having to admit that he doesn't believe in free will,
> so he re-defines "free will" to mean something very different from the
> ordinary meaning of the term.

Here's why I am willing to take seriously the possibility that, even
though we clearly have free will, we might still be fully deterministic
automatons at the micro-level.  (I assume that's what "compatibilism"
means, but it sure helps a lot to say this stuff clearly and explicitly.)

The evidence for free will--or, at least the evidence that convinces me--
is primarily introspective, or at least at the everyday level of people
doing stuff, talking to each other, lying to each other, suing each other,
selling each other shoddy furniture, etc.  And as I understand free will,
it is a distinct sort of causation: I cause myself to make certain choices
from among certain sets of alternatives, and my choice is not caused by
anything else--as opposed to, say, the motions of a billiard ball, which
moves only when smacked by another billiard ball, and moves in a way
fully determined by that other billiard ball.  This conception of free
will, if I understand you correctly, Bryan, is exactly the same as yours.
(I found it *very* refreshing to see someone point out that quantum-
mechanical unpredictability or even metaphysical randomness is still
nothing like free will.)

So, basically, the evidence for free will is all at the everyday level,
not the micro-level, and *so is the conclusion*.  None of the everyday
entities that we can, under normal conditions, suspect even as candidate
causes for our actions--beach balls, parents, lawyers, shoddy furniture,
lawn ornaments, provocative clothing, etc.--ever pushes our conscious
decisions around in the manner that billard balls get pushed around.
In fact, about that proposition, no reasonable disagreement is possible.
Anyone who says that, contrary to all appearances, lawn ornaments make
them decide what to buy and at what quantities is simply being silly.

BUT, the big question is: what about, say, the atoms that we are made of?
Our introspective and everyday evidence tells us nothing about them, not
even that they exist.  Our introspective evidence tells us nothing about
how our brains work, or what, if anything, brains have to do with mental
states, or, for that matter, even that we have brains.  I once spent about
forty-five minutes talking with a woman who insisted that her introspective
experiences with painting verified the popular theories about which mental
functions are performed by the right side of the brain and which are
performed by the left.  No, no, no: you can't tell jack-diddly about
what's going on in your brain by noticing how happy you are or how clearly
you can remember what horses look like or any other sort of introspection.
If you want to know about brains, you have to get out the electrodes and
physically play with some real brains.

If we are made of absolutely nothing but atoms, and atoms are essentially
billard balls, pushing each other about and never giving each other
any alternatives to choose between, then it follows that we are indeed
deterministic automatons--and without conflicting in the slightest with
any of our everyday or introspective experience.  We would still need
to deliberate.  We would still choose from among alternatives.  We
would still sometimes get knowledge and sometimes be deluded and
sometimes remain ignorant.  The notion of 'blame' would still make
sense.  Facts about what we should and should not do would still be
worth learning, because, once learned, they would give us the ability to
act more wisely.  We should still sue purveyors of shoddy furniture
misrepresented as of non-termite-laden quality.  Lawn ornaments and
provocative clothing would still not make our decisions for us.  Rather,
our deliberations and decisions would themselves *be* complicated motions
of atoms.  Viewed in the network of everyday objects and the effects they
exert on each other, there would still be no causal laws relating everyday
properties to our volitional actions.  But, viewed at the atomic level,
there would be such laws.  It would be atoms pushing atoms, which together
make up minds; not social mores or advertising or poddy-training or
upbringing or socioeconomic background pushing minds--which is all the
doctrine of free will seeks to establish, amd mainly what the deniers of
free will wish to deny.

Now, I find it rather hard to believe that any sort of mental phenomenon,
volitional or otherwise, could *be* any amount of motions of atoms.  But
that is another matter.  The point is: given that we *are* nothing but
atoms, it does not follow that we would experience anything differently
than we do, including the experiences that you rightly point to as
justifying our belief in free will.

Lastly, if you want to argue that indeed things would be very different
for us were we deterministic automatons at the micro-level, I am eager
to listen and you might even convince me.  But notice, then, that
you'd be arguing something substantive: for this is no mere semantic
dispute, born only of cleverly redefining the term "free will".