Slam, Dunk, No Free Will?

Here's Jerry Coyne at his blog today, discussing his column arguing against free will in USA Today:

Compatibilists resemble theologians in many ways, not the least of which is that they both engage in endless lucubrations trying to show that something that doesn’t exist, but that is necessary for our psychological well-being, really does exist in some form or another. People hate the idea that they aren’t agents who can make free choices, just as they hate they idea that there might not be a Protective Father in heaven.

As someone who leans toward some sort of retention of free will, I don't think this makes me like a desperate theist.  Free will seems real, whatever your position on it.   Should I lift up my tea cup now or keep typing?  I seem to be free to go either way.  God would have to be appearing in the sky day in and day out and speaking in a thunderous voice for theism to have as much experiential support as the belief in free will.  Free will supporters are trying to "save the phenomena," which can't be said of theists.

I do hate the idea that I can't make free choices, but not "just as" people hate the idea that there's no "Protective Father in heaven." It's much more unsettling to suppose the course of history was settled, in every last detail, before you were born, than to do without a heavenly father.  It's not just seeing myself as an automaton that's disturbing. What really bothers me is thinking that my efforts never alter the course of the future, though of course I do my part to bring about the future that's bound to be.  This used to especially bother me a lot when my children were very small.  I wanted to think that being vigilant in all things would protect them from some awful eventuality, shifting the future away from Bad B, and toward Good A.  But there aren't two possible futures, if determinism is true.  We're heading for Bad B or Good A, and my efforts are just a link in a predetermined, unilinear chain.  If you let that thought sink in, it's extremely unsettling.

So--free will is much more "evident" than God, and free will is much more existentially crucial than God.   That doesn't mean, of course, that free will is a reality.  Coyne says science will not allow it, since our choices take place in our brains, and our brains are part of the completely law-governed material world.  But this simple overview of what we know subtlely exaggerates what we know. OK, choices do take place in our brains, and not without brains, but it's not as if consciousness has been fully explained and reduced to a specific physical property of brains.  Consciousness is a huge unsolved puzzle.  Since free choices are conscious choices, it would seem premature to say you were absolutely sure how they work.

Weird analogy (since I'm pre-coffee):  suppose you think a river works deterministically, its direction and flow constantly determined by past events.  You now learn that the river is conscious and experiences itself as making various decisions.  Should you stick to your guns as far as determinism goes?  I think you ought to slow down at least a little--what's going on to make the river conscious?  And is that, whatever it is, relevant to whether the river flows deterministically?  Until you're on top of consciousness, it seems only reasonable to be a little modest on the subject of free will.

Free Will at the Movies

All sorts of little things alter our trajectories through life.  There's an accident blocking the main road, so you get to Starbucks 10 minutes later, so you don't run into your old girlfriend, so you don't get back together, so you don't get to know her famous lawyer dad, so you don't meet his lawyer pals, so ...

So what?  In "The Adjustment Bureau," we are offered a very interesting "what if?"  What if some of those little incidents aren't actually accidental, but deliberate adjustments designed to keep our lives going "according to plan"?   Many people we see (clue: they're wearing hats) are actually the bureau's agents--angels in the biblical, not the winged cherub, sense, who carry out the plans of The Chairman.

It wasn't always that way.  Humans screwed up badly in the first half of the 20th century, so we've been put on a short leash.  There's a Book of Life in every angel's hands, tightly prescribing who does what, who marries whom, etc.  But--and this is the fun part--the plans are implemented mostly without getting into people's heads.  The angels manage to keep us on course mostly by tinkering with seemingly trivial external events.

Of course, there's got to be a romance. Our hero, played by Matt Damon, is not supposed to get together with a delightfully zany woman he meets, by sheer accident, in the men's room.  His book of life allows the chance encounter, but no further interaction.  The problem is, his guardian angel falls down on the job, calling him a little too late, so he doesn't spill his coffee and doesn't miss his bus.  He meets the woman again, which necessitates an intervention by a whole team from the Bureau.  Now it's man against angel... 

OK, go see the movie. It's a lot of fun.  The movie's background  theory about free will is intriguing. The theory is that, absent any adjustments, we are free (the issue of causal determinism never rears its head).  When our lives are forced into conformity with The Chairman's plans, we are not free.  Adjustments compromise free will and accidents don't.

Here's what's a little ticklish about that:  whether missing the bus is an adjustment or an accident, it looks and feels all the same.  This is a difference that doesn't penetrate the mind/brain.  You'd think that having or lacking free will would be "in here"--inside our heads.  But no, a free Matt Damon is exactly like an unfree Matt Damon.  The difference is "out there," a question of the way his environment works. 

You might be tempted to consider an alternative view:  both adjustments and accidents compromise free will.  Now we don't have to say that Matt Damons who are just alike inside could be free and unfree.  They're all the same--unfree.

Alternatively, you could say that adjustments don't compromise free will and accidents don't compromise free will either. That has some appeal.  Just because an angel makes Matt Damon miss his bus, foreclosing a certain future, doesn't mean he can't still make choices.  He can choose to go to work or go to the movies; to run for the senate or not run for the senate.

