How a groundbreaking 1964 study 'introduced a genuine neurological argument against free will' https://t.co/RRa0ptLSrC
— Raw Story (@RawStory) November 29, 2021
Well, I should have read the Atlantic article (in my defense, it's behind a paywall, and most Atlantic articles these days grossly disappoint me. Free will sucks.). Fortunately, Thought Criminal did it for me:
Is everything we do determined by the cause-and-effect chain of genes, environment, and the cells that make up our brain, or can we freely form intentions that influence our actions in the world? The topic is immensely complicated, and Schurger’s valiant debunking underscores the need for more precise and better-informed questions.
“Philosophers have been debating free will for millennia, and they have been making progress. But neuroscientists barged in like an elephant into a china shop and claimed to have solved it in one fell swoop,” Maoz says. In an attempt to get everyone on the same page, he is heading the first intensive research collaboration between neuroscientists and philosophers, backed by $7 million from two private foundations, the John Templeton Foundation and the Fetzer Institute. At an inaugural conference in March, attendees discussed plans for designing philosophically informed experiments, and unanimously agreed on the need to pin down the various meanings of “free will.”
In that, they join Libet himself. While he remained firm on his interpretation of his study, he thought his experiment was not enough to prove total determinism—the idea that all events are set in place by previous ones, including our own mental functions. “Given the issue is so fundamentally important to our view of who we are, a claim that our free will is illusory should be based on fairly direct evidence,” he wrote in a 2004 book. “Such evidence is not available.”
The opening sentence there could be lifted straight from David Hume, in the 18th century; or perhaps Aristotle, earlier than that (though given what Aristotle wrote about tragedy (the literary genre, not the "little girl's dog run over" popular culture kind) probably not). What perplexes me is the first line of the second paragraph: "Philosophers have been debating free will for millenia...." Really? Who? Kierkegaard? Derrida? Kant? Wittgenstein? Quine? Foucault? (well, maybe Foucault, actually; but I don't really think so).
It was a lively argument when the Church still dominated European society, hence Hume taking it on in his discussion of "natural religion." Kant, IIRC, sidestepped it in his discussion of morality and ethics, and ever since it has petered out into a field dominated by ardent Calvinists (one the one hand) and brainless atheists on the other, the latter who imagine it's the "A-HA" claim that ruins Christianity (hint: it isn't).
As most philosophers and theologians figured out centuries ago (Hume's 18th century atheism was the last gasp of the "free will" argument, IMHPO): who cares? Put simply, nobody believes we don't have free will. If there is no free will, there is no agency, and there is no responsibility for one's actions. Either I can choose not to commit rape and murder and robbery and pillage; or I can't. If I can, and don't control myself, society is perfectly right to punish me for my crimes. But if I can't control myself, then how can I be held responsible for my actions? I saw a rioter on Jan. 6th is trying to plead that he was high and drunk when he stormed the Capitol. Yeah, try that as a defense, or as ameliorating circumstances, if ever you are the driver who hit someone while you were DUI. It might go to intent, in his case; it won't go to culpability, except the degree thereof (if at all).
(I understand the philosophers signing on to this "intensive research collaboration" with neuroscientists. They need the money and the sense of purpose, especially in America; and what better way to get it than rubbing elbows with the high priests of science, especially the ones who actually work, scientifically!, with the issue of human consciousness! I do wish them luck with that first step, though. A definition of "free will"? Which can be scientifically examined? Shades of Hume!(see below). I don't see that one working out. I am curious as to where neuroscientists get their definitions of so unscientific a concept as "free will," though. Maybe they'll find out it comes from philosophers. That could be an appropriate closing of that circle.)
The question of free will only impinges, IMHT(heological)O, in the matter of salvation. If you are born damned to perdition for all time but for the saving grace of our Lord and Savior, and if there is no hope for you but to accept Jesus full and completely into your heart RIGHT THIS MINUTE!, well, then, free will is still an issue. Are you free to choose? Not choosing sounds pretty bad. And how is it you're damned anyway? Did you choose to be damned? If you were damned from birth, your will has nothing to do with your damnation, except as you are free to choose to remain damned, or to grasp salvation. But if you didn’t choose to be damned, what’s the point of free will?
Well, that's one version of a Christian soteriology; and it's one I have completely discarded. My version doesn't depend on a free will which is somehow only exercisable in the question of salvation, but otherwise I'm damned to make mistakes and hurt people and do wrong, etc., etc., etc. I've never bought that. And without that particular soteriological framework, I can't much see the purpose of arguing the point.
I agree we have moral responsibilities, and even that those responsibilities only line up with recognition of "something", as the cliche has it, "greater than ourselves." Sartre tried to replace God in morality with common humanity; when you choose for yourself you choose for humankind. A bit too abstract, though, and more likely to create moral paralysis than moral clarity. I prefer the importance of God in matters of how we should then live.
But free will? What's the point of arguing it? It's rather like Hume's other dead-end paradox: analytical statements v. synthetic statements. The former are products of empirically verified fact: "This stone weighs x." The latter cannot be empirically established: "This flower is beautiful." Okay; when you've reduced all human knowledge to those two frames, what have you done? Well, I suppose left us free to talk about phenomenology; or pragmatism. Or idealism, if somebody wants to resurrect Kant again. Me, I prefer phenomenology. Free will? Who cares? I'm free not to; aren't you? If you establish free will, what have you accomplished? If you claim free will is a fiction, who cares what your proof is? I had to love my wife, I had no free will in the matter? Why do I still love her after 50 years? I don't, it's an illusion? Sure, buddy. Likewise I have to love my daughter, she's my offspring? What about people who hate and abuse the child of their body?
I had a bad childhood, therefor I’m a bad person? I’ve known people with bad childhoods who were wonderful people. You chase down those causal chains. Me, I've got better things to worry about. Like how I should then live.
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