Free Will

I appreciate the continued engagement from my debate opponent. This is turning out to be pretty fun for my first debate experience here. I'll get right into my rebuttal. Con, I think, is starting to delve into topics that aren't relevant to the debate. Con brings up chaos in the universe, which I assume he means to be completely random and unpredictable events, to show that he isn't a determinist. It might be the case that Con is not a determinist about certain events in the universe, maybe there is some randomness, but we are talking about the will and whether it is determined or free. If the will is not free it is determined by past occurrences and external stimuli. If one of these proposed chaotic events happens, it may influence the path that the will will take, but the will is still being determined by that event. Con has stated that they don't believe an agent controls the will, so that leaves the events and stimuli to affect whatever we choose to do, and that is determinism as it applies to the will. Talking about chaos in the universe is just a red herring. My first argument: For someone to be responsible for an action, as it applies to this debate, would mean that there was no constraint on the individual to choose one way or the other and there was no coercion in making that choice and that the choice originated in the individual. It is a moral/rational responsibility. One simply being the actor in an event does not mean they are necessarily responsible for what they have done. For instance, a robot could be the actor in playing a piano, but that robot is not the one responsible for that action. The one who programmed the robot is. The robot could not have not done what its programmer had determined for it to do, and it was not the one who decided to act as such. It only did what it was determined to do. Likewise, if we don't have free will, then we are constrained to do what we do by our programming; what the physical synapses in our brains cause us to do in response to external stimuli. It is not us deciding what to do, but it is the events around us that cause us to act. Therefore, we cannot choose otherwise and we are not the origin of our choices. The dog example fails, I think, to refute what we're speaking of as being responsible in this debate. We do not hold dogs morally responsible when they steal food, because dogs, as far as we know, do not do things with intention. If they do lack a will of any kind, they are simply responding to the external stimuli. That is why we don't charge dogs with theft when they steal food. We don't think they are in control of those kinds of urges. But we as humans not only are responsible for what we do, we expect people who break the law to have been able to not break the law. They should have acted otherwise, and that implies that they actually can. Has Con provided a reason to think my first argument is faulty? I don't think so. They complained about my use of the word responsible, but after clarification, that the responsibility in question is moral/rational responsibility, and expansion on my argument, I think it clearly holds. Until Con can refute either of the premises of this first argument, then by modus tollens, it follows deductively. Second argument: As I predicted, premise 2 is the controversial premise. I don't think Con has actually attempted to deal with the premise. In attacking the premise Con says, "We can be wrong. It can be the case that what is true is not obvious without further investigation. Such as quantum mechanics. We at one point in history (ancient Greece) could believe that we have to be able to choose, but as time goes by we learn more and more how more and more of our actions are in fact determined." I don't know how this is supposed to counter to my argument. Con is begging the question in a couple of different ways. 1) Con is assuming a rational process of coming to knowledge when he says that we have discovered that our actions are determined after all. That is exactly what is up for debate; is a rational process of discovering truth possible if our wills are determined? 2) He's assuming our actions are determined, which is the subject of this debate. Not to mention that this really doesn't matter. Of course we can be wrong about things. But if our wills are determined, then what we're wrong about we couldn't have been right about. As philosopher William Lane Craig points out: **"There is a sort of dizzying, self-defeating character to determinism. For if one comes to believe that determinism is true, one has to believe that the reason he has come to believe it is simply that he was determined to do so. One has not in fact been able to weigh the arguments pro and con and freely make up one's mind on that basis. The difference between the person who weighs the arguments for determinism and rejects them and the person who weighs them and accepts them is wholly that one was determined by causal factors outside himself to believe and the other not to believe. When you come to realize that your decision to believe in determinism was itself determined and that even your present realization of that fact right now is likewise determined, a sort of vertigo sets in, for everything that you think, even this very thought itself, is outside your control. Determinism could be true; but it is very hard to see how it could ever be rationally affirmed, since its affirmation undermines the rationality of its affirmation."** http://www.reasonablefaith.org... Con says, "The defense of premise 2 all hinges on determinism which I don't maintain because I understand that there are certain unpredictable things in the quantum world that do not have free will." But we aren't talking about unpredictability in the quantum world, we're talking about whether the will is free. If it is not, then it is determined. So while Con may not believe all events are determined, certainly he believes the will is; he's said he does. If not, then I have no idea what we're debating. Con may be surprised to learn that quantum indeterminacy is actually quite popular among free will theorists such as Robert Kane. They think that it may actually point to the origin of making free choices. Con is using a free will argument. Con is correct in that we are talking about the source of actions. Unless we choose our actions, we aren't the source of them. Something else would be. Con seems to not realize that agent causation is not the only theory of libertarian free will. There are several options that do not appeal to an immaterial agent. Since my opponent's quibble with premise 2 didn't really substantively deal with it, and begged the question, I think that argument 2 is still sound. I have offered 2 arguments for free will that I think are good and have withstood the scrutiny offered so far. But remember, my opponent also bears a burden of proof. If you recall, they claim that free will is not only false, are arguing against the very idea of free will. So, my opponent needs to 1) refute my arguments, 2) argue that free will is in fact false, and 3) show that free will is somehow an incoherent concept. Unless and until this is done, I think it is clear that free will is coherent and we actually posses it.