I was wondering when posted on “Free Will” last week if many would comment, let alone get what I was musing about. I pleasantly surprised and I really enjoyed the comments. I found Lily’s comment that this life is more for learning than being tested quite an interesting way to think about life. Not exactly what I was taught growing up, but that sure seems to make some of life’s injustices less punitive. From the comments I learned that there were “Calvinist Mormons”, which I had never heard of before. Bishop Bill mentions the Texas Tower Sniper as another example of physical brain issues causing severe behavior. Going back to the 1850’s there are similar stories such as Phineas Gage (a bit gory, you are warned before you click). As Mormon Heretic mentions, there are theories forming right now on American football causing CTE that indicate player’s personalities are modified, and certainly not for the better. I think the general point was made even with the stories provided in the first post. I am sure there are more.
What to do?
No matter how much I contemplate it, I am not sure if I will figure out just how much agency / moral agency / free agency / free will I have. But what should I do?
On this question I tend to agree with Angela’s comment of,
“One way to look at it is something an executive coach once said that I often repeat. He said that you need to believe that every situation is 100% in your control even though it’s not true because to believe anything else erodes your effectiveness.”
She (or her coach) is not alone in saying that we need to believe we are in control.
I have read through books like Sam Harris’, “Free Will” where he espouses that we really don’t have free will. He puts forward, “The illusion of free will is itself an illusion.” (page 64) and “You are not in control of your mind – because you, as a conscious agent, are only part of your mind, living at the mercy of other parts.” (page 37) He is fairly blunt in saying he does not believe in free will. I will come back to Sam Harris in a moment.
I find the idea of not having free will very thought provoking, but mainly very disturbing. To think that cuts right to what it is to be an individual. What am I if not the result of my decisions? On top of that I try to tie into how I might have a spirit or soul mixed in also with “me”. Given that I have not figured out why there are better and worse souls/spirits, these stories about how much the mind is in control of “us” does nothing to help me figure a way to reconcile all of this.
When I read “The Righteous Mind” it made sense that often we subconsciously act and then make justifications for these actions. I can point to a few times where I think I have seen myself doing this. But Haidt makes the point in his book that we generally never “feel” that is happening. So I probably don’t notice it happening all the time.
I tried bringing in these 4 accounts in the previous post and get them all logically constructed in my mind. So far I can’t do it and feel comfortable. I am very puzzled about this. But at least I know I made a good decision not to major in Philosophy. Even though I like to tinker in the subject of Philosophy, I don’t feel I have the mental chops to make meaningful sense of it. I would not be getting good grades in philosophy courses.
If I try the thought experiment of assuming I have no real free will, I can do that. But I can’t seem to stay in that state for more than a few minutes without reverting back to, “No, no, that just doesn’t make sense! That CAN’T be right.” I think about it for a minute two, then my mind tells me something along the lines, “that is enough of that theoretical @#$% [1] and you need to get back to normal now and work on your to-do list.”
I do find it interesting what two prominent proponents of the “there is no free will” camp say about it from a practical perspective.
I heard the neuroendocrinologist [2] Robert Sapolsky [3] say on a podcast
I don’t believe there is freewill.
I believe freewill is what we call biology that hasn’t been discovered yet.
I certainly can agree if you look back in history up till today, there is absolutely some truth in that statement. When was the last time someone said a person was possessed by a spirit? We usually consider this to be a mental condition today, but in centuries past that wasn’t the case and others assumed such a person was possessed by an evil spirit. I don’t know how much biology will explain all human choice in the future. I guess nobody knows for sure.
But I find just as interesting what Robert says immediately after his statement above.
But what I find to be a hugely daunting task is how you’re supposed to you live your life thinking that way and even me, I am willing to write down and print there is no free will and here’s why. At some critical juncture of some social interaction I act absolutely as if I believe there is freewill. […] It is a whole lot easier to operate with a notion of agency.
So Robert clearly does not believe in free will, but thinks life is easier if you assume you have free will.
In Sam Harris’ book arguing against the reality of free will does offer some evidence that assuming you do have free will has positive effects:
Many people worry that free will is a necessary illusion – and that without it we will fail to live creative and fulfilling lives. This concern isn’t entirely unjustified. One study found that having subjects read an argument against the existence of free will made them more likely to cheat on a subsequent exam. Another found such subjects to be less helpful and more aggressive. (page 45)
I don’t read from this that Sam is supporting the idea of assuming free will, but he certainly brings up some studies that seem to say people are more moral when they subscribe to having free will.
