In a conversation about obesity and body chemicals, James Hanley observes:
Guilty as charged. Yep, I’m that reductionist. That doesn’t mean every problem we face needs a pharmaceutical solution, since lifestyle changes can also affect the proportions of particular chemicals in our body, but I do think that “free will” is just an illusion caused by those chemicals combining in our brains in particular ways.
I know that’s not a popular view, but I’ve never heard a compelling material explanation for true free will, and I’m a pretty hard-core materialist.
I am curious how James squares this with his libertarianism. Not that I don’t think it can be squared, mind you, but this is of particular interest to me because I am not unsympathetic to this view point and it was one of the levers in my mind that pushed me away from libertarianism.
My nascent libertarianism was founded on the belief of responsibility for the decisions that we make. If our decisions, and our judgment, are so subject to chemicals that are outside of our control, that changes things quite a bit. The weakness in libertarianism was the degree to which some people had environmental advantages over others even without government interference. Throw in chemical advantages, and it becomes extraordinarily hard to justify a system that rewards people based in good part on not only the family we are born into, but also our hardware and chemical wiring. It’s one thing to suggest that poor people need to hit the books and exhibit better judgments. It’s another to say that they were born with character traits that made education less appealing and likely to be less successful than for someone else. And it’s another thing to say “exhibit better judgment” when things like impulse control, strength-of-desire, and so on are subservient to our hardwiring.
I’m not James (a fact we’re probably both thankful for), but I hold pretty much the same position re free will and I’m a lib-symp, so I’ll give you my response: it’s all about the consequences. While it’s not rationally justifiable to morally judge someone’s actions, the fact that we know we will be held responsible for them affects our decision tree and generally produces better outcomes.
As far as libertarianism is concerned, the flavor of it that I’m drawn to doesn’t argue against luck-egalitarianism in principle, it just says that all our attempts to impose fairness through government coercion are likely to have negative consequences (due to unintended side effects, regulatory capture, etc.) and that overall, the costs outweigh the benefits.
I am sympathetic to this line of thinking. Go too far down that road and you’re at “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need…” and we know how that works out.
On the other hand, I am a bit uncomfortable with the notion that the most utilitarian approach is the one that just happens to benefit people like me (from a pretty good background, with moderate-to-good internal wiring). That’s not really an argument, though.
I am a bit uncomfortable with the notion that the most utilitarian approach is the one that just happens to benefit people like me (from a pretty good background, with moderate-to-good internal wiring). That’s not really an argument, though.
Well, if that is what’s being argued by a utilitarian, it should at least cause us to wonder if perhaps the argument is more self-serving than sincere. But I flatter myself that it’s not my argument. I don’t think this is the best of all possible utilitarian worlds, and in part–although not in total–that’s because it’s not libertarian enough. E.g., the things government does that actually harm the poor and helps keep them impoverished.
I’m also in a reasonably privileged class, but I was there when I was a proper liberal as well, so I like to tell myself that my new views aren’t just self-serving. Basically I went from being perpetually frustrated by the inadequacies of the government we have and wishing/hoping for better to deciding that this is probably as good as it gets.
Will,
That’s a hard question, but I can’t really blame you since it’s not your fault you asked it. 😉
I haven’t really worked it all out. Some of it does have to do with consequences, as KenB notes. I’m a more utilitarian libertarian, rather than a natural rights one, so I think it’s ultimately somewhat workable. (I’ll admit to engaging in rights talk sometimes, though.) And determinism still doesn’t resolve the problem that however bad my “determined choices” (for lack of a better phrasing) are, it’s not really likely that anyone else is likely to make better “choices” for me through their own deterministic cognitive process.
Throw in chemical advantages, and it becomes extraordinarily hard to justify a system that rewards people based in good part on not only the family we are born into, but also our hardware and chemical wiring.
Yes. Full stop.
it’s another thing to say “exhibit better judgment” when things like impulse control, strength-of-desire, and so on are subservient to our hardwiring
Yes, but impulse control and strength of desire can be adjusted chemically (and, again, I want to emphasize that I mean not solely pharmaceuticals, but lifestyle changes–of course some internal material process cause us to make those changes or take those chemicals, but whatever, it can still improve a person’s life).
