I should have said something before, but I was too busy trying to get you to explain why morality can only come from choice.
Quote from italofoca »
The criteria, in a free-will world, wouldn't be pre-determined. It would be arbitrarily determined by the person, influenced by the info he holds.
So, you're rejecting compatibilism? Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are compatible ideas
Thanks a lot that's just the kind of explanation i was searching for.
Why?
Continually stating the same thing without justification does not make it so. WHY can morality only exist with choice?
If bad human actions (let's keep the murder case) are as deterministic as lighting bolts, then thought 'x shouldn't murder' makes no sense, the same way the thought 'rain shouldn't fall' or 'the sky shouldn't seen to be blue'. As you said, the only moral action is to stop the murder.
So the moral burden is not on the murderer, it is on the people who could choose to stop him. But there's no free will and people can't choose ! So no one really have a moral burden to stop bad things to happen.
Would you say a book character A by killing a book character B is wrong or is doing something immoral ? No, because he didn't choose to kill. If I should take B as a object entitled of moral treatment (like people and animals) then A is not wrong but only the author of the book is.
If bad human actions (let's keep the murder case) are as deterministic as lighting bolts, then thought 'x shouldn't murder' makes no sense, the same way the thought 'rain shouldn't fall' or 'the sky shouldn't seen to be blue'. As you said, the only moral action is to stop the murder.
So the moral burden is not on the murderer, it is on the people who could choose to stop him. But there's no free will and people can't choose ! So no one really have a moral burden to stop bad things to happen.
You're still begging the question. You're still not explaining why only things that are free to choose can be moral.
Can these people stop it? If they can, they are morally obligated to do so.
If they do, they did the right thing. If they do not, they did the wrong thing.
I see no reason why whether or not the outcome is predetermined has barring on those moral facts.
Would you say a book character A by killing a book character B is wrong or is doing something immoral ? No, because he didn't choose to kill. If I should take B as a object entitled of moral treatment (like people and animals) then A is not wrong but only the author of the book is.
Well, imaginary people can only kill imaginary things.
However, if you are evaluating it in the context of fiction, I can think of many evil fictional characters. Kid Marvelman, for example. How would you go about justifying his actions?
Lets say there was someone with an inoperable brain tumor that causes him to kill uncontrollably. But, just sometimes. Half of the time he is perfectly rational; the other half of the time he's in an uncontrollable killing rage. This switch happens at unpredictable intervals throughout the day. It is proven he has no control of his actions when it happens.
Are you saying that our justice system cannot touch this person? We can't lock up this innocent to stop them from killing, because they cannot control themselves? So, we are forced--out of a sense of justice--to let them go about their business, and chalk up people they kill as "bad luck" or something?
Because, my sense of justice tells me that is EXACTLY the kind of person that needs to be locked up for everyone’s safety.
If bad human actions (let's keep the murder case) are as deterministic as lighting bolts, then thought 'x shouldn't murder' makes no sense, the same way the thought 'rain shouldn't fall' or 'the sky shouldn't seen to be blue'. As you said, the only moral action is to stop the murder.
So the moral burden is not on the murderer, it is on the people who could choose to stop him. But there's no free will and people can't choose ! So no one really have a moral burden to stop bad things to happen.
You're still begging the question. You're still not explaining why only things that are free to choose can be moral.
Can these people stop it?
If they can, they are morally obligated to do so.
If they do, they did the right thing. If they do not, they did the wrong thing.
I see I was wrong but I still think there are moral repercussion for this. I just think no free will eliminates a layer in moral decisions and that have real repercussion.
According to you, the only moral decision is stopping harm if harm can be stopped - and absolutely nothing else.
Most people believe the fundamental moral decision is not doing harm, so the harm doer is a bigger moral violator then anyone else. Free Will insures anyone who breaks the rules is a biggest offender and if harm happen but it's not a effect of your decisions you're not a offender even if you could stop it. It's the NAP (you're only obliged to not do harm, but you have 0% moral obligation of stopping any).
For example, according to you, the policemen that chooses to not stop a murder and the own murderer represents the same amount moral offense. Both could stop it from happening but didn't. So society should give then the same legal sentence ?
Another example. A poor man needs money to help his children not to die. A poor man who hates work could choose to work more and get more money or a rich man who hates donation could simply give him money. If the children don't get help and dies, society normally blame the poor man, not the rich man. If the only moral criteria is "stop harm to be done" then both are equally the cause of the children death and should be take equally irresponsible by society.
Free Will allows us to have a different criteria to decide who's the moral offender is. Without it we have only "who could stop harm and didn't" which is actually a broader criteria. So the result is actually the opposite of what i was originally claiming: no free will does not 'decrease' the set of immoral actions, it increases it.
We might leave in a world without free will, but our legal system and society believes we have. So we don't really "suffer" the realization of non-free will in any way.
According to you, the only moral decision is stopping harm if harm can be stopped - and absolutely nothing else.
Nope. I was just using that as a simple example because I did not feel that a complicated one was needed. If you want a more exact description of MY current version of morality, start here: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=469101
However, I'm not here to try and convince you that any of my ideas about the subject are right or something. I'm just here to get you to more critically examine your own.
Ethics is a very complicated and enigmatic subject, and I'm nothing more than a dabbler.
According to you, the only moral decision is stopping harm if harm can be stopped - and absolutely nothing else.
Nope. I was just using that as a simple example because I did not feel that a complicated one was needed. If you want a more exact description of MY current version of morality, start here: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=469101
However, I'm not here to try and convince you that any of my ideas about the subject are right or something. I'm just here to get you to more critically examine your own.
Ethics is a very complicated and enigmatic subject, and I'm nothing more than a dabbler.
I will read that... Thank you for your attention !
I still think the idea of morals without free will is really counter intuitive.
The issue here is the point of view. Morals is not only about your actions but judging someone else's actions. By considering equal a natural disaster and a human provoked disaster, you're removing a layer to the whole moral reasoning. You can only judge if you should or should not stop, but you can't judge if the human actor should or shouldn't.
I can say, based on morals, "John ought not to kill". But based on morals I can't say "The volcano ought not to kill" or "The giant bear ought not to kill".
Another example to "prove" the importance of a free will to our morals.
In a no-free will world, the guy holding a gun and the gun are equally the cause of a shooting.
My moral judgement says I should stop either him or the gun and as a meter of rule can choose to do either. So the only difference between those two options are the other consequences (such as the viability of applying those rules, the effect of those rules in rule abiding citizens).
