> As I’ve written before, however, this style of compatibilism has pretty much been debunked, since someone wanting to do otherwise is just as susceptible to determinism, and so redirecting the origin of freedom to whatever someone wanted to do ultimately doesn’t accomplish very much, philosophically. Or, as I’ve put it before, “[W]ho gives a shit if you wanted to do otherwise when what you wanted to do was also predetermined?”
I don't think this debunks classical compatibilism at all. In fact, it's just a circular argument. Who cares if what you wanted to do is predetermined? The entire conceit of classical compatibilism is that this doesn't matter.
Classical compatibilism doesn't hold that the origin of freedom is in being free to want certain things - it holds that the origin of freedom is in being able to do what you want, regardless of how what you want was determined.
But the classical compatibilist freely admits that being able to do otherwise is necessary for free will and also that, prima facie, determinism undermines it, which is why they reach for a dispositional account of doing otherwise (i.e., could have done otherwise if you had wanted to) that initially looks like it can survive determinism. The idea that wanting is somehow crucial derives from thinking that it provides a meaningful way to have alternatives via the dispositional account of freedom to do otherwise.
Compatibilism, despite its name, is really the view that free will requires determinism and not just that they’re compatible: only if your desires determine your actions are you truly free. It’s a compelling view, as is its denial. And thus a Kantian antinomy looms: you’re free only if your actions are determined; you’re free only if your actions are undetermined. And the way out of this morass, as with any genuine antinomy, is not to take sides (as everyone in this debate does) but to ask why both sides seem compelling. That's Kant's truly deep and original insight and the real basis of the analytic/continental divide. If you’re interested I write about it here: https://zworld.substack.com/p/anatomy-of-a-schism-how-kant-tore-b02
Thank you for that excellent presentation of your views on compatibilism. You seem like a reasonable fellow; I hope I can show you where your confusion arises.
But first:
> Most philosophers are compatibilists <
> It’s an outlandish position. <
> The arguments against free will are both legion and persuasive <
That the majority of philosophers are compatibilists shows that the arguments against free will, however legion they may be, are not **generally** persuasive. If they were, then people (including philosophers) would be persuaded.
That the majority of philosophers are compatibilists shows that compatibilism is not "outlandish" for most philosophers.
You may find compatibilism outlandish; you may have been persuaded that free will does not exist by one or more arguments against it. Those facts may be preventing you from truly understanding how compatibilists see the world.
---
If you really want to understand why some people (including most philosophers) are compatibilists you need to look to this:
> But [Frankfurt's] maneuver also requires recharacterizing free will as some notion of autonomy besides the power to do otherwise. <
Compatibilists do not believe, and may never have believed, that free will is the power to do otherwise. We reject that claim.
Are we thus "recharacterizing free will"? Perhaps. But keep in mind that characterizations are not the same thing as definitions. Recharacterizing something is not the same as redefining it. Characterization is something we do for targets that are defined ostensively -- by pointing at them or demonstrating them. Definition is used for mathematical and theoretical constructs.
Now philosophy went thru a phase (and many philosophers may still be in it) of wanting to define everything. Knowledge, for example, was given the definition of [[a justified, true belief]]. Then Gettier came along: something can be true, and your belief in it justified, and yet it is not knowledge. Some people would bite the bullet and say that those beliefs **did** count as knowledge; but most people take it to mean that our characterization (tho' they may call it a definition) was wrong. Whatever knowledge is, that description did not pick it out, and so the search for a better characterization goes on: "What is it that **does** separate knowledge from non-knowledge?"
So, is "free will" an ostensive term or a theoretical one? Well if you want to insist that "free will" is a theoretical term and defined to require a power to control our actions in a way that defies physics, then I'll happily say we have no such power, and so that "free will" does not exist. To me the only argument required would be that physics is the study of the way that physical matter moves, and we humans are (at least partly) physical matter, so however we move it must be consistent with physics.
But the reason I call myself a compatibilist is that I take "free will" to be an ostensive term. If you ask someone to prove that they have free will they'll typically (in my experience) just do something arbitrary, like raising an arm. That is taken to be a demonstration of their free will. We just **obviously** have that kind of power, and (mostly) identify that power with "free will". When you object "Yeah, but science shows (such-and-so)," they **might** reject free will, but in my experience they're more likely to say "So much the worse for science!"
So that, I think, is the primary difference between compatibilists and anti-compatibilists (whether believers in or deniers of free will). Anti-compatibilists take "free will" to be defined by a power to do otherwise, while compatibilists take it to be a power that people demonstrate on a regular basis.
---
So what about those arguments for compatibilism that you criticized? Why would compatibilists offer such arguments if they just take free will to be obvious?
I think what's going on there is an attempt to explain not just what free will is, but why people have the (mistaken!) beliefs about it that they do. It is common for people to claim that free will consists in the ability to do otherwise. The fact that a belief is wide-spread does not mean that it is correct. But if it's incorrect, then there should be some explanation of why it's so widely held.