It’s one thing to suggest that poor people need to hit the books and exhibit better judgments. It’s another to say that they were born with character traits that made education less appealing and likely to be less successful than for someone else.
Yes, but I want to emphasize that I’m not deterministic in quite that sense. The bag of chemicals that is you will, (and I think “of course” is appropriate here) react differently to different environmental stimuli, which is to say that environment affects our particular chemical makeup. So while the confusion is quite natural given my brief prior statements, I do not in any way intend to claim that environmental effects don’t matter. I don’t think they are everything, but I think they are hugely important.
I’ll say this, for example–as a bipolar person, certain environments are in themselves far more conducive to emotional stability and lack of depression than others, regardless of whether I am or am not taking medications at the time. Likewise, the medications themselves have a big effect, regardless of the environment. The best results come from combining the medications and a good environment. For every other bipolar person I’ve ever observed this seems to hold true. I see no reason to think the same doesn’t hold true for motivation, ability to maximize intellectual potential, etc. And, of course, we know the effects of both nutritional and environmental deprivation in early childhood very well.
So while I think there are some people who are unfortunately doomed to be unable to avoid bad choices, I don’t think that’s necessarily true of most poor people, at least if they are helped early enough in their life.
I appreciate you taking the time to answer! This is actually very much the sort of answer I was looking for. Gotta fly tomorrow, but thanks for giving me something to chew over.
Throw in chemical advantages, and it becomes extraordinarily hard to justify a system that rewards people based in good part on not only the family we are born into, but also our hardware and chemical wiring. It’s one thing to suggest that poor people need to hit the books and exhibit better judgments. It’s another to say that they were born with character traits that made education less appealing and likely to be less successful than for someone else. And it’s another thing to say “exhibit better judgment” when things like impulse control, strength-of-desire, and so on are subservient to our hardwiring.
It seems to me that there is an underlying assumption that we have enough free will to change our system (or, if not free will, a mechanism that will adapt to new information and then go on to change thereby) and… they don’t.
I’m willing to run with that (for the sake of argument) if you are.
Not exactly. Though I think it is true that there’s more room for someone that has got it good to screw up regardless of having it good than it is for someone that’s got it bad to make good despite that, the general premise is not just that the lower can’t be accountable for their lack of success, but also that the upper can’t claim the rewards for all they do. If it’s all in the wiring, that is.
There is little moral basis to suggest that someone capable of doing more who does a lot because of his capabilities should be more rewarded by society than someone who does the absolute best he can in life but can’t give as much because he has less capability to contribute.
There is a utilitarian argument, which KenB gets to that I haven’t responded to yet. But the prospect of lack-of-will is morally horrifying, and the notion that a utilitarian system is (a libertarian) one that benefits those born with the greatest resources (internal and external).
I lost track of the particular thread this comment had come from, and my following claim is a bit off topic, but perhaps not really: I submit that free will, if it exists, might non-material, or extra-material, and therefore cannot be known, let alone explained, by any materialist approach.
I’m not sure to what extent I believe this claim, and I assume I’m committing some philosophical fallacies. But can adopting it, even arguendo, be useful to a discussion of free will (and thereby libertarianism), even if we stipulate to its (material) unprovability?
I think first you’d have to be very clear about what you even mean by “free will”. Does it mean that for any decision you make, you actually had the ability to make a different decision (and not randomly but purposively)? Or does it just mean that you weren’t coerced, either externally or by an internal state that forced you to deviate from a fully-reflective decision?
It’s hard to see how you get to the former, whether you’re a materialist or not. We’re going to will whatever our decision-making apparatus comes up with, and whether that’s fully determined or partially random, all based on chemistry and physics or partially metaphysical, it still can’t be said to be in our control by any mechanism outside that apparatus.
weren’t coerced,…by an internal state that forced you to deviate from a fully-reflective decision?