Someone who believes in free will will be tempted to choose rules that stop people, since people is the only true cause of human provoked disaster. Someone who doesn't believe in free will will be tempted to choose the rule that applies easier without any discrimination.
I'm not saying whos right and who's wrong. Just point out there's a difference.
By considering equal a natural disaster and a human provoked disaster, you're removing a layer to the whole moral reasoning. You can only judge if you should or should not stop, but you can't judge if the human actor should or shouldn't.
The only difference I see here is one is harder to understand and stop.
Another example to "prove" the importance of a free will to our morals.
In a no-free will world, the guy holding a gun and the gun are equally the cause of a shooting. My moral judgement says I should stop either him or the gun and as a meter of rule can choose to do either. So the only difference between those two options are the other consequences (such as the viability of applying those rules, the effect of those rules in rule abiding citizens).
Someone who believes in free will will be tempted to choose rules that stop people, since people is the only true cause of human provoked disaster. Someone who doesn't believe in free will will be tempted to choose the rule that applies easier without any discrimination.
And if you remove either the shooting will not happen, but the man might hurt people anyway (just not as many).
The gun is not likely to do anything on its own, but the man is. So, stoping the gun might be a good short-term plan, but the stopping the man is a better long-term plan.
By considering equal a natural disaster and a human provoked disaster, you're removing a layer to the whole moral reasoning. You can only judge if you should or should not stop, but you can't judge if the human actor should or shouldn't.
The only difference I see here is one is harder to understand and stop.
Moral is not only about stopping bad things from happening, it is also about demanding bad things to not happen from those who can stop it.
People don't judge a earthquake or a volcano or a gun. But people judge people. At the premise of free will.
I'm not saying who side is correct, I'm just saying a layer in common moral reasoning is lost in a world without free will.
Let me put it in another way. Moral is not about deciding "we should stop harm" but actually defining what "harm" is and giving weight to different harmful happenings. Moral is only needed in the situations were to stop harm you have to do harm also and in those situations moral is what we use to solve the dilemma (what course of actions do less harm).
The same way economics wouldn't exist in the absence of scarcity, ethics wouldn't exist in the absence of dilemmas.
Dilemma doesn't exist without choice and choice doesn't exist without free will, so morals don't exist without free will. That's the reasoning.
I'm pretty sure you can.
There is lost of stuff my dog should not do, for example, and he knows it.
You seen to not acknowledge the difference between morals and any normative claim.
Why your dog shouldn't do stuff ?
And if you remove either the shooting will not happen, but the man might hurt people anyway (just not as many).
The gun is not likely to do anything on its own, but the man is. So, stoping the gun might be a good short-term plan, but the stopping the man is a better long-term plan.
No he won't. For the purpose of this example, this man only hurt people with guns.
There is a difference, but my viewpoint isn't as simplistic as you wish it to be.
I don't know where you got the idea i'm wishing something or my wishes have any relevance. I'm just responding to what your posts, not to your point of view.
Let me put it in another way. Moral is not about deciding "we should stop harm" but actually defining what "harm" is and giving weight to different harmful happenings. Moral is only needed in the situations were to stop harm you have to do harm also and in those situations moral is what we use to solve the dilemma (what course of actions do less harm).
The same way economics wouldn't exist in the absence of scarcity, ethics wouldn't exist in the absence of dilemmas.
Dilemma doesn't exist without choice and choice doesn't exist without free will, so morals don't exist without free will. That's the reasoning.
Do you think it would be more "noble" to stop a single person from killing one other person, or from stopping a volcano from killing thousands?
I don't know where you got the idea i'm wishing something or my wishes have any relevance. I'm just responding to what your posts, not to your point of view.
Well, not really, since you're making assumptions based on what you perceive my view point to be. The "no harm" and "punish the gun" were extrapolations based on a faulty understanding of what I'm trying to say. I would say they were "strawmen," but I know you're not doing it maliciously.
I just want you to know that my view of morality--outlined in that post you said you've not read yet--isn't something that can be summed up in a few words, and is not as simple as your examples make it out to be.
Do you think it would be more "noble" to stop a single person from killing one other person, or from stopping a volcano from killing thousands?
Stopping the volcano would be more "noble".
But in the absence of free will if you or someone else stopped the person i couldn't say you were wrong because you really did not made a choice.
Evaluating moral choices in free will world vs. non-free will world on your own perspective is impossible since "choice" have the premise of free will already. The situation were I have to choose between stopping a volcano or a person is logically flawed in the non-free will situation.
I can only investigate the consequences to ethics of a world without free will by looking at someone else's actions.
In that case, in the absence of free will, i couldn't say someone else's actions are moral or immoral because without free will choices don't exist, and if choices don't exist dilemmas don't exist either. Ethics in a universe without dilemmas have no purpose i believe.
Even in the presence of free will? Because--based on what you've been saying--in one case you're stopping something evil and in the other you're stopping something neutral. Why would preventing something neutral be better than preventing something evil?
But in the absence of free will if you or someone else stopped the person i couldn't say you were wrong because you really did not made a choice.
You keep saying things like this and I keep just flat-out denying them.
You can most definitely say they were wrong--and they can BE wrong--regardless of who had 'choice' in the matter. You keep assuming "wrong" needs to be linked to choice, and I keep on asking you "why?"
Just because something must be does not mean it's "good." Those are separate properties.
Evaluating moral choices in free will world vs. non-free will world on your own perspective is impossible since "choice" have the premise of free will already.
That IS true with "moral choices," sure, but I don't believe in "moral choices" so the argument is irrelevant from where I'm sitting.
The situation were I have to choose between stopping a volcano or a person is logically flawed in the non-free will situation.
It's not because you can still make the wrong decision, even if you don't have a choice.
I can be brainwashed into doing something immortal--for example--right? Even though--by definition--if I'm brainwashed I don't have a choice in the matter. That does not make the immoral action suddenly amoral or moral; it's still immoral.
I can only investigate the consequences to ethics of a world without free will by looking at someone else's actions.
In that case, in the absence of free will, i couldn't say someone else's actions are moral or immoral because without free will choices don't exist, and if choices don't exist dilemmas don't exist either.
You certainly CAN. And you've given no reason why you can't, other than to say you can't (which isn't a reason).
Even in the presence of free will? Because--based on what you've been saying--in one case you're stopping something evil and in the other you're stopping something neutral. Why would preventing something neutral be better than preventing something evil?
Because the consequences of the happenings matters, not only it's nature. Accepting the importance of consequences does not mean i've to ignore the existence of nature.
