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As Wikipedia phrases Harry G. Frankfurt (1969): "A compatibilist can believe that a person can choose between many choices, but the choice is always determined

by Ephem 8y ago

As Wikipedia phrases Harry G. Frankfurt (1969): "A compatibilist can believe that a person can choose between many choices, but the choice is always determined by external factors" A bit sloppily put, a compatibilist believes a choice is free if the agent making it is not coerced or constrainted, even if the choice that the agent will make is determined. Different compatibilists approach this as either being descriptive (this is how we tend to actually make moral judgements), or normative (free will is defined in these terms and moral responsibility for our actions follows from that). Most incompatibilists agree that "freedom to act" is a necessary criterion for free will, but not that it is sufficient.

Ephem 8y ago
Personally I would argue that we descriptively have different definitions of free before a choice and after. Because the future has not yet happened, all possible future choices are indeed free in a sense, even if one of them is predetermined. When we look back, I think we tend to think of free in a different way, that is, given that a choice has already been made, we can now say that it was the only choice that could have happened and did (determinism or not, I think we often tend to think this way in ordinary life). When we judge moral responsibility, we tend to think of the actor in that moment of making the choice. At that moment the choice was still "free", because the future had not yet happened, and so we ascribe moral responsibility to these actions.
- garmaine 8y ago
  What does it mean for a choice to be “free” if it is predetermined?
MrScruff 8y ago
So is it the case that the compatibilist imagines three possible classes of decision. 1) Where the decision is coerced. 2) Where the decision is not coerced and so ostensibly 'free' but determined by external factors (ie. the laws of Physics). 3) Where the decision is genuinely 'free', thus violating the laws of Physics as we know them. Compatibilists would reject 3) but would describe 2) as the exercising of 'free will'. Is that correct?
- FabHK 8y ago
  Yes, that's my understanding as well. (Not sure what you mean with "reject 3)" - they basically say it doesn't happen, and it need not happen for free will.) The thought experiment is always "suppose we could turn back time, and arrive in exactly the same situation as we were before - could I have decided differently?". The traditional notion of free will sort of requires that you could have decided differently. The compatibilist notion of free will implies that, no, you could not have decided differently - but that doesn't mean that you have no free will. EDIT to add: Sam Harris has a book about his version of compatibilism: https://samharris.org/books/free-will/ https://samharris.org/books/free-will/
- Ephem 8y ago
  In a nutshell that about sums it up. I do think many compatibilists think that 1->2 is a scale and that there exists a lot of nuance here though. Interestingly enough, maybe it's not the meaning of the word "free" that is under debate here, but instead that of the word coerced?
  - steve_gh 8y ago
    So for (2). If my psychological state is manipulated by a targeted advertising campaign, based on Google-scale data, do I actually have Free Will in any meaningful sense?
- naasking 8y ago
  > Compatibilists would reject 3) but would describe 2) as the exercising of 'free will'. Compatibilism is "compatible with" determinism, it doesn't depend on determinism. So even if we turn out to be non-deterministic beings, that fact is irrelevant to Compatibilist free will. The most common Compatibilist view is probably one that focuses on an agent's reasons for acting. If an agent acts for internal reasons, they are acting of their own free will (reasons are beliefs, judgments, inclinations, etc.). If an agent's reasons are subjugated to another agent's reasons (coercion), then they are not acting of their own free will. Basically, Compatibilism is very similar to the way the law works. We judge whether a person's cognition is compromised in some way, and so whether they are "fit" and so can make choices of their own free will, and then we examine whether they actually did make a choice of their own free will in order to determine whether they are responsible.

by Ephem 8y ago

Ephem 8y ago

Personally I would argue that we descriptively have different definitions of free before a choice and after. Because the future has not yet happened, all possible future choices are indeed free in a sense, even if one of them is predetermined. When we look back, I think we tend to think of free in a different way, that is, given that a choice has already been made, we can now say that it was the only choice that could have happened and did (determinism or not, I think we often tend to think this way in ordinary life). When we judge moral responsibility, we tend to think of the actor in that moment of making the choice. At that moment the choice was still "free", because the future had not yet happened, and so we ascribe moral responsibility to these actions.

garmaine 8y ago
What does it mean for a choice to be “free” if it is predetermined?

MrScruff 8y ago

So is it the case that the compatibilist imagines three possible classes of decision. 1) Where the decision is coerced. 2) Where the decision is not coerced and so ostensibly 'free' but determined by external factors (ie. the laws of Physics). 3) Where the decision is genuinely 'free', thus violating the laws of Physics as we know them. Compatibilists would reject 3) but would describe 2) as the exercising of 'free will'. Is that correct?

FabHK 8y ago
Yes, that's my understanding as well. (Not sure what you mean with "reject 3)" - they basically say it doesn't happen, and it need not happen for free will.) The thought experiment is always "suppose we could turn back time, and arrive in exactly the same situation as we were before - could I have decided differently?". The traditional notion of free will sort of requires that you could have decided differently. The compatibilist notion of free will implies that, no, you could not have decided differently - but that doesn't mean that you have no free will. EDIT to add: Sam Harris has a book about his version of compatibilism: https://samharris.org/books/free-will/ https://samharris.org/books/free-will/
Ephem 8y ago
In a nutshell that about sums it up. I do think many compatibilists think that 1->2 is a scale and that there exists a lot of nuance here though. Interestingly enough, maybe it's not the meaning of the word "free" that is under debate here, but instead that of the word coerced?
- steve_gh 8y ago
  So for (2). If my psychological state is manipulated by a targeted advertising campaign, based on Google-scale data, do I actually have Free Will in any meaningful sense?
naasking 8y ago
> Compatibilists would reject 3) but would describe 2) as the exercising of 'free will'. Compatibilism is "compatible with" determinism, it doesn't depend on determinism. So even if we turn out to be non-deterministic beings, that fact is irrelevant to Compatibilist free will. The most common Compatibilist view is probably one that focuses on an agent's reasons for acting. If an agent acts for internal reasons, they are acting of their own free will (reasons are beliefs, judgments, inclinations, etc.). If an agent's reasons are subjugated to another agent's reasons (coercion), then they are not acting of their own free will. Basically, Compatibilism is very similar to the way the law works. We judge whether a person's cognition is compromised in some way, and so whether they are "fit" and so can make choices of their own free will, and then we examine whether they actually did make a choice of their own free will in order to determine whether they are responsible.