What I hope to accomplish here is a brief summary of the questions and issues surrounding the notion of free will. The philosophical positions enumerated here are the ones that are behind (though with variations) the ones espoused in the diablog on soteriology. (Note: Perry also has a good, detailed summary of the philosophical issues and questions here.)
First of all, the very notion of the "free will" is, itself, philosophically difficult to nail down. What we mean by "free will" is notoriously difficult to articulate. While all of the interblogolocutors in the soteriology debate can start with a rather strong affirmation of some of the central doctrines on which our discussion is based, even among ourselves we have differing views on what we mean by "free will." Is the will a faculty the nature, or the operation of a person? Is the will "free," and to what extent? And (given our answer to the extent we posit freedom to the will) what difference does that make? Is choosing different than willing? Can the will be determined but choice remain free? What sense can we make of "free choice"? I don't propose here to answer these questions--after all, the philosophical discussion itself is laborious and ongoing--but only to survey some of the important issues, and to clarify broad positions.
Free will usually indicates some state of affairs such that the human agent can and does rationally author, or reasonably causes, his or her own acts. (But this description hardly covers all the possible options available in the current philosophical debate.) In other words, free will is usually tied to the notion of causation of actions. In general, two interrelated questions are asked about this question:
Depending on how one answers those two questions, there are four possible positions that one take on the matter of free human action and the compatibility of free will with one's answer to the question on free human action:
| Determinism | Indeterminism | |
| Incompatibilism | (Hard) Determinist | Libertarian |
| Compatibilism | Soft Determinist (Compatibilist) | Sceptic |
The question of determinism focuses on outcomes, or effects, of antecedent causes and events; i. e., Does human willing always entail one and only one consequent action derived from antecedent causes or events? The question of indeterminism focuses on the possibility of alternate outcomes from one set of antecedent causes or events; i. e., Are there at least two alternative possible consequent acts from the antecedent causes and events to which human willing can be directed?
The question of compatibilism focuses on the quality of freedom a will must have to will freely; i. e., What sense does it make to say a will is free though human action is determined? The question of incompatibilism focuses on the coherence of having a will that is free; i. e., What sense does it make to say a will is free though human action is determined (or, undetermined)?
Those who claim human action is determined fall into two broad camps: hard determinists and compatibilists (or sometimes called "soft determinists"). Hard determinists answer the question on compatibility in the negative: free will and determinism don't jibe. Thus, "free will" is essentially a contradiction, and nonsensical. One can always and only will one consequence, which is determined by antecedent causes or events. The will is not free from this causal chain, nor free to direct it. In current philosophical discussion on free will, this is an extremely rare position.
Compatibilists, however, argue that though human action is determined by antecedent causes and events, the will is free within those constraints. That is to say, though the will is determined toward one and only one consequent human act, the will is free to will that act. Compatibilists make use of "Frankfurt examples" to show that free will (and with it moral responsibility) is not predicated upon the necessity that there be two or more alternative possibilities available to an agent. An agent can be constrained by causes and events (internal and external) toward only one consequent action, yet still be free to act and thus responsible for that action. In current philosophical discussion on free will, this is to a great degree a majority position.
Libertarians (or, incompatibilists) argue that human action is not determined by antecedent causes or events (that there are at least two alternative possible actions one may choose to fulfill) and that it is coherent to speak of free will in the context of such indeterminism. That is to say, future human actions are not a result of chance or luck, even though at any given moment of decision the outcome is undetermined and (in the case of two alternatives) could go either way. Some libertarians make us of the examples of the indeterminancy principle in physics as well as recent findings in brain physiology of parallel neural pathways, to bolster their case that free will is not merely chance or luck. Libertarians, with compatibilists, posit that the will is free and therefore that humans are indeed the authors of their actions and morally responsible for them. It should be noted that libertarians are not required to argue that all human action is undetermined, but that at least some human action is free. Thus, even if it were shown that some human action is determined, this would not invalidate the libertarian case, per se. Libertarians, though a smaller group of those involved in the free will discussions in philosopohy than are the compatibilists, still make up the primary alternative to compatibilism. There are two currently popular forms of libertarianism: causal indeterminism, which focuses on the ultimately responsible choice of the undetermined human action caused by free will (a self-forming act), and agent causation, which focuses on the control an agent has over the events he or she causes.
