Letter to a Calvinist

[psimmond]

CThomas,
I know you responded before I added that bit about choosing to be a human, elephant, or wildcat, so I'd be curious to get your opinion on whether or not a choice is freely made in that scenario.

Although this scenario is quite absurd, compatibilists say that every choice we make in life is determined by our volition/will/desire and lacks possible alternatives.

[CThomas]

Hi, psimmond. My own view, and I think that most compatibilists agree on this point at least, is that it is not at all the case "that every choice we make in life is determined by our volition/will/desire." In my view, we have free choices only with respect to actions that our bodies are able to perform and that are not coerced through processes outside of our own decisionmaking apparatus. So I didn't have the free choice to be a tiger today (and did not freely choose to remain a hunan), because there was nothing within my bodily power that could have permitted me to change my species this morning.

CThomas

[psimmond]

CThomas wrote: Hi, psimmond. My own view, and I think that most compatibilists agree on this point at least, is that it is not at all the case "that every choice we make in life is determined by our volition/will/desire."

I haven't been very careful with my terms...let me try again. Would you agree with the following 3 points about compatibilism? (I believe these 3 points sum up Jonathan Edward's compatibilist argument that is accepted by most compatibilists/"soft" determinists today):

1. We are free to choose but we will (and must) always choose according to our greatest desires/inclinations. (Jonathan Edwards)
2. Our desires/inclinations are a result of our nature and we cannot control or manipulate them.
3. Our nature, as well as the desires and inclinations that are a result of our nature, are determined by God.

(I decided I couldn't very well insist that alternative possibilities are necessary for a free choice when I argued on this very same forum with Paidion about a year or so ago that it wasn't .)

As a few on this thread have pointed out, the disqualifier for compatibilism is "Ultimate Responsibility (UR)." (Not to be confused with Ultimate Reconciliation--another very popular subject on this forum .) Every web page I've found with a definition of compatibilism (soft determinism) includes the 3 points above. But if the 3 points above are true, humans cannot be ultimately responsibility for any choices they make since their choices are determined by something outside of their control--in this case, their desires/inclinations.

____________________
AHH! I did it again! I've got to stop editing my posts! I'm so sorry; again I didn't realize there was a reply yet . At least this time I didn't make any major changes .

[CThomas]

Psimmond, I appreciate your patience with me. Please rest assured that I am not deliberately trying to be evasive. Here are my best answers to your current questions:

"1. We are free to choose but we will (and must) always choose according to our greatest desires/inclinations."

Disagree, unless you define "desires" and "inclinations" so broadly as to make this a tautology. On the ordinary meanings of those words, our decisions are not necessarily or inevitably controlled by our desires or inclinations. We can sometimes overcome our desires and inclinations by using our higher faculties.

"2. Our desires/inclinations are a result of our nature and we cannot control or manipulate them."

Disagree. I believe that our desires and inclinations result form a combination of factors, certainly including our nature (genetic endowment, etc.), but we can alter our desires and inclinations over time by habituating ourselves to certain forms of behavior.

"3. Our nature, as well as the desires and inclinations that are a result of our nature, are determined by God."

Agree.

CThomas

[psimmond]

CThomas,
Most compatibilists agree with Jonathan Edwards that choices are always determined by our greatest desire which is outside of our control. This is why compatibilism is often called "soft" determinism. You, on-the-other-hand, appear to be a "soft" libertarian rather than a "soft" determinist .

http://www.nobts.edu/Faculty/ItoR/Lemke ... -Lemke.pdf

I think "soft" libertarianism (concurrence) makes a lot more sense than "soft" determinism.

Have you ever read "Salvation and Sovereignty: A Molinist Approach" By Kenneth Keathley? In it he compares these two positions. (I haven't read it but I know a lot of people like it.)

[Timm001]

CThomas,

Thanks for clarifying your view of what counts as a divine decree. I could choose to address each part of your response, but I would like to stick to your understanding of determinism for the moment. If you think this might be unfair, I'd be happy to respond to any of your other points as well.

Based upon your language, I have to draw one of two conclusions. The first is that you are not a compatibilist because you are not a determinist. The second is that you are a determinist (and thus a compatibilist) despite the fact that you deny what is common to every form of determinism--that our actions are determined. I choose the second of these options and think that you believe that our actions are, in fact, determined. However, you contradict every form of determinism (of which I am aware) when you say the following:

The only consequence of a deterministic decree that X will happen is that X will, in fact, happen, not that the agent in question could not have done otherwise.

Now, I don't know whose views you are reading as representative of "determinism," but all that I can say on this point is that your understanding of determinism here is mistaken. This is why I am glad that you clarified your view of a divine decree (with which I would probably agree, though obviously I don't think that God decrees our actions), because your reformulation of premise 5 is consistent with non-determinism (therefore it can't be deterministic), though inconsistent with your view of a divine decree. Determinism typically comes in three varieties: logical, metaphysical, and causal. Whichever form of determinism you choose, the following is a consequence of if it:

D1) If X is determined, then necessarily X will happen.

Anything weaker than this is not a form of determinism. How we understand the relevant "necessary" depends upon the form of determinism. X can be logically, metaphysically, or causally necessary (you explicitly refer to "infallibility" which seems to have this force). You seem to indicate that God can cause our volitions (which I dispute because of the very concept of volition, but we can table that for now), which makes our volitions necessary--e.g. we have no control over them.

You further seem to agree to the following stipulation about free will:

FW) Free will requires the ability to do otherwise.

