No beauty without honor, no honor without agency.
Okay, this should be easy.
If an action is willed, then it's not free -- it's determined by that will; that's what "willed" means. If the action is free, then it's not determined by anything including a will. "Free will" is a contradiction in terms: If it's free it can't be willed, if willed it can't be free.
There's no third option in that logical space. It doesn't matter whether the world is deterministic or indeterministic, god or no god, whether personality is determined by genes or culture or upbringing or early traumas, it doesn't matter if personality is free of any such influences. Free will is self contradictory regardless.
If it's willed, you say, then that will might be free? Well, again either that will is free in which case it's not willed by anyone -- it's as it were, just random, not the will of anyone's intention -- or it's willed, in which case it's not free, it's determined by that will. And that will is either free-random or willed-determined, etc. You can see where this goes. It's not that this is an infinite regression. It's that it's always either free-random or it's willed-determined, it can't be both free and willed: because "free will" is self-contradictory.
So why is there any debate about this, and why has it persisted for millennia? Several things. One is that without free will it's hard to blame people or require that they take responsibility for their choices, and that's not just a moral philosophical problem, it's a practical legal one. How can we punish anti-social behavior if we can't blame it on the perpetrator?
Second, we don't generally have access to our own motivations. We live with imperfect knowledge of our selves, so we can't know exactly why we choose. It gives us the impression that our choices are authentic and autonomous, since we can't trace the causal train, if there is one. All we know is that our choices emerge from us -- our body. That looks like freedom, and it looks like our will, but it's really just ignorance: it could be willed beyond our self-awareness, or it could be free of any will so no will could be detected in a self-search. What's more, if we suppose that our choices are determined we're led into an impossible paradox, so we're stuck with this ignorant oxymoron. "I am writing this sentence because it was determined that I would" leads to an infinite recurrence -- I could have chosen not to write it, but that would have been equally determined, so both writing it and not writing it would both be determined, so how to decide which is the necessary determination? Which is mine? Similarly, if I suppose my choices are not determined, where do they come from? They'd be just random, not from me. So how do I choose from me? Trying to figure these puzzles out is an infinite waste of time, so it's easier just to own the "choice" of writing as if it were freely willed. The oxymoron is just a practical way of moving on in life, pretending to be an agent.
Also there's an important historical issue: the Christian god can't be both almighty and good if there's no free will. Why only the Christian god? Well, the Old Testament god says in a book called "Job" that he isn't good in the human sense. He's just bigger and stronger and greater than you; he does whatever the hell he pleases regardless however evil it may seem to you. He's the creator, you wouldn't exist were it not for him, end of story. Morality is not his problem, it's yours, you puny, pathetic thing. He's not a nice guy.
[You can read Moby Dick to get a thorough sense of just what a nasty bastard he is, and how much fun it is to complain about him in a lofty, poetic, beautiful, hefty, metaphor-rich story.]
But the Christian god is supposed to be good, and if he created some people whom he determined from the start would not only be evil in themselves, but cause harm to others, and then send them to eternal damnation -- that could not possibly be a good god at all. Create evil people to cause suffering everywhere? That'd be one nasty, unnecessarily wicked motherfucking god. So the created people must have free will so they can be responsible for their own damnation. Hence we have this oxymoron (that actually makes no sense at all) to save the soul of the deity and the religion.
There's yet another puzzle, the familiar question, do I know whether I'm going to raise my arm in ten seconds? If I claim that I can know this, I should be able to predict whether my arm is going up ten seconds from now. But of course I can't since I could decide at the last moment to defeat any prediction I made ten seconds prior.
But this puzzle is not a puzzle of free will. It's a puzzle about prediction. They are not the same. Suppose the weather is not precisely predictable. Does it therefore have free will? Solving this puzzle either with predictability or unpredictability does not entail anything about will or freedom. Whether your decisions are willed or not, free or not, the prediction problem remains. If some omniscient being knew all the states of your mind, and those states were all deterministic, then that being should be able to predict your behavior. But the existence of such a being does not remotely imply that you yourself have access to that information. And the existence of such a being entails by hypothesis that your decisions are determined, so not free. That's assuming what was to be proved.
What's an oxymoron, btw? Just what it sounds like. It's a contradiction in terms, an expression that contradicts itself, like a "circular square", and because it is self-contradictory, only a moron would believe it, hence an oxymoron -- the "oxy", from Greek, just means 'acutely': acutely moronic, impossibly stupid, or, most important in this discussion, impossible -- logically impossible -- because contradictory. It's a bit like the word "tolerance" which entails tolerating the intolerant, and you can see that contradictory intolerant actions will follow from such "tolerance". Sorry to say, you're fooling yourself if you think there's a consistent way to be tolerant. We all have limits ... of what we allow. But there's no limit to our arrogance -- some imagine themselves tolerant for whatever identity signaling reason. So oxymorons have plenty of social currency as signals. They are still contradictory and therefore impossible in reality. Signals are social. Reality is, well, just how it is.