So, enter the compatibilist who says that free will is the ability to do what you want. "If I had wanted to do something different, I would have" is a perfectly fine description of how people feel about having done something of their own free will. Maybe that description is more fundamental than the "I could have done otherwise" description. Maybe people just assume that the truth of their claim implies that they have the ability to do otherwise.
Of course if you're invested in free will being the ability to do otherwise, you'll point out that (under determinism) you couldn't have wanted otherwise, so the if-I'd-wanted view doesn't help. Thus more arguments need to be presented to show that the able-to-do-otherwise view is just wrong. It becomes a game of people trying to show why the other guy's argument is wrong, and come up with one that the other guy can't refute. Hence Frankfurt and the arguments against his view.
But in the end, I think, it **mostly** comes down to whether you think "free will" is defined by the ability to do otherwise or not. Is "free will" more like "knowledge" or more like "prime number"?
I don't expect to have converted you to being a compatibilist, but I hope I've given you some help in understanding why you shouldn't find compatibilism so outlandish.
I make a similar argument for the outlandish position to Blanchard's here: https://outlandishclaims.substack.com/p/william-godwins-libertarian-free , but separating free will into four categories instead of two: blame, science, storytelling, and introspection. All of these are context-dependent and contingent on practicality.
You have moral free will to the extent that it creates useful incentives to blame you for your misdeeds.
You have scientific free will to the extent that the causes of your actions are out of scope of whatever scientific inquiry is going on at the moment.
You have storytelling free will if a narrative works better by assigning you agency.
You have introspective free will if you can most profitably model your own actions by thinking of them as unconstrained (as is usually the case).
I like your four categories. And as a philosophical pragmatist, I particularly like the implicit assumption that the free will question is not one of fact, but rather one of choosing the most profitable viewpoint in the current situation.
I think as typically used it's a confused conflation of all four. Under rigorous definition it either ends up meaning "scientific free will, but we assume an omniscient demon so nothing observable is out of scope", in which case compatibilism does seem like nonsense, or one of the other three, in which case the existence of free will is self-evident.
That makes sense. I think the compatibilist position is that scientific free will is false, but in moral/storytelling/introstpective/other contexts, retaining the (non-scientific) concept of free will is still useful. But given that characterization, I don't know why we need the additional position of hard determinism. If the compatibilist says, determinism is true but we're going to refine the concept of free will such that it adheres to our intuitions and makes useful distinctions, what in that is there for the (hard) determinist to reject?
This Blanchard guy sounds cool
> As I’ve written before, however, this style of compatibilism has pretty much been debunked, since someone wanting to do otherwise is just as susceptible to determinism, and so redirecting the origin of freedom to whatever someone wanted to do ultimately doesn’t accomplish very much, philosophically. Or, as I’ve put it before, “[W]ho gives a shit if you wanted to do otherwise when what you wanted to do was also predetermined?”
I don't think this debunks classical compatibilism at all. In fact, it's just a circular argument. Who cares if what you wanted to do is predetermined? The entire conceit of classical compatibilism is that this doesn't matter.
Classical compatibilism doesn't hold that the origin of freedom is in being free to want certain things - it holds that the origin of freedom is in being able to do what you want, regardless of how what you want was determined.
But the classical compatibilist freely admits that being able to do otherwise is necessary for free will and also that, prima facie, determinism undermines it, which is why they reach for a dispositional account of doing otherwise (i.e., could have done otherwise if you had wanted to) that initially looks like it can survive determinism. The idea that wanting is somehow crucial derives from thinking that it provides a meaningful way to have alternatives via the dispositional account of freedom to do otherwise.
Compatibilism, despite its name, is really the view that free will requires determinism and not just that they’re compatible: only if your desires determine your actions are you truly free. It’s a compelling view, as is its denial. And thus a Kantian antinomy looms: you’re free only if your actions are determined; you’re free only if your actions are undetermined. And the way out of this morass, as with any genuine antinomy, is not to take sides (as everyone in this debate does) but to ask why both sides seem compelling. That's Kant's truly deep and original insight and the real basis of the analytic/continental divide. If you’re interested I write about it here: https://zworld.substack.com/p/anatomy-of-a-schism-how-kant-tore-b02
If you define freedom as “doing what you want”, the fact that what you want is determined doesn’t make you less free.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/nY7oAdy5odfGqE7mQ/freedom-under-naturalistic-dualism
Thank you for that excellent presentation of your views on compatibilism. You seem like a reasonable fellow; I hope I can show you where your confusion arises.
But first:
> Most philosophers are compatibilists <
> It’s an outlandish position. <
> The arguments against free will are both legion and persuasive <
That the majority of philosophers are compatibilists shows that the arguments against free will, however legion they may be, are not **generally** persuasive. If they were, then people (including philosophers) would be persuaded.
That the majority of philosophers are compatibilists shows that compatibilism is not "outlandish" for most philosophers.
You may find compatibilism outlandish; you may have been persuaded that free will does not exist by one or more arguments against it. Those facts may be preventing you from truly understanding how compatibilists see the world.