In fact, I like the movie's view.  It really does seem like the agent-generated adjustments are special.  The notion that you have free will is essentially the idea that you are the author of your own life--you're running the show, in some important sense.  If your life actually has a second author, operating continually behind the scenes, that does diminish your role.  A whole bunch of accidents would give you a different set of materials to work with, but leave your authorship intact.  At least--usually.  Yes, a really bad series of accidents can narrow your options so much that you are left less free. But on the whole, there is a difference between planned adjustments and unplanned accidents.

I trust there are no angels, there's no Chairman, and there are no Books of Life, but we each have the power to make adjustments for other people.  Parents can have long-term plans for their children, and can alter little events along the way, if they seem to be getting off course.  Too much adjusting does seem freedom-reducing, in a way that life's naturally occurring accidents are not. So there's a bit of a real world moral of the story, for those who want one.

Free Will Plus Angels

Come back Saturday to talk about "The Adjustment Bureau," a fun, interesting movie about free will, angels, predestination, and such.  In the meantime, ponder the Google ngram for "angels" (provided by commenter BH last week).  This blog is definitely in line with the trend.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Are We Free? Are Animals Free?

This semester I'm having my students read The Reasons of Love, a lovely and interesting book by Harry Frankfurt. This sends me back into the "stacks" to read his famous paper on free will--"Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person" (1971).   Here's a theory that tries to show that human beings have free will, and explain the difference between humans and animals, and explain why it's such a big deal whether or not animals are self-aware.  That's a huge issue in animal psychology, and it's a vexing question why it should be so important whether they are or they aren't.

The idea is this:  both humans and animals have first-order desires.  For example, I desire to eat the scones sitting in my kitchen right now, and my cat desires to eat more kibble.  On top of that first-order desire, I have a second-order desire--a desire about my first order desire.  I desire that the first desire vanish or at least go unfulfilled (because scones are fattening, even without the clotted cream).  If that second-order desire is effective, and I succeed in managing the first-order desire, then (says Frankfurt) I have free will in that instance.  If, despite my second-order desire, my first order desire gets the better of me, and I go and eat the scone, then I didn't have free will.  Here's the theory in a nutshell--

It is in securing the conformity of his will to his second-order volitions, then, that a person exercises freedom of the will.  And it is in the discrepancy between his will and his second-order volitions, or in his awareness that their coincidence is not his own doing but only a happy chance, that a person who does not have this freedom feels its lack.

Frankfurt says free will distinguishes us from animals.  Without self-awareness, they can't have second order desires at all, so they can't have either effective second order desires (like I do, if I control my scone-impulse), or ineffective second order desires (like I would if I ran to the kitchen). 

So--we humans have free will at least some of the time, and animals never, because of this difference between the way our minds work.  Since we're free, on his view, does that mean we aren't determined?  No, not necessarily. Frankfurt is a "compatibilist" because the freedom he's countenancing in humans (at their best), but not in animals, doesn't exclude determinism.  It could be that the whole history of the world, up until a nanosecond ago, made it inevitable that I would have a desire for a scone and an effective second-order desire not to satisfy it.  That would still constitute free will, and would still separate me from my cat, who can't possibly have a second order desire like that.  Calling a will free is contrasting it with the entirely first-order type of will of an animal, not contrasting it with the undetermined type of will of (perhaps) a god.

Now, it's spooky to think I inevitably had the desire for the scone and the desire not to satisfy that desire.  Thinking about it does make me feel just a bit like I'm dangling from the strings of a puppeteer.  But surely it would be very different to be an animal--if animals are that way--and not have desires about your desire at all.  To be the animal would be...well, less free!  And also less responsible.  It does seem as if my having second order desires makes me more to blame, if I scarf the scone, than my cat is if he gets into the catfood bag and has more kibble.  I'm configured so as to be able to manage my first order desires, and my cat isn't.

100% satisfied with this reconciliation of free will and determinism? Probably not, but then nothing you can say on this subject is wholly satisfying.  But never mind. It's not Frankfurt's reconciliation of freedom and determinism that makes me uneasy.  I'm not sure about his psychological claims, both about humans and animals. 

Yes, one way of feeling free is by successfully managing your first order desires.  But another way is by having especially novel and ambitious second order desires.  You read Peter Singer's Animal Liberation, and start wanting to stop wanting to eat meat; or you read his famous article "Famine, Affluence, and Morality," and start wanting to stop wanting new clothes.  The more ambitious your second order desires, the less likely you are to be able to control your first order desires.  But does diminishment of control really, necessarily, make for less freedom?   Not really.  Just one part of being free is taming your first order desires; another part is being able to think for yourself, instead of conforming to what you've always thought, or your friends and family think.  There is freedom in sheer reflectiveness about how to live your life, even if you're not effective at implementing your new and revised life plan.

As for animals-- Is it really true that animals can't have second order desires? I'm not convinced the mirror self-recognition test effectively tests for all important kinds of self-awareness.  When a dog wants to rush across the road after a squirrel, wags his tail wildly, wrinkles his brow, whimpers, and jumps around, but stays put in obedience to his human, is it possible that he's focusing on the squirrel and his human, but also on his own agitated desire?  Is it a sure thing that he has no second order desires? 

So what's the score?  The sort of freedom Frankfurt is talking about strikes me as both real and important.  But there's another kind--reflectively adopting some new set of second order desires.   It doesn't seem 100% clear that animals never have any second order desires, but they certainly don't seem to reflectively break from the past to form new ones.