The previous post on free will was shared on another site and provoked this one comment:
I really love what Orson Scott Card said about free will, in Xenocide.
“Either we’re free or we’re not. Either the story’s true or it isn’t. The point is that we have to believe that it’s true in order to live as civilized human beings… Because if it’s a lie, why should we bother to live as civilized human beings? Because the species has a better chance to survive if we do. Because our genes require us to believe the story in order to enhance our ability to pass those genes on for many generations in the future. Because anybody who doesn’t believe the story begins to act in unproductive, uncooperative ways, and eventually the community, the herd, will reject him.”
So I hope no one was expecting me to wrap this up at the end and put this all to rest with a nice bow on top. I certainly don’t have any of this figured out I feel like I am a bit in philosophical quicksand. The more I work to get out, the deeper I sink and I get exhausted. And just like being in quicksand, you finally figure out that you just need to relax and stop fighting it and it gets better.
But I can say that it seems that many people agree that regardless if we do or do not have free will, it is still better for us to assume we do and move forward with confidence. I have decided of my own free will that I will assume I have free will! I would recommend others to do so also. But you can decide since you (think you) have free will. 🙂
[1] Yes, my inner voice does have quite the vocabulary. I can’t help myself!
[2] Did you know that “neuroendocrinologist” is 20 letters long!! Fit that on a business card!
[3] Robert can give most of the early latter-day prophets a run for their money in the beard department.
I think we should discuss the difference between libertarian free will and compatibilist free will (and whether the latter should be considered “free will” at all.)
Suppose I like vanilla ice cream. Given a choice between vanilla and chocolate, I will choose vanilla given my preference for it, although at least theoretically, I could choose chocolate. My preferences are my own, but I did not choose to prefer vanilla, and as far as I know, I cannot consciously choose to prefer chocolate.
Do I have free will in choosing vanilla over chocolate?
In a libertarian sense, if my choice is determined by my unchosen preferences, then no, I don’t. Libertarian free will requires that I can choose between vanilla and chocolate without responsiveness to reasons like, “I prefer vanilla”. (Well, couldn’t I choose chocolate even though I prefer vanilla? This is possible, but to get us out of compatibilism, we have to rule out any competing “reasons”. For example, if I reason, “Well, I like vanilla, but I really want to show everyone that I am not a slave to my like of vanilla…” then we have to ask: where did that reason come from? Did I choose that? Do I choose to make one desire stronger than another?)
However, in a compatibilist sense, the my preferences are still *my* preferences. Choosing vanilla because of *my* preferences (as opposed to coercion by a third party) is what makes a choice free, even if, due to my preferences, I would freely (that is, not coerced) never “choose” the alternative.
So, the only question is whether compatibilist free will is enough to count as free will? If we are free to do what we will, but our will is bound by our genetics and neurology and biology, then is that free enough?
It seems the question really is whether “our” biology, neurology, etc.,. can be considered part of “us” — or if they are external parties coercing “us”. I think the resistance here is that we want to consider that there is something to “us” outside of all of those other things. But can we really define that? We can point to brain malfunctions and say, “Well, Phineas Gage stopped being *himself* after the event.” But it would just be as easy to say that Phineas Gage’s pre-accident personality was also dependent on neurology, biology, and so on, but since those things changed, so did he.
Dang Andrew. Our mutual friend told me you were a deep thinker. I appreciate you re-confirming my wise decision not to major in philosophy. To show you how shallow my thought process is, your elegant and thoughtful comment leaves me with the following thought. I too like vanilla ice cream, but my wife likes chocolate. Often when we stop to get a cone my wife will say, “I don’t think I want any.” Which really means, “I just want a few bites of yours.” So do I really have a choice or am I compelled to get chocolate?
So, each time there’s a post on here about something like Free Will, I feel like, as a Calvinist, I should chime in with something. But Andrew S has already always done a pretty much perfect job of saying everything I would have said.