You keep saying things like this and I keep just flat-out denying them.
You can most definitely say they were wrong--and they can BE wrong--regardless of who had 'choice' in the matter. You keep assuming "wrong" needs to be linked to choice, and I keep on asking you "why?"
Just because something must be does not mean it's "good." Those are separate properties.
You're using the word 'wrong' in a too broad way. The word has multiple meanings, such as logically wrong, morally wrong and wrong according to one's preferences.
To claim the volcano would be able to be morally wrong would be to claim there's a set of moral principles he knows and he violated it.
Without free will a person is never the one who violated the moral principles. A pre-determined chain of events provoked the violation, but the chain of events can't be morally wrong either because it doesn't know the principles.
It's not because you can still make the wrong decision, even if you don't have a choice.
You can't make a decisions without choices. If choices don't exist, decisions won't exist either.
I can be brainwashed into doing something immortal--for example--right? Even though--by definition--if I'm brainwashed I don't have a choice in the matter. That does not make the immoral action suddenly amoral or moral; it's still immoral.
Actions cannot be immoral in a vacuum and they are not moral or immoral by itself. Morality is the property of individuals taking actions, not the action itself.
In this case you're not immoral, the person who brainwashed you is. If a nature pre-determined force brainwashed you, then no moral wrong was done.
Morality tied to happenings in a vacuum is a big mess. The morality of actions is tied up to the circumstances the individual actors are in. So there's nothing wrong with the same action been immoral, moral or amoral given the circumstance.
If the mind-body dualism is false, then our mental processes would be determined not by ourselves, but by foreign physical forces alone (be this forces deterministic chain of events or aleatory).
Demonstrate how this is the case.
It seems to me that the only way for us to take decisions and be responsible for the outcomes is if those decisions are not resulted by physical forces outside of our control.
Not necessarily. If I'm presented with strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate ice cream as my choices, I cannot choose giraffe. This is a limitation on my choice by a force beyond my control. It does not mean that I do not have free will.
So, can of free will exist without mind-body dualism (which most claim to be false) ?
I believe it can, yes. Choice can exist regardless of a dualistic universe or a materialistic one. All that changes is what exactly constitutes a "self" that's doing the choosing.
If the mind-body dualism is false, then our mental processes would be determined not by ourselves, but by foreign physical forces alone (be this forces deterministic chain of events or aleatory).
Demonstrate how this is the case.
The matter is, our thoughts exists exclusively on the physical world (1) or they just manifest on the physical world through our brains (2) ?
The case (2) is correspondent to a mind-body duality. Thoughts are originated in a non-physical world, so part of our mind exist outside our brains. The issue with this is that it breaks the principle of causal closure of the physical world (everything have a cause, and this cause have a cause, and so on until a point that all the universe is a single gigantic pre-determined chain of events. The only exception is the genuinely chaotic events).
In other words, the idea of a arbitrary process (non-deterministic, non-aleatory) breaks a very important principle of natural sciences.
The case (1) means our thoughts are purely physical, and like anything else purely physical, they either random or deterministic. If our thoughts are random then there's no free will since the choices we make are actually random events. If our thoughts are deterministic, then they are part of this gigantic natural chain of events. In both case we don't have control of our choices.
Not necessarily. If I'm presented with strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate ice cream as my choices, I cannot choose giraffe. This is a limitation on my choice by a force beyond my control. It does not mean that I do not have free will.
The mind-body duality does not exclude mind being limited by physical possibilities.
For example, you choose chocolate via thought. If this thought is purely physical, it is either pre-determined or it is random.
I believe it can, yes. Choice can exist regardless of a dualistic universe or a materialistic one. All that changes is what exactly constitutes a "self" that's doing the choosing.
In a material universe the "self" is a random or pre-determined event of nature. The self "exist" and his physical, but all choices made by all people are already pre-defined (or they are random).
If the mind-body dualism is false, then our mental processes would be determined not by ourselves, but by foreign physical forces alone (be this forces deterministic chain of events or aleatory).
Demonstrate how this is the case.
The matter is, our thoughts exists exclusively on the physical world (1) or they just manifest on the physical world through our brains (2) ?
The case (2) is correspondent to a mind-body duality. Thoughts are originated in a non-physical world, so part of our mind exist outside our brains. The issue with this is that it breaks the principle of causal closure of the physical world (everything have a cause, and this cause have a cause, and so on until a point that all the universe is a single gigantic pre-determined chain of events. The only exception is the genuinely chaotic events).
In other words, the idea of a arbitrary process (non-deterministic, non-aleatory) breaks a very important principle of natural sciences.
The case (1) means our thoughts are purely physical, and like anything else purely physical, they either random or deterministic. If our thoughts are random then there's no free will since the choices we make are actually random events. If our thoughts are deterministic, then they are part of this gigantic natural chain of events. In both case we don't have control of our choices.
You've made a crucial error.
The error is contained in this quote:
In both case we don't have control of our choices.
You've left 'we' as ambiguous, apparently taking it to mean something like "Our dualistic minds" - in which case, well, of course if physical determinism is true, our nonexistent dualistic minds don't play a part in our mental processes. They don't exist!
Does that mean that I don't exist? That's practically nonsensical, at least when I say it. Of course it doesn't mean that I don't exist.
What it does mean is that I am something other than a dualistic non-physical mind. Specifically, I am a certain physical system encapsulated within this particular body (don't take this as a requirement for personal identity; it's just the way things are as a matter of fact for humans).
This is a crucial point because, simply, it means that my mental processes can both be the result of impersonal physical forces and be my own decision. I - who I am, how I think, what information I have available to use to make decisions - am the result of impersonal physical forces. Any given thought or action which I perform is the result of my own mental process. For me to have thought differently than I did, I would have had to be a different person in some way.
This conception of self does have a couple important consequences - among others, it means that I must be caused, and it means my thought processes must be deterministic, if physical determinism is true. But, of course, neither of these consequences is actually revolutionary. Nobody thinks that they're uncaused. Yes, it may be jarring for some people to think that we're caused by impersonal physical forces instead of by God or some similar personal being, but the idea of tendencies towards evil etc. - the idea that who we are is grounded on what came before us and what caused us - is a very old idea. And if you think about how 'we' go about making decisions, you'll realize that even in a dualist perspective, it was always going to have to be some combination of random and deterministic - there are no other options. You've just been putting dualist mental processes into a black box where you don't have to think about them, possibly with some equivalent of the label 'ineffable' to further protect you from thinking about them, rather than acknowledging that there's no other way that they could work besides random or deterministic (possibly a complicated interplay between random and deterministic pieces, but still).
