I’d love to know that Synapse readers think about our Free Will. Do we have Free Will? And consequently, do we justly deserve praise or blame, reward or punishment for our actions?
I also have a follow up question depending on your opinion:
For Free Will Skeptics: how do you reconcile the fact that we have a very strong sense of control over our actions every day?
For Free Will Endorsers: What role does luck or randomness play in your view on Free Will?
We deserve praise and blame and reward and punishment not because they indicate any actual moral or ethical reading, but because we respond to the perception of those assignments, and that response in turn keeps us engaged in the process of living. Praise and blame provide effective regulation.
Our sense personal agency arises as a function of the brain's preference for differential comparisons. We serve the libidinal imperative better when we believe our agency has currency.
Hi Jen, thanks for your take on this issue! I agree with you that reward and punishment are still important motivating forces even if we admit that we don't have Free Will. However, do we deserve reward and punishment in the retributive sense? In other words, Person A kills Person B and therefore Person A deserves harsh punishment because they knowingly did wrong. This is the backward-looking view that our criminal justice system often takes. A Free Will skeptic like Caruso would contend that no one deserves retributive punishment because he or she lacked the Free Will to be blamed for killing Person B. However, we might still punish Person A because of forward-looking reasons (protect the community, rehabilitate Person A, etc...)
I have a lot of trouble with the notion of "deserve" when it comes to retribution, yes. And more so when it comes to the notion of innocent suffering- how easily we say "She didn't deserve to die like that." Implying, ultimately, someone somewhere someday does.
So in terms of moral balance, no, I don't think punishment is desreved.
I do think, however, Person A should face punishment for violating the social contract.
Deserve is really very problematic because it imposes moral qualifications on regulation and reward. But I have to admit, people resonate more strongly with the idea of moral imperative.
It is not hard to see how subjective and detrimental our criminal justice system is.
Yes, we have free will yet most of the time we choose not to make use of it. To use Kahnemans's idea of system 1 and system 2 thinking: free will resides in system 2, it is hard, consumes time and energy, sometimes it is psychologically and emotionally uncomfortable to actuate.
We spend much of our life with system 1: we go with the flow, we are massively influenced by external events and stimulus.
Luck and randomness have a disproportionate effect on us when we follow the flow of events. Conversely, when we are set on a goal of some kind (moral, material, emotional) we work towards it relentlessly irrespective of the events.
Hi Peter, yes I like your bringing up System 1 and System 2. It's a difficult argument for Free Will skeptics to contend with. For example, I could argue that reaching for those late-night snacks on the counter was mostly mindless, compulsive, and not very "free." But if I had done the hard work to activate System 2, make intentional a goal of no late-night snacking, and hidden those snacks from the counter -- who could argue that wasn't my own Free Will? I think Free Will skeptics would still argue that we are ultimately not responsible for having acquired the motivation and energy to activate System 2 when we manage to do so.
This is similar to destiny vs. coincidence. I've thought about that for a long time.
I personally don't know if we do have Free Will or not.
My thoughts so far are that if there is no Free Will, then even the action of all of us discussing this issue is not our conscious will but something making us have this conversation. And even the fact that we feel that we have a very strong sense of control over our actions every day is because we are designed to feel that. Consequently, any praise, blame, reward, or punishment is also designed. It's like a play in which you have all these elements, but the actors are playing only acting out their lines. It only appears like they are behaving with Free Will.
Incidentally, I'm currently reading a book called "The Science of Fate: The New Science of Who We Are - And How to Shape our Best Future" by Hannah Critchlow which addresses the questions - "Are we really the masters of our own destiny?"
I'm currently only 25% through the book, but it's a fascinating read so far, and very relevant to this topic.
Hey Neeraj, thanks for the book recommendation—it sound like my kind of book! Interesting that you bring up the potential advantage of a mind designed to feel like they have Free Will. I would say that a functioning mind MUST feel as though it has Free Will in order to make any consequential decision at all -- its therefore not surprising that we all feel a strong inclination toward supporting our Free Will.
