Posts Tagged with Free-will

Free-will & Premortalism

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This is a bit of my episode with Dr. James Spiegel in which we discuss his article on the Premortalist Free-will Defense. Hear the whole episode below. Enjoy. -P

Dr. James Spiegel: . . . The free will defense is the other major response. And it says that a God would want human beings to have genuine relationships with one another and with God himself, and in order for that to even be possible, we must have significant moral freedom. Otherwise, we are automatons or robots or our actions (or potential behaviors) are so restricted that we can't really genuinely have loving relationships with one another. So God granted us a certain moral freedom, and as it happens, we have abused that freedom. And that's where all of these horrible things like murder and genocide and rape have come from. We've abused what was originally a good gift for a good end, and so it's our fault, not God's. That's the free will defense.

Penjammin: How is the premortalist modification to the free will defense- how is it different?

Penjammin grew up in a labyrinthine cavern. Later he ran with the wolves and lived every moment marinated in the sweet scent of his game, until pirates landed and… See About for full story, and get his eletter at penjams.com/subscribe.

Stay free

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Good day, terrans. I hope things are well, despite the ever-negative news over there. As for me, I worked on a long-standing project and then ran a few errands for someone in the inn. So now, I’m paid, refueling my belly, and thinking. Recent conversations on free-will are on my mind, and I like it, even if some of the banter was a bit awkward.

Yes, awkward. It’s strange for me, hearing free-will denied publicly. For a long time, whenever I heard that denial, it operated as an excuse, used to justify one's behavior. The criminal cited fate at the thought of reform in order to justify his staying the course. A scrooge said the stars of the poor couldn’t really be changed so why bother? The idea uglied its confessor and embarrassed him in polite conversation.

Frankly, it isn’t a trivial mistake either. Free-will is part of what makes us special, more than animals, so determinism gets it wrong bigly. It mocks us and not just us. The dull mechanistic outlook paints everything dull and mechanistic. It grey-washes out all the humanity, love and magic.

It's bad for you, too. The more one believes they aren’t free, the more it’s kind of true for that person. People who believe they are wed to their course are less likely to muster the will to change it. Believing all your choices amount to influence, has a yielding to influence… influence, and that opens one up to manipulation. But it dehumanizes in another way too. Steps toward animalizing people are steps to getting them treated like animals. The police don’t need any help in that, and society falls apart fine on its own without help in the process.

So yeah, it wouldn’t be good if a popular holy book were thought to teach such stuff. Such an unfortunate situation would render contrary (and legit) readings golden. (Why set the book against the essence of humanity if you don’t have to?) That's part of why I like this molinism thing. It’s interesting and all yes, and it has the added perk of rescuing vital good sense from the nefarious clutches of a misreading.

I could go on but not now. The day is getting on, and I’m going to explore the realm a bit. Maybe get a cookie. Thanks for the fun conversation terrans.

-Pen

A World of Difference

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Hey terrans, I've got something on my mind, so pardon the abruptness. I'm going to get right into that “Human Freedom” book I've been reading.

Something about it bothers me. The guy starts his historical survey with that Augustine guy, and actually, I get it. Really I do. It makes sense. Da big Au-G. He seems like something of a bridge in your world, right? a human segue from classic thought to that of his ages and then to thought of ages to come. Maybe landmark is better analogy? referring back to all the antecedent thought he drew upon? something of a culmination? Eh. Maybe that's too far. Either way, I get it, but I'm disappointed (to no fault of the author!). I'll explain.

The debate on human freedom is very different on my world. (My original world, I should say. There have been a few.) There, this freedom talk or free-will talk was all about our paths, our yet-to-be histories. It was about whether a person was free or bound to their path. 

Here, on Terra/Earth/whatever, freedom is more thought of in terms of the ability to will (whether to operate apart from external determination or just without interference or something like that). That simply IS freedom. There, people did make similar points, say, about prior material conditions determining their every step, but that wasn't the bondage, itself. It was an excuse, a way of claiming they were bound to their bad path.

