Freewill Flashcards
Libertarianism
The belief that we are free moral agents with complete autonomy.
Sartres beliefs about freedom
Sartre is a libertarian. Sartre claimed that there is no objective purpose, nor anything else determines our actions because “existence precedes essence”, meaning humans exist before they have a defined purpose and so have to subjectively define their purpose for themselves. This suggests that they have the free will to decide their purpose. Sartre’s argument is a psychological one, that people cling to fabricated notions of objective purpose like religion or Aristotle’s ‘final cause/telos’ because they are afraid of not having a purpose, more specifically they are scared of the intensity of the freedom that comes from having to choose their own purpose. Sartre thought that this sense of “radical freedom” led to feelings of abandonment (by God/objective reality), anguish (over the weight of being completely responsible for your actions) and despair (over our inability to act exactly as we’d like due to the constraints of the world). It’s much easier to believe that we don’t have free will than face that existential angst.
Locks example of the illusion of free will.
Locke asked us to imagine a man in a locked room who wakes up, unaware it is locked, and ‘chooses’ to stay in the room. He felt like he made a choice, when actually reality was such that no choice was in fact available to him. Locke argues this could be the case for every human action. We simply are unable to directly perceive all the causes and effects that determined our action, which leaves us with the illusion that we were not determined, when really we were.
Compatibilism internal vs external causes – also called soft determinism
This is the view that free will and determinism are compatible (can both be true). Hume distinguishes between internal causes (causes that are internal to a person – their beliefs, desires, motivations, intentions) and external causes (causes that are external to a person – someone forcing them to do something). Hume noticed that we only hold people responsible for actions that result from our internal causes. So Hume defined free will as being determined by your internal causes not external causes. Even though our internal causes are just as determined as our external causes, Hume thinks this definition of free will nonetheless gives us the conception of moral responsibility we want.
Incompatibalism
Claims humans cannot be predetermined and free, believed by Libertarians and hard determinists.
Quote from Spinoza about the illusion of freewill
We are just “ dreaming with our eyes open”
Epicurus quote on the freewill dilemma
Epirucrus realised as parts of a world governed by physical laws we must not be free, but he recognised that “ human experience tends twoards freewill”
Libet and Haynes
Experiment, support for both determinism and compatabalism
Connected brain to computer and told people to move hand, brain activity occured before thought and then action. Deterministic said this is proof we are predetermined, and have no control of even the smallest physical action.
Libet concluded “ we can veto pre conscious decisions”, so was really a compatabalist. Even though we cannot control our subconscious or even certain thoughts in our consciousness we can still decide whether to pay attention to those thoughts.
Skinner : Psychological determinism
2 experiments:
Skinners rat:
Negative reenforcement, rat placed in an electrocuted base, and it had to work out it must pull a level for the electricity to stop. It eventually pulled the level before the electricity flowed.
” Little Albert “ -Watsons responded to chompsky. Experiment on young child, he would create a loud noise after introducing it to a bunny to cause crying . The child cried simply by seeing the rabbit eventually.
Pavlovs dogs
Examples of conditioning- Classical conditioning.
Pavlov proved he could introduce a stimulus eg a bell when food came to dogs and they salavated with the bell alone.
Chompsky ( 3 points )
Chompsky rejects Skinners’ experiment, meaning humans have no free will, specifically as he says rats and other animals are inherently different. He uses evidence that from certain experiments of Skinners, the animals return to their original behaviour - “ instinctual drift.” Pointing to flawed experiments.
He also challenges the idea of reenforcement in humans. Even if the experiments were accurate, human beings are varied and much more complex than one individual.
He also says if we accept we are all conditioned, then Skinner must also be conditioned and his whole theory biased.
Sartre quote on misfortune of being free
” Condemned to be free “
Kant quote on neccesity of freedom
” freewill is a condition of the moral law “
Necessary to make people accountable for thier act
Paralysis of complete freedom
Hume criticism of Libertarianism, we need parameters, eg, natural laws and limitations, to be free because it gives us the ability to choose between them.
Humes criticism of Libertarians
They have a misconception of freewill - if we had absolute freedom, the laws of physics wouldn’t apply to us. They do. We will always be constrained by certain things. Hume says constraint is needed for the ability to choose the paralysis of complete freedom. Without anything, we would be free but unable to choose. He says to actually be free, we need certain constraints.
