The Essence of Freedom

Manuel’s last post generated a brief exchange about whether free will can be localized. This exchange motivated me to post a quote from John Fischer, which I find puzzling. Here’s the quote (from Four Views on Free Will, but I think John has made the same point elsewhere):

It can be one thing to articulate a meaning or concept, and quite another to specify the nature or “real essence” of something. The meaning of the term, “water,” and the ordinary concept, “water,” presumably do not contain anything about “H2O.” But arguably the nature or real essence of water is H2O. Similarly, the ordinary meaning of the term “can,” and the ordinary concept of “freedom,” may not contain anything about the possibility of extending the actual past, holding the natural laws fixed; but arguably the nature or real essence of our freedom includes these features.
    I have for many years been puzzled at how some philosophers find the Consequence Argument (in some form or another) absolutely and uncontroversially sound, whereas others dismiss it entirely [...] One possible explanation of this puzzling phenomenon is that some philosophers are thoroughly focused on the issues about meaning and concepts, whereas others are attuned to the nature of or real essence of freedom.

Now I understand the distinction between concepts and essences when it comes to natural kinds, like “water”. But I don’t understand it when it comes to something like freedom, which is neither a natural kind like “water” or a historical kind like “species”. How do we go about investigating the essence of “freedom”? We might claim that the concept “freedom” picks out a certain class of actions, and then investigate the nature of those actions. But applying this Kripke-Putnam style move will require us first to settle the extension of the concept “freedom”, and once we have done that the controversy is over. (Or so it seems to me). That is, the philosophical issues will have been resolved, and it will be time to hand the matter on to the scientists.

What am I missing?

Comments

[Clifford Sosis]

Hello,

It seems to me that the future of the free will debate doesn't rest on the notion of freedom alone. The free will debate is about our concepts of free will and moral responsibility and the psychological research into the underpinnings of agency. That being said, it seems to me that the free will debate could (and probably will) go in two different directions:

1) We can investigate (folk and other) concepts of free will and moral responsibility using relatively straightforward methods currently employed by cultural anthropologists/cognitive scientists. This is an descriptive empirical exercise (example: Stich).

2) We can investigate the psychological underpinnings of agency. Again, we can do this using relatively straightforward methods currently employed by neurophysiologists. This is an empirical exercise which can assume one of three forms:

a) Neurophysiologists can use operationalized concepts which are intended to simply explain (in the causal sense of the word) and predict behavior/neural observations. Here, philosophy has no role to play. Personally, I don't find this objectionable. I think the Churchlands advocate this reductionistic approach to the mind;

b) Neurophysiologists can attempt to use unrefined folk concepts to explain (in the causal and theoretical sense)and predict behavior/ neural observations. Personally, I imagine this would be a disaster. Here, again, rigorous philosophy has no role to play. Benjamin Libet, Daniel Wegner and Jonathan Haidt seem to exemplify this type of approach;

c) Neurophysiologists can attempt to use refined folk concepts to explain (in the causal and theoretical sense) and predict behavior/ observations, where they can. The interpretation of the data, in light of a philosophical theory of agency, it seems, would be a uniquely philosophical exercise. I think it would be fair to say that this is what Al Mele does.

Notice, I said this seems to be a uniquely philosophical exercise.

In my pessimistic, reductionistic, moments I wonder whether it truly is, that is, I wonder whether the manifest image of ourselves is going to disappear in light of recent research, in which case we will be left with nothing but brain states (a) and folk concepts (1), loosely speaking.

In my optimistic moments, I am convinced that philosophy is invaluable insofar as we are interested in what of the manifest image of ourselves remains intact in the modern age. As long as we remain attached to, and work within the framework of our concepts of free will and moral responsibility we will be forced to try to reconcile our old vision of ourselves (which, we must admit, was formed in ignorance of the causal, psychological underpinnings of agency) with a new vision of ourselves (informed by recent research).

Still, I wonder why we should bother going through the hassle of trying to reconcile the our manifest image of ourselves with the new image, but I imagine if there is any place for an important activity that resembles philosophy in this day and age, it would be this.

Excelsior!
C.L.Sosis.

[Clifford Sosis]

Oh, I forgot that there is a fourth empirical option: artificial intelligence. We could devise theoretical models of paradigmatic or prototypical human agents and then build machines or write programs which emulate human agency. This would be a case where we work from a conception of what agency is and then, after we figure that out, create models that realize our theoretical demands. Presumably, different theories of free will and moral responsibility will impose different restrains on models. I guess whether we consider artificial agents possible will depend on what we consider essential to agency. Whether or not we can accommodate them into our picture of agency remains to be seen.