I could say the same thing about praise, blame, reward, punishment -- how do you have a functioning society without these elements? Praising good behavior and punishing bad behavior is a powerful force in our society for peace and flourishing of its citizens. Caruso has contemplated that even if we admit we have no Free Will, it might still be prudent to praise and blame so as to motivate good behavior in the future
Yes, we have free will. Yes we deserve praise or blame depending on the outcomes of our choices. With that in mind luck and randomness are a concepts not unlike a fire. You need to have several things in the same area at the same time in order for the fire to start. You need heat, fuel and oxygen to have make the flash happen. In the same sense you need consistent good/bad life choices, good/bad friend choices, and too many other things to list on a simple post that culminate in your outcome. i.e. people that read a lot of books learn more than those that don't and are more likely to have a better income. If that same person also has a circle of friends that he has functions similarly and also hold good jobs then the book reader will have a even better chance of increasing income and all the things that come with stability. Conversely, there are plenty of dive bars with the sad person that in their own mind just cant make it yet are still in the bar drinking or doing drugs or whatever bad life choice you can think of that doesn't increase the likelihood of positive life outcomes
Hey John, I like your fire analogy. Would you say that, just as a fire requires a balance of heat, fuel, and oxygen, the outcome of our life is a combination of Free Will, luck, and randomness out of our control? If so, does that diminish the power of our Free Will in your eyes? Maybe we have Free Will, but its ability to influence the outcome of our life is limited?
Clayton, I’m sorry it took so long to respond. The answer is no because the fuel, oxygen and heat are not individual elements of luck and free will. What I mean is that wood is not to luck in the analogy.
Free will in this analogy is the action. With free will you choose to place the wood in a hot place with oxygen. The randomness or luck is the outcome which is often fire but not all the time.
The bottom line is you cannot escape free will. Free will is every choice you make. Even the ones that you think you didn’t have. This is also different from outcome which is unlikely to be the same in any given circumstance. You can make all the right choices and things go wrong this however doesn’t change that you have the choice to improve or dull your odds of an outcome.
I think we do have free will, but it is just not accessible for all of us or at least not at any moment or situation. It is randomness what makes it possible, as it opens new perspectives and possibilities to act accord. When you take that bad job or stay on a toxic relationship or keep doing drugs even though you don't get any better in life, It's just because you do not have any alternative in mind, you don't see any better option around even though it might be obvious for other people.
In my case, I find I just make use of Free Will when I do things I'm not supposed to do according to my past actions and it surprises myself and those around me. Especially if it's something spontaneous and without any previous thinking.
For example, this is the first time I answer a post on the internet. I don't usually find interesting the polarity conversations as they do not get to any point normally. But during the last year I've found that after getting through the resistance you feel an especial sense of freedom and great satisfaction. Resistance in this case was not only my lack of experience and English writing skills but the feeling that I'm not an expert and do not have the legitimacy to talk about it. Also the deterministic events like waiting for the email with the link to write and the visits of some friends made me postponed it for 20 hours.
I do not feel any incentive to do this, neither for daily cold showers or intermittent fasting. It's just a consequence of my desire of proving myself that I'm not completely predetermined and I can choose from randomness. One day I have dinner because it's dinner time, another day I just don't have dinner even though I feel hungry.
Finally, I don't think we can choose to be criminals, we can't choose to get addicted to drugs or being homeless, we neither decide to commit suicide and I don't think we can even ask for help when we feel apart from society. None of these options compare with cold showers or fasting, but are within our possibilities aswell. I think when emotions take control we can't performance any free will. We do not need more pressure or punishment, we need some external help to go out from these situations and recover the capacity to make use of our free will.
Post it, think again, rewrite, research a little bit more, read again opinions from Harari, Steven Pinker, Sam Harris or Sapolsky...
Hi David, I agree with you that if we have Free Will, it is probably more limited than our society takes for granted. Interesting that you bring up what is front of mind -- one powerful argument against Free Will is that our minds are so biased to the choices put in front of us. I.e., a child that grows up in a household of criminals knows no other way -- no other life has been presented to this child. Did this child have the Free Will to choose a life no full of criminal activity? That's why i contend that even if we have Free Will, SO MUCH of our life is determined just by happenstance -- by the place we are born, who raises us as children, who we happen to meet, the connections we make, and the random events that happen in front of us
This is a finite answer, closed in nature simply because… I’m on the train and I’m short on time!
My field of reference (right now) is in advertising. In data. In control of digital actions, that largely influence “real world” actions. I’m exposed to the way we can influence an individuals actions for them, without their knowing, without them being complicit. And to that end, I think free will is to some extent limited.
Though, I’m reminded of the concept that homogeneity is prevalent in large groups. Does it showcase a lack of free will if I choose to do something, simply because a million other people do it too? It might show a lack of uniqueness, but is it truly a lack of free will?
Hi R.... I think you're right to at least concede that if we have Free Will it is probably limited to some extent. And there are definitely coercive forces—like advertising—at play in our life. My question though is: do our minds have the ability to rise above those forces? If so, then we might still hold people morally responsible for their actions. If not, under what conditions do we relinquish people of their responsibility?