This is the main point of this thread. Again, i thank you guys for the all the info.
I'm still pretty confused on how physical determinism and free will can coexist. As far as I understand, in physical determinism every cause have a cause, and this cause also have another cause, and so on, until the beginning of the universe. So the net cause of all things are actually the same.
If all things have the same cause and if multiple people exist, how can people cause things ?
This is the main point of this thread. Again, i thank you guys for the all the info.
I'm still pretty confused on how physical determinism and free will can coexist. As far as I understand, in physical determinism every cause have a cause, and this cause also have another cause, and so on, until the beginning of the universe. So the net cause of all things are actually the same.
If all things have the same cause and if multiple people exist, how can people cause things ?
I strike a cue ball on a billiards table. It travels across the table, and strikes the 7 ball. The 7 ball bounces off a wall, then hits the 3 ball. The 3 ball drops into one of the pockets - just as I have planned. What caused the 3 ball to drop into the pocket?
You could answer, "The boundary conditions of the universe." You could answer, "I did." You could answer, "The 7 ball." Which of these answers is correct? How do you tell?
I think you've made an error if you deny any of them. All of them are causes of the 3 ball falling into the pocket. The ultimate cause is whatever started off the universe, but all manner of events have been intervening causes.
Note that this has been done without reference to dualism or determinism. If dualism is true, something still created you, and the thing that caused you caused you to think in certain ways. You are caused whether determinism is true or not.
Now, here's the biggest thing. The term 'free will' is ambiguous. The question, "Do we have free will?" is really the question, "How do we define free will?" Determining whether we have free will or not is usually a philosophically uninteresting question (though possibly technically difficult question), given a particular definition of free will. If you define free will as, "My decisions have no physical causes at all," then obviously if physical determinism is true, you don't have free will, since there's nothing but physical causes that could result in your decisions. If you define free will as, "My decisions are the result of mental processes in me and not determined by external factors," it's very possible to have free will in a physical determinist universe. You are - your mental processes are - a chaotic (but not random) physically determined system. The results of that system are the results of your mental processes. Anything that happens within that system is what your process of thinking is.
There are definitions that don't assume dualism to be true and which don't allow for free will in a deterministic system - for example, "You have free will if it's physically possible for you to have done otherwise while still being you." In a purely deterministic system, it's not possible for you to choose other than you actually choose. This kind of definition is why so much has been made of quantum indeterminacy as some kind of savior of free will - quantum indeterminacy could add an element where running the same decision 1000 times could have different outcomes, thus technically satisfying the definition of free will. We've already been over at length why pure random decision-making isn't really more satisfying than hard determinism in decision-making, but it does satisfy the definition.
So, the most important thing to realize is that there's no magic spell called Free Will. We are what we are whether we have free will or we don't. We have possession of an extraordinarily nuanced decision-making process. The universe is probably largely deterministic at a macro scale, indeterministic at a micro scale, and we're unsure how much if any the indeterminism carries over to the macro scale (the macro universe might be literally 100% deterministic, on some readings of quantum mechanics, though I have no idea how seriously that idea is taken).
I would like to propose that the question of how we ought to define free will is really the question of what we want to get out of free will. What are the things that we think are meaningfully affected by whether we have free will or not, and what answers need to be returned in order for us to decide that we do have free will? A major one is personal responsibility - that we can fairly blame people for their mistakes and credit them for their successes (I know not everyone in this thread cares about that, but a lot of people do care about it). I'm sure there are others.
I think you've made an error if you deny any of them. All of them are causes of the 3 ball falling into the pocket. The ultimate cause is whatever started off the universe, but all manner of events have been intervening causes.
Denying any of then would surely be a error. But I tend to think that the original cause is the cause relevant to the matters of free will.
Ex: A man shooting someone. When we investigate the cause we see that the bullet physics, the bullet, the gun, the trigger, the hand of the man, the nerves that binds a man's hand to his brain and his decision to shoot are all a chain reaction and any of those are the cause.
A trial who believes in free will will ignore all the chain reaction and attribute to the man the cause of the murderer. Basically because it's believed his decision were the original cause, the "uncaused" cause. The man has responsibility for his act for the mere fact that he could do it differently.
In physical determinism non cause is uncaused (only micro level happenings and those are random by nature). So the original cause would be the creation of the universe.
The man did not have free will because taking a different decision were never a possibility.
If dualism is true, something still created you, and the thing that caused you caused you to think in certain ways. You are caused whether determinism is true or not.
I'm not denying that external physical matters have influence on people. but it's not the same a determine it.
Dualists normally believe the physical determined world gives us possibilities and restrictions and we, a arbitrary and non-deterministic force, choose those possibilities. So conditions are pre determined, not the choice.
I would like to propose that the question of how we ought to define free will is really the question of what we want to get out of free will. What are the things that we think are meaningfully affected by whether we have free will or not, and what answers need to be returned in order for us to decide that we do have free will? A major one is personal responsibility - that we can fairly blame people for their mistakes and credit them for their successes (I know not everyone in this thread cares about that, but a lot of people do care about it). I'm sure there are others.
Defining free will is definitely a task one have to take in order to conclude this debate.
For me free will makes little sense if one couldn't choose differently. The possibility of a alternative outcome (multiple available choices) given the same exact conditions is what constitutes free will. And clearly determinism is the ruling out of alternative outcomes given the same conditions. For me those two things can't coexist, unless I adopt a new stance on what free will is - a really weird stance that's gonna be.
It sounds like your conditions for having free will are something like:
- Not physically determined
- Not random
- Ultimately (not just proximately) caused by the individual
The answer to this is simple. No, we don't have free will in the way you mean it. You've very nearly made that a matter of definition - the only conceivable way in which this could work is if dualism were true. Dualism isn't true.
I would say that we do have free will. I would say this because I am defining free will differently - specifically, I'm defining it functionally. I have free will because I - this physical system that constitutes me - choose to do something, and, provided that what I choose is physically possible*, I do that thing. I intended to do it, and successfully did it. I intended to do it as a result of a characteristic thought process inherent to myself. Free will just means that I have a characteristic thought process, I generate intentions using that thought process, and I act on those intentions barring gross restraint, like handcuffs or such.
* Philosophical technical term - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possible_worlds or any number of other resources. Don't read too much into the fact that determinism says that, given the current state of the physical universe, only the things I actually do are physically possible for me to do in the more colloquial sense - philosophical possibility is about alternate universes.