[Cihan Baran]

Neil,

Here is an attempt to answer your challenge. I am not quite sure if it is true but here we go:

The "ordinary concept" of water can be explained by its being H2O. That's to say, water's smell, touch and taste is somehow causally related to water's being H2O.

The similar challenge for freedom is to explain all our pre-reflective judgments by showing how these can be inferred from a set of necessary and sufficient conditions - necessary and sufficient conditions being the "real essence" of freedom. For example, suppose freedom of the will is really guidance-control. Then we could explain why we make the sorts of freedom-related judgments we make by invoking the concept of guidance control. (We could say "we blame such and such agent because she had guidance control" or "we exculpate such and such agent because he lacks guidance control".)

Of course the real challenge is in being able to answer your following point:

How do we go about investigating the essence of “freedom”? We might claim that the concept “freedom” picks out a certain class of actions, and then investigate the nature of those actions. But applying this Kripke-Putnam style move will require us first to settle the extension of the concept “freedom”, and once we have done that the controversy is over.

Here I think what might be reasonable to expect is a "reflective equilibrium". Here is what I mean:

Suppose our world was different and that what we phenomenally identify as water was sometimes H20 and sometimes XYZ - (borrowing the classical example from Hilary Putnam's time-honoured paper).

Such "linguistic labor" would indicate that there was a distinction that our "ordinary concept" of water wasn't getting at and it was mistaken somehow. The result could be to revise our ordinary way of referring to water. (That is to say, maybe we would have different names for H2O and XYZ.)

Similarly, in the free will debate, suppose we got the extension of the concept freedom "wrong"- in the way people get the extension of water "wrong" in the world with H2O and XYZ. As long as our philosophical analysis of these concepts is right, the analysis should give us the theoretical tools to sort out our mistake.

So, in short, as long as we are able to correct ourselves later, I don't think it's necessary to get the extension of freedom correct in the first try. What's required is a sort of reflective equilibrium.

[Clifford Sosis]

Cihan,

Your suggestion seems to be what I meant by (c). A problem with this suggestion is that it is profoundly conservative. Why should we feel compelled to retain any of these notions (especially considering scientists can get along perfectly well without them)? It doesn't seem that you need to settle the extension of freedom in order to understand human behavior from a causal perspective.

Another problem with this suggestion is that it isn't obvious why we should retain some notions and not others. One reason I imagine, would be because those notions are valuable to us for one reason or another (which is why I went into that manifest image business). In any case, saying that neurophysiologists should accommodate these concepts, or that we should or must interpret the data in light of them, requires an argument.

Further, it seems as if agency isn't something which nessecarily has an essence or natural kind. As my remark about the possibility of artificial agents indicated, we could construct agents which we would call free and/or morally responsible, which don't share with us our molecular structure, these agents might simply behave the way we do, and share nothing in common with us (besides behavior) whatsoever. This might be implausible, but the point is that if it is possible, there is no (deep) extension of freedom of the will; freedom isn't the type of thing that can't be localized, it is an irreducible property of whole, functional, agents.

Excelsior!
C.L.Sosis.

[Clifford Sosis]

can't be:can be, sorry....

[Joe Campbell]

One part of John's quote is certainly true and is not often enough acknowledged: "It can be one thing to articulate a meaning or concept, and quite another to specify the nature or 'real essence' of something."

According to contextualism, for instance, the meaning of 'can' stays the same -- S can do otherwise iff 'S does otherwise' is compossible with the relevant facts. The meaning is always the same, though the essence of free will -- determined by the relevant facts -- changes with context.

This seems to be related to van Inwagen's point that the difference between compatibilism and incompatibilism is not a difference of meaning. I'm having trouble connecting the dots, though.

[Neil]

Clifford, I have absolutely no worries that philosophy, or at least a seccessor subject, is going to become irrelevant anytime soon. The empirical literature benefits from the type of expertise we bring to it. This post was spurred by Manuel's posting. Now Manuel posts these updates on the empirical work regularly, for two reasons (I bet, engaging in some Manuel-psychoanalysis-at-a- distance). 1, he thinks it's important to keep up with empirical work that might be relevant to our concerns (and he's right), and 2. because he likes a good laugh, and this stuff is often so badly confused - in its interpretation - that it is a good laugh. Good empirical work is guided by good conceptual work, and there is plenty of room for an interplay between philosophers and cognitive scientists (indeed, look at the cog sci journals for an illustration).

Cihan, I think the suggestion is useful. I take it that this is different from the water example inasmuch as what makes water H20 rather than XYZ is, by hypothesis, not its functional role, but it's atomic structure. If we investigate functional roles, we are engaged in a program that combines conceptual analysis with observation - I take it this is the reason you say it is not necessary to get the extension right first off. Observation can help us see whether some instances actually fit the paradigm or not. This, as you say, is engaging in reflective equilibrium. I'm not worried it is conservative - reflective equilibrium can and does take us a long way from our starting points (and wide reflective equilibrium even further).

