From: exukjb@exu.ericsson.se (ken bell)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: the meaning of "freewill"
Date: 15 Sep 92 16:38:04 GMT
Organization: Ericsson Network Systems, Inc.

In article <cjenning.1hug@terapin.com> cjenning@terapin.com (Craig Jennings) writes:
>From: cjenning@terapin.com (Craig Jennings)
>Subject: Re: the meaning of "freewill"
>Date: 15 Sep 92 00:41:07 PST

>In article <0096075D.6F4145A0@Msu.oscs.montana.edu>,
>uphrrmk@Msu.oscs.montana.edu (Me) writes:
>>
>>      I find it an untennable position to deny the existance of
>> Free Will. To say that you have no free will implies that only
>> outside events affect your actions. In this case, "you" do not
>> have any impact on anything. If a thing has no influence what-
>> soever, it may as well not exist, as you can never say anything
>> about it.  You effectively commit suicide.
>>
>>      Hard to discuss philosophy if you don't exist, therefore
>> I must have free will (yours optional).  QED
>>

>The problem I have with this is mainly in your statement "if a thing has no
>influence whatsoever, it may as well not exist, as you can never say anything
>about it." Your "as" indicates that "you can never say anything about it" is a
>reason for saying "it may as well not exist." But so things exist without our
>ability to say things about them? Not being able to say anything about X has
>nothing to do with whether X exists or not. But maybe this "as" indicates the
>phrase is an afterthought, an elaboration as the "as" functions in this
>sentence.

>The rest of the premise looks shaky: "if a thing has no influence whatsoever,
>it may as well not exist." But the picture this suggests doesn't look right for
>Determinism. In my interpretation of not having any free will, we become a tool
>for the controlling forces of, asy, genetics and responses to our environment.
>So it is not necessary to *I* be here to type in this post, I am doing it only
>because of causal forces stretching backwards beyond my control. BUT what IS
>necessary is someone wiht relevant genetics in the right environment. I have
>become a cog in the machine, even a replaceable one. So in this sense, I may as
>well have not existed, but this does not mean that I have effectively committed
>suicide.

>"Hard to discuss philosophy if you don't exist", then, doesn't follow. I do
>exist, even if as a replaceable cog, and philosophy is discussed because even
>this too has been determined long before.

>I want to say that I agree with some of this argument, that Determinism has no
>place in it for a person with decision-making powers, a person with a real
>choice. I just don't know where to find the room. 

>All responses, flames, whatever are welcome.

>-Craig Jennings
>e-mail cjenning@terapin.com

You might want to consider that modern philosophers have pretty much moved 
the discussion of the problem[s] of free will into the Compatibilist arena.
The issue being disputed now isn't whether people possess this thing called
a "will" that may or not be "free", but whether total determinism is 
logically compatible with the rationality of making judgements of moral 
responsibility, holding people accountable for their actions, and ascribing 
the ordinary garden-variety epithets and distinctions of "voluntary" and
"involuntary" and "responsible" to human action.  In other words, the 
problem now is over compatibilism's tenability.  And the term "free will" is 
retained in these discussions mainly out of respect for philosophical 
tradition. 

I still think there is much to be said for discussing the problem in 
traditional terms, but you should consider that few sophisticated people 
are "hard determinists" anymore; most are compatibilists. They argue that  
if you look at our actual talk and patterns of judgement about people and 
their behavior you'll see that we do talk of people doing things freely, 
voluntarily, etc; and that none of this language is inconsistent with 
holding people responsible for their behavior.  And they point out that 
these judgements of moral responsibility and the practices and beliefs built 
on them are consistent with total causal-psychic determinism in the 
metaphysical sense.
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