Libertarian free will.This is what most people mean when they say "free will." It's a "backward-looking" free will. If I have libertarian free will, I am truly spontaneous, such that it is impossible for anyone to predict exactly what I'll do. It requires that there be something about me that transcends the cause-and-effect (and/or quantum-random) world. It has never been coherently positively defined; rather, it's defined as a set of rejections of various positive claims. Often argued-for using definist fallacies, like "libertarian free will is required for genuine love" or "libertarian free will is required for authentic moral choices."
Compatibilistic free will. This is a "forward-looking" free will, that talks about the degree to which the will is free from oppressive agents that are proximally meaningful to us. For example, my will is to go to the store. But a terrorist is telling me that if I leave the house, he'll kill me. Because I want to stay alive, this agent is redirecting my will toward staying indoors. Even though I'm still acting based on my preference set, my expressive will is being significantly altered by this intruding oppressor. Now, this free will is always discussed as a matter of degree (I'm always being affected by something), and is a function of my relationship with the environment. So, it's much fuzzier, and more of a perceptual description than something mechanical or mystical.
Most philosophers today reject libertarian free will. If you go that route, there are two semantic approaches with the term "free will" (by which most mean "libertarian free will"):
Conservative. This is the approach taken by Compatibilists. Keep the name "free will," but get people to think about it in a compatibilistic way rather than a libertarian way. Analogous to keeping the name "water" even after discovering that it's not a Sacred Element, but is rather a collection of molecules.
Radical. Reject the term "free will," since it's too frequently coupled with libertarian free will in the minds of most people. Analogous to saying, "water does not exist" after discovering that the Four Sacred Elements paradigm is false, and demanding that we call liquid collections of H2O molecules some new name.
Rejecting libertarian free will does NOT mean:
We don't make authentic moral choices
We cannot genuinely love, decide, choose, etc.
We cannot be held responsible for our actions
Rejecting libertarian free will DOES mean:
We must think of decisionmaking as a process -- electing to actualize one of several mutually exclusive prospective courses according to one's preferences and prospective analysis -- rather than as something mystical or truly spontaneous.
We must think of things in terms of that which can be described coherently. There's nothing intrinsic to choosing that requires "spontaneity," any more than an avalanche or car engine requires "spontaneity." Words like "genuine" and "authentic" can be red flags for definist fallacies.
Responsibility is not "buck stops here." Responsibility is dynamic, and can be shared, mitigated, and transferred.
Most philosophers today reject libertarian free will. If you go that route, there are two semantic approaches with the term "free will" (by which most mean "libertarian free will"):
Conservative. This is the approach taken by Compatibilists. Keep the name "free will," but get people to think about it in a compatibilistic way rather than a libertarian way. Analogous to keeping the name "water" even after discovering that it's not a Sacred Element, but is rather a collection of molecules.
Radical. Reject the term "free will," since it's too frequently coupled with libertarian free will in the minds of most people. Analogous to saying, "water does not exist" after discovering that the Four Sacred Elements paradigm is false, and demanding that we call liquid collections of H2O molecules some new name.
Giving your analogies a bit of a spin, aren't you? A "radical" might prefer to say that their approach is analogous to rejecting the concept and term of "luminiferous aether" whereas the conservatives are seeking something else on which to slap the "luminiferous aether" label however much of a stretch it may be.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Up until the discovery of electrolysis, water was believed to be an element. Aristotle had it listed as one of his four, and even chemists in the 17th and 18th Centuries operating under more sophisticated theories of what it meant to be an element were fairly certain that water belonged on the list that was beginning to lengthen. But then someone (Wikipedia indicates Humphrey Davy as the culprit) thought of running a current through the stuff, and it was realized that it could be broken down into two real elements, hydrogen and oxygen.
So. Did Davy disprove the existence of water by showing that it couldn't be what we thought it was? It turns out, maybe. There's some controversy in the semantics and philosophy of science about how words refer to things in the world; some would say that once water was discovered to be a compound, the word was redefined. I'm a little nicer to those poor misguided ancients than to say that they were using a word with no real referent - but for our purposes here, this doesn't really matter. We are, after all, still using the word, and still using it when we want to talk about this wet stuff that's a part of our experience of the world.
But that's beside the point. Which are you: radical or conservative? If conservative, what physical phenomenon do you deem the "luminiferous aether"? And if radical, what name do you give the stuff that comes out of the faucet?
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
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But that's beside the point. Which are you: radical or conservative? If conservative, what physical phenomenon do you deem the "luminiferous aether"? And if radical, what name do you give the stuff that comes out of the faucet?
Conservative.
Let's say there's a train track going into a tunnel from the north. Then, on south side of the mountain, there are 5 tunnel exits with a track each (A, B, C, D, E). A train enters the tunnel from the north, and emerges at exit E. Later, a different train enters the tunnel from the north, and emerges at exit A. What's happening inside that tunnel? It is a mystery.
"Free will" is a name given to the unpredictable variability and apparent spontaneity of whatever happens inside the tunnel. It is "free of the abstract oppression of understanding." On the other end of the city, there is a similar track configuration, except no tunnel. Everyone can see exactly what's going on. When a certain decision is analogous to this, we say it was not a product of "free will."
Further, it appears that "free will" and "will" are nearly the same thing in terms of how they're used. When we know exhaustively the mechanics of what prompted a certain decision, we're less likely to attribute it to the "will" at all, especially if we're able to control those mechanics and/or detect them in real-time. The "will" shrinks into a tinier ignorance gap.
Now, "decisionmaking free of the abstract oppression of understanding" is one definition, that probably best aligns with the functionality of most people's intuitive understanding of the term (even if it doesn't align to most people's intuitive understanding of the term itself, which is delusional). But it is of something that disappears the more people learn and the better we get at control and detection of brain activity. If we have a problem with this, we can do like some compatibilists do, which is to change the target oppressor against which "freedom" is framed. For instance, defining "free will" as "a net expression of desire not inhibited or redirected by antagonists."
Thanks a lot that's just the kind of explanation i was searching for.
If bad human actions (let's keep the murder case) are as deterministic as lighting bolts, then thought 'x shouldn't murder' makes no sense, the same way the thought 'rain shouldn't fall' or 'the sky shouldn't seen to be blue'. As you said, the only moral action is to stop the murder.
So the moral burden is not on the murderer, it is on the people who could choose to stop him. But there's no free will and people can't choose ! So no one really have a moral burden to stop bad things to happen.