Take that how you will. 😉
Interesting Op-Ed that wonders if Free Will is an illusion: http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2014/01/15/261716096/the-choice-is-yours-the-fate-of-free-will
There’s another interesting episode at the Hidden Brain on free will. Listen here: http://brainblogger.com/2015/11/01/hidden-brain-podcast-review-harnessing-the-power-of-our-unconscious-mind/
The Hidden Brain podcast is a favorite of mine. Also “You are not so smart” is also very good.
Speaking of podcasts, there was a recent episode from my favorite podcast, The Infinite Monkey Cage, called “The Mind vs The Brain” that discussed this very topic.
Got to love The Infinite Monkey Cage.
Can’t add much to Andrew’s analysis; maybe just the last, psychological brick.
Nobody likes to think that their decisions are inexplicable, which is what libertarian free will implies (after lots of wanking).
“Decision” implies explanatory reasons.
The free will dispute is a little silly, and way overwrought.
Compatibilism is not, in any normal understanding of the term, free will. There isn’t any possibility of a contingent choice, which is how most people would understand the term.
At the core compatibilism is determinism. It argues that “our acts” are the unchangeable result of a causal chain of events. The only difference between compatibilism and “hard determinism” is the argument that I’m still morally responsible for the “choices” that I *had* to act out.
That makes no sense to me. But even if it’s true, I have no choice in accepting compatibilism because my rejection is only the result of the way all previous events (or what ever it is the compatibilist sees as determining) lined up.
I think Andrew S has a mistaken view of libertarian free will. LFW doesn’t require the absence of preference or even the absence of competing reasons. Nor does it require a choice be “determined” by my *strongest* preference. But even if it did, we would argue that as an agent I can choose which preference I act on. That is I have the ability to determine which preference is strongest. So I can prefer the taste of vanilla over chocolate. And while I can’t change that preference, I can when offered a cone of either flavor, choose either flavor or even not to have ice cream at all. I chose to act on the competing preference of limiting sugar over my preference for a dessert of my favorite flavor ice cream or my preference to prove I can eat chocolate.
What LFW does require is the freedom to choose “free from necessity” such that I could choose differently even if all other factors were the same. The chain of events is not causal only influential.
We see this, I think, in the quotes in the OP that suggested we should “choose” to act as if there is FW because people act worse when they accept the idea there’s no free will. This implies that the person chooses which preference or idea to act on. I prefer compatibilism but choose to act on a different competing preference so that the community benefits.
Thanks for letting me share these thoughts.
The whole point of the western philosophical tradition is to cultivate one’s freedom. Hence, it has been assumed consistently since Greek times that at any given moment virtually no human being possesses full freedom. It has been thought the task of every human individual is to develop that freedom within oneself through the purification of one’s conscious mind. You are born with the seed a freedom within. It is the job of a self-conscious, self-reflective individual to develop that seed into full fruit. Nothing mystical or esoteric involved. Just go back and read your Socrates as he was presented by Plato. We moderns are lost if confusion concerning this issue. Socrates is as clear as a bell from which of pure tone emanates.
MikeB,
I wanted to correct that I’m not saying LFW requires choice to be determined by preference — in fact, LFW can’t have choices be determined at all. It’s not that LFW requires that there are no reasons. It’s that LFW rejects *responsiveness to* reasons.
Let’s say you have competing preferences. If you can say that some preferences are stronger and determine the action, then you are still in compatibilism. LFW has to find a way to add something else to the mix so that preferences may provide options, but aren’t the sole determinant. The problem is that when that something else is added in, it’s usually tough to distinguish that thing from luck or randomness. That is, if you’re free from the necessity to choose a certain way based on a set of factors, then it’s tough to provide value to that choice
Andrew S,
That is not how most (any?) proponents of LFW understand it. However, it is how most compatibilists represent it.
I would assert that within LFW the choice is determined. But it is determined by the will of the agent.
The agent has preferences, genetics, circumstances and a host of other things that influence them. Many out of their control.
But despite all of these influences at a given point in time the agent can respond rationally (or not) to them and make a contingent choice.
I would not say that the stronger preference determines the action, but if I did I would qualify that the will of the agent determines the strongest preference or more accurately chooses the competing preference that they will act on. Therefore we don’t have compatibilism. The agent was free, given all of the same influences, to choose another preference or option.
LFW doesn’t have to find something else. The person is the determinant.
What distinguishes it is personality, individuality, the will of the person.
That is not luck or random. The value of the choice is what the individual valued.
