We've been discussing Robert Kane's libertarianism. (As noted in class, libertarianism is the view that incompatibilism is the case (i.e., that free will and determinism are incompatible) and that we have free will.)
Here are two interesting (lengthy) passages from Kane that I'd like you to consider:
"UR thus entails both indeterminism and alternative possibilities or AP. But it entails them by different argumentative routes. Two separate regresses are involved. (I call this the "dual regress of free will.") The first regress begins with the requirement (of UR) that agents must be responsible by virtue of past voluntary actions for anything that is a sufficient cause of their actions. Stopping this regress requires that if agents are to have free will, some actions in their life histories must be undetermined (must lack sufficient causes). The second regress begins with the requirement that agents be responsible by virtue of past voluntary actions for anything that is a sufficient motive for their actions. Stopping this regress requires that some actions in an agent's life history must be will-setting (so they do not have sufficient motives already set) and hence must satisfy the plurality conditions and hence AP."
Kane continues:
"The first of these two regresses results from the requirement that we be ultimate sources of our actions, the second from the requirement that we be ultimate sources of our wills (to perform those actions). If the second requirement were not added, we might have a world in which all the will-setting was done by someone or something other than the agents themselves, as in the imagined world in which all the will-setting was done by God. Agents in such a world might be unhindered in the pursuit of their purposes or ends, but it would never be "up to them" what purposes or ends they pursued. To have free will therefore is to be the ultimate designer of one's own purposes or ends or goals. And if we are to be the ultimate designers of our own purposes or ends, there must be some actions in our life histories that are will-setting, plural voluntary [i.e., could have acted in more than way in accordance with one's will] and undetermined by someone or something else." (22)
Note all of the theological connections. What Kane calls the imagined world (i.e, a world in which God does all of the will-setting) is what many theologians and church-goers regard as the actual world. If Kane is right, then all of those theologians and church-goers are mistaken (and so should change the way they think and speak about God's involvement with the world).
Comment upon Kane's claims here. Is he right about this? Where does he go wrong, if anywhere?
Be sure to interact with each other. And again, be sure to take advantage of this opportunity to have directed, focused conversation on such matters.
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I'm not entirely sure what I think about Kane's view. For the moment, it sounds moderately plausible. I have some worries with respect to what I perceive as a lack of explanation of Kane's view: namely, that the causal mechanism by which we act is left fairly unexplored and unarticulated. In other words, Kane takes us what we kind of decisions we need to make in order to be UR with respect to those decisions, but he fails to discuss how (if at all) we can bring about those decisions.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that Kane's worry pertaining to theological determinism is well-founded. This is one reason why I lean away from theological determinism: It seems to me that, if God causes everything, including our actions, then we are not free with respect to our actions; and, if we are not free with respect to our actions, then we are not morally responsible with respect to our actions. Additionally, God's causal involvement in immoral actions seems to entail (or at least strongly imply) that God is ultimately responsible for those actions, and that seems bad for theological determinists who want to affirm a perfectly good God (or perhaps even a MOSTLY good God).
Blake H.
I have difficulty as it is with a deterministic view because such a view would seem to leave God in a the prickly situation of being the cause of and responsible party for evil in the world.
ReplyDeleteThus far, I have not found any difficulties with Kane's view. The idea that for us to have free will we must be able to choose between different options and make decisions that are will setting AND are not determined by some other factor or force seems plausible.
As Blake mentioned above, the issue of causation with respect to our decisions and how that works seems to be lacking. I wonder how Kane would flesh that out, and what differences there would be from a dualistic view to a materialistic view.
- Kaleb M.