So, in my world, human freedom talk is more course than causation. The point is, I was hoping maybe your ancients had contributions to that conversation as well. I guess I’ll have to wait and see, Right now, it's time to cram. and get some things done before it's time for that Monday Masto-Mac-n-Cheese.

– Pen

Free Willie

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Hey terrans. I have a problem. I picked me up a book there recently, and now it won’t go away. The little stow-away is Human Freedom: [insert the rest of an impressively long title that thinks it’s published in 1821] by Dr. Timothy A. Stratton.* I think it's mad that I haven’t gotten to it, so it's waiting patiently, asserting itself by taking up space among my effects. (Pushy little bugger, ain't it?) I do have other things to do, but for some reason, I can’t shelve this book until I finish it. So, I'm thinking… some variety, something besides the conservative thought, ya know it could be nice. And this book seems to be the book on its subject right now. Lucky me, it's also interesting, so yep, I’m a few chapters deep.

It’s organized fairly well. After the prolegomena, it starts with relevant bible passages, acknowledging their diverse interpretations as understandable if not always accurate. Then, it goes onto the phase of gleaning from the greats of yore, and Stratton makes an efficient move here. Rather than comb for the insights directly, he goes for the gold via big-name free-will thinkers. IT makes sense. To sift and sort out the best insights directly, that might be closer to a life-long project. I bet almost every thinker of every kind has thought about freewill. So, Stratton starts with the proximity of fellows like Augustine, Pelagius, Aquinas, Erasmus, Martin Luther, Calvin, Arminius, and Edwards. I’m on Augustine right now, and it is pretty interesting.

After his big historical phase, Stratton waxes philosophical and theological, perhaps processing his thoughts along with theirs and coming up with… well I guess we’ll see. Next comes the secret sauce. He seems to build upon his results by repeating the process on a smaller level (with just Luis de Molina) and then processing the insights gleaned there. Finally, he closes with a note on the significance of his conclusion.

The book seems worth the read for the historical survey alone. (Readers will know I'm trying to learn more Terran lore.) But, there’s also the molinism thing. That is a huge plus. I am continually surprised when people with strong opinions on matters of free-will have never (or barely) heard of it. So, in short, I recommend the book (so far).

That's all for now. All the best.

– Pen

P.S. *Frankly, if it weren't a Terran book, I'd likely fault it for excluding elves and dwarves and all, but one has to be understanding about these things. Perhaps we could posit a hypothetical person of non-specific species, one yet of the general sentience supposed as being a subject of free-will in any of them. We could call him Willie. 🙂

Astra inclinant, sed non obligant

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The stars incline us. They do not bind us.
Anonymous, Some bathroom wall

Hello again. I lead with the quote to sound smart… and because I like it. It really nails the free-will debate for me. Most people know what free-will is. They don’t walk around with a definition in hand, but they have a vague idea. The opposite problem plagues the academics. They are ready with the definitions, but they're just very very wrong ones.

By free-will, I mean the kernel of that old chestnut where a person’s decisions are determined by themselves, so-called libertarian free-will (LFW). I have started a working collection of definitions for LFW, but I also think this quote helps. or at least it is interesting: 

“If I believe that something not identical to myself was the cause of my behavior—some event wholly external to myself, for instance, or even one internal to myself, such as a nerve impulse, volition, or whatnot—then I cannot regard the behavior as being an act of mine, unless I further believed that I was the cause of that external or internal event”

(Richard Taylor, quoted here)

Belief in LFW seems to be right, important, and healthy. A man just has to believe in things like that. Other examples might be love, justice, right, wrong, and virtue; and this remains even should the evidence at hand ever be neutral. These beliefs are part of being human, of being a good man. Having them is healthy and denying them isn’t. Now I am not advocating believing against reason. These truths are often known immediately, innately, and… anyway I'm rambling.

It just seems strange when some people bring up objections to LFW involving God! (Yes, I saw it happened recently, and I got a little worked up.) More on all this the next time I bring up LFW. For now, it’s time for some rest.

That lucky cut-out of mine never gets tired or sick! That could make a person jealous, but at least I'm free.

That's all for now.

– Pen