Two Senses Of freewill [619447]

26 Volume 17 Number 3
PROSPERO NORMAN BACRAC
Two senses of ‘freewill’
[This piece takes the form of a Reply
written by the author to some pro-freewill arguments embedded in
the extract from PER News 91,
printed here on pp. 22 -25. In it he
distinguishes two different ways in which the term ‘freewill’ is used.]

There were a n umber of interesting
comments in PER News 91 about the
debate on 7th May 2011 between Michael Langford and me on the issue of the reality of free will. I wish here just to emphasise
the distinction between the two different
meanings of ‘free will’, believing that further discussion is futile unless this important distinction is recognised. (See
also my article ‘Epiphenomenalism
Explained’ in the journal Philosophy Now
[Issue 81, Oct/Nov 2010], available on the net at
www.philosophynow.org/ ).
The common usage of the term ‘free will’
simply describes the feeling accompanying the successful, unconstrained performance of a desired action. The understandable
mistake then is to presume that this subjective
feeling entitles us to pronounce on the
objective nature of the brain’s
decision- making process. This process is
not only compatible with, but actually requires determinism, because we rely on nature’s lawfulness for all our planned
actions. As it happens, our brains are de facto
deterministic. Throughout our lives, right
up to every mom ent of choice, the effects
of a myriad influences funnel together in
our heads to form our unique,
decision- making identity.
The libertarian concept of free will posits
a special faculty we all are said to possess,
‘free’ from the brain and able to foist any
choice it wishes on the brain. This seems consonant with Chris Ormell’s suggestion that in future, physics might incorporate a
potent entity ‘freewill’ into its very fabric; in
Prospero 17-3, he puts freewill ‘at the very
centre of the physicality of t he universe’.
Less scientifically inclined philosophers try to achieve the same result (i.e. a libertarian
brain -free will) by positing a process termed
‘agent causation’; similarly, Michael Langford has recourse to a ‘transcendental
will’.
My reaction i s to ask the same question
of these various will ontologies – Ormell’s
physical entity , the philosophers’ disembodied
causal agent , Langford’s transcendent will : Is
this quasi -supernatural will’s decision itself
(a) the unique outcome of its state at that
moment, or (b) without any determining cause?
If (a), this state is presumably determined
by the person’s past and so, given their
history, could not have been otherwise. If
(b), the decision is arbitrary and therefore

27 Volume 17 Number 3
PROSPERO without moral significance. Any decision
mechanism, if not deterministic, must be
random. The attempt to circumvent this remorseless logic by postulating fanciful ontologies cannot succeed, so libertarian
free will is not logically possible; it’s a
perverse concept formulated by authorities wanting to restrict behaviour in
the
population –- a case of Orwellian
double –

think.
There are perhaps two morals for
education: acknowledge that past events
have caused the present, both good and
bad; realise that our intelligent action now
may assist the desired future to come into being.

Copyright © 2011 Norman Bacrac

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