For those who think that a belief in free will is not that important I refer you to this excellent piece by Rebbeca Roach. I further some of the issues raised by Roach and will be posting on it soon, as soon as I get a draft of my candidacy complete which also happens to be in the same area.
-Enjoy
Posted in: Free Will, Justin Caouette, Law, Metaphysics, Moral Responsibility, Neuroscience, Philosophy
A Philosopher's Take 
Sword of Apollo
June 30, 2013
Thanks for the link.
I made this comment on the post, but as of right now, it is still “awaiting moderation”:
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Justin Caouette
June 30, 2013
No problem. I have left comments there before and have yet to see any of them get published. I even wrote to the blog administrator but never received a response. I have responded with links and without, both long and short responses. I’m not sure what the criteria is to get a comment up but hopefully yours will see the light of day. The comments I left were in regards to an article on enhancement. Maybe the free will folks will be more charitable. One can only hope.
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Landbeyond
July 3, 2013
“The fundamental choice of when to focus one’s mind is caused by the agent, not prior events.”
Ah, but what “causes” the agent?
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mattbainbridge2
October 18, 2013
I’m not sure that you’ve proven that free will is a precondition of knowledge. Just because I did not choose freely to believe that 2 + 2 = 4 does not make it any less true…. I still have knowledge of 2 + 2 = 4. Your argument seems to me more pointed to the issue that many have with hard determinism. What meaning could life have if we lack free will?
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Justin Caouette
October 20, 2013
Matt, I think your criticism of apollo’s post is right. I have a question for you though: do you think that one can have a justified true belief (jtb) about knowledge while believing that hard incompatibilism was true? So, while it may be a fact of the world that 2+2=4 , it seems that we wouldn’t be justified in believing that 2+2=4 because, if we believed that we are determined to believe that 2+2=4 we would have reason to believe that the conclusion could be faulty given our constraints of believing anything we are not determined to believe. I’m not sure, I ask the question without prejudice.
I agree that free will is not necessary for objective claims to be true(hence my agreement with your point) but, I wonder if agents can claim to *have* knowledge in a world lacking in morally responsible agency. Free will might be a criterion for justification… Whatta you think?
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mattbainbridge2
October 25, 2013
I’ve never really thought about this and its an interesting idea. It seems that it could be damaging to ones belief in hard incompatibilism. I’m not really sure to be honest. I’m only an undergraduate so I don’t claim to be that intelligent on the matter but I have read a few books and papers on free will, and moral responsibility.
It seems to me that one could still have a justified true belief. take for instance a case where there is a person named Jeff . Jeff, at birth was implanted with a chip that forces him to believe that there exist elephants in Africa. Then later in life, through a causally determined chain, Jeff actually finds himself in Africa and sees an elephant. I feel him being determined to believe that there are elephants in Africa, and his being determined to actually see elephants, doesn’t seem to diminish the feeling that he does HAVE knowledge about there being elephants in Africa.
I could be entirely wrong and the thought experiment could be entirely misplaced and make no sense to the argument lol but it sounds right to me? Maybe there could be an issue though it does seem that justification might need to be harder more concrete in a world lacking free will, and it may be possible that we all should be walking around confused and unsure of ourselves.
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Matt Bainbridge
October 30, 2013
For abstract ideas I think it’s more detrimental. Things we cannot prove empirically with scientific data we would seem to have to accept that we just may be wrong because we have no other choice than to believe what we do.
Even if this were true I think we ought still treat the world as if there were no free will because in my opinion the benefits outweigh the costs. On many moral questions I think it’s best to err on the side of caution.
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Justin Caouette
October 30, 2013
Matt,
Your suggestion that we treat people as if they did not have free will might be problematic. Here is some data that indicates it may be a bad thing.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130924-how-belief-in-free-will-shapes-us
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Matt Bainbridge
November 1, 2013
I’m not sure that it’s the lack of a belief in free will that’s doing the work but the belief that morality goes out the window with it, but I and most hard incompatibilists believe that morality still has a very important and real role in a world lacking free will and moral responsibility. i’m not sure these undergraduates, after reading these passages, have had time to reflect on this.
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Anonymous
January 3, 2015
Justin,
I think that knowledge (and intelligence generally) ultimately comes down to pattern recognition capability and memory. Pattern recognition capability has been a beneficial byproduct of evolution and natural selection. As a result, regardless of the deterministic (or fundamentally random) nature of the universe, our lack of free will doesn’t prevent our brain’s pattern recognition modules from continuing to operate (often successfully resulting in a gain in knowledge), often perpetuating our survival demonstrably. If we doubt the validity of this pattern recognition capability, then I think we wind up on a slippery slope to Solipsism in general, since our reality is effectively composed of nothing more than patterns of sensory data. If we accept that our existence is real and has been perpetuated by pro-survival behaviors, and we accept that those pro-survival behaviors have resulted from successfully recognizing patterns of sensory data in the world we experience, then I think we can have at least some reasonable sense of justification for our beliefs, since many of those beliefs (based on recognized patterns) have amounted to, once again, our continued survival as individuals.
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Justin Caouette
June 30, 2013
I would recommend Micheal Mckenna’s reply to Pereboom who argues that we do not have free will. Mckenna argues that either conclusion (that we either have or do not have free will in the basic-desert sense) relies on one’s starting assumption, I think he’s right. If true this doesn’t prove that we have free will, only that the debate has reached an impasse.
You can find the link to his article here http://philpapers.org/rec/MCKAHR from his 2007 paper in the journal Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.
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roberta
July 4, 2013
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