Hope that provides you a more accurate way of understanding LFW even if you “choose” to reject it as a valid description of reality
I would refer to the Bible instead of the philosophies of Men.
From Genesis to Revelation, the image of Man’s free will, working with God’s will (Synergism) is clear.
Let’s sample a few here:
Genesis 1:28 God gives Man and Woman a command, this command implies they can _choose_ to disobey it. (more on this later)
“Be fruitful and multiply”
In Genesis 2:17, He gave Adam the command to not eat of the tree, and it’s clear from what Satan (the Serpent) tells Eve, she knew God’s command through Adam.
Genesis 3; God punishes Adam, Eve and Satan (the Serpent) for violating his law. If we have no free will, then God is not just in punishing puppets that were acting of HIS will, not their own.
Now, I’m going to fast forward, as I could literally go through every chapter of Genesis and reveal how it shows Man’s free will, and God’s acting with Man’s free will to accomplish his will. Genesis 4:6 for example, God tells Cain HE has a choice in turning from sin.
But I don’t want to make this a book, which i literally could do.
Deut 28 – Here God tells the nation of Israel the positive and negative for obedience and for rebellion. This is absolutely a free will chapter of the Bible, and reveals God’s desire is for Mankind to _CHOOSE_ to follow him, and then they will be rewarded for doing so.
Fast forwarding again;
1 Sam 15:22,23 – I’m choosing this as it’s a clear dichotomy between obedience and rebellion. Things that are not possible without Man’s free will.
[1Sa 15:22-23 NKJV] 22 So Samuel said: “Has the LORD [as great] delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, [And] to heed than the fat of rams. 23 For rebellion [is as] the sin of witchcraft, And stubbornness [is as] iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He also has rejected you from [being] king.”
Obedience is better than sacrifices, (and it still is, Heb 10:26-31) and rebellion is akin to the sin of witchcraft. (and it still is 1 john 3:4-9)
I’ll finish with this. James 1:12-14: When we _choose_ to sin, it’s not God who tempts us or makes us. We choose to follow our desires which give birth to sin, then sin gives birth to death.
James 4:6-10 – James tells us how we receive grace. (that we are told to work out in fear and trembling Ph 2:12)
God favors the humble, and gives grace tot he humble.
Draw near to God. (he doesn’t draw us as the Calvinists claim) and He will draw near to you.
Cleanse your hands, you sinners, purify your hearts you double-minded (Do I really need to explain how this verse clearly shows our free will?)
Submit to God, and resist the Devil. (this requires your free will)
Humble yourself (God isn’t humbling you, you have to humble yourself) and He will lift you up.
MikeB:
“I would assert that within LFW the choice is determined. But it is determined by the will of the agent.”
Right, and that will cannot be determined by preferences. There can’t be a way to say which preference will win because the will could choose between any. Even given completely identical sets of facts, there could be different outcomes:
“What distinguishes it is personality, individuality, the will of the person.”
But you can’t have the personality or individuality (which aren’t willed) determine the choices.
That is, a compatibilist would say, “of course personality determines choice. You could choose differently if you had a different personality”
For LFW, you have to be able to choose differently even with the same personality and individuality. That means that those elements, like the mesh of preferences, ultimately don’t matter. So you’re still back to trying to come up with what “will” is apart from everything else.
God has many way of guiding our learning in ways that make our unwillingness much more willing to become the citizen of His kingdom that He has ordained each of His elect to become !
CS Lewis wrote some disturbing “fairy tales” and smug apologetics, but a work of his that stuck with me throughout my faith transition was The Abolition of Man. He doesn’t use the exact terminology Andrew S. is using, but he spends the whole second half of the book making essentially the same point. If you’re not acting in accordance with your own nature, then whose nature are you acting in accordance with? Trying to “free” people from the tyranny of their biology and innate preferences is just another way of saying you want to subject them to yours.
Lewis had a lot to say about the kind of tyrant who thinks that they’re doing it for your own good. Specifically, that they’re the worst kind. Speaking from personal experience, I think that’s true even if the only person whose nature and preferences you want to tyrannize is yourself.