Finally, with regard to sceptics, the chart may appear misleading. It may appear from the chart that sceptics think free will is compatible with indeterminism. But one should remember that there are two questions that are being asked: is human action determined, and is free will compatible with determinism? Sceptics align with libertarians in positing that human actions are undetermined. But sceptics differ from libertarians in that they also happen to find the whole concept of an undetermined human act caused by a free will incoherent. They are not necessarily claiming that the freedom of human actions are compatible with indeterminism per se, but that it simply makes no sense to speak of an undetermined free will; i. e., these are usually the critics of libertarianism that raise the issue of chance or luck, which itself invalidates the whole notion of free will, for it invalidates having any control over human actions. Sceptics align with compatibilists, not in the sense that free will is compatible with determinism, but rather that they deny the sort of free will that libertarians posit. Some think that free will scepticism is a growing coterie of advocates in the philosophical discussions on free will.
Clearly, as these philosophical questions relate to our soteriology discussion, Perry and I take what may be called a libertarian position (though Perry and I might have some slight differences between us in our individaul accounts of free will), while Darren, Kevin and John take what may be called a compatibilist position. The specific issues and questions of these two theological positions on free will have been and are being elucidated and analyzed.
Posted by Clifton at April 6, 2005 02:25 PM | TrackBackHey Clifton,
The taxonomy seems mistaken. Libertarians and Hard Determinists are both Incompatibilists. Soft Determinism is a thicker claim than Compatibilism. All Soft Determinists are Compatibilists but not all Compatibilists are Soft Determinists. The difference is that SD's think that determinism is true and there is freedom. Likewise, Libertarianism is a thicker claim than mere incompatibilism. Lib's think that there is no determinism and there is free will.
Causal indeterminism is not a species of libertarianism. Causal indeterminism is a necessary condition for the two main types of libertarianism. What differentiates those two main types (Teleologists and Agent Causal Theorists/Agent Causation) is whether there is more than one kind of causation in the world. Teleologists say there is only one kind, event causation while Agent Causal theorists say there are two kinds, event and agent causation.
Kevin, Darren and John seem to be Soft Determinists because they hold that not only is freedom/moral responsibility compatible with determinism but that the two theses are true-there is determinism and there is freedom/moral responsibility.
Posted by: Perry Robinson at April 6, 2005 11:15 PMPerry:
Thanks for catching the error in the chart. It was more a mistake of learning how to do html tables than anything else. I've corrected it.
My exposition of libertarianism below the chart was actually in conflict with what the once-erring chart said, so hopefully folks paid more attention to the exposition than the chart. I did have one misleading phrase in the exposition (that "libertarians, with compatibilists, posit that the will is free . . .") but this wasn't so much based on the chart as it was based on libertarian and compatibilist claims about moral responsibility tied to free will. In any case, I've removed the clause ("with compatibilists") so as to hopefully avoid confusing the two.
As to the claims of compatibilism and soft determinism: Hey, a chart can only do so much! You are right to point out the distinction, but in the terminology, soft determinists and compatibilism are usually equated. Perhaps if I tinkered around with it I could not only show the distinctions between the two, but also work in simple indeterminism, causal indeterminism and agent causation as well!
As to the "species of libertarianism" just referred to, I was working off memory (I did the post and chart at work), attempting to recall what I had read in Timothy O'Connor's edited Agents, Causes, and Events. Looking up the relevant passage from the introduction this morning, it reads:
These four representative challenges to indeterministic theories [sceptic essays by Strawson, Nagel, Dennet and Double] are then followed by seven different accounts of free will that are intended to address one or more of these criticisms. It is helpful to divide such theories into three basic types: (1)simple indeterminism, which maintains that free agency doesn't require there to be any sort of causal connection (even of an indeterministic variety) between the agent and his free actions; (2)causal indeterminism, according to which an agent causes his free actions via his reasons for so acting, but indeterministically; and (3) the agency theory, which posits a sui generis form of causation by an agent that is irreducible (ontologically as well as conceptually) to event-causal processes within the agent. (pp. 6-7)
On this reading, then, Kane's teleological intelligibility maps onto causal indeterminism, where O'Connor's agent causation maps onto agency theory. You're right of course, that teleologists and agent causation theorists differ on the nature of the cause of human action, and that both posit causal indeterminism. But it seems to me that the classifications still make the distinction you note since teologists need only to refer to causal (as in one type of cause) indeterminism, while agency theorists do, indeed, need to claim agent causation.
That being said, I don't need to defend O'Connor's classifications so much as be able to articulate the broad positions. And that is what you have just helped me to do.
Thanks.
Posted by: Clifton D. Healy at April 7, 2005 06:07 AMYou should also note that I've clarified my exposition of free will scepticism as it relates to the chart, since just on the visuals alone, it appears that the chart is saying something about free will sceptics that isn't true.
In a certain sense, free will sceptics don't exactly fit the categories of the chart, but if one keeps the two questions in mind, one can see how sceptics align with libertarians on indeterminism, and with compatibilitists on the denial of libertarian free will claims.
Posted by: Clifton D. Healy at April 7, 2005 08:31 AM