Another Go At Free Will

Because I find this particular topic so very interesting, I can't resist trying to restate--improve, hopefully--my argument against free will. I'm encouraged to do this as I continue to read Flanagan's The Really Hard Problem as a companion to our text on neuroexistentialism.

Taking a cue from Flanagan, I realize just how important it is in this conversation to be as clear as possible about what we mean by free will. So, when I say I'm against free will I mean that I'm against what Flanagan presents as the Cartesian kind of free will: "[T]he will is so free in its nature, that it can never be constrained" (32). It is this kind of free will that operates as an unmoved mover, capable of causing things to happen while also being not caused by any thing else.

Perhaps, for those of us who are the kind of naturalists/physicalists discussed so far, we can agree that the above notion of free will is incompatible with the scientifically revealed picture of a world in which "everything that happens . . . happens because antecedent things happened, and so on"(31). Human beings, taken as totally natural, are subject to the same principle of causation that determines the unfolding of events in the world. We, being part of and inseparable from the natural world, are caught up in this causal nexus (a very fun expression to both say and write, by the way).

This is why I borrowed and doggedly continued using the analogy of the dominoes, which I'll keep using--likely to the breaking point.

To retort that the unfolding of events in the world is exponentially more complex--as in, there are a ton more forces at work--would be like saying 230,510 + 115,782 doesn't follow the same principle of addition as 2 + 3 because the former involves much greater numbers. Whether the numbers are big or small, you solve both problems by adding them up. Likewise, however numerous the forces or events in the world might be, they still would operate according to the principle of causation and yield determined results.

I don't find the idea of having the potential to choose any more persuasive. Back to the dominoes. A domino as an object in space has the potential (in the sense of possibility, I guess) to do a number of things: fall flatly forward, rotate clockwise or counterclockwise, flip end over end. However, when particular forces act upon a domino it isn't going to do any one of these things, it's actually going to do only one thing and--with certain forces operative--it must do that one thing.

Thinking that this isn't applicable to human beings because we are sentient and not just dominoes takes us right back to the top of this post: we'd be overstating the awareness of our selves--especially of what's happening in our brains--as being some levitating seat raised above the causal fray and from which we can issue finally self-determined commands. Of course, our experience and intuition makes this a tempting mistake. Flanagan says, "When I deliberate and choose among the options before me, I am in touch with the relevant processes, the processes of deliberation and choice. I am not in touch with--indeed I am normally clueless about--what causes me to deliberate and weigh my options as I do. So I make a misstep and think deliberation is self-cause. It seems that way, after all" (35).

So, here's an alternative from Flanagan. He suggests that we ditch the more Cartesian free will in favor of a freedom that attends more, a la Aristotle, to the distinction between voluntary and involuntary action. The former involves coercion and ignorance; the latter, personal reasoning and desire. So, the degree to which what you are doing is what you intend to be doing and the reasoning and/or desire to do it is your own  is the degree to which you are "free" (I mean "own" NOT in the sense of being un-caused but in the sense of being consistent with your own subjective experiences and mental states, e.g. I eat a veggie sandwich because I am indeed hungry and would agree to eat something good for my cholesterol levels--not because a renegade fascist vegan makes me when I'm really not hungry or would prefer the juicy hamburger in my fridge).

I think this takes me back to what I said in class about awareness and, let's say, the state of being truly informed. Knowing that I'm a domino and knowing, in so far as is possible, what forces are acting upon me, and making choices in light of this makes it possible--in my estimation--for me to feel free enough.