Orson Scott Card would probably counter-argue by mischaracterizing the person making Lewis’ arguments as an anti-authoritarian hippie, and saying we need to subordinate ourselves to higher ideals in order to thrive as a species. Of course, being Card, he would then go on to write extremely homoerotic sci-fi and Book of Mormon fanfiction, and follow that up by calling for armed revolt in order to prevent gay people from marrying.
If there’s a middle ground between libertarian and compatibilist views of free will, it’s probably the idea that you can’t choose who you are, but you can choose what kind of you you want to be. I’m personally a lot happier and less mean to others when I accept myself as a pansexual girl, than when I was trying to be an asexual guy to please my Mormon parents. I strongly suspect that Card would be a lot happier and less mean if he accepted the fact that he likes dudes, and did something constructive with that instead of taking out his self-loathing on others.
Card also has a thing for sexualizing young boys in his books, though, so I’m not sure I’d want him to “just be himself” without also making sure that he never has the power to hurt any children.
Andrew S
Exactly. That is the point of LFW. The agent gets to choose. The choice is not predetermined only influenced. We would reject the idea that Laplace’s demon could calculate what would agent A would choose at time T given they knew the value of all the variables that preceded.
Personality, individuality & the mesh of preferences, ultimately DO matter in that they influence and may even limit the range of options. But they do NOT matter in that they don’t predetermine the choice.
Aren’t we all.
Andrew is correct in his definitions of LFW and Compatibilism. To simplify I like to different them as proposing – “Freedom of Will” (Compatibilism), or “Freedom from Will” (LFW).
As Andrew points out LFW rely’s on adding an element into the equation that makes the outcome not predicable (not determinable). The only other option is random. I supposed random choice could be called “free” but how is that desirable. LFW is non-sensical as a desirable option – I’ve never seen it taken seriously by a legitimate philosopher*.
(*I will add 1 qualification to that statement. I have heard one theory of LFW in which a popular christian philosopher LFW proponent was essentially proposing Compatibilism as far as making the choice goes – but adding in an element of random in what choices “pop” up as options in the brain. This theory was proposed in order to address the problem of God being responsible for our choices as our Creator. As Mormon’s since we reject Ex Nihilo creation it doesn’t add anything to the table )
The only real possibility of meaningful free will, and the only viable option compatible with a God that has true foreknowledge – is Compatibilism.
And in a religion that espouses eternal Intelligences, each of which “is a spirit from age to age and there is no creation about it”, seems uniquely situated to understand and embrace it.
MikeB, I feel like you’re on the right track – i.e. “The person is the determinant” – I think you’re a Compatibilist at heart and don’t know it yet 😉
*apologies for the many typos, accidentally submitted the quick draft before scanning over
I am not a Harris fan, he is greatly mistaken. Try some better philosophers: Nicholas Rescher “Free Will: a Philosophical Reappraisal” and E.J. Lowe “Personal Agency” (both materialists like Harris) for more sensible views.
I really appreciated Andrew S and MikeB’s exchange. My personal view is that compatibilist free will isn’t free will at all. It’s great philosophy because it’s self-consistent I guess, but I don’t find it useful. To me, free will isn’t manifest, or not, in choosing our preferences. Free will is manifest when preferences are weighted. Many choices are balanced on the end of a needle with competing preferences pushing in different directions. Those competing preferences have not always been weighted relative to each other, and assigning the weights is choice. Sure, once the weights are established, a “net preference” results, and the outcome is determined by that. The results of previous choices can affect future weighting, but the relative weight of competing preferences is not pre-established , because every given circumstance has elements that have not been experienced before, at least exactly in the same way. If one wants to view that as an element of randomness, I think that’s fine, because that’s what it looks like when things fall from the needle one way or the other and a choice is made. From a practical perspective, I believe that this philosophy is also self-consistent, but far more useful. Maybe I’m saying the same thing as MikeB.
From a gospel perspective, it makes sense to me, because I believe that a primary purpose of this life is to decide what we love. In other words, to weight our preferences. Or establish our values. The final goal is to have our values/preferences lined up with God’s to the extent that we appreciate what He has and wishes to share with us.
Martin,
Good thoughts. Here – “because every given circumstance has elements that have not been experienced before, at least exactly in the same way” – you’re actually making a Compatibilist argument – different inputs lead to different outputs. If you can explain why preferences exist with a “because” or any “cause” that is not randomly generated, you’re ultimately referencing something that is compatible with a theoretically deterministic universe (since it is cause and effect).