Kane's argument is fairly solid, I'll give him that, but I still don't believe it mainly because of his views of God's sovereignty and other so called "theological connections." But, like Kaleb and Blake have said, I also have a problem with theological determinism as it is defined by Kane and even other determinists (such as Calvin). There is no getting around what Scripture says about God's ultimate plan for His people and this world (that is, if you take God's Word to be truth, which I do), or such argued topics as predestination and election. At this point, however, I'm willing to say that I don't know how all this works in with free will because I am not inclined to put God in a theological or philosophical box.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, Kane's definition of free will seems to be in a world where God is not involved at all. If we are to be the sufficient cause or source of our own actions, then how does this work? Where does the motivation to do what it is we want to do come from? Where does our standard of right and wrong, to be able to say we are responsible for our actions, originate? Kane is right to say that determinists have to get around problem of God being the cause of sin, but couldn't it be that God created us to have free wills in order to choose between His way or the way of the world? As it stands, I don't think libertarians have it right and I don't think determinists have it right. I guess I fall in the compatibilist camp, but right now I also realize my arguments are kind of weak because I'm really not entirely sure what all compatibilists believe. I just know that I don't fall to one extreme or the other. So, feel free to shoot down and/or challenge whatever is said here.
-Alyson S.
Kane does indeed present some interesting claims. I agree that Kane assumes as imaginary what many people would claim as the actual world. The problem that I face when considering these paragraphs is not so much a problem with incompatibilism (if free will exists, then determinism is not tue) but a problem with libertarianism (Free will exists; therefore, determinism is not true). I tend to agree with Kane that ultimate responsibility entails indeterminism and alternative possibilities. Ultimate responsibility requires not only that ‘I’ be the ultimate source of my actions but also the ultimate source of my will to do those actions. But my question, though, is: can we make any sense out of the notion that we are the ultimate source of our own wills? How could I be the final source of my own will? What does the “I” imply? It can’t and doesn’t mean that I ‘want’ my will to be such for that would require a preexisting state of my will and would lend itself to an infinite regress – which is impossible since we are not infinite/eternal (meaning we have not existed infinitely back, we had a definitive beginning). So, what does it even mean to say that I am the ultimate source of my will?
ReplyDeleteI don’t know. I guess I am kind of back at a previous consideration we made: how can an action be neither determined nor left completely to chance?
Any thoughts? Am I missing something or misrepresenting the argument?
---William Kelly---
I would tend to agree with Kane’s claims here. It certainly would seem illogical to hold someone morally responsible for their actions if they are not ultimately the cause of their actions. You may think if someone was hypnotized so that they had no control over their actions, but instead they were being completely controlled be a “puppet master” if you will, then they would not be considered responsible for their actions at that time. The same logic seems be at work here. If your actions are wholly determined so that it is not your will that is causing the action not your circumstances that are causing them then how can you be considered responsible. For the determinist this really puts them in a strange in regards to God’s infallibility. For how could an infallible God be the ultimate cause of sin. Taking account first that there is sin and God is that which determines our actions. So I think I really believe that Kane has a good point there for those of us that wish to believe God exists and is flawless. Then it would seem that we need some sort of free will that enables us to be the cause of our actions and not determined by God.
ReplyDeleteNo Will, that's how I understand it, and I completely agree with you. I don't understand how we can be the final source of our wills when chemical makeup, environment, divine intervention (if there exists a distinction between it and everything else that happens) and everything else don't seem to leave a lot of room for the 'I' to develop (agreed: what does 'I' even mean?)
ReplyDeleteI think anyone that believes in the Holy Spirit or Predestination (whatever THAT means) is going to have problems with Kane's claims, mostly because they think our will is changed by grace from a single moment of submission (which many argue, is also an act of grace)
In the argument we've been looking at in class, it talks about the silliness infinite regress argument. It is silly when we are operating from the assumption that free will exists, but if we are willing to consider it, I do think it is problematic.
I lean determinist because I have a hard time holding people accountable, based off of all the factors I see and experience. I understand that UR and moral responsibility are problematic; I've reconciled it mostly in my head, and don't think I can go about explaining it here.
I agree with Blake in finding Kane's arguments moderately plausible, though worries remain. As Will and a few others noted, Kane does not sufficiently address what it would mean for a person to be ultimately responsible for his/her actions and wills with respect to the nature of the self-forming action... what does that look like? It's almost as if there is a 'quantum jump' of sorts in his will that causes (?) him to will something and then act upon that state of the will. But if this sort of picture were true, then it is unclear to me how free will could be said to exist in any significant sense because states of will would be reduced to something like a random quantum leap... does that make any sense? So my chief concern is that there is no clear picture of how an agent would actually retain free will under Kane's model because I don't know how self-forming actions would work... eh?
