Thread 17977279

1) Transcendental Argument from Rational Deliberation (self-defeat of strict unfreedom)

P1. To rationally deliberate and believe for reasons you must be able, at the moment of settling on a belief/intention, to select among live alternatives in light of reasons (call this agential control).
P2. If no LFW exists, then either (D) strict determinism is true, making exactly one continuation of the world possible, or (L) only undirected luck resolves alternatives. Under (D) you never genuinely select; under (L) the resolution is not yours (no authorship). In both cases, agential control is absent.
P3. Denying agential control undermines the rational status of any belief reached via deliberation—including the belief “there is no LFW.” (It becomes a mere byproduct of prior causes or luck, not something you had reason-guided power to accept or reject.)
C1. Therefore, the denial of LFW is epistemically self-defeating unless we abandon the possibility of rational belief altogether.
P4. We are more certain that rational deliberation occurs (Moorean fact of practice) than of any sweeping metaphysical thesis that would make it impossible.
C2. So we must accept that some agential control exists—i.e., there are situations in which an agent can do otherwise and is the source of which alternative is selected. That is (a modest form of) LFW.

(This doesn’t claim infallible metaphysical certainty; it’s a transcendental “you can’t deny it without using it” result.)

>>17977279 (OP)
2) The Sourcehood + Responsibility Argument (Moorean shift)

P1. Our practices of holding people responsible presume that, at least at times, the agent is the ultimate source of action (not merely a conduit of prior causes).
P2. These practices are deeply entrenched, action-guiding, and indispensable to moral life; their rationality is more certain than speculative premises that would erase sourcehood.
P3. Frankfurt-style cases at most challenge a crude “could have done otherwise” principle; they do not eliminate sourcehood, and even leave a “flicker” of freedom or a prior settling by the agent.
C. Hence, barring decisive defeaters, we should accept that genuine sourcehood sometimes obtains—again, a core component of LFW.

3) Coherence Model of Libertarian Agency (showing it’s metaphysically possible and not mere luck)

We need LFW to be coherent and non-random. Consider an agent-causal micro-model:

At time t, reasons R and effort E generate a deliberative field with at least two live options A,B (consistent with the total physical state).

Indeterminism (e.g., microscopic) makes multiple continuations physically open, but the agent’s effortful reasons-guided settling S modulates the probabilities:

The linked image delivers: (i) alternative possibilities, (ii) authorship (the settling is because of you), (iii) reasons-responsiveness (non-randomness). It’s compatible with physics because it doesn’t add energy; it shapes which of the physically permitted paths is realized (causal selection among allowed micro-trajectories). “Causal closure” forbids energy miracles, not top-down selection among open possibilities.

>>17977280
4) Replies to the Standard Objections

>Luck objection (“indeterminism makes it random”).
Only if reasons/effort don’t systematically influence outcomes. But when CI>0 and probabilities track reasons, the variance that remains is will-sensitive, not brute. (Think of effort-laden “self-forming actions” where sustained trying settles character.)

>Disappearing agent objection.
On the above model, the agent (not a mere event) contributes a standing power—modulating transition chances in virtue of integrated reasons, character, and effort. The agent does not vanish into events; the events derive from the agent-level power.

>Frankfurt cases (no alternatives).
They show at most that responsibility sometimes survives the loss of alternatives; they don’t show we never have alternatives. LFW only claims some actions have robust alternatives and sourcehood.

>Neuroscience (readiness potentials, etc.). Readiness signals are not decisive: (i) timing reports are noisy; (ii) the ability to veto (“free won’t”) indicates late-stage control; (iii) build-up signals can reflect stochastic accumulation rather than a settled decision. So lab data underdetermine the metaphysics of agency.

>Consequence Argument synergy.
If determinism held, our acts would be fixed by laws + past not up to us. The transcendental and sourcehood arguments above already push against determinism about action; together with the coherence model, they support LFW over compatibilism.

>>17977284
5) Conclusion (what this “proves”)

Deductive victory over all skeptics is unrealistic in metaphysics. But we have:

a self-defeat style argument: rational denial of LFW presupposes the very agential control it denies;

a Moorean argument from the indispensability of responsibility/sourcehood;

a coherent, non-mystical model of agent-causal control that avoids luck and doesn’t violate physics.

Taken together, the best explanation of our rational deliberation, responsibility practices, and the structure of action is that libertarian free will sometimes obtains.

Bump

>I believe in liberal free will, but I'm pretty sure the mathematical formula given here is nonsense - R and E are not defined anywhere, and "F increasing in reasons favoring A" makes no sense because reasons are qualitative things not a quantitative variable.

>If no LFW exists, then either (D) strict determinism is true, making exactly one continuation of the world possible, or (L) only undirected luck resolves alternatives

>Or all alternatives play out like some kind of multiverse. (M).
>Not sure if that changes anything though, since 2 seems to boil down to "If no LFW exists, no LFW exists.", but with slightly different words.
>Edit: Thinking about this, I think the determinist position is not that only once path through the three of choices exists, it's that every choice only looks like a choice at a high level; if you look closely enough, there aren't other branches at all, and the tree is really a stick.