I don't think we do.
We deserve praise and blame and reward and punishment not because they indicate any actual moral or ethical reading, but because we respond to the perception of those assignments, and that response in turn keeps us engaged in the process of living. Praise and blame provide effective regulation.
Our sense personal agency arises as a function of the brain's preference for differential comparisons. We serve the libidinal imperative better when we believe our agency has currency.
Hi Jen, thanks for your take on this issue! I agree with you that reward and punishment are still important motivating forces even if we admit that we don't have Free Will. However, do we deserve reward and punishment in the retributive sense? In other words, Person A kills Person B and therefore Person A deserves harsh punishment because they knowingly did wrong. This is the backward-looking view that our criminal justice system often takes. A Free Will skeptic like Caruso would contend that no one deserves retributive punishment because he or she lacked the Free Will to be blamed for killing Person B. However, we might still punish Person A because of forward-looking reasons (protect the community, rehabilitate Person A, etc...)
I have a lot of trouble with the notion of "deserve" when it comes to retribution, yes. And more so when it comes to the notion of innocent suffering- how easily we say "She didn't deserve to die like that." Implying, ultimately, someone somewhere someday does.
So in terms of moral balance, no, I don't think punishment is desreved.
I do think, however, Person A should face punishment for violating the social contract.
Deserve is really very problematic because it imposes moral qualifications on regulation and reward. But I have to admit, people resonate more strongly with the idea of moral imperative.
It is not hard to see how subjective and detrimental our criminal justice system is.
In order to follow any imperative we must also choose which is most important. In most cases us or them, but we are still free to choose.
Yes, we have free will yet most of the time we choose not to make use of it. To use Kahnemans's idea of system 1 and system 2 thinking: free will resides in system 2, it is hard, consumes time and energy, sometimes it is psychologically and emotionally uncomfortable to actuate.
We spend much of our life with system 1: we go with the flow, we are massively influenced by external events and stimulus.
Luck and randomness have a disproportionate effect on us when we follow the flow of events. Conversely, when we are set on a goal of some kind (moral, material, emotional) we work towards it relentlessly irrespective of the events.
Hi Peter, yes I like your bringing up System 1 and System 2. It's a difficult argument for Free Will skeptics to contend with. For example, I could argue that reaching for those late-night snacks on the counter was mostly mindless, compulsive, and not very "free." But if I had done the hard work to activate System 2, make intentional a goal of no late-night snacking, and hidden those snacks from the counter -- who could argue that wasn't my own Free Will? I think Free Will skeptics would still argue that we are ultimately not responsible for having acquired the motivation and energy to activate System 2 when we manage to do so.
This is similar to destiny vs. coincidence. I've thought about that for a long time.
I personally don't know if we do have Free Will or not.
My thoughts so far are that if there is no Free Will, then even the action of all of us discussing this issue is not our conscious will but something making us have this conversation. And even the fact that we feel that we have a very strong sense of control over our actions every day is because we are designed to feel that. Consequently, any praise, blame, reward, or punishment is also designed. It's like a play in which you have all these elements, but the actors are playing only acting out their lines. It only appears like they are behaving with Free Will.
Incidentally, I'm currently reading a book called "The Science of Fate: The New Science of Who We Are - And How to Shape our Best Future" by Hannah Critchlow which addresses the questions - "Are we really the masters of our own destiny?"
I'm currently only 25% through the book, but it's a fascinating read so far, and very relevant to this topic.
Hey Neeraj, thanks for the book recommendation—it sound like my kind of book! Interesting that you bring up the potential advantage of a mind designed to feel like they have Free Will. I would say that a functioning mind MUST feel as though it has Free Will in order to make any consequential decision at all -- its therefore not surprising that we all feel a strong inclination toward supporting our Free Will.
