I would not be as concerned with A and B, that is, whether I am right or wrong in thinking I am free. The more pressing matter appears to be C and D, whether I deny my obligations or fulfill them. If someone does indeed deny their obligations on the basis of determinism, then that is surely a negative outcome. Perhaps some empirical research may be helpful in finding out if determinists make decisions consistent with their deterministic convictions.

It is true that even the most ardent disbeliever in Free Will, lives their Real Life exactly as if it does.

Beyond that, just like a determinist may have the impression of free will, a libertarian may have the impression of being causally chained to the past. When I am faced with the choice of having either cheesecake or apple pie for dessert, I could be choosing it "freely" or I could be choosing "determinedly", but I am still choosing what I want — for the determinists due to chemical reactions, to the libertarian due to the ghost in the machine. You can only know whether you made a choice yourself "freely" or it happened due to chemical impulses in your brain after you did it, after it is set in stone — one way or another, you have no control over it anymore. Perhaps the free will problem is not a problem at all but a confusion in perspective — or perhaps a consequence of the problem of mind-body dualism.

That is what I understood by "If one really thinks that free will does not exist (and not even in the compatibilist sense), then they are being irrational by holding people accountable". But if that is so, nevermind it.

I think that I have the ability to choose because I can come up with reasons and reach conclusions in accordance with my will; but I don’t think I have the ability to do otherwise because if you rewound the clock, then I would expect nothing other than myself to generate the same reasons and reach the same conclusion—afterall, nothing changed other than the rewinding of time. — Bob Ross

I feel like this is boiling down to an equivocation more than anything, because my argument, as I mentioned in the OP, primarily relies on a leeway notion of free will, the ability to do otherwise. When I've said "choice", I've meant it as ability to do otherwise, so when you said (in your sample compatibilist counterargument):

because causal determinism [or some weaker variant] is true, one cannot do otherwise but they can choose — Bob Ross

it seems to just be a slight of hand.

Your point seems to be that just because people can value things under hard determinism, as long as someone happens to value truth (is determined to value truth), regardless of the reason, they shouldn't believe in free will if that's what they're inclined to believe. But my point is, if there is no leeway freedom, no ability to do otherwise, then there is no "should", there is no free choice (ability to do otherwise). If you can't freely choose your own belief, there's no point. Essentially, I'm arguing that 1) you ought to value leeway freedom (which I suppose is another argument in-and-of itself) and 2) if you value leeway freedom, then <insert above argument>. You might say, "well, people that don't believe in free will value truth over leeway freedom, so the argument is pointless", but I'd say that's, if not demonstrably false, likely to be incorrect in most cases, because a lot of people that tend to deny free will do value having that ability—it's where you get people lamenting over it's non-existence or trying to find meaning despite it—and so the argument should reasonably follow.

I don't mind discussing free will more generally (but particularly the necessary or sufficient freedoms required for it and the existence thereof). Ultimately, one could imagine morality and axiology and etc. to arise even without free will, but I think such an existence is meaningless, at least in comparison to a world in which we have the ability to do otherwise. Not only do I think it's meaningless, but I think denying free will is actively harmful because, as I say, it is convincing people that they literally have no control over their actions, and although that is unlikely to turn them into "robots" or resign them to doing nothing, it is still insidious and can cause damage to one's mind if they come to believe or merely fear it.

The crux of your argument is:

If you can't freely choose your own belief, there's no point.

I am just pointing out that this was not defended whatsoever in your OP; and, without any further elaboration, it is a non-sequitur.

In terms of your argument presupposing leeway free will, a problem with that is that it is a false dilemma. You can't validly tell someone "either you believe there is leeway free will, or that there isn't any free will": that's deceptive and misleading. Of course, you could argue that there is something wrong with compatibilism and, on those grounds, say that the only option left for a person is libertarianism if they believe in free will; but that's an entirely different argument than what I have been able to gather of your current one.

Another problem is this:

I'm arguing that 1) you ought to value leeway freedom (which I suppose is another argument in-and-of itself) and 2) if you value leeway freedom, then <insert above argument>

This is a peculiar argument (to me), because it does not care about the truth at all. #1 is completely unjustified in the OP, and #2 is essentially saying that if one values leeway freedom then they should believe it exists even if they know it clearly doesn't--i.e., you are telling people to believe in illusions so long as they like that illusion, as opposed to giving them the truth.

I guess it isn't irrational, per se, to believe in an illusion if it helps achieve one's goals; but I took your OP to be trying to argue the truth of the matter and not merely that we should lie to ourselves about free will.

Bob

I stand by that quote of me, and I am unsure as to what you are arguing about it.

If one really thinks that free will does not exist (and not even in the compatibilist sense), then they are being irrational by holding people accountable

I never claimed it was irrational to do what one is predetermined to do.

"What one is predetermined to do" being "holding people accountable".

This is a peculiar argument (to me), because it does not care about the truth at all. #1 is completely unjustified in the OP, and #2 is essentially saying that if one values leeway freedom then they should believe it exists even if they know it clearly doesn't--i.e., you are telling people to believe in illusions so long as they like that illusion, as opposed to giving them the truth. — Bob Ross

The argument commits an appeal to consequences fallacy.

Appeal to consequences, also known as argumentum ad consequentiam (Latin for "argument to the consequence"), is an argument that concludes a hypothesis (typically a belief) to be either true or false based on whether the premise leads to desirable or undesirable consequences.[1] This is based on an appeal to emotion and is a type of informal fallacy, since the desirability of a premise's consequence does not make the premise true. Moreover, in categorizing consequences as either desirable or undesirable, such arguments inherently contain subjective points of view.

Oh, I see now. Let me clarify.

What one is predetermined to do may be irrational, but one is not irrational for simply doing what one is predetermined to do.

I am not irrational for doing something, like holding a contradiction as true, simply because I was predetermined to do it; but, nevertheless, I am engaging in something that is irrational (e.g., holding a contradiction as true).

The difference between the two claims is that one is questioning the rationality of doing what one can only do, and the other is questioning the rationality of what one can only do. It is not irrational to do what one can only do, because they cannot do otherwise or choose (depending on one's conception of free will)*; but, what they can only do can itself nevertheless be irrational.

* I actually don't think one's conception of free will matters here, because in a compatibilists' interpretation, the choice would be an irrational one iff what they chose is irrational but the fact that they chose an irrational choice would not itself be irrational because they cannot do otherwise.

Hopefully that helps clarify.
Bob

I agree. In