And I repeat, and this is most important, "free will" is contradictory not only if the universe is deterministic. "Free will" is contradictory even if the world is non deterministic. "Free will" is contradictory if the mind is determined by genes or by culture. "Free will" is contradictory if the mind is not determined by genes or culture or anything else. "Free will" is contradictory even if the universe or the mind act with complete randomness. "Free will" is contradictory even if there's no such thing as cause and no relation of cause & effect. "Free will" is an oxymoron if a god exists, it's an oxymoron if no god exists. "Free will" is an oxymoron, so there can be no such thing.
Why, then, is there any debate over this acutely stupid expression? How could it be that for thousands of years philosophers -- and maybe even intelligent thinkers -- troubled over this oxymoron? I want to say, "beats me", but I am compelled to say, "people must be really really stupid. Or unthinking. We humans will believe whatever we want to believe, whether it's true or false or, as in the case of an oxymoron like free will, something that cannot possibly be true, something not just false but logically false. We want to believe that we're agents, and we all act as if we are agents, and in particular we want to take credit for the good things we do (not for the bad ones so much, we'd just like to forget those except when we want to punish ourselves), and we particularly want to punish people who harm us, so we want to believe that they are agents responsible for their own harmful behaviors. But this is all wishful thinking." It's wishful thinking not because actions are determined by genes or culture or upbringing or any cause. It's wishful thinking because free will is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms, so there isn't such a thing, and couldn't ever be such a thing no matter how deterministic on non deterministic the world and people may or may not be.
Wasn't that easy? Not convinced? I know you think it can't be that easy, given all the thousands of years of debate. Let me try again.
Suppose I bite into an apple. Did I will that action? If I did, then that action was willed. Was the will free? Suppose it was. Then there was no will behind my willing to take that bite. Now, let's think hard and clearly about this. If there was no will behind that choice, that means there was no desire to take that bite. Or if there was such a desire, that desire did not determine or will my choice. That lack of will or desire must be true of any impulse to take that bite -- not liking apples, not seeking health, nor assuaging hunger. If it's free, then it's free of all of them, including every possible motivation. One way to view it is that this leaves us with randomness. If my "choice" to bite the apple is free, it has no will of any kind behind it. It's random. That's free. But it's not willed.
Suppose instead that it is willed. In that case, either that will has some will or determination driving it, or it is free of any driving cause. If it is free of any driving cause, then it may be free but it's not willed. If there is a driving cause, then it's not free, it's willed by that cause. Let's call this the "drive or no drive" logic. You might say, but there is a will behind the will behind the choice to bite and that will is mine and free. But the drive or no drive logic applies to that will too. And to every will behind that one. They are all either free & unwilled or willed & not free. It's turtles all the way down, folks.
But wait, what if the action is sort of partly motivated by a will, and partly sort of random and free?
Okay, no problem. It's a random action that's been partly guided (?) by a will that is random or determined or partly random and partly determined. That doesn't mean that actions are the result of a free will. It just means that actions are influenced partly by determined will and partly by randomness. Such an act cannot, obviously, be the result of free will, because "free will" is contradictory, but it can be partly random and partly determined -- like breaking billiard balls that roll on the board, not everywhere in three dimensional space; it's partly random, partly limited by the board. Those turtles also go all the way down. There's just no coherent meaning to "free will" anymore than there is "square circle".
So why do people believe in free will? I think it's because, or partly because, we are unaware of what motivates us, so we, blithely ignorant as we are, just assume that we somehow make our choices from our "free" selves. If you think about that, it's kind of comical. You don't know why you're choosing what you're choosing, so you come to the conclusion that it's "me -- I'm choosing that!" Actually, you're just an idiot. I mean, a pawn, a pawn of some will you're unaware of. Any psychologist will tell you that. That's what the science of psychology is all and only about. But that's on a deterministic view of your choices. On the non deterministic view, you're not a pawn (what a relief!), you're just an idiot.
Free will is a sometimes useful illusion, no doubt. And being free from external constraints, like not being compelled to work at a boring job, or having lots of culinary choices, is usually a pleasure, though there's a lot to be said for structure and limitations that prevent us from our own excesses. But the popular notion of authenticity -- that there's a me inside my body that generates free choices, that's a chimera. It's responsible for many confusions and absurdities like the ghost in the machine -- my choices are generated by a "me" inside me, and how does that "me" inside me make decisions? Oh because it has a "me" inside it etc. None of it makes sense. Free will is just an illusion of consciousness, and consciousness (as I've written elsewhere) must be a passive observer, not an active agent. There's just no such thing as free will, Can't be.
Once you get rid of this chimera, it all makes sense. All the science, I mean. We make our choices beyond our awareness. We learn about it as we act and we justify ourselves after the fact. The reasons for those actions are usually consonant with our justifications after the fact, so we don't get too confused, but there is systematic conflict all the time. I want to be thin, so I want to avoid ice cream, I say to myself as I buy a pint of ice cream, then eat it and feel regret and decide I'm a failed person. It happens everyday, multiple times a day.
What should we all do about that? Now there's a big and useful debate. Too big for this post. Too big for any post. It's a debate that must be engaged continually as society confronts its challenges and attempts to resolve them. But holding on to acute stupids won't help.