But I'm not sure that it an alternative to the methodology actually employed by those who don't find the Consequence Argument compelling (for one thing, I don't find the CA compelling, and I think that the method is a good one). And I don't see how it is investigating the essence of freedom (where this is an alternative to conceptual analysis): isolating necessary and sufficient conditions just is engaging in conceptual analysis.

[Kip Werking]

Neil makes a crucial point, which I have tried to make before.

Consider Vargas' suggestion that free will is, perhaps, like whales: we thought whales were fish. But it turns out they were mammals. This happened because we had two understandings of whales:

Definition 1: Whales are gigantic fish that swim in the sea. They are blue or gray and have small eyes, etc., etc.

Definition 2: Whatever else whales may be, they are those things that I can reliably locate in the sea, at a certain time and place. I am not perfect, and so it might turn out that whales are not fish, or are not blue or gray, or do not have small eyes. I may be wrong about all of these things. But whatever whales are, they are those things I can reliably locate in the sea, and whatever questions we have about whales will be settled by going out and actually inspecting them.

By rough analogy, definition 1 was the ordinary meaning of "whale" and definition 2 was the "essence". This is how we discovered the essence of water: we went out into the world and inspected water under a microscope, and it turned out to be H2O.

But, as Neil points out, you *can't* do this with free will. You can't reliably locate free will. People disagreed about whether whales were mammals or fish, but they didn't disagree about whether whales existed, or where you can go out and find/inspect them. It was this latter agreement that allowed people go out, inspect whales, and say "ha, it turns out that whales are mammals after all."

Free will theorists do not even have this luxury. Descartes would locate free will in the pineal gland. Compatibilists would locate it in the exercise of compatibilist powers. Libertarians would locate it in either "unmoved movements" or quantum indeterminacy in the brain. Followers of Galen Strawson would find it nowhere, because they think it's logically impossible and absolutely non-existent.

What is the consequence of this? I'm no philosopher of language, but it seems to me that the consequence is that we have no definition 2 of free will. We just have definition 1: whatever the "ordinary meaning" of free will is—and this, I take it, is nothing more than the meaning of "free will" according to its common usage.

And I don't think there is much agreement about that, either. We're left with a word that is vague or poorly defined.

[Anibal]

Free will is a biological phenomenon i don´t think it can be approach by conceptual analysis alone, just because conceptual anlysis assumes a metaphysical connection between the meaning of a concept and the word use it to refer it.

Alluding free will as having an "essence" implies that free will have been from some time up to now, and that will be for some time more, but this is not the case like with the gravity force. We can only describe instances of free will and not necessary conditions or inclusive criteria.

As Neil recognizes, using the Putnam/Kripke theory of causal naming, asusmes that we can only consult the experts of society in the game of naming or define the coextensivity of the concept, but free will only happens in one species,and rarely in others (but see Manuel´s interesting posts for further review); therefore wo are the experts in free will?

Free will is a matter of empirical discovery but as philosohy one day turns to be a more empirical procedure (like its beginings as the mother of all siciences)philosphy has too much to say in the free will studies.

[Mark Smeltzer]

Anibal,

Since when did Kripke's view of naming require expertise? A page reference would be much appreciated.

[Cihan Baran]

Clifford, though it's possible that none of our current concepts will be of any significant, I just don't think it's plausible that all of them will disappear.

Neil, I think I misunderstood you. By "the real essence of free will", I think you mean something like the biological underpinnings of freedom (if such underpinnings exist) - whereas I just took it to mean "necessary and sufficient conditions" (As you say, "And I don't see how it is investigating the essence of freedom (where this is an alternative to conceptual analysis): isolating necessary and sufficient conditions just is engaging in conceptual analysis.")

(I am not quite sure I still understand you but here is my response. I hope it's not too irrelevant)

I don't see how there can be an alternative to the essence of freedom besides philosophical (including but not limited to conceptual) analysis. Think of a finite state machine - the classic example from any introductory digital design course (or amusingly, phil of mind course) would be the vending machines. I think the real essence of the vending machine is not how you realize it with chunks of metal and cans of coke and etc. I think the real essence of the vending machine is what electrical engineers would call a state diagram, sort of a very abstract description of the state machine. Whichever thing's functional states have an isomorphism to the functional states of a(n ideal) vending machine would also have to count as a vending machine - despite differences in physical realization.

Similarly, I don't think the real essence of freedom can be anything beyond or above a philosophical description of it. Put another way, why can't other intelligent beings be free - assuming freedom is possible?