---
If you really want to understand why some people (including most philosophers) are compatibilists you need to look to this:
> But [Frankfurt's] maneuver also requires recharacterizing free will as some notion of autonomy besides the power to do otherwise. <
Compatibilists do not believe, and may never have believed, that free will is the power to do otherwise. We reject that claim.
Are we thus "recharacterizing free will"? Perhaps. But keep in mind that characterizations are not the same thing as definitions. Recharacterizing something is not the same as redefining it. Characterization is something we do for targets that are defined ostensively -- by pointing at them or demonstrating them. Definition is used for mathematical and theoretical constructs.
Now philosophy went thru a phase (and many philosophers may still be in it) of wanting to define everything. Knowledge, for example, was given the definition of [[a justified, true belief]]. Then Gettier came along: something can be true, and your belief in it justified, and yet it is not knowledge. Some people would bite the bullet and say that those beliefs **did** count as knowledge; but most people take it to mean that our characterization (tho' they may call it a definition) was wrong. Whatever knowledge is, that description did not pick it out, and so the search for a better characterization goes on: "What is it that **does** separate knowledge from non-knowledge?"
So, is "free will" an ostensive term or a theoretical one? Well if you want to insist that "free will" is a theoretical term and defined to require a power to control our actions in a way that defies physics, then I'll happily say we have no such power, and so that "free will" does not exist. To me the only argument required would be that physics is the study of the way that physical matter moves, and we humans are (at least partly) physical matter, so however we move it must be consistent with physics.
But the reason I call myself a compatibilist is that I take "free will" to be an ostensive term. If you ask someone to prove that they have free will they'll typically (in my experience) just do something arbitrary, like raising an arm. That is taken to be a demonstration of their free will. We just **obviously** have that kind of power, and (mostly) identify that power with "free will". When you object "Yeah, but science shows (such-and-so)," they **might** reject free will, but in my experience they're more likely to say "So much the worse for science!"
So that, I think, is the primary difference between compatibilists and anti-compatibilists (whether believers in or deniers of free will). Anti-compatibilists take "free will" to be defined by a power to do otherwise, while compatibilists take it to be a power that people demonstrate on a regular basis.
---
So what about those arguments for compatibilism that you criticized? Why would compatibilists offer such arguments if they just take free will to be obvious?
I think what's going on there is an attempt to explain not just what free will is, but why people have the (mistaken!) beliefs about it that they do. It is common for people to claim that free will consists in the ability to do otherwise. The fact that a belief is wide-spread does not mean that it is correct. But if it's incorrect, then there should be some explanation of why it's so widely held.
So, enter the compatibilist who says that free will is the ability to do what you want. "If I had wanted to do something different, I would have" is a perfectly fine description of how people feel about having done something of their own free will. Maybe that description is more fundamental than the "I could have done otherwise" description. Maybe people just assume that the truth of their claim implies that they have the ability to do otherwise.
Of course if you're invested in free will being the ability to do otherwise, you'll point out that (under determinism) you couldn't have wanted otherwise, so the if-I'd-wanted view doesn't help. Thus more arguments need to be presented to show that the able-to-do-otherwise view is just wrong. It becomes a game of people trying to show why the other guy's argument is wrong, and come up with one that the other guy can't refute. Hence Frankfurt and the arguments against his view.
But in the end, I think, it **mostly** comes down to whether you think "free will" is defined by the ability to do otherwise or not. Is "free will" more like "knowledge" or more like "prime number"?
I don't expect to have converted you to being a compatibilist, but I hope I've given you some help in understanding why you shouldn't find compatibilism so outlandish.
I make a similar argument for the outlandish position to Blanchard's here: https://outlandishclaims.substack.com/p/william-godwins-libertarian-free , but separating free will into four categories instead of two: blame, science, storytelling, and introspection. All of these are context-dependent and contingent on practicality.
You have moral free will to the extent that it creates useful incentives to blame you for your misdeeds.
You have scientific free will to the extent that the causes of your actions are out of scope of whatever scientific inquiry is going on at the moment.
You have storytelling free will if a narrative works better by assigning you agency.
You have introspective free will if you can most profitably model your own actions by thinking of them as unconstrained (as is usually the case).
I like your four categories. And as a philosophical pragmatist, I particularly like the implicit assumption that the free will question is not one of fact, but rather one of choosing the most profitable viewpoint in the current situation.
In which category is philosophical free will, in the sense of self-control over alternate possibilities?
I think as typically used it's a confused conflation of all four. Under rigorous definition it either ends up meaning "scientific free will, but we assume an omniscient demon so nothing observable is out of scope", in which case compatibilism does seem like nonsense, or one of the other three, in which case the existence of free will is self-evident.
That makes sense. I think the compatibilist position is that scientific free will is false, but in moral/storytelling/introstpective/other contexts, retaining the (non-scientific) concept of free will is still useful. But given that characterization, I don't know why we need the additional position of hard determinism. If the compatibilist says, determinism is true but we're going to refine the concept of free will such that it adheres to our intuitions and makes useful distinctions, what in that is there for the (hard) determinist to reject?