{"id":2449,"date":"2012-04-02T13:35:13","date_gmt":"2012-04-02T17:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?p=2449"},"modified":"2012-12-21T14:56:39","modified_gmt":"2012-12-21T19:56:39","slug":"if-only-i-werent-determined-to-fight-about-free-will","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/04\/if-only-i-werent-determined-to-fight-about-free-will.html","title":{"rendered":"If only I weren’t determined to fight about free will!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The Chronicle of Higher Education is holding an essay symposium on Free Will<\/a> and I have so many<\/em> problems with Jerry Coyne\u2019s contribution: \u201cYou Don\u2019t Have Free Will<\/a>.\u201d \u00a0To begin with, I have a general suspicion that the debate over free will is terrible at least in part because the definition of free will is incoherent. \u00a0(Yudkowsky has a good essay on recognizing and defusing\u00a0definitional\u00a0debates<\/a>).<\/p>\n

What we are fumbling after is the\u00a0reason<\/em> we are morally culpable for our own actions. \u00a0Why do we talk about having ownership of them and responsibility for them? \u00a0If both the normal function of the hand and Strangelove syndrome<\/a> are both just the result of induced chemical reactions, why do we treat one as\u00a0aberrant\u00a0and in need of cure?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The definition of \u2018Free Will\u2019 that Coyne offers doesn\u2019t solve this problem and isn\u2019t worth attacking or defending:<\/p>\n

I construe free will the way I think most people do: At the moment when you have to decide among alternatives, you have free will if you could have chosen otherwise<\/em>. To put it more technically, if you could rerun the tape of your life up to the moment you make a choice, with every aspect of the universe configured identically, free will means that your choice could have been different.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We\u2019re not hoping simply to end up in equipoise, where our choices could go either way\u00a0arbitrarily. \u00a0An identity that persists through time does<\/em> limit how our choices come out. \u00a0That\u2019s the point.<\/p>\n

But the bit that most confused me came later in the essay. \u00a0Coyne wrote:<\/p>\n

So what are the consequences of realizing that physical determinism negates our ability to choose freely? Well, nihilism is not an option: We humans are so constituted, through evolution or otherwise, to believe that we can choose. What is seriously affected is our idea of moral responsibility, which should be discarded along with the idea of free will. If whether we act well or badly is predetermined rather than a real choice, then there is no moral responsibility\u2014only actions that hurt or help others. That realization shouldn\u2019t seriously change the way we punish or reward people, because we still need to protect society from criminals, and observing punishment or reward can alter the brains of others, acting as a deterrent or stimulus. What we should discard is the idea of punishment as retribution, which rests on the false notion that people can choose to do wrong.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Is the only reason nihilism is off the table because we\u2019re not free<\/em> to come to our senses? \u00a0(And, come to think of it, what\u2019s the point<\/em> of writing a persuasive essay against free will in the first place? \u00a0Coyne must be acting from necessity, not hoping we\u2019ll choose to change our mind).<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t understand why, in Coyne\u2019s framework, the false notion he\u2019s trying to root out is that \u201cpeople can choose<\/em> to do wrong\u201d when it already looks like \u2018wrong\u2019 has no place in his world. \u00a0Wrong compared to what? \u00a0Is there a difference between humans hurting other humans and a parasitic wasp laying eggs inside a still-living caterpillar<\/a>?<\/p>\n

\"\"
I like you all too much to embed a picture of parasitic wasp larvae wriggling out of a caterpillar. This is a yawning baby hedgehog instead.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My half-fleshed out answer is that we\u2019ve got access to something different<\/em> in our environment than the wasps do. \u00a0As the animal that thinks, we have access to abstractions, specifically the Moral Law. \u00a0Knowledge of the moral law, even imperfect knowledge, is a new<\/em> constraint on our thought and actions, and it\u2019s one we should welcome.<\/p>\n

Does this get me back into the morass of weird neo-Platonism that makes both sides angry at me<\/a>? Well, yeah. \u00a0But I\u2019d rather get caught in contradictions in my proposed solution than in my denial that something here needs<\/em> explanation in the first place. \u00a0My\u00a0position\u00a0doesn\u2019t let me brush off the problem, so there\u2019s more pressure on me to fix my philosophy.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Chronicle of Higher Education is holding an essay symposium on Free Will and I have so many problems with Jerry Coyne\u2019s contribution: \u201cYou Don\u2019t Have Free Will.\u201d \u00a0To begin with, I have a general suspicion that the debate over free will is terrible at least in part because the definition of free will is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,48],"tags":[71,39,147],"class_list":["post-2449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-epistemologyphilosophy","category-morality-in-practice","tag-free-will","tag-freedom-means-choosing-a-master","tag-whence-moral-law"],"yoast_head":"\nIf only I weren't determined to fight about free will!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Chronicle of Higher Education is holding an essay symposium on Free Will and I have so 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