Peter van Inwagen - What is Free Will?

Free will is a problem. If it seems obvious that you are perfectly free to choose and decide, then it seems perfectly clear that you do not understand the problem. Free will is a huge problem, because our sense of free will and the physical structure of the world contradict each other. A kind of solution is to change the definition of free will. Is this fair?

Peter van Inwagen is an American analytic philosopher and the John Cardinal O’Hara Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He earned his PhD from the University of Rochester under the direction of Richard Taylor and Keith Lehrer.

Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[XOPOIIIO]

Moral responsibility serves the role of influencing the biological computer from committing immoral acts. Punishment exists to prevent people from committing crimes. It was obvious to me since I was a child, nobody even explained it to me, I don't know why people struggle with it so much.

[feltonhamilton]

Being free from influences of worldly things and gravity you can't exist with free will because there's nothing to plug into to even exist.

[edwardprokopchuk]

Finally a cohesive conversation about “free will”!
Except the ending with “moral responsibility”… 😅

[kallianpublico]

Apparently it's the ability to find meaning and new meaning. Meaning changes the choices.

[seesnap]

It’s something that should be free in cafes and busses usually the signal requires a password etc. oh sorry Will thought it said WiFi

[bobcabot]

...ja conflating terms here is not helping the case: you can have free choice without having Free Will! ( is he dutch? would explain his confusion...

[defenderofwisdom]

Are there people out there using careful methods of controlling the flow of information, who think they have evidence for the argument in favour of one religion or another? If so, I'd like to suggest the very act of controlling the dialogue is a way of protecting their theory from refutation. So I'd like them to act with a bit of honour and present their evidence and theory for examination. If not I have to assume they have an interest in avoiding refutation.

[wolfeyes]

The problem I often find when I hear people trying to figure out the problem of consciousness is that they often try to break it down to one thing or another but it's more likely that it's more than one thing that allows consciousness to be I think.

When it comes to free will, at this time, I don't think we truly have it.

Firstly, let's take the idea that the past does affect choice and add to that, out needs at any given time.
Those needs could be hunger, a need for a specific part of the body to increase a specific chemical etc.
I'll use hunger as an example.

On a table there is an apple and a banana and you're hungry but can only choose one.
At this point, it doesn't matter so much which you choose just as long as it helps with the hunger you're feeling.
Although, there may be a need for an increase in your body of say, sugars and so a banana might be something you would choose.
It's also not something you would know consciously because your unconscious would determine that.

Let's now say however, you had a bad reaction to the banana in the fast or you simply don't like the taste ( Maybe your body doesn't nerd so much of the chemicals it produces and so your subconscious tells you that you don't like it)
Taking those things into account, it is then more likely that you'll choose the apple!

As you can see, what seems like a choice really isn't as it would seem to be that the unconscious does most of that.

If you look at the case of a criminal, they may have had a bad childhood and maybe at the time, money was a need ir they would go hungry.
The more likely outcome is that they steal or do some other crime in order to do that.

Someone who had a pretty " Normal " childhood may however have the same hunger issue and not the money but would be more likely to do a few extra hours of work or perhaps ask friends to help out.

[gklgspy]

To say that free will exists because people are obviously morally responsible for their actions is ludicrous.

[kierenmoore]

Compatibilists think every individual is entirely unencumbered unless they are physically handcuffed or similar … It must be nice to have lived such an idyllic life as theirs …

[Ouiofcourse]

Religion = there's a magical thing that can decide, free will existe

Physique = the world is determined, no free will...

Logic = the word is determined or random, no free will...

Philosophy = change the definition of Free Will Make It Real

Well you decide what you believe, I follow logic

[angeleverable]

'


" I will choose free will". ---Rush. Two men walk into a bar and both order a drink. One is an alcoholic and the other rarely imbibes. Do we say one has free will and the other does not? No! Or, that neither could do otherwise? No! Determinism is not "you must do this because your past dictates it" and free will is not "I can choose to do whatever I like". Free will must be aligned with circumstances, from environmental to psychological, even political, every time we examine the problem of choice.