I could say the same thing about praise, blame, reward, punishment -- how do you have a functioning society without these elements? Praising good behavior and punishing bad behavior is a powerful force in our society for peace and flourishing of its citizens. Caruso has contemplated that even if we admit we have no Free Will, it might still be prudent to praise and blame so as to motivate good behavior in the future
Yes, we have free will. Yes we deserve praise or blame depending on the outcomes of our choices. With that in mind luck and randomness are a concepts not unlike a fire. You need to have several things in the same area at the same time in order for the fire to start. You need heat, fuel and oxygen to have make the flash happen. In the same sense you need consistent good/bad life choices, good/bad friend choices, and too many other things to list on a simple post that culminate in your outcome. i.e. people that read a lot of books learn more than those that don't and are more likely to have a better income. If that same person also has a circle of friends that he has functions similarly and also hold good jobs then the book reader will have a even better chance of increasing income and all the things that come with stability. Conversely, there are plenty of dive bars with the sad person that in their own mind just cant make it yet are still in the bar drinking or doing drugs or whatever bad life choice you can think of that doesn't increase the likelihood of positive life outcomes
Hey John, I like your fire analogy. Would you say that, just as a fire requires a balance of heat, fuel, and oxygen, the outcome of our life is a combination of Free Will, luck, and randomness out of our control? If so, does that diminish the power of our Free Will in your eyes? Maybe we have Free Will, but its ability to influence the outcome of our life is limited?
Clayton, I’m sorry it took so long to respond. The answer is no because the fuel, oxygen and heat are not individual elements of luck and free will. What I mean is that wood is not to luck in the analogy.
Free will in this analogy is the action. With free will you choose to place the wood in a hot place with oxygen. The randomness or luck is the outcome which is often fire but not all the time.
The bottom line is you cannot escape free will. Free will is every choice you make. Even the ones that you think you didn’t have. This is also different from outcome which is unlikely to be the same in any given circumstance. You can make all the right choices and things go wrong this however doesn’t change that you have the choice to improve or dull your odds of an outcome.
I think we do have free will, but it is just not accessible for all of us or at least not at any moment or situation. It is randomness what makes it possible, as it opens new perspectives and possibilities to act accord. When you take that bad job or stay on a toxic relationship or keep doing drugs even though you don't get any better in life, It's just because you do not have any alternative in mind, you don't see any better option around even though it might be obvious for other people.
In my case, I find I just make use of Free Will when I do things I'm not supposed to do according to my past actions and it surprises myself and those around me. Especially if it's something spontaneous and without any previous thinking.
For example, this is the first time I answer a post on the internet. I don't usually find interesting the polarity conversations as they do not get to any point normally. But during the last year I've found that after getting through the resistance you feel an especial sense of freedom and great satisfaction. Resistance in this case was not only my lack of experience and English writing skills but the feeling that I'm not an expert and do not have the legitimacy to talk about it. Also the deterministic events like waiting for the email with the link to write and the visits of some friends made me postponed it for 20 hours.
I do not feel any incentive to do this, neither for daily cold showers or intermittent fasting. It's just a consequence of my desire of proving myself that I'm not completely predetermined and I can choose from randomness. One day I have dinner because it's dinner time, another day I just don't have dinner even though I feel hungry.
Finally, I don't think we can choose to be criminals, we can't choose to get addicted to drugs or being homeless, we neither decide to commit suicide and I don't think we can even ask for help when we feel apart from society. None of these options compare with cold showers or fasting, but are within our possibilities aswell. I think when emotions take control we can't performance any free will. We do not need more pressure or punishment, we need some external help to go out from these situations and recover the capacity to make use of our free will.
Post it, think again, rewrite, research a little bit more, read again opinions from Harari, Steven Pinker, Sam Harris or Sapolsky...
Hi David, I agree with you that if we have Free Will, it is probably more limited than our society takes for granted. Interesting that you bring up what is front of mind -- one powerful argument against Free Will is that our minds are so biased to the choices put in front of us. I.e., a child that grows up in a household of criminals knows no other way -- no other life has been presented to this child. Did this child have the Free Will to choose a life no full of criminal activity? That's why i contend that even if we have Free Will, SO MUCH of our life is determined just by happenstance -- by the place we are born, who raises us as children, who we happen to meet, the connections we make, and the random events that happen in front of us
This is a finite answer, closed in nature simply because… I’m on the train and I’m short on time!
My field of reference (right now) is in advertising. In data. In control of digital actions, that largely influence “real world” actions. I’m exposed to the way we can influence an individuals actions for them, without their knowing, without them being complicit. And to that end, I think free will is to some extent limited.
Though, I’m reminded of the concept that homogeneity is prevalent in large groups. Does it showcase a lack of free will if I choose to do something, simply because a million other people do it too? It might show a lack of uniqueness, but is it truly a lack of free will?
Hi R.... I think you're right to at least concede that if we have Free Will it is probably limited to some extent. And there are definitely coercive forces—like advertising—at play in our life. My question though is: do our minds have the ability to rise above those forces? If so, then we might still hold people morally responsible for their actions. If not, under what conditions do we relinquish people of their responsibility?
Influence does not preclude choice.