That’s ultimately the question – where did our preferences come from? Were they ’caused’ or ‘randomly generated’? Uncomfortable as it may be, caused and random are the only two choices.
Steve S, I agree that the compatibilist argument is self-consistent. If you have a closed system with inputs and outputs, the outputs being determined by the inputs, the system is deterministic. Otherwise, if the outputs change independently of the inputs, there’s either a pattern within the system to generate the outputs or there’s an element of randomness affecting the outputs. That’s essentially the compatibilist point of view. I’m claiming the system isn’t closed, that inputs are made from outside the system that are not observable, and that they affect the outputs. Think influence of the Holy Ghost on our spirits, for example. Those unobservable inputs cannot be completely characterized, because they’re not observable. You can call that randomness; I will call it free will. Sure, you can argue that God can observe the unobservable inputs, and therefore the system deterministic for Him, but you’d be essentially just trying to enclose Him in our observable universe, and I’m claiming He’s beyond the reach of our understanding for us to be able to do that.
The strongest argument against the compatibilist viewpoint is that it’s just not useful. What’s the point in accepting such a theory simply because it’s self-consistent?
Martin, yeah I definitely wouldn’t characterize that as random. Just because it is not observable of course does not make it random, or not caused. I agree with your larger system view – it seems like your logic is still an argument for compatibilism, with the added layer that you think in our mortal realm we can’t see or observe all the inputs.
Am I understanding your position correctly?
Martin,
I think your position is similar to MikeB (but hopefully MikeB will confirm). In other words, it seems like what you’re both saying is that there is a mesh of preferences, and those preferences may have different weights, but the weights may not be determined (or, the individual may choose to act contrary to the weights).
That being said, I’m not as comfortable with saying that the weights themselves can be chosen. Like, to me, MikeB’s description of choosing against the weights is plausible — I can think of times that I’ve done something while grimacing that I really wanted to do something else. If I could just change the perceived weight, then I could go about my life doing everything with no regrets/reluctance.
Steve S,
I think that MikeB and Martin are accepting that preferences may be determined, but as long as those preferences don’t determine our actions, then LFW can be preserved. For MikeB, that is choosing between preferences regardless of what the weight it. For Martin, that may include choosing what the weights themselves are.
So, the question is not: “where did our preferences come from?” but more narrowly, “what is that thing that chooses between preferences yet is unaffected by them?”
That being said, I love the summary as “Freedom of Will” vs “freedom from will”, but I think that’s probably begging the question to how compatibilists would view will in the first place XD.
This comment/reply will be a bit scattered as I jump back in to the discussion at various points… sorry about that…
First, I found it amusing that Steve thought I was a compatibilist at heart. Thanks I needed a good smile.
Not sure I find having all of my actions determined an example of “meaningful free will”. And I would reject the idea that foreknowledge is incompatible with LFW but that is a topic for another time.
Would be curious what people thought of Daniel Dennett’s understanding of CFW. Do you agree or not.
https://deadheroesdontsave.com/2013/09/09/dennett-explains-compatibilism/
I see it as making people nothing more than advanced robots but, that may just how my SW (ie brain/genetics) was wired such that it was determined I should hold that opinion… 🙂
I would agree with Martin here. I don’t see CFW as free will. It redefines the idea so that it fits into a deterministic view of acts.
For those wanting to know more about how I see things, you can read more here:
https://deadheroesdontsave.com/2012/10/22/freewill/
The argument that “different inputs lead to different outputs” is true in both views.
However, in LFW there is the possibility that the “same inputs” may also lead to different outputs. Something that is not possible in compatibilism
All choices are caused.
That said, we see the cause very differently.
The cause for the CFW view is (for most anyway) an unbroken chain of events. When the events/inputs are the same there is only one outcome. The choice is caused by the chain of events.
For the LFW view, the agent is the cause.
However, this agent (A) can respond differently at a point in time (T) even if the events/inputs were the same (the principle of alternate paths) .
I would not call this choice random, especially if by random we mean “occurring without definite aim, reason, or pattern”, as defined in the dictionary.
The agent (as Andrew S rightly notes) may wrestle with the situation, the external influences , and the internal influences) that are all around them and then choose to act with a specific aim/purpose.
