If free will was not real

[Edwardo Piet]

Okay guys, you can use my living room.

It's not like there's secret cameras or anything.

I swear.

It's okay I won't tell if you don't tell.

[Silver]

I lost my virginity at 25.

Okay, you win in that respect.

The longest I went without sex was nine years.

[account_inactive]

Best derail ever.

[Silver]

hehe, for reals.

[Edwardo Piet]

The best derails are always inappropriate.

I advertise my mayo over the forum for a reason... to make some cringe and others hungry.

[Silver]

I am not a fan of mayo, but a smooth vanilla shake is nice.

[Edwardo Piet]

Smooth and thick.

[Gemini]

A man walks into an ice cream parlor.  He chooses between chocolate and vanilla ice cream.  He chooses chocolate.  Later, as he's eating the chocolate ice cream, he says to himself, "I could have had vanilla."  Is that a true statement under determinism?  No it is not, assuming the brain to be a deterministic thinking machine.  The phenomenology of free will is a lie.  He could not have chosen vanilla in that actual world, despite what might occur in possible worlds.  So are we talking about possible worlds when we refer to the experience of choice?  Or are we talking incorrectly about the actual world?

I think many people are talking incorrectly about the actual world, and this leads to a delusional belief about the extent to which they can control their circumstances. It would be interesting to see a study about this, though.

I don't see a problem with modifying one's concept of decision making to reference possible worlds, but this entails that what I mean by "free will" is different than what an incompatibilist means by it. Which isn't necessarily a problem. "Psyche" has been mostly redefined in light of modern psychology, so I don't see why we couldn't redefine "free will."

[The Grand Nudger]

Oh we are talking about a property of human beings. Mah frontal lobes. And so on and so forth. That's why we can prosecute people. Because they have fully functioning frontal lobes. Lots of people with frontal lobe damage are incarcerated, and don't deserve to be.

No, it's not -why- we can prosecute people..and we're flirting with an appeal to consequence if you think that we couldn't, if we didn't have free will, or didn't accept the folklore surrounding free will...which is something we've discussed more than once in this thread.   Your frontal lobes -may- grant you the property of a human will (even this is a stretch), but we're looking for a -free- will, which we've also discussed.

My argument for legal pragmatism doesn't exclude compatibilism qua compatibilism. See everything I've said about the will being free so long as it is free from duress/coercion. That's generic compatibilism.

It;s just not an argument -for free will-.  Nor is the lack of duress or coercion generic compatibilism..because we plainly understand..even if you won;t accept..that there is no time in which our will is free of either of those things. That no sensible and evidenced description of will can divorce itself -from- them.  Compatibilism is the notion that a "free will": is somehow -compatible- with all the forms of duress, coercion, and compulsion we accept to be present and, perhaps, part of the fundamental state of affairs in the universe, such as hard determinism. That in some sense, even with all of that, we have such a will...not that those factors are not present or relevant or applicable. This has always been the criticism of a compatibilist free will, that it;s a way of -saying- that you freely chose the output of your deterministic will, a non-cognitive sentence if one has even a rudimentary grasp of either the concept of freedom, or determinism. This criticism isn't even lost on prominent compatibilists, they understand the problems of proposing such a thing, the difficulties in establishing it, and the contradictions in terms pursuant to any description of it. "Free" enough, for them...whatever that means anyway, but in no way qualitatively free.

It meets all of the criteria I suggested for freedom, but none of the criteria I suggested for will.

Firstly, your criteria have been troubled* for a variety of reasons we've discussed at length...secondly, you don't know that -at all-.  You don't even know if -I- meet your criteria for a will, or a free will.  This is simply an argument from convenience.  Nevertheless....if it meets your criteria for freedom..than the sort of -freedom- a thermostat has is the sort of -freedom- our will has, regardless of whether or not the thermostat has a will. Is it not? Again, that seems like a trivial linguistic flourish. Are we, to use your lead example above...prosecuting people on the basis that their will is as -free- as a thermostats non-will..or do we take the term free will to mean something other than that, more than that? Do we use it to refer to a type of -"freedom"- that the thermostat -doesn't- have? As you've pointed out..if we think a person has a will about as free as a thermostat, we consider them unfit for trial - not sufficiently accountable for their actions. We're obviously referring to some other quality "x"....even if it doesn't exist.

(sorry, my tv went out on me yesterday mid-response, had to get a new one)

[Gemini]

No, it's not -why- we can prosecute people..and we're flirting with an appeal to consequence if you think that we couldn't, if we didn't have free will, or didn't accept the folklore surrounding free will...which is something we've discussed more than once in this thread.   Your frontal lobes -may- grant you the property of a human will (even this is a stretch), but we're looking for a -free- will, which we've also discussed.

"Researchers get a glimpse of what free will looks like in the brain"--It's not a stretch. And I never said we couldn't prosecute people if we didn't have free will (as defined by compatibilists). I get the impression that you're assuming compatibilists are trying to reconcile the incompatibilist, libertarian kind of free will with hard determinism.

That's not what we're doing. We're just (1) being careful to avoid describing determinism in terms that make it seem like fatalism and (2) redefining what "free will" means.

It;s just not an argument -for free will-. Nor is the lack of duress or coercion generic compatibilism..because we plainly understand..even if you won;t accept..that there is no time in which our will is free of either of those things.  That no sensible and evidenced description of will can divorce itself -from- them.   Compatibilism is the notion that a "free will": is somehow -compatible- with all the forms of duress, coercion, and compulsion we accept to be present and, perhaps, part of the fundamental state of affairs in the universe, such as hard determinism.That in some sense, even with all of that, we have such a will...not that those factors are not present or relevant or applicable.  This has always been the criticism of a compatibilist free will, that it;s a way of -saying- that you freely chose the output of your deterministic will, a non-cognitive sentence if one has even a rudimentary grasp of either the concept of freedom, or determinism.  This criticism isn't even lost on prominent compatibilists, they understand the problems of proposing such a thing, the difficulties in establishing it, and the contradictions in terms pursuant to any description of it.  "Free" enough, for them...whatever that means anyway, but in no way qualitatively free.  

From section 3.1, "3.1 Freedom According to Classical Compatibilism"

"...freedom of the sort pertinent to moral evaluation is nothing more than an agent's ability to do what she wishes in the absence of impediments that would otherwise stand in her way." http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compat...rFreWilPro

Firstly, your criteria have been troubled* for a variety of reasons we've discussed at length...

As for the reasons we discussed at length, I'm happy to concede that your nest thermometer has freedom in the compatibilist sense, but not will.

(And sometimes I stomp on it . Cause fuck nest thermometers!)

As you've pointed out..if we think a person has a will about as free as a thermostat, we consider them unfit for trial - not sufficiently accountable for their actions.  We're obviously referring to some other quality "x"....even if it doesn't exist.

A better comparison would be our consideraton of a mentally compromised person as unfit for trial due to the fact that his intellectual faculties were so diminished that he didn't know what effects his actions would have. Nothing impeded his freedom to act, he just didn't have a "will" that could be impeded by anything. Like a nest thermometer.