On Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 1:11 PM, david buchanan <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Steve said: > I would say that a Jamesian pragmatic evaluation of the situation goes like > this: if determinism were true, we would behave exactly as we already behave > and have no choice in the matter even though we have the feeling of willing > some of our acts. If free will is true, then we would behave exactly as we > behave but _do_ have a choice in the matter. If determinism is true, then > your belief in free will is causally determined. If free will is true, then I > am freely choosing not to be able to make sense of it. Either way, we behave > exactly as we behave. This so-called metaphysical problem is a difference > that makes no difference in how people behave in practice. The feeling of > having a choice points to something that is either real or illusory, but > either way, we still do what we do, so this problem is a fake problem with no > consequences. > > dmb says: > Well, no, that's not true. As a young man James was so depressed over the > idea that determinism might be true that he very nearly killed himself. And > he mocked the logic trap you point to by saying his first act of free will is > to believe in free will.
Steve: I also read that as a boy, James believed in Big Foot and trusted Bush's claim that Hussein had WMD's, but that was before Pierce invented pragmatism, so it doesn't really count in defining what it means to be Jamesian. In fact, pragmatism was invented to get us out of such silly metaphysical disputes and the Cartesian anxiety that James dealt with as a young man. We also know that James had a blind spot when it comes to religion, so even later in life, he himself wasn't all treat Jamesian when it comes to religious faith such as faith in free will. dmb: >Further, one of the most important ways James's PRAGMATISM is supposed to >settle metaphysical disputes is to ask what practical difference it makes to >adopt one view or the other, as you point out. But what most people don't >quite realize about James's pragmatism is that depression and suicidal feeling >are among the practical consequences. In fact, James doesn't talk about >pragmatism as such until the second lecture. The first one is devoted to the >role temperament and affect play in the construction of our philosophies and >the rival schools that have developed as a result. As he saw it, temperament >is the reason we have so many dilemmas in philosophy; empiricism and >rationalism, humanism and theism, materialism and idealism, classic and >romantic, determinism and free will, tough-minded and tender-minded, >Aristoteleans and Platonists, etc., etc.. And how we feel about these rival >visions is part of what he means by practical results. Steve: James had pointed out that cognition is not divorced from the passions, but in his Will to Believe he erred (sinned against pragmatism) in accepting his opponent's cognition/passion dichotomy, which is a big reason why that essay was a failure. What he should have said is that we only believe the things we do because we want what we want. Our desires are never divorced from reason. But our desires in the question of whether a proposition is true do NOT include what we wish were true--not if we are being intellectually honest. That is why we have such concepts as "wishful thinking" to distinguish what is good to believe with regard to leading to successful action and what is good to believe as far as giving you existential comfort. I don't know how you could possibly reconcile the things you have said about the big omniscient omnipotent God that sung, thought, or sneezed the world into existence with what you are saying about the small god that lives in each individual willing human actions. Since when is it a good argument in favor of a metaphysical concept to say "well I just couldn't live in a world where I didn't believe that Jesus died for my personal sins"? I think we both agree in that case that such comfort is irrelevant to whether the belief is true. So how can you square this with making the same sort of argument for the small God (i.e. free will)? > Steve said to John: > You assert that we are free to act upon our values, but I read the MOQ to be > saying that someone can't help but to act upon his values.... Please > demonstrate your ability to value something you don't value as a matter of > will by, say, willing yourself to value theocracy over democracy or something > simpler like willing yourself to prefer chocolate when you already prefer > vanilla. We don't choose our values, we are our values. ...In fact all a > person is is a bunch of values, so it is even wrong to say that they are > _his_ values. Lila doesn't have Quality, Quality has Lila. ...I've always > granted that we make choices. My question for you has been, what does it mean > to say that this choosing is "free"? We certainly have will. We have moods, > preferences, intentions, etc. But where do these come from? In what sense are > they "free"? > > > dmb says: > Maybe it would be helpful to be more explicit and specific about the meaning > of the term "will". It seems that there two different ideas about what the > "will" is and both of them have some fairly serious problems. As a > metaphysical entity, it seems to be something like the immortal soul but I > think we agree this is a Modern, Cartesian, Kantian kind of thing that > disappears when SOM is rejected. But then you seem to be replacing that > metaphysical sense of "the will" with a sense of "will" that means > preferences and desires. I'm pretty sure that's just not what the term means. > In fact, I'd say "the will" derives its meaning by contrast with preferences > and desires. It is defined as the power or capacity to resist one's impulses, > to choose NOT to act upon our desires, to defer, delay or even deny them any > satisfaction. In other words, free will is NOT the capacity to change your > preference from vanilla to chocolate but the capacity to act on that > preference or not. Free will is NOT the capacity to choose your preferences > or control what you like but rather the capacity to choose from among the > conflicting, competing values and preferences. It is the capacity to decide > which values you're going to act upon, not the power to control the > preference itself. You can't choose to dislike ice cream but you can decide > whether or not you're going to buy it or spoon it into your mouth. This is > the ordinary dictionary definition and the common sense notion of the will, > as in "it takes a lot of will power to resist my favorite dessert." Steve: Defining free will as the ability to override your desires is a nonsensical notion in the MOQ. Sure desires get overridden, but the only thing that could override a value is another value. This "ability to choose among competing values" is nothing more than another value asserting itself. And this deciding value is NOT chosen any more than the values it rules on are. This forest of values does not bottom out anywhere that could be called "the will." The common sense notion of "it takes a lot of will power" in the MOQ means that there is substantial conflict between value patterns in the dessert scenario. It doesn't mean that there is a small God with this special "power" called will. dmb: > I think the MOQ's slogan wherein we don't have values so much as values have > us is a way of saying persons are not autonomous or independent or singular. > In the same way that James denies the existence of consciousness as a thing > or an entity but does not go so far as to deny its existence as a process and > a function, so it is with Lila or any other person. To say Lila is a complex > forest of static patterns is not to say she is a ridiculous fiction or that > she does not exist at all. Instead, that description says that Lila and > everyone else is engaged in a battle against the static patterns of her own > life and she is not separable from those patterns because that's what she is, > as opposed to the Cartesian self, the substantial, autonomous subjective > self. It's that metaphysical notion of a distinct, singular entity that is > rejected by the MOQ's slogan but there is still room for the small self and > Big Self and living beings who care. In this picture, the idea of moral > respons > ibility is infinitely expanded and tremendously enriched. In this picture, > freedom is the highest good, the most moral goal of all - but this aim > depends on the stability of the so-called determining factors, the static, > stable features of life. I think this is the sense in which the MOQ's self > is dependent rather than independent and a complex living system rather than > a singular entity. You see? I mean, we don't have to posit a metaphysical > self or an immortal soul to believe in the self or in personal > responsibility, to believe this life is a real fight and that it matters what > we do. Steve: If you want to say that free will is a process--the process of adjudicating between conflicting value patterns based on nothing other than more and more value patterns which also dynamically evolve--then we are in agreement, but that doesn't sound like any definition of free will that I have ever heard. It is not what Craig or Ham mean, for example. When people use the term "free will," it is commonly used to specify a bottoming out of this sort of conflict in a location called the soul which is the ultimate arbitrator of value conflicts that can be held responsible for valuing the wrong thing since it makes a free choice between values. In the MOQ, "you" you don't freely choose among values, your other values choose among your values and on and on with no bottoming out in a "soul." Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