Would you say a book character A by killing a book character B is wrong or is doing something immoral ? No, because he didn't choose to kill. If I should take B as a object entitled of moral treatment (like people and animals) then A is not wrong but only the author of the book is.
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You're still begging the question. You're still not explaining why only things that are free to choose can be moral.
Can these people stop it? If they can, they are morally obligated to do so.
If they do, they did the right thing. If they do not, they did the wrong thing.
I see no reason why whether or not the outcome is predetermined has barring on those moral facts.
Well, imaginary people can only kill imaginary things.
However, if you are evaluating it in the context of fiction, I can think of many evil fictional characters. Kid Marvelman, for example. How would you go about justifying his actions?
Lets say there was someone with an inoperable brain tumor that causes him to kill uncontrollably. But, just sometimes. Half of the time he is perfectly rational; the other half of the time he's in an uncontrollable killing rage. This switch happens at unpredictable intervals throughout the day. It is proven he has no control of his actions when it happens.
Are you saying that our justice system cannot touch this person? We can't lock up this innocent to stop them from killing, because they cannot control themselves? So, we are forced--out of a sense of justice--to let them go about their business, and chalk up people they kill as "bad luck" or something?
Because, my sense of justice tells me that is EXACTLY the kind of person that needs to be locked up for everyone’s safety.
I chose not to believe in free will.
See what I did their?
Your nervous system tricked itself into believing that it made a choice, which your illusionary introspection falsely confirmed as a real event.
Why?
I see I was wrong but I still think there are moral repercussion for this. I just think no free will eliminates a layer in moral decisions and that have real repercussion.
According to you, the only moral decision is stopping harm if harm can be stopped - and absolutely nothing else.
Most people believe the fundamental moral decision is not doing harm, so the harm doer is a bigger moral violator then anyone else. Free Will insures anyone who breaks the rules is a biggest offender and if harm happen but it's not a effect of your decisions you're not a offender even if you could stop it. It's the NAP (you're only obliged to not do harm, but you have 0% moral obligation of stopping any).
For example, according to you, the policemen that chooses to not stop a murder and the own murderer represents the same amount moral offense. Both could stop it from happening but didn't. So society should give then the same legal sentence ?
Another example. A poor man needs money to help his children not to die. A poor man who hates work could choose to work more and get more money or a rich man who hates donation could simply give him money. If the children don't get help and dies, society normally blame the poor man, not the rich man. If the only moral criteria is "stop harm to be done" then both are equally the cause of the children death and should be take equally irresponsible by society.
Free Will allows us to have a different criteria to decide who's the moral offender is. Without it we have only "who could stop harm and didn't" which is actually a broader criteria. So the result is actually the opposite of what i was originally claiming: no free will does not 'decrease' the set of immoral actions, it increases it.
We might leave in a world without free will, but our legal system and society believes we have. So we don't really "suffer" the realization of non-free will in any way.
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Nope. I was just using that as a simple example because I did not feel that a complicated one was needed. If you want a more exact description of MY current version of morality, start here:
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=469101
However, I'm not here to try and convince you that any of my ideas about the subject are right or something. I'm just here to get you to more critically examine your own.
Ethics is a very complicated and enigmatic subject, and I'm nothing more than a dabbler.
I will read that... Thank you for your attention !
I still think the idea of morals without free will is really counter intuitive.
The issue here is the point of view. Morals is not only about your actions but judging someone else's actions. By considering equal a natural disaster and a human provoked disaster, you're removing a layer to the whole moral reasoning. You can only judge if you should or should not stop, but you can't judge if the human actor should or shouldn't.
I can say, based on morals, "John ought not to kill". But based on morals I can't say "The volcano ought not to kill" or "The giant bear ought not to kill".
Another example to "prove" the importance of a free will to our morals.
In a no-free will world, the guy holding a gun and the gun are equally the cause of a shooting.
My moral judgement says I should stop either him or the gun and as a meter of rule can choose to do either. So the only difference between those two options are the other consequences (such as the viability of applying those rules, the effect of those rules in rule abiding citizens).
Someone who believes in free will will be tempted to choose rules that stop people, since people is the only true cause of human provoked disaster. Someone who doesn't believe in free will will be tempted to choose the rule that applies easier without any discrimination.
I'm not saying whos right and who's wrong. Just point out there's a difference.
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I'm pretty sure you can.
There is lost of stuff my dog should not do, for example, and he knows it.
And if you remove either the shooting will not happen, but the man might hurt people anyway (just not as many).
The gun is not likely to do anything on its own, but the man is. So, stoping the gun might be a good short-term plan, but the stopping the man is a better long-term plan.
There is a difference, but my viewpoint isn't as simplistic as you wish it to be.
Moral is not only about stopping bad things from happening, it is also about demanding bad things to not happen from those who can stop it.
People don't judge a earthquake or a volcano or a gun. But people judge people. At the premise of free will.
I'm not saying who side is correct, I'm just saying a layer in common moral reasoning is lost in a world without free will.
Let me put it in another way. Moral is not about deciding "we should stop harm" but actually defining what "harm" is and giving weight to different harmful happenings. Moral is only needed in the situations were to stop harm you have to do harm also and in those situations moral is what we use to solve the dilemma (what course of actions do less harm).
The same way economics wouldn't exist in the absence of scarcity, ethics wouldn't exist in the absence of dilemmas.
Dilemma doesn't exist without choice and choice doesn't exist without free will, so morals don't exist without free will. That's the reasoning.
You seen to not acknowledge the difference between morals and any normative claim.
Why your dog shouldn't do stuff ?
No he won't. For the purpose of this example, this man only hurt people with guns.
I don't know where you got the idea i'm wishing something or my wishes have any relevance. I'm just responding to what your posts, not to your point of view.
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Well, not really, since you're making assumptions based on what you perceive my view point to be. The "no harm" and "punish the gun" were extrapolations based on a faulty understanding of what I'm trying to say. I would say they were "strawmen," but I know you're not doing it maliciously.
I just want you to know that my view of morality--outlined in that post you said you've not read yet--isn't something that can be summed up in a few words, and is not as simple as your examples make it out to be.
Stopping the volcano would be more "noble".
But in the absence of free will if you or someone else stopped the person i couldn't say you were wrong because you really did not made a choice.
Evaluating moral choices in free will world vs. non-free will world on your own perspective is impossible since "choice" have the premise of free will already. The situation were I have to choose between stopping a volcano or a person is logically flawed in the non-free will situation.