>If brain events are deterministic (which is the default assumption of most neuroscientists), then Kane’s wedge vanishes. It’s just cause-and-effect all the way down.
>If brain events are indeterministic, they’re still not the kind of indeterminism that smuggles in freedom. They’re random jitters. Unless you posit “agent-causation” as a mysterious force guiding the randomness, it doesn’t buy you responsibility—it buys you dice rolls.

>Regardless of whether "determinism" is or isn't, freedoms are circumstantial relative conditions of being, not the standard by which things come to be for all.
>Therefore, there is no such thing as ubiquitous individuated free will of any kind whatsoever. Never has been. Never will be.
>All things and all beings are always acting within their realm of capacity to do so at all times. >Realms of capacity of which are absolutely contingent upon infinite antecedent and circumstantial coarising factors, for infinitely better and infinitely worse, forever.
>There is no universal "we" in terms of subjective opportunity or capacity. Thus, there is NEVER an objectively honest "we can do this or we can do that" that speaks for all beings.
>One may be relatively free in comparison to another, another entirely not. All the while, there are none absolutely free while experiencing subjectivity within the meta-system of the cosmos.
>"Free will" is a projection/assumption made from a circumstantial condition of relative privilege and relative freedom that most often serves as a powerful means for the character to assume a standard for being, fabricate fairness, pacify personal sentiments and justify judgments.
>It speaks nothing of objective truth nor to the subjective realities of all.

>P1. To rationally deliberate and believe for reasons you must be able, at the moment of settling on a belief/intention, to select among live alternatives in light of reasons (call this agential control).
>Rational deliberation seems essentially non-active, I don't see why this should be granted
>P2. These practices are deeply entrenched, action-guiding, and indispensable to moral life; their rationality is more certain than speculative premises that would erase sourcehood.
>Revised practices that don't assume ultimate sourcehood seem possible and sufficient for the moral life, so I'd say ultimate-source-presupposing practices are dispensable.

>Rational deliberation seems essentially non-active, I don't see why this should be granted

>I'm not convinced by the OP argument, but I think there is room for commitment to things like overcoming bias, or carefully examining questions, in rational deliberation. Without that, "passive results" of someone's reasoning may be less reliable. They may think that a certain conclusion is just "imposed on them" because it's the "correct answer"; when really there is more going on.
>It seems to me that determinism does result in a theoretical paternalism, where if you were in the right position, it would be correct to override someone's decision or reasoning, because you can see that they are in error, and they couldn't avoid the error and aren't really responsible in an important sense.
>So I think it does lead to some sort of a problem, but not necessarily enough to run the OP's argument.
>Revised practices that don't assume ultimate sourcehood seem possible and sufficient for the moral life, so I'd say ultimate-source-presupposing practices are dispensable.

>>17977702
>Revised practices would be enough to run a society. We can still praise and punish for such and such reasons. However, it's a form of moral nihilism if you start saying the worst criminals aren't really to blame on the ultimate level. Just how much moral damage that does to people in practice I don't know, but it's certainly not good theoretically.

P3 seems absurd. Why does being caused negate reasonability?

Being logically correct doesnt require LFW.
Upvote
1

Downvote

Reply
reply

Award

Share

u/JonIceEyes avatar
JonIceEyes
•
5h ago
If you are controlled by prior causes, being reasonable is simply a matter of luck. That is, if you are reasonable, it's because your causes happened to align in a way that makes you reasonable, rather than the nearly infinite number of other unreasonable ways.


u/Anon7_7_73 avatar
Anon7_7_73
•
4h ago
Volitionalist
So are you saying in a deterministic universe, people wont believe 2+2=4? They wont observe basic truths about reality and generalize them?


u/JonIceEyes avatar
JonIceEyes
•
4h ago
They won't necessarily, no. They might, but it would be by luck

Bieksalent91
•
12m ago
Does a computer’s logic system rely on luck? Programming exists to take an input and produce some output. This out put might be you are reasonable.

If there was an evolutionary benifits to make decisions with given input that we would consider reasonable then isn’t that what we would expect?

u/JonIceEyes avatar
JonIceEyes
•
2m ago
A computer's logic system was designed by a human mind for the purpose of doing this system we call logic.

For a counter-example, see how various "AIs" have become hallicinatory racist nightmares in the last little while.


u/Anon7_7_73 avatar
Anon7_7_73
•
3h ago
Volitionalist
No, this isnt a matter of luck, dude. This is a matter of cause and effect. If you see 2+2=4 in action, that will caise you to believe more strongly in 2+2=4. This isnt hard dude...

>>17977714
Upvote
1

Downvote

Reply
reply

Award

Share

u/JonIceEyes avatar
JonIceEyes
•
2h ago
Why would it? There would have to be some mechanism whereby something is able to know true things and then direct the person or species to likewise have "knowing truth" as a goal. I don't see any room for such a thing in a strictly determined universe.
Upvote
0

Downvote

Reply
reply

Award

Share


Anon7_7_73
•
14m ago
Volitionalist
u/Sea-Arrival-621 avatar
Sea-Arrival-621
•
2h ago
Then you see badly

>Someone who has brain damage or chemical/emotional imbalance has compromised logic.

>Your premise 3 for argument 1 is blatantly false and proves you have not put a second of thought into what non libertarians believe

Argument 2 makes it a Moorean fact that the Earth is flat

Argument 3 holds weight when you can telepathically cause decay of specific atoms in a sample of radioactive material and is pure speculation with less than zero evidence behind it