ReplyDeleteTim.
I'm with you, Will (& those who subsequently agreed with Will). I think your critique is right on. It doesn't seem clear how Kane's SFA's occur. But even asking "how" is a use of the language of causation. Even if a choice was entirely my own, with no outside influences, the internal states which influenced my choice would be influenced by outside sources. The infinite regress of causality seems inescapable. Speaking of an uncaused event that is yet not random (it seems that we would not want to hold that SFA's are completely random!) isn't coherent. But then what are these SFA's supposed to be? In the example of the assassin who suddenly experiences pangs of conscience...did those pangs of conscience originate by an act of his free will? It doesn't seem so, and yet those (seemingly spontaneous) pangs of conscience put the assassin in a place where he had to choose between pulling the trigger or not. And at the point of choice, we reach what is known as "The Mind argument." I find the Mind argument convincing, so I'm very curious to see how Kane responds to it.
ReplyDelete--Faith B.
For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." [fn] Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?" But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' "
ReplyDelete- Romans 9:17-20
Will ,I agree with you that the world that Kane calls the imaginary world is in fact the real world. In your post you talked about how you had a hard time with responsibility in a compatible view of free will. I think that the Bible does seem to indicate that it is possible for a person to be held morally responsible for an action, while God caused that action to happen. It is possible that if free will is just doing what we want then we could be punished for that action in the sense that we willed to do that action. Or maybe a person should be punished for an action as a deterrent from doing that action again.
In the end I really don’t know what the answer is.
Will, I thought you made a great point regarding our ability to properly conceive of the ultimate source of our will. I read your last question and I am puzzled with how to respond. Does free will entail that our choices are not left completely up to chance? What does it mean for a choice to be left completely up to chance? Is that a situation where we could have willed to done a variety of things and can freely choose to do one?
ReplyDeleteJust as a little side note of support for Kane’s position, I’d like to mention that determinisms failure to explain how a morally perfect God could be ultimately responsible for this reality (assuming we don’t have free will and UR). I think he has good arguments for his position and the free will debate seems to leave us in a state or uncertainty, regardless of which side we choose. At this point it seems as if we are condemning ourselves to accepting a view with gaping and inexplicable gaps and the choice is simply: which views has sort of gaps we can live with.
Will, I thought you made a great point regarding our ability to properly conceive of the ultimate source of our will. I read your last question and I am puzzled with how to respond. Does free will entail that our choices are not left completely up to chance? What does it mean for a choice to be left completely up to chance? Is that a situation where we could have willed to done a variety of things and can freely choose to do one?
ReplyDeleteJust as a little side note of support for Kane’s position, I’d like to mention that determinisms failure to explain how a morally perfect God could be ultimately responsible for this reality (assuming we don’t have free will and UR). I think he has good arguments for his position and the free will debate seems to leave us in a state or uncertainty, regardless of which side we choose. At this point it seems as if we are condemning ourselves to accepting a view with gaping and inexplicable gaps and the choice is simply: which views has sort of gaps we can live with.
Yeah, Will, you make a really good point about the "I" question. Who is it that is forming my will, if not God or outside forces? How does one go about deciding what will to have? It seems that making that choice would require our having a pre-existing will. I, too, think that Kane is correct is his incompatibilist understanding, but it does seem that his assumption that free will is the case might be where he runs into trouble.
ReplyDeleteActually, I like free will, so if we can salvage his arguments (or find better ones) then I'd be delighted.
Is it a fair complaint against determinism to say that it does not grant us any conceivable way of proving it wrong? Aren't philosophical theories supposed to be able to withstand hypothetical scenarios that seem to undermine the theory? But with determinism, there is really no way of coming up with a situation where people are *necessarily* performing acts with libertarian freedom.