I would argue that the fully-reflective decision is itself the output of an internal state that controls whatever counts for “us,” rather than us controlling it (although we “experiece” controlling it).
This is not a popular position, and understandably many people find it a disturbing line of thought. It does seem to strike at the very core of our concepts of humanity and personhood.
Eh, this one is from James, not Johanna. (Damn autofill!)
Agreed, but we have a useful concept of “being in our right mind”, which is what I was trying to distinguish there — while it’s not truly free in the sense of being undetermined, a fully-reflective decision can at least be distinguished from decisions made in the grip of a powerful emotion or while on drugs or feverish or whatever.
The implications of determinism are indeed morally frightening. If humans lack free will, then why do we punish criminals? They are not truly responsible for their criminal acts. We already acknowledge this to some extent with certain kids of defenses to criminal acts like the “irresistible impulse” or the grossly-misunderstood “insanity” defenses.
If humans are simply robots with complex neurochemical programming then what is wrong with changing (debatably, “improving”) that programming — leading to a society resembling a hybrid between A Clockwork Orange and Brave New World? (A seductive tangent from that bit of musing leads to eugenics.) If our mental propensities are a function of genetics, then maybe throw in a bit of Gattaca into that mix.
And your socioeconomic take on things just adds another layer of injustice to an already-tall cake: it’s simply a lie to tell people that they are ever going to get ahead in the world or that hard work and study will give them opportunities — not just because of economic class, not just because of culture, but because their own neurochemistry is likely to betray them.
If this is true — and I suspect and fear that there is more truth to it than is comfortable — then the world is a truly arbitrary place indeed.
The utilitarian argument for prisons is pretty sound. If nothing else, to segregate them away from everyone else. It could, however, change the perception of what prisons should be. This is another biproduct on my shift towards thinking that we are more hardwired than I had previously thought: I’ve come around to the idea that we should make prisons as not-unpleasant as we can, even if it means a better life (for some) in prison than outside of it.
The implications of determinism are indeed morally frightening. If humans lack free will, then why do we punish criminals?
I don’t understand why the answer “because they have no choice but to punish criminals” wouldn’t be sufficient to answer this question.
“Punish” and “segregate” are two different things. We don’t punish our cats for wanting to eat our birds, but we do keep the birds behind a closed door when we aren’t around.
If humans lack free will, then why do we punish criminals?
If humans lack free will, we punish them because we cannot do otherwise. And from a moral perspective, it still has a utilitarian benefit. Of course the types of punishment are still open to debate. And both on moral grounds and utilitarian grounds I think rehabilitative efforts are more justified than strict punishment (see my argument about the effects of environment to make sense of the rehabilitation argument).
By the way, that’s actually me, James, writing in on my wife’s computer. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t share my views on this.
it’s simply a lie to tell people that they are ever going to get ahead in the world or that hard work and study will give them opportunities — not just because of economic class, not just because of culture, but because their own neurochemistry is likely to betray them.
Not exactly. It’s true that some people are naturally more capable than others. I don’t see any sense denying that. But as I noted above, environment matters. The chemicals on a matchhead are prone to catching fire, but only in the right environment. Get them damp, and it affects their natural chemical ability in a negative way.
If humans are simply robots with complex neurochemical programming then what is wrong with changing (debatably, “improving”) that programming — leading to a society resembling a hybrid between A Clockwork Orange and Brave New World? (A seductive tangent from that bit of musing leads to eugenics.)
Yes, that’s a more difficult challenge. From a utilitarian perspective I would argue that large-scale attempts to change humanity for the better have always worked to the opposite effect. But if you ask, “theoretically, what if we could do it?” then I don’t have a great answer. Just leaving it up to the individual to choose, the normal libertarian preference, isn’t always satisfactory either–it’s like letting a schizophrenic decide whether to take medicine.
I’d say that psychotropic drugs are precisely that, altering our programming. And I don’t really see how the question of free will affects this question one way or the other — what exactly is it about “robots” that is supposed to diminish their worth vis-a-vis supposedly free-willed humans? (See the Twilight Zone episode The Lonely).