Free Will

• Basic argument
  • Your current actions are either determined by the circumstances of the action, or by you
  • Either this is random in which case you can't be responsible for your action, or it is dependent on your character in some way
  • But your character is determined either by circumstance, chance or your past actions
  • Infinite regress
  • Can't hold anyone morally responsible
• Moral responsibility in practice
  • We can't escape our reactive attitudes, I wouldn't want to
  • How do you stop feeling resentment without also stopping feeling gratitude
  • Resentment is not the same as moral responsibility
  • I can hate who you are in full knowledge of how you came to be that
    • It does make it harder though, knowing that I would have been you
      • You can hate yourself
• Types of possibility:
  • Quantum (probabilistic) possibility
    • This is stupid criterion
    • Suppose that the quantum outcomes were generated by a pseudorandom generator, suppose it were written on an long piece of paper before the universe began, surely this shouldn't make a difference metaphysically speaking to whether an action was performed freely or not
  • Epistemic possibility - there exists no predictor
    • Accounts for manipulation/coercion cases
    • "Freedom not in theory, but in practice"
    • This also seems kinda silly - predictability does not imply constraint
      • If I have a choice between two options: one clearly better than the other, then I will predictably choose the one better for me, by virtue of it being a free choice
    • Perhaps the predictor needs to take advantage of their predictions to satisfy their values over yours
  • Black box algorithm - suppose we treat your brain as a black box algorithm taking in your sensory data as input, and outputting some action. It should be possible relative to this black box frame, for you to have $\phi$ed and not $\phi$ed
    • Does not account for drug addict case
      • Make the black box more narrow - treat addiction as fixed
      • But it's not - it can be changed, scope of black box is arbitrary
    • Predictors don't count
  • Libertarianism
    • Adopt an agent-centred (teleological?) picture of causality
    • Why do rocks fall? Because they want to reach the earth
    • We are operating within the frame of "events must have mechanistic causes"
    • Time symmetry of physics?
  • Backwards causality
    • My actions create the prior conditions necessary for them to occur.
  • Jason criteria:
    • Knowledge of option set
    • Ability to choose from option set
    • Ability to execute
• Agency as understanding
  • meta awareness of the forces at play - reflective endorsement of values
  • you can understand the chains around you, this does not make you free
• Agency as ability to enact your values in the world
• When are people unagentic?
  • Following the default, no reflective knowledge
  • Not realising what they can do
• Test cases:
  • Chess game
    • Your first move is more free than a forced checkmate
  • Drug addict
    • There is a sense in which the drug addict is free, their values have just been shifted
    • They lack reflective endorsement
  • Gun to head
    • Similar to forced 3 move checkmate in some sense
  • Cult
    • Similar to drug addict in some sense