So here is an argument showing the contradiction between determinism and free will, which takes as its starting point the appropriate definition of "decree" that is required in order to have determinism.

1) GD (God's Decree): If God decrees that I will do X, then necessarily I will do X.
2) God decrees that I will do X.
3) FW: Free will requires the ability to do otherwise
4) If it is true that necessarily I will do X, then I cannot do refrain from doing X.
5) If I cannot refrain from doing X, I do not have the ability to do otherwise than X.
6) Therefore, if God decrees that I do X, then I am not free with respect to X.

I'm not sure how to show that you are incorrect if you claim to be a determinist while denying the very core of determinism. It is a bit like a person saying that they can be a Christian and without believing in God. I don't know how to convince such a person that they are wrong. I can only make appeals to what I know (e.g. the Bible) and hope that they will understand why I think they are wrong. I think that you are a determinist, but I think that you also affirm things which contradict determinism.

In this regard, I would refer you to the following three sources on the free will/determinism debate to show you that all forms of determinism require some notion of necessity which is taken to be at odds with the ability to do otherwise.

Compatibilism: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/
Fatalism: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fatalism/
Causal determinism: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/

[psimmond]

Timm001 wrote: You further seem to agree to the following stipulation about free will:

FW) Free will requires the ability to do otherwise.

The first link that you included in your post (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/) addresses Harry Frankfurt's thought experiment regarding the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP). (4.2 in the outline)

As a compatibilist, Frankfurt makes a pretty good argument against PAP. As a result, many libertarians no longer refer to the necessity of alternative possibilities, but instead define libertarian free will as "the absence of causal constraint with respect to your choices." (WLC)

Therefore, when dealing with the problems of "soft" determinism, I think it makes more sense to address causal agents / ultimate responsibility.

[CThomas]

Hi, Tim. I do disagree with your definitional statement that "If X is determined, then necessarily X will happen." This actually is not at all definitional of determinism. Indeed, the paradigm case of determinism is a clockwork Newtonian universe where every physical event is strictly determined by the prior state of the universe coupled with the physical laws. Yet in this paradigm situation, it is not at all the case that any of these events are necessary in the modal-logical sense. These events are physically determined, but nobody would think that they are necessary in the modal sense of occurring in every logically possible world. Necessity in this case is restricted to analytic truths, which are true in every logically possible universe, whether physically possible or not. Now you do at one point seem to suggest that you can view necessity only in the weaker sense of "causual necessity" as opposed to logical necessity, but that renders it trivial -- obviously determinism requires that the events in question be caused. All you get from causal necessity is that if X is determined then X will happen, not that it will happen with any sense of metaphysical necessity that would suffice to strengthen your premise 5 in the way you need.

I think the foregoing probably suggests my response to your latest syllogism. I think at a minimum you would need to start by showing that if God decrees an event X, then it follows that for every X (not just some events) there are no possible worlds where God chose to decree the converse of X, i.e., that there are no decrees of God for which He could not have elected to make a different decree. That’s at a minimum what you would need to establish the necessity component of your various premises. And even then I think there would still be problems of ambiguity in several of your premises that would defeat the purported contradiction. But I appreciate the response

CThomas

[CThomas]

Thank you psimmond. I take it that someone can, in your view, believe that God ordains and causes every decision made by every person and still not be a soft determinist (but rather merely a soft "libertarian"? As a matter of general principle, I seldom care about arguments over terminology. I care about what view is correct rather than what traditional label should be applied to it. But I've always believed that if you understand God as determining every event in the universe, including all the decisions of humans, then you would be a determinist.

CThomas

[psimmond]

CThomas wrote: I take it that someone can, in your view, believe that God ordains and causes every decision made by every person and still not be a soft determinist (but rather merely a soft "libertarian"? As a matter of general principle, I seldom care about arguments over terminology. I care about what view is correct rather than what traditional label should be applied to it. But I've always believed that if you understand God as determining every event in the universe, including all the decisions of humans, then you would be a determinist.

Well, no. The word "cause" is causing me trouble.
When we say that God "causes every decision," we are still maintaining hard or soft determinism (according to the common definition of "cause"). This is problematic because it means God must be included as a responsible party for everything he causes us and uses us to do, in spite of our free decisions.

Kenneth Keathley writes: Soft libertarianism argues that God has a libertarian freedom that is restricted by the parameters of His nature. The notion of a limited ability to choose to the contrary seems reasonable, since soft libertarianism does not require that the ability to choose the contrary is absolute. So soft libertarianism contends that character provides the set of possible choices, but character does not determine the specific choice itself.

The second distinctive feature of soft libertarianism is the contention that the relationship between free choices and character is a two-way street. Your choices manifest who you are, but they also change who you are. Choice and character interact in a feedback loop. A person’s character indeed limits his choices, but the present condition of one’s character is the way it is because of the previous free decisions made during certain important “will-setting” moments.

As a "soft" libertarian and molinist, I believe God did ordain all things (by actualizing the world that he did) and of course he knows every decision and choice we will make. However, when we talk about God's knowledge, specifically his middle knowledge (If agent S were in circumstances C, then S would freely do action A), we understand that the fully specified circumstances (C) are not causally-determining circumstances, but are stipulated to be freedom-permitting circumstances.

Using terms to categorize and label various belief systems can eliminate confusion so long as the terms are clearly defined. Arminians could call themselves compatibilists since they believe that God's sovereignty is compatible with human free will, but this would lead to all sorts of confusion since our reformed friends use this term already and view God's sovereignty as deterministic.