Who is asking you to?

Think about the situation in the late C19. Atoms were defined as "indivisible" (from the Greek a-tomos). We then discovered that atoms are not, in fact, indivisible. Should we have thrown away the word "atom" or redefined it? On the other hand, we DID throw away the term "phlogiston". So is "free will" more like "atom" or more like "phlogiston"?

The compatibilist position is that defining "free will" as "acting in contravention of determinism and the laws of physics" is a silly and untenable theological attitude, therefore we should move on and attempt to explain agency/volition/moral responsibility in terms that comport with reality. A particularly strong reason for this is that is really is useful to talk about conditionals like "could", "can", "cannot". Could this glass of water put out that lit candle? On hard determinism it doesn't really make sense to say that it could because either it will or it will not. But if we think of could as a shorthand for would have if then there is no contradiction with determinism. And this is what a compatibilist means when she says "I could have done differently": she imagines a small but significant change to the physical circumstances that would have led to a different decision.

The compatibilist does not argue against determinism but fatalism. On fatalism, future states are fixed regardless of the antecedents.

[QUOTE=zumby;38338897] This seems like a strawman to me. I see no reason why a hard determinist must or would claim that future states are fixed regardless of the antecedents. Furthermore, I see no reason why a hard determinist couldn't assent to your analysis of "could." What stands in the way of them understanding it as a hypothetical as you are?

As I said earlier, I understand the debate between compatibilism and incompatibilism to be over substantive philosophical issues. If our actions are in fact determined, are we in fact morally responsible for them? Presumably an incompatibilist will say that we are not because she thinks that moral responsibility requires that we be the ultimate source of the action or some such thing, which is (presumably) not true on the assumption of determinism.

Understanding the debate as being about whether compatibilists should be allowed to define "free will" how they want to just seems weird to me. Isn't it obvious that incompatibilists are just being churlish and weird if they object?

Have I offended you somewhere? You are taking some uncharitable and frankly offbeat readings of my posts recently

How on Earth did you get this from what I said? I responded to Matt's questions about why he (a hard determinist) should accept that "something operates outside of the process" of physical laws. I am pointing out that compatibilists don't deny determinism or claim that anything operates outside physical laws, and for emphasis I have contrasted the scientific determinism we both accept with fatalism.

Nothing, hopefully.

This again. We HAD a thread on free will and moral responsibility recently (the Adam Lanza thread), I regularly discuss it elsewhere on the internet and have just finished a productive PM exchange on the subject with a reg here. This thread, however, is not about that. Frankly, if you want to talk about moral responsibility then just start talking about it; repeatedly pointing out that you don't think the issues raised in this thread are as important as the issues you want to talk about, is meh.

I don't think the debate is "about" that issue, but I'm responding to it. This week the prominent atheist and evolutionary biologist endorsed the claim that "compatibilists have an emotional attachment to the idea of 'free will', so they have reassigned the conceptual target of the phrase to enable them to retain a cherished relic." This view is also endorsed by Sam Harris. So I think its worth discussing on RGT.

Huh. No not personal, just bad luck I guess.

Fair enough, I thought when you said that the compatibilist is not opposed to determinism but to fatalism you were drawing a contrast with the hard determinist, but if you weren't then I was just misreading you, so never mind then.

So I've been thinking about this thread having followed the conference you were kind enough to link to and I've some thoughts and a question.

I don't think the indivisibility of the atom will have carried the philosophical baggage that "free will" seems to so it may be useful to continue using atom but free will as a term is too loaded especially given there are those that will argue the silly and untenable position referred to below.

incompatibilists seem to accept responsibility as per the thermostat being responsible for maintaining the temperature but it does so subject to a caused chain of events in the same way that compatibilists hold free will is not to be understood as contra-causal. That responsibility isn't moral though which the discussion of free will seems to entail despite your best efforts here.

It's because of this that it seems incompatibilists recoil from allowing free will. I get the comparison with how atom remained in use but I still think there's a difference when there's still the argument going on with those that maintain a libertarian understanding of free will.

I read Coyne's blog post and raises one question and that's why compatibilists, at least those that do, want to redefine free will in a way that makes sense to all determinists. Why not move on from free will to volition or voluntary or involuntary acts or to use Dennetts definition of reasonably competent volition?

One thing I did note towards the end of the Moving Naturalism Forward conference was there was some irritation expressed at the fact it was being taped and would be broadcast. This seemed to result in the fear that the views and words would be misrepresented by the other side and I think that there's a sense that allowing free will to be redefined subject to determination opens up a greater threat of being misrepresented.

Yeah perhaps a different example would be better for an audience that is already skeptical about compatiblism - obviously my contention here and elsewhere has been that I reject the claim that the philosophical/theological baggage applies to folk intuitions and legal applications, therefore I think the atom example is decent. Maybe an alternative example would be the concept of "meaning" (e.g. what is the meaning of life) which retains some philosophical baggage but atheists are generally less inclined to be eliminativist about.

I offer a deflationary account of moral responsibility, but I think it does the job. That an agent can responsible in situation X does seem to be largely uncontested, and as far as I'm concerned to be morally responsible can only mean to be responsible for a moral act. But there are plenty of people who want a stronger form of moral responsibility that will justify retributive punishment. I can neither rationally justify nor morally endorse that position.

Let's not put the cart before the horse. Libertarian free will is an account of free will, not its definition. So calling compatibilist accounts a 'redefinition' is pretty inaccurate, even if one accepts that libertarian accounts have historically been most popular.

Sticking with the atom example, there are many instances where we have updated the definition of a word in line with new evidence and many where we have just thrown away the word (phlogiston, luminiferous ether, etc). I think "free will" is kinda borderline, but given the growing evidence from experimental philosophy showing that most people do NOT adhere to the simple libertarian account of free will, along with the fact that our legal systems do not presuppose libertarian free will (and, to a lesser extent, the evidence that disbelief in free will has a detrimental effect on morality, job performance, aggressiveness etc) means we should not be too quick to throw the baby out with the bathwater; this is especially true if we can give a scientific and naturalized account of free will.

I like this explanation a lot, the part in bold especially clarifies what moral responsibility can look like in a determined universe.

Yeah that's fair.

It was Roskies papers you linked to elsewhere that brought me back to this thread. It seems reasonable to keep free will on the table while questions about volition in intention, decision making, executive control, etc are subject are investigation. Especially when it appears people are intuitively compatibilist when considering the actual universe. It was interesting to see that people seem to want to retain a sense of responsibility in our universe while suggesting those in a different deterministic universe are not responsible which kinda leads on to.

The other interesting thing here is the idea that disbelief in free will has that detrimental effect, the notion that we are morally responsible causes some of us some of the time to act more responsibly. This I guess is why it's worth arguing over rather than accepting some other term to which it would be easier to agree.

It seems Kant was a little harsh calling compatibilism a wretched subterfuge .

Sometimes when I'm on a train and there's another train on the set of tracks next to it, and I look at it and it moves, it feels like I am moving.

But when I turn and look the other way, I see that I am not.