The causally undetermined choice

The causally undetermined choice To know if we can make sense of an indeterminate free will lesson 11

CAUSATION • Because causation is a fact of the universe it is hard to disprove. • Therefore libertarians attempt to side step the issues involved. • They do this in two ways: • Either show that causation is not applicable to everything in the universe • Identify human actions as unique and show how they are exempt from causation lesson 11

CAUSATION There are two ways to demonstrate how causation does not apply to everything in the universe. Chaos theory Quantum mechanics These theories attempt to prove that nature is indeterministic. Meaning that not everything is determined. lesson 11

INDETERMINISM • CHAOS THEORY: this theory proposes that there is apparently random behaviour within a deterministic system. This is not due to a lack of laws but to immeasurable variations in the initial conditions affecting the outcome of an event. • The classic example is a butterfly flapping its wings in Africa and causing a Hurricane in America. • QUANTUM MECHANICS: quantum physics proposes that at the sub-atomic level you can only predict the speed or the position of an atom. Therefore, there is an indeterminism that cannot be predicted built into nature. Physical determinism is therefore, not necessarily complete. • Schrodinger’ s cat: put a cat in a box with poison. Quantum determinism predicts that the cat could be both dead and alive therefore, you can never know unless you open the box. lesson 11

CAUSATION There are two ways to demonstrate how human actions are unique. Descartes and Mind Body dualism Kant and the noumenal realm These theories attempt to prove that human actions are unique and are causally undetermined. Meaning that choices are not determined. lesson 11

THE CAUSALLY UNDETERMINED CHOICE • For libertarians what matters is that choices are causally undetermined. Agents genuinely choose, themselves what to do. • We are free to act and morally responsible for those actions. • When we act we have an idea that we are acting and as ourselves as free agents. • Sometimes we are torn between two decisions both we feel equally uncertain about before making a decision. lesson 11

THE CAUSALLY UNDETERMINED CHOICE • In order for us to have true freedom of the will that action must be causally undetermined. • The agent being the sole cause of the action. • THERE MUST BE A UNCAUSED ACTION TO ENSURE FREEWILL • However this presents another problem. lesson 11

THE LIBERTARIAN DILEMMA Free will incompatible with determinism Indeterministic Free will Incompatiblist mountain • If determinism is false then our actions are not caused. • Science allows for uncaused events however these are random occurrences which happen merely by chance. • So if free actions must be undetermined, as libertarians claim, it seems that they too would happen by chance. • But how can chance events be free and responsible actions? • To solve the Libertarian Dilemma, libertarians must not only show that free will is incompatible with determinism, they must also show how free will can be compatible with indeterminism. lesson 11

Freedom of action vs. Freedom of will To understand the type of freedom libertarians want. lesson 12

FREEDOM OF ACTION vs. FREEDOM OF WILL • “A free agent is he that can do as he will, and forbear as he will, and that liberty is the absence of external impediments.” Hume • I am free to choose as long as nothing gets in my way. • “here liberty is defined as the power of acting or not acting, according to how I will something to be. • “if we choose to remain at rest, we may; if we choose to move, we also may...” Hume. • Everyone who is not a prisoner has freedom. lesson 12

HOWEVER... FREEDOM of action is not freedom of will. Remember Walden two – the citizens were able to choose whatever they wanted, it is just that everything they wanted was behaviourally engineered. Freedom of action does not give us moral responsibility. lesson 12

Solutions to the libertarian dilemma To understand three solutions to the libertarian dilemma lesson 13

MIND BODY DUALISM • René Descartes believed that the “mind” or “soul” was distinct from the body. The mind is outside the physical world and its activity would not be governed by laws of nature that govern physical events. • If, in addition, a disembodied mind or soul could interact with the physical world by influencing the brain, as Descartes imagined, then the mind or soul would be the “extra factor” libertarians need to explain free choice. • Whatever could not be fully explained by the activity of brain or body might be explained by the activity of the mind or soul. • For such a dualist solution to the Free will problem to work, the physical world would have to cooperate, allowing some indeterminism in nature, perhaps in the brain. It may be true that quantum jumps or other undetermined events in the brain would not by themselves amount to free choices. But undetermined events in the brain might provide the “leeway” or “causal gaps” in nature through which an extra factor, such as an immaterial mind or soul, might intervene in the physical world to influence physical events. • But the activity of the agent’s mind or soul would not be among the physical circumstances and would not be governed by laws of nature; and the activity of an immaterial mind or soul could account for why one choice was made rather than another. Thus free choices would not be arbitrary, random, or inexplicable after all; lesson 13

PROBLEMS WITH DUALISM DESCARTES 1596 -1650 You have to create a new substance unlike any other detectable by science and never heard of in order to justify Free will. It seems more likely that Free will doesn't exist! How exactly does a physical and non physical substance interact? “At the price of mystery you can have anything”... Schrödinger lesson 13

GHOST IN THE MACHINE Research yourself lesson 13

KANT AND NOUMENAL SELVES KANT 1724 –1804 • Something's have to stay mysterious! • Immanuel Kant thought libertarian freedom was necessary to make sense of morality and true responsibility. • But Kant also held that a libertarian freedom could not be understood in theoretical or scientific terms. • Science and reason, said Kant, can tell us only the way things appear to us in space and time—the world of phenomena. But science and reason cannot tell us about the way things are in themselves—the noumena. • thus, when scientists try to explain why an agent makes one free choice rather than another, if they are biochemists or neurologists, they will appeal to prior states and processes of agent’s brain and body, which appear to us in space and time. If the scientists are psychologists, they will appeal to prior states and processes of the agent’s mind • free choices are beyond scientific explanation. Our reason and moral responsibility necessitates it • we must presuppose we can keep the promise or break it and that it is “up to us” what we do. If we did not believe this, deliberating would make no sense. • Our real or noumenal selves can be free, he argues, because they are not subject to the constraints of space and time or the laws of nature. lesson 13

PROBLEMS WITH THE NOUMENAL • But when science and reason try to explain how the noumenal self can be free, they inevitably look for physical, psychological, or social causes of our behaviour; and then the scientists are describing only the self as it appears to us, the phenomenal self, not the noumenal or real self. • Indeed, anything we might say about this noumenal self—about its states or activities—would be describing its physical, psychological, or social circumstances, hence would be describing the phenomenal, not the real, self. • The noumenal self is thus the “extra factor” in Kant’s theory that is supposed to account for free will. But we cannot say how it does so. lesson 13

THE EXISTENTIALISTS JEAN PAUL SARTRE • Through mans freedom we understand what it means to be human. • First man exists and then he defines himself by his choices. People are born as morally empty slates. • It is by our free acts that we gain our self definition. • Because God does not exist our freedom makes us responsible for every decision we make. • This freedom is too much for some people to take and try to avoid their responsibility in the world. • These people are not fulfilling their true potential. • Human life involves choice ... So take control of your choices and live by them. • “Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.” lesson 13

HOMEWORK • Read through all of your notes, make sure you understand everything. • Write a list of questions or anything you do not understand. We will be having a ‘broken down’ lesson where you will be put into two classes for one week and you only attend one lesson and complete a set task in the other. lesson 13

The causally undetermined choice