I can only investigate the consequences to ethics of a world without free will by looking at someone else's actions.
In that case, in the absence of free will, i couldn't say someone else's actions are moral or immoral because without free will choices don't exist, and if choices don't exist dilemmas don't exist either. Ethics in a universe without dilemmas have no purpose i believe.
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You keep saying things like this and I keep just flat-out denying them.
You can most definitely say they were wrong--and they can BE wrong--regardless of who had 'choice' in the matter. You keep assuming "wrong" needs to be linked to choice, and I keep on asking you "why?"
Just because something must be does not mean it's "good." Those are separate properties.
That IS true with "moral choices," sure, but I don't believe in "moral choices" so the argument is irrelevant from where I'm sitting.
It's not because you can still make the wrong decision, even if you don't have a choice.
I can be brainwashed into doing something immortal--for example--right? Even though--by definition--if I'm brainwashed I don't have a choice in the matter. That does not make the immoral action suddenly amoral or moral; it's still immoral.
You certainly CAN. And you've given no reason why you can't, other than to say you can't (which isn't a reason).
Inevitable =/= amoral
Because the consequences of the happenings matters, not only it's nature. Accepting the importance of consequences does not mean i've to ignore the existence of nature.
You're using the word 'wrong' in a too broad way. The word has multiple meanings, such as logically wrong, morally wrong and wrong according to one's preferences.
To claim the volcano would be able to be morally wrong would be to claim there's a set of moral principles he knows and he violated it.
Without free will a person is never the one who violated the moral principles. A pre-determined chain of events provoked the violation, but the chain of events can't be morally wrong either because it doesn't know the principles.
You can't make a decisions without choices. If choices don't exist, decisions won't exist either.
Actions cannot be immoral in a vacuum and they are not moral or immoral by itself. Morality is the property of individuals taking actions, not the action itself.
In this case you're not immoral, the person who brainwashed you is. If a nature pre-determined force brainwashed you, then no moral wrong was done.
Morality tied to happenings in a vacuum is a big mess. The morality of actions is tied up to the circumstances the individual actors are in. So there's nothing wrong with the same action been immoral, moral or amoral given the circumstance.
So yes, the exact same action becomes amoral.
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Demonstrate how this is the case.
Not necessarily. If I'm presented with strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate ice cream as my choices, I cannot choose giraffe. This is a limitation on my choice by a force beyond my control. It does not mean that I do not have free will.
I believe it can, yes. Choice can exist regardless of a dualistic universe or a materialistic one. All that changes is what exactly constitutes a "self" that's doing the choosing.
The matter is, our thoughts exists exclusively on the physical world (1) or they just manifest on the physical world through our brains (2) ?
The case (2) is correspondent to a mind-body duality. Thoughts are originated in a non-physical world, so part of our mind exist outside our brains. The issue with this is that it breaks the principle of causal closure of the physical world (everything have a cause, and this cause have a cause, and so on until a point that all the universe is a single gigantic pre-determined chain of events. The only exception is the genuinely chaotic events).
In other words, the idea of a arbitrary process (non-deterministic, non-aleatory) breaks a very important principle of natural sciences.
The case (1) means our thoughts are purely physical, and like anything else purely physical, they either random or deterministic. If our thoughts are random then there's no free will since the choices we make are actually random events. If our thoughts are deterministic, then they are part of this gigantic natural chain of events. In both case we don't have control of our choices.
The mind-body duality does not exclude mind being limited by physical possibilities.
For example, you choose chocolate via thought. If this thought is purely physical, it is either pre-determined or it is random.
In a material universe the "self" is a random or pre-determined event of nature. The self "exist" and his physical, but all choices made by all people are already pre-defined (or they are random).
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You've made a crucial error.
The error is contained in this quote:
You've left 'we' as ambiguous, apparently taking it to mean something like "Our dualistic minds" - in which case, well, of course if physical determinism is true, our nonexistent dualistic minds don't play a part in our mental processes. They don't exist!
Does that mean that I don't exist? That's practically nonsensical, at least when I say it. Of course it doesn't mean that I don't exist.
What it does mean is that I am something other than a dualistic non-physical mind. Specifically, I am a certain physical system encapsulated within this particular body (don't take this as a requirement for personal identity; it's just the way things are as a matter of fact for humans).
This is a crucial point because, simply, it means that my mental processes can both be the result of impersonal physical forces and be my own decision. I - who I am, how I think, what information I have available to use to make decisions - am the result of impersonal physical forces. Any given thought or action which I perform is the result of my own mental process. For me to have thought differently than I did, I would have had to be a different person in some way.
This conception of self does have a couple important consequences - among others, it means that I must be caused, and it means my thought processes must be deterministic, if physical determinism is true. But, of course, neither of these consequences is actually revolutionary. Nobody thinks that they're uncaused. Yes, it may be jarring for some people to think that we're caused by impersonal physical forces instead of by God or some similar personal being, but the idea of tendencies towards evil etc. - the idea that who we are is grounded on what came before us and what caused us - is a very old idea. And if you think about how 'we' go about making decisions, you'll realize that even in a dualist perspective, it was always going to have to be some combination of random and deterministic - there are no other options. You've just been putting dualist mental processes into a black box where you don't have to think about them, possibly with some equivalent of the label 'ineffable' to further protect you from thinking about them, rather than acknowledging that there's no other way that they could work besides random or deterministic (possibly a complicated interplay between random and deterministic pieces, but still).
I'm still pretty confused on how physical determinism and free will can coexist. As far as I understand, in physical determinism every cause have a cause, and this cause also have another cause, and so on, until the beginning of the universe. So the net cause of all things are actually the same.
If all things have the same cause and if multiple people exist, how can people cause things ?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximate_and_ultimate_causation
I strike a cue ball on a billiards table. It travels across the table, and strikes the 7 ball. The 7 ball bounces off a wall, then hits the 3 ball. The 3 ball drops into one of the pockets - just as I have planned. What caused the 3 ball to drop into the pocket?
You could answer, "The boundary conditions of the universe." You could answer, "I did." You could answer, "The 7 ball." Which of these answers is correct? How do you tell?
I think you've made an error if you deny any of them. All of them are causes of the 3 ball falling into the pocket. The ultimate cause is whatever started off the universe, but all manner of events have been intervening causes.
Note that this has been done without reference to dualism or determinism. If dualism is true, something still created you, and the thing that caused you caused you to think in certain ways. You are caused whether determinism is true or not.