Btw, the question of blame or responsibility was addressed often by Dostoevsky. It's not about having authenticity, it's about asserting the dignity of one's authenticity. It's an old existentialist move. Are you an authentic agent? Probably not. Do you want to appear to be? Do you want to be remembered as one? Then claim your acts as yours. It's a tragic claim, since it's really a delusion. No honor without agency.
The hero of Henry IV part 1, Harry Hotspur, lives for honor and all that's good in himself and in the perception of his peers. When Prince Hal, for whom honor as king-to-be is a burden he avoids, kills Hotspur, it's so tragic because honor embraces all that is good and noble in the world, all its beauty and grace and grandeur. As soon as Hal leaves the stage, Falstaff, who has no honor, defiles the dead body, pronouncing the honor is a sham. It's a horrible and disgraceful scene, painful to watch, but it's funny too. Honor and agency are a sham, but they are beautiful and noble shams. And the reality of life and living is tawdry and pointless, morality and honor a desperate jonesing for approval. That's our world: an ambiguous fiction.
When I was 19 or 20, a Greek friend, also 20 years old, told me that humans are here to understand the world. It's an Aristotelean perspective in which contemplating the universe is the highest virtue, but also consistent with Darwinian selection -- we're selected for cognition, and we alone among species on earth, maybe even the universe, capable of understanding the universe and everything in it. We have a symbolic language capable of handling any idea, and we're lucky to have opposable thumbs to make all sorts of stuff to test out how things work. We're alone in that, so far as we know. So figuring out how the universe and everything in it is what we should be doing. If we're not doing that, we're underachieving. And here's my lame advice to myself: forget about yourself and focus on understanding the world, and that includes understanding your own psyche -- not focusing on your troubles, but understanding your psyche as a system out there in the world. That's interesting and engaging. Focusing on your troubles is at best navel-gazing, at worst, dwelling and aggravating your troubles. Liberate yourself! Free your will! lol
Here's the tragic scene from Henry IV 1
| HOTSPUR | O, Harry, thou hast robb'd me of my youth! | |
| I better brook the loss of brittle life | 80 | |
| Than those proud titles thou hast won of me; | ||
| They wound my thoughts worse than sword my flesh: | ||
| But thought's the slave of life, and life time's fool; | ||
| And time, that takes survey of all the world, | ||
| Must have a stop. O, I could prophesy, | 85 | |
| But that the earthy and cold hand of death | ||
| Lies on my tongue: no, Percy, thou art dust | ||
| And food for-- | ||
| [Dies] | ||
| PRINCE HENRY | For worms, brave Percy: fare thee well, great heart! | |
| Ill-weaved ambition, how much art thou shrunk! | 90 | |
| When that this body did contain a spirit, | ||
| A kingdom for it was too small a bound; | ||
| But now two paces of the vilest earth | ||
| Is room enough: this earth that bears thee dead | ||
| Bears not alive so stout a gentleman. | 95 | |
| If thou wert sensible of courtesy, | ||
| I should not make so dear a show of zeal: | ||
| But let my favours hide thy mangled face; | ||
| And, even in thy behalf, I'll thank myself | ||
| For doing these fair rites of tenderness. | 100 | |
| Adieu, and take thy praise with thee to heaven! | ||
| Thy ignominy sleep with thee in the grave, | ||
| But not remember'd in thy epitaph! | ||
| [He spieth FALSTAFF on the ground] | ||
| What, old acquaintance! could not all this flesh | ||
| Keep in a little life? Poor Jack, farewell! | 105 | |
| I could have better spared a better man: | ||
| O, I should have a heavy miss of thee, | ||
| If I were much in love with vanity! | ||
| Death hath not struck so fat a deer to-day, | ||
| Though many dearer, in this bloody fray. | 110 | |
| Embowell'd will I see thee by and by: | ||
| Till then in blood by noble Percy lie. | ||
| [Exit PRINCE HENRY] | ||
| FALSTAFF | [Rising up] Embowelled! if thou embowel me to-day, | |
| I'll give you leave to powder me and eat me too | ||
| to-morrow. 'Sblood,'twas time to counterfeit, or | 115 | |
| that hot termagant Scot had paid me scot and lot too. | ||
| Counterfeit? I lie, I am no counterfeit: to die, | ||
| is to be a counterfeit; for he is but the | ||
| counterfeit of a man who hath not the life of a man: | ||
| but to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby | 120 | |
| liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and | ||
| perfect image of life indeed. The better part of | ||
| valour is discretion; in the which better part I | ||
| have saved my life.'Zounds, I am afraid of this | ||
| gunpowder Percy, though he be dead: how, if he | 125 | |
| should counterfeit too and rise? by my faith, I am | ||
| afraid he would prove the better counterfeit. | ||
| Therefore I'll make him sure; yea, and I'll swear I | ||
| killed him. Why may not he rise as well as I? | ||
| Nothing confutes me but eyes, and nobody sees me. | 130 | |
| Therefore, sirrah, | ||
| [Stabbing him] | ||
| with a new wound in your thigh, come you along with me. | ||
| [Takes up HOTSPUR on his back] | ||
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