For example, the agent (who prefers the taste of vanilla over chocolate) can choose (against the preference) to eat chocolate ice cream , instead of vanilla. This may be because they had vanilla three times that week and thus chose to act on the preference for something different. BUT the agent could also *actually* have chosen vanilla or no ice cream as well at time T (unlike the CFW view) acting on there preference for flavor, or to minimize calories etc.
I think when we see passages in Scripture that encourage us to wrestle w/ temptations that a LFW is the only option that adequately deals with this. Clearly for something to be tempting it must draw on things I prefer/desire. However, within a context the choice to give in to the temptation would be considered wrong. Hence the warning. I as an agent must choose to either 1) give in to the temptation or 2) resist it. It seems rather pointless to encourage (or warn) someone to avoid a temptation when the choice they will make is already determined.
As I wrap up, I would be interested in those holding to a CFW to flush out what they see as doing the determining, particularly from a theistic view. Do you see God as decreeing all things similar to the Westminster Confession of Faith? Or do you see God winding up the universe and letting natural laws take over determining all that occurs, or some other option?
Although I am not a theist, to me, in a traditionalist Christian worldview (not an LDS one, mind you), I feel that the idea that belief is a gift from God makes sense to me. God knows what it would take to convince you and can choose to put into place whatever series of events to have that happen or not — so whether this is decreeing all things or setting up a naturalistic “rube goldberg machine” does not matter. What’s even more important from a traditionalist Christian worldview is that God created us — and thus created our preferences and so on.
To me, when I read stories in the scripture of Saul’s conversion to Paul, but even LDS stories of Alma the Younger’s conversion experience, etc., etc., I see examples where these folks clearly weren’t doing the right thing, but God intervened in their lives outside of their normal proclivities and shifted those proclivities. They still made the choice to change, but the choice was irresistible precisely because God gave them precisely the experiences that shifted their preferences. Notwithstanding that LDS ontology seems to imply that humans derive from uncreated intelligence (and thus God’s sovereignty is necessarily and intentionally de-emphasized), the scriptures seem to leak plenty of examples of belief involuntarism. (That being said, I do not intend to try to harmonize the examples used of scriptural voluntarism with the other examples of involuntarism. That to me speaks of the inconsistency or schizophrenia of the Christian tradition as a whole and is not my issue to resolve.)
My own faith journey is filled with years of trying to believe things that were utterly implausible if not impossible to me, and really struggling with my inability to force it to happen. So, to me, discovering a different perspective — that is, that some folks just don’t have the gift to believe (or, some folks are just reprobate — vessels created for destruction as the new testament scripture goes) relieved a lot of that tension to me.
When I look at believers, I don’t mean to be judgmental, but I do notice a difference between certain types of believers who seem to be “brute forcing” their way through sanctification vs those believers whose changed behavior stems from a changed mindset. It seems this latter one is consistent with the idea of regenerative grace that precedes and makes faith possible.
Mike B, haha yes, it feels like you’re so close – I really think you’d like the Compatibilist side 🙂
Yes, I think there are a lot of factors that go into the determining equation of choice – biology, neurology, culture, enviroment, etc., which I would largely consider external factors, or at best part of the temporal self. The most significant part of the equation and that which I think we will be eternally accountable for is the eternal self – i.e. the eternal uncreated mind / spirit / will / preferences.
I’m throwing preferences on the end of the list to point out in my view that the collection of one’s preferences/desires is in fact the will / the self – the part of our eternal being that acts and is not merely acted upon.
I agree that preferences / desires can and do change over time given the choices we do make. In the King Follet Discourse Joseph Smith said, “All the minds and spirits that God ever sent into the world are susceptible of enlargement.” And in D&C 93, “that wicked one cometh and taketh away light and truth, through disobedience, from the children of men” and again in D&C 54, “he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day.”
While this is speaking about eternal matters, in my view the same holds true for mundane choices/preferences. Your ice cream example to me, the way you started it, was a perfect example of the CFW view. If the person preferred chocolate to vanilla, but had it 3 times that week, then other parts of the ongoing equation come into play – maybe their preference for keeping in shape means they choose no ice cream the next time around, or maybe their desire for vanilla now outweighs chocolate after 3 times because the marginal benefit of their chocolate preference has sufficiently decreased. I wouldn’t say they are choosing “against the preference) to eat chocolate ice cream”, so much as we see the more nuanced equation of preferences showing through given more nuanced inputs.