Now, here's the biggest thing. The term 'free will' is ambiguous. The question, "Do we have free will?" is really the question, "How do we define free will?" Determining whether we have free will or not is usually a philosophically uninteresting question (though possibly technically difficult question), given a particular definition of free will. If you define free will as, "My decisions have no physical causes at all," then obviously if physical determinism is true, you don't have free will, since there's nothing but physical causes that could result in your decisions. If you define free will as, "My decisions are the result of mental processes in me and not determined by external factors," it's very possible to have free will in a physical determinist universe. You are - your mental processes are - a chaotic (but not random) physically determined system. The results of that system are the results of your mental processes. Anything that happens within that system is what your process of thinking is.
There are definitions that don't assume dualism to be true and which don't allow for free will in a deterministic system - for example, "You have free will if it's physically possible for you to have done otherwise while still being you." In a purely deterministic system, it's not possible for you to choose other than you actually choose. This kind of definition is why so much has been made of quantum indeterminacy as some kind of savior of free will - quantum indeterminacy could add an element where running the same decision 1000 times could have different outcomes, thus technically satisfying the definition of free will. We've already been over at length why pure random decision-making isn't really more satisfying than hard determinism in decision-making, but it does satisfy the definition.
So, the most important thing to realize is that there's no magic spell called Free Will. We are what we are whether we have free will or we don't. We have possession of an extraordinarily nuanced decision-making process. The universe is probably largely deterministic at a macro scale, indeterministic at a micro scale, and we're unsure how much if any the indeterminism carries over to the macro scale (the macro universe might be literally 100% deterministic, on some readings of quantum mechanics, though I have no idea how seriously that idea is taken).
I would like to propose that the question of how we ought to define free will is really the question of what we want to get out of free will. What are the things that we think are meaningfully affected by whether we have free will or not, and what answers need to be returned in order for us to decide that we do have free will? A major one is personal responsibility - that we can fairly blame people for their mistakes and credit them for their successes (I know not everyone in this thread cares about that, but a lot of people do care about it). I'm sure there are others.
Denying any of then would surely be a error. But I tend to think that the original cause is the cause relevant to the matters of free will.
Ex: A man shooting someone. When we investigate the cause we see that the bullet physics, the bullet, the gun, the trigger, the hand of the man, the nerves that binds a man's hand to his brain and his decision to shoot are all a chain reaction and any of those are the cause.
A trial who believes in free will will ignore all the chain reaction and attribute to the man the cause of the murderer. Basically because it's believed his decision were the original cause, the "uncaused" cause. The man has responsibility for his act for the mere fact that he could do it differently.
In physical determinism non cause is uncaused (only micro level happenings and those are random by nature). So the original cause would be the creation of the universe.
The man did not have free will because taking a different decision were never a possibility.
I'm not denying that external physical matters have influence on people. but it's not the same a determine it.
Dualists normally believe the physical determined world gives us possibilities and restrictions and we, a arbitrary and non-deterministic force, choose those possibilities. So conditions are pre determined, not the choice.
Defining free will is definitely a task one have to take in order to conclude this debate.
For me free will makes little sense if one couldn't choose differently. The possibility of a alternative outcome (multiple available choices) given the same exact conditions is what constitutes free will. And clearly determinism is the ruling out of alternative outcomes given the same conditions. For me those two things can't coexist, unless I adopt a new stance on what free will is - a really weird stance that's gonna be.
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- Not physically determined
- Not random
- Ultimately (not just proximately) caused by the individual
The answer to this is simple. No, we don't have free will in the way you mean it. You've very nearly made that a matter of definition - the only conceivable way in which this could work is if dualism were true. Dualism isn't true.
I would say that we do have free will. I would say this because I am defining free will differently - specifically, I'm defining it functionally. I have free will because I - this physical system that constitutes me - choose to do something, and, provided that what I choose is physically possible*, I do that thing. I intended to do it, and successfully did it. I intended to do it as a result of a characteristic thought process inherent to myself. Free will just means that I have a characteristic thought process, I generate intentions using that thought process, and I act on those intentions barring gross restraint, like handcuffs or such.
* Philosophical technical term - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possible_worlds or any number of other resources. Don't read too much into the fact that determinism says that, given the current state of the physical universe, only the things I actually do are physically possible for me to do in the more colloquial sense - philosophical possibility is about alternate universes.
Roughly, there are two conceptions of free will.
Most philosophers today reject libertarian free will. If you go that route, there are two semantic approaches with the term "free will" (by which most mean "libertarian free will"):
Rejecting libertarian free will does NOT mean:
Rejecting libertarian free will DOES mean:
Giving your analogies a bit of a spin, aren't you? A "radical" might prefer to say that their approach is analogous to rejecting the concept and term of "luminiferous aether" whereas the conservatives are seeking something else on which to slap the "luminiferous aether" label however much of a stretch it may be.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Also, I stole that analogy from you, from 2008:
But that's beside the point. Which are you: radical or conservative? If conservative, what physical phenomenon do you deem the "luminiferous aether"? And if radical, what name do you give the stuff that comes out of the faucet?
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Conservative.
Let's say there's a train track going into a tunnel from the north. Then, on south side of the mountain, there are 5 tunnel exits with a track each (A, B, C, D, E). A train enters the tunnel from the north, and emerges at exit E. Later, a different train enters the tunnel from the north, and emerges at exit A. What's happening inside that tunnel? It is a mystery.
"Free will" is a name given to the unpredictable variability and apparent spontaneity of whatever happens inside the tunnel. It is "free of the abstract oppression of understanding." On the other end of the city, there is a similar track configuration, except no tunnel. Everyone can see exactly what's going on. When a certain decision is analogous to this, we say it was not a product of "free will."
Further, it appears that "free will" and "will" are nearly the same thing in terms of how they're used. When we know exhaustively the mechanics of what prompted a certain decision, we're less likely to attribute it to the "will" at all, especially if we're able to control those mechanics and/or detect them in real-time. The "will" shrinks into a tinier ignorance gap.
Now, "decisionmaking free of the abstract oppression of understanding" is one definition, that probably best aligns with the functionality of most people's intuitive understanding of the term (even if it doesn't align to most people's intuitive understanding of the term itself, which is delusional). But it is of something that disappears the more people learn and the better we get at control and detection of brain activity. If we have a problem with this, we can do like some compatibilists do, which is to change the target oppressor against which "freedom" is framed. For instance, defining "free will" as "a net expression of desire not inhibited or redirected by antagonists."