Kip, I don't think freedom of the will is a separate ontological entity whose existence can be called into question. Sure, it's linguistically convenient to say "freedom of the will doesn't exist" but strictly speaking, freedom of the will is a property of agents. Similar to the way you can investigate whether whales posses the property of being mammals, you can investigate whether humans posses the property of free will. And I am sure you will agree with me on this point that humans do exist.

(Moreover, independently, I think what "free will" means or the way people use it has no philosophical implications whatsoever but still I just wanted to point out that your analogy with whales doesn't hold.)

[Paul Torek]

Kip, I think you overstate the commitment of those who speak of "whales" to reliably find and identify whales. Once that commitment is properly stated, I don't think there is a difference in kind from the "free will" situation. We have greater uncertainty in naming instances of free will (we do have uncertainty about whales, too). But we do have the luxury, or rather necessity, of pointing to the instances. It is primarily by plausibly explaining the instances, that a theory of free will gains credibility. One can, of course, play reformer here, and claim that we get many instances wrong - but such a claim needs to rest in large part on a story of how we get other instances right.

If instances had no power, the practice of thought experimentation would have no place in the free will debate.

[Kip Werking]

Paul,

You say: "But we do have the luxury, or rather necessity, of pointing to the instances [of free will]." I'm curious: might you point to such an instance? I'm sure that myself and G. Strawson and Pereboom, amongst so many others, would look upon that instance with doubt. Is this so similar to the whale situation? I don't think it is.

"If instances had no power, the practice of thought experimentation would have no place in the free will debate."

If, in the free will debate, we are trying to determine whether free will actually exists, and thought experiments over millennia have not brought us much closer to achieving that goal, perhaps we should say so much the less for thought experiments.

Cihan,

You wrote:

"Similar to the way you can investigate whether whales posses the property of being mammals, you can investigate whether humans posses the property of free will. And I am sure you will agree with me on this point that humans do exist."

I don't see any problem with phrasing the question that way ("do humans have the property of free will?"), instead of the other way ("does free will exist?").

[Anibal]

This is te most recurrent way to support an assertion so i use it the wikepedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causal_theory_of_reference

In that page you´ll encounter that the traditional theories of causal reference are refelected in the work of Putnam and Kripke during the 70´s, and that they propose an initial acting of naming things or initial baptism, just as the parabole in the Bible.

The way others use names to refer to the same things occurs by means of learning, so in the linguistic community there are some individuals that not learn form others just bcause they originally name things for themselves, and the rest have to learn from them: they are "experts" (first event in the chain of causing) in naming, and then they trasmit their knowledge to others for the purpose of denote things.

[Cihan Baran]

Kip,

You wrote,

But, as Neil points out, you *can't* do this with free will. You can't reliably locate free will. People disagreed about whether whales were mammals or fish, but they didn't disagree about whether whales existed, or where you can go out and find/inspect them. It was this latter agreement that allowed people go out, inspect whales, and say "ha, it turns out that whales are mammals after all."

My point was, if you take free will as an (alleged) property of human beings, you *can* do this with free will, since people don't disagree about whether humans "existed, or where you can go out and find/inspect them."

[Kip Werking]

Cihan,

But nobody denies that you can go out and inspect human beings and see if they exist.

The question is whether you can go out and inspect human beings and see if they have the property of free will (alternatively: go out and see if free will exists). And you can't do this, or so I argue, because there is tremendous disagreement about what this property even is---even if there is less disagreement about what human beings are.

[This does raise an interesting possibility: if future scientists inspected the human brain and discovered "unmoved movements" or "quantum choices", would this incline compatibilists and/or non-realists to change their positions?]

[Anibal]

I strongly recomend Matteo Mameli´s paper: "On Dennett and the natural sciences of free will", for a more storytelling philosophical account,

and R. E. Passingham and H. C. Lau´s paper: "Free choice and the human brain" as a more neuroscientific aproximation, to try to locate physically (if possible) a "free will generator" center.

[Paul Torek]

Kip,

For FW deniers, the obvious strategy is to rely on the story of how we get so many judgments right (those where we deny the act was done of the agent's free will) to come up with a best interpretation of the term, without letting any of the affirmative judgments stand. And you need to acknowledge the features that led to honest mistakes - much as one might explain sightings of "Nessie" by pointing to wave action that does in fact look much like the sinuous motion of certain living creatures.

What we need here is something more like Fodor's causal theory of reference, rather than vanilla Kripke. However, even though a Fodor-like approach would allow "Nessie" to refer to something that doesn't exist, it still requires a range of causally possible (hence logically possible) animals that would underwrite a lawlike connection between Nessie encounters and "Nessie" utterances. Which, by analogy, would leave FW impossiblists with nowhere to stand. But that's OK in my book.