Free will/evil/punishment

[The Grand Nudger]

That is a common criticism of compatibilism set aside say, hard determinism, that the difference is semantics.  It may often be the case, depending on which compatibilist and which determinist we have in mind......but it isn't necessarily or -always- the case.  Which is why clarification is required, and not confused.   

 A person who acts on his will, without coercion, is in my view acting freely. You will probably assert that the genetic and environmental factors that shape a person's will are coercive but I rather find it more useful to draw a distinction between influences and compulsions, the latter negating free will in the sense that a person has no choice, real or imaginary, whereas the former allows for a decision to be made in accordance with the reasons and desires that the person themselves find most pleasant.

A useful distinction -for discussion- does not necessitate or demonstrate an -actual distinction- in the thing being discussed, though, eh?  That one allows you the convention of conversation to then -say- that a person has "free will" as distinct from not having it...is not actually any indicator of the reality of the situation.

For example, I could say "all of the girls I'm willing to call pretty will be group A, and all of the girls I am not will be group B" works -fine- for conversation....but it doesn't extend to "because I was willing to put a girl in group B in order to form a handy term for our discussion, this establishes that she is not pretty"

In considering this topic, I'm not interested in creating a conversational distinction in order to -allow- for something.  I'm looking to see whether or not the thing is actually present.  So, the difference between you and I, for example..if you're the compatibilist in question and I'm the determinist in question...is not semantics, it is in my abject disinterest in creating a definition for free will -based- upon semantics.  

   Take the terrorist who shot up the church in South Carolina, for example. We can diagnose him with mental illness and explain his behaviors as a result of his personal history, all of which is legitimate in tracing causes back to their roots. That doesn't change the fact that he acted of his own volition

The question is whether or not his volition is free...so I'm not sure how this declaration is supposed to further our understanding of free will, or each others positions?

 ---no one strapped a bomb to his chest and forced him to behave in the way that he did.

Sure, no one (and maybe not even himself)........but did -some thing-?

 Like Schopenhauer said, "I can do what I will: I can, if I will, give everything I have to the poor and thus become poor myself—if I will! But I cannot will this, because the opposing motives have much too much power over me for me to be able to.

Which seems to express a situation in which free will is absent. "I could totally do something...if only I could do it" -yeah, no shit..so...-can- you do it?

On the other hand, if I had a different character, even to the extent that I were a saint, then I would be able to will it. But then I could not keep from willing it, and hence I would have to do so."

See above.

 He willed it, and as a result, acted upon it. He did not choose to will what he willed, but he chose to do what he willed, as in nobody else coerced him to do it.

-and my position doesn't dispute that people have a will(in fact, my position is comfortable granting will to a great deal more than just people and other animals)......though I could mount that case.....so telling me about all the things that people will does not help to answer my question.  Are the things that people will, -freely willed-?  Il;m comfortable with many, many limitations to will, coercive factors, and still, some core, some nugget, some unmoved mover.  I just don't see it.  

 Perhaps you think that he could not have chosen otherwise, that the spindles of necessity do not allow for real possibility; I would only be inclined to agree if it was granted that he had no notion of right and wrong,

My position on will and free will is not a position on morality, as we have morality (or not) regardless of whether will is free....or not.

 but I think even the most hardened sociopaths usually have something of a conscience, however distorted it may be. That's the nature of rationality, which separates us from brutes, even if it only exists in some minds to a depressingly small degree. And though some proclaim knowledge to be power, what they really mean is freedom.

It doesn't take any free will to leverage reason..and it may separate us from brutes, but it doesn't seem to separate us from things we don't traditionally describe as having a will at all, let alone a free one......I'm really not sure where you're going with this?  Computers have knowledge, they leverage the principles and relationships that we call "reason" when -we- express them....and as I said before, I'm actually fine with will, maybe computers have will too, just as they can reason......but....are they - or we- able to do so freely -why call this possession of knowledge freedom...in what way does possessing knowledge make a human being free - if it does not make a computer free...and if both are free....whats wrong with the computers free will, why is it malfunctioning?  We understand the operation of a computer to be a bit like tumblers in a lock.  Step 1, step 2, step 3, repeat.  It seems more and more, that this is just as true of ourselves.  Just what is free about this...beyond a distinction of utility, made to allow for the conversational convenience...of calling something "free will" while conversely not addressing the actual question...or simply asserting an answer in the affirmative?

To sum this whole post up much more succinctly. "Well, he did it, and no one else, so that's his free will" is more than a little bit vapid when the very question at hand is whether or not he -has- free will in the first place...to do anything with. I'm not disputing that people do things, I'm questioning the -manner- in which this is achieved.

Is it "step 1, step 2,...then magic happens...repeat"
or is it more like "step 1, step 2, step 3, repeat" ?

Does free will actually -exist-...or is it just a term you're using out of convenience for whatever we happen to be doing? Are you describing a situation where -an attribute or ability we have- is compatible with determinism...or or you describing a situation in which -language we may choose to use-....... is compatible with determinism, regardless of whether or not we possess the actual ability or attribute? I have to ask this, because a compatibilist might just be redefining the term, or he may believe that something about our minds gives us the ability to "bootstrap" ourselves, with regards to causality.