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I Answer Mr Edwards

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 In the comments section of a post I wrote many moons ago, I've been engaging in some back and forth with a reader, Marvin Edwards. 

 Our discussion involved determinism and indeterminism in human action. I'm going to highlight the discussion here, because I think I put an important point quite well and am tired of patting myself on the back in private. 

 "Christopher, if I am alone in a room with a bowl of apples, and I'm feeling hungry, and I decide to go ahead and eat an apple, then I am the meaningful and relevant cause of the apple being eaten. Do any of the authors you mention suggest that it was 'some thing' other than me that caused the apple to be eaten?"

 Each of the four authors I had mentioned [James, Popper, Berlin, Kane] would agree with the following observations about eating apples. First, self-preservation is the deepest instinct, so of course we aren't free to get hungry or not to get hungry. In that sense, the matter is determined -- and the specific appeal to us of apples, through sight, smell, memories of the taste of earlier apples -- is deterministic and tempting. But, second, if you think that settles the question, you have missed the point. Because, third, history shows many examples of individuals resisting hunger, choosing to fast, even to an extent that puts self-preservation in danger for various causes (such as, say, the independence of their nation).

Aha! you will say, "that is causation too." But it is precisely in these cases of intersecting and contrary pulls, opposed determinisms, that the possibility of indeterminism arises and is important. There is (the authorities I've just listed would agree, and I with them) no good argument for the proposition that the conflict between, say, my desire to get through today without eating on the one hand and the tempting nature of the apple must have a predictable resolution. 
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  1. HenryJune 2, 2018 at 3:52 AM

    What does the lack of a predictable resolution have to do with it? We cannot predict the weather (beyond the immediate future, and that not with certainty) but that doesn't mean that the weather (or a supernatural being who controls it) has free will. It means only that human knowledge is limited.

    Let's suppose you meant that "no good argument [exists] for the proposition that the conflict between, say, my desire to get through today without eating on the one hand and the tempting nature of the apple must" be determined. Agreed, but the only alternative is randomness. Any choice that you make regarding eating the apple must be determined, because the concept of free will is incoherent. Edwards is correct that "I am the meaningful and relevant cause of the apple being eaten," but he is correct only in the
    sense in which Freud insisted that we are the cause of the contents of our dreams--who else is? We are the cause of our choice whether to eat the apple in a practical sense--in the sense that it appears that we exercise free will, and we judge and respond to one another's actions as if we had free will. But, unless it was a random occurrence, SOMETHING had to cause our decision to eat or not eat the apple.

    What does "[ck]" mean at the end of the first sentence?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. HenryJune 2, 2018 at 4:20 AM

      The "SOMETHING" that causes our decisions is our desire, and we have no choice with respect to what we desire.

      Delete
  2. ChristopherJune 2, 2018 at 5:18 AM

    The "ck" just originated as my note to myself to check back and make sure I had gotten the name right. (I had.) I never did get back and revise this piece before it went live, so the "ck" is still there, and now I will keep it in because blogs are supposed to be all informal and stuff anyway.

    I do believe that sometimes it is a random, i.e. underdetermined occurrence, and I believe that it is good news that this is so, the possibilities makes our sense of right and wrong coherent. Those are two different beliefs.

    Sometimes the probability wave just collapses and the cat is dead. And sometimes the "cat" is ... a renewed determination to continue the fast.

    ReplyDelete
  3. HenryJune 2, 2018 at 5:24 AM

    I never denied randomness, and I thought that quantum physics established it. But I don't understand your comment about our sense of right and wrong, or the point of your third paragraph.

    ReplyDelete

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