[Maxwell-mvrx]

Free Will is fallacies. Unpredictable consciousness keep out how figure out random reality . This guys believes choice is Free Will . It not true but he is showing Free Will It is completely bluff .

[sandradixon]

It seems that free will is being made much more complicated than it really is. We exercise free will every day by choosing what we eat, what clothes we wear, what we do, and so on. Free will is a gift from God. He doesn’t want humans to be like robots so he dignified us with free will so we have the freedom to choose for ourselves. The Bible says at Genesis 1:28 that God created humans in his image. Unlike animals, which act mainly on instinct, we resemble our Creator in our capacity to display such qualities as love and justice, and like our Creator, we have free will, the ability to choose. In the Bible, God encourages us to choose the right way to live, to reject things that are wrong and to do what is right. All these choices involve our free will. People who choose to do bad things and harm others are misusing their free will. For the moment God is tolerating this situation but very shortly he’s going to make drastic changes on the earth for the benefit of everyone who wants to live in peace with others. Psalm 37:10, 11 says, “Just a little while longer and the wicked will be no more; you will look at where they were, and they will not be there. But the meek will possess the earth, and they will find exquisite delight in the abundance of peace”.

[nguyenkhanhhung]

The second argument doesnt sound right. He said everytime human come back in time and change their decision, it would be like chance. He already assume only nature law or chance exist as only options. What if freewill is a variable that affect the so-called chance distribution? I dont know how philosophers take this argument seriously.

[evaadam]

"What Is Free Will?"

Free Will is the freedom of the Will to choose to believe anything for any reason, good or bad reason, for lack of knowlege of fact or truth...

.. it is NOT free choice if it is driven by knowledge of fact or truth, or driven by natural laws where it can not have free time to make a decision what choice to make among many choices, because it is slave to physical laws ALL THE TIME, no different than a clueless computer or robot driven by programmed switches...

...and the fact that we can have free time to make the decision what to choose, in any time, is solid proof that our Will is not bound by natural laws any time let alone all the time.... this truth proves further that our true being is NOT entirely physical... many refer this non-physical existence as your spirit, soul, or ghost etc., ... I describe this mysterious existence as free split of the Holy Spirit...

Now, ask yourselves :

"If we are entirely physical bodies, why would natural laws allow molecules or chemical processes to believe something that is beyond physical ? ...and our bodies with all common or the same elemental components, why would chemical processes allow OPPOSING BELIEFS instead of uniform belief since natural laws can not be broken ?

If you still can not get the point above to understand that your Will is free, try an exorcist to help you drive away that who is interferring with your good senses..

[winstonoboogie]

Our thoughts and what we imagine aren't considered to be real, yet our brains that we use for thinking and imagining, are real...
Free will is a practical joke from God.

[bmore]

I have trouble with the part about having someone make 1000 choices in a row and then saying “well it looks like a random distribution, so therefore free will is incompatible with indeterminism”. How is that a valid argument? What do you say when the stubborn child chooses choice A 1000 times in a row just to annoy you? In my opinion, that “experiment” tells you absolutely nothing about free will in the first place and you certainly can’t extrapolate from taking the average distribution that appears random.

[SRAVALM]

I concur with a teacher of mine that free will is a potential. And I add that it's of the intellect. If free will was actual, as in people possessed it, what would that mean?

Karma is like determinism, the law of causation i.e. cause and effect. But what is it to not be merely subject to consequences and limited to reacting, when one realizes the faculty of proactive thought, and realizes the mantic powers, now working with the law of causation?

Now thinking it over...there's many variables, one being inspiration, a very powerful energy. For inspiration, too, has great effect, and it's not a property strictly of causation. One might become inspired by another person's activities in determinism, and this moves them to act in a way mere causation could not engender.

[simonhibbs]

The consequence argument just states a consequence of compatibilism, it's not a problem with compatibilism in that compatibilism is still a coherent position. It just has this consequence that control is defined in a certain way. On the other hand the argument against indeterminism (actually against metaphysical free will) shows that indeterminism is actually incompatible with the existence of a free will, because it shows that under indeterminism the agent has no control in any practical sense and therefore no way to express their will consistently.

I like van Inwagen a lot though, he has a very clear way of thinking through problems and cutting to the key issues.