It seems I misunderstood at first, and Andrew was correct in pointing out, where we diverge is going from preferences to choice, and you lost me when you then made the jump to “BUT the agent could also *actually* have chosen vanilla or no ice cream as well at time T”
My equation is: weighted preferences ->(causes) choice.
You seem to be saying, weighted preferences + xFactor ->(causes) choice. That is true to the LFW models that I’ve seen, but when I have pressed any LFW proponent to clarify what this xFactor is, it either is truly an explainable cause (i.e. deterministic), or it comes down to an element of total randomness. And yes, by random I do mean essentially the definition you gave. And if truly random (not apparent randomness), then yes it voids foreknowledge of the outcome – otherwise it couldn’t be truly random by definition.
So maybe you could help me understand your model, what is this added xFactor to you? You say in LFW “The agent is the cause”. How so? (“The agent is the cause” is actually a good definition of the CFW that I am promoting.)
Perhaps we have an issue with the word “preferences”. You seem to refer to them as if the are external forces on the individual. For me as I pointed out earlier, the whole of preferences / desires *is* the will – the individual and their preferences are inseparably connected since they are one and the same. Or in other words in my definition, preferences are the very essence of what is intrinsic to the individual.
(Lastly, yes I agree with Daniel Dennet’s version of CFW, although it’s much less compelling to me without the element of an uncreated part of the self. While I agree what he describes is freedom of the will, and a reason individuals can be held accountable for choice, I’m not sure it is fully satisfactory to me since the self is the byproduct of entirely external forces to begin with, and seems to therefore undermine the value of the self. That perhaps I am not fully my own. For that reason I think the concept of the eternal mind is an incredible value add to the conversation)
Andrew S
Thanks for sharing. I am a theist/traditional Christian. But reject Calvinism (a view that started around the time of Augustine in the 5th century) which adheres to the idea that belief is a gift from God and that all events/choices are determined by God’s decrees. Of course that is probably not much of a surprise given the discussion. 🙂
I generally hold an Arminian view that God enables a person to understand and respond to the gospel, but that a person can either accept or reject Christ and the gospel.
If they accept Christ, they are regenerated and the lives they live should show evidence/fruit of that. I think we would see the sanctification side in similar ways, but not the conversion side.
Thanks
Steve S
Not sure how I line up as a compatibilist as I reject determinism such that a choice is fixed based on all preceding events, biology, neurology, culture, enviroment etc..
I would agree that we will be held accountable for what we do. And in order to be held accountable for our actions we need to possess the ability to choose otherwise. Something that determinism and compatibilism deny is possible.
Choices are not an equation to be solved. That is a deterministic way of defining the problem.
As for the ice cream example… the point is the inputs (taste preference, fitness goals, number of desserts eaten that week) are not something to be plugged into an equation and solved. They are influences (like events, biology, neurology, culture, enviroment etc) that can affect the likelhood of the will choosing something over another. But I would argue don’t determine the outcome the way we can calculate the orbit of a planet.
As to the xFactor. I would simply say that it is the will.
As Daniel Whedon writes:
Our desires are affected by genetics, hormones etc. These influence the will. But I’m not settled on whether our desires are part of the will or not.
Not sure if that matters (or is answerable), because encapsulated in the concept of the will is this: we can choose otherwise because we can intend otherwise. This is an innate power of the will.
That is where we seem to differ. On what the will is capable of.
It is the ability to choose vanilla or chocolate, or mote importantly good or evil, to cave into temptations or not, that makes one morally accountable. If people are more than fancy “rube goldberg machines”, it (seems to me that it) requires LFW.
Depends what you mean. It’s the same question as, “Can God sin?” As a determinist and compatibilist I would say yes God has the ability to sin (if he wanted), there is no outside force preventing Him from doing so, but He won’t, because he doesn’t want to – his will / desires are perfected in love and righteousness.
The same applies to our choices and whether I would say we can or cannot choose an alternative to what we ultimately want.
What I don’t understand about your model is what you think the *will* is, if not the encompassment of all the individual’s desires? And then if you have an answer for that, is this ‘will’ understandable and knowable by God? i.e. God can know the heart/will of a person such that he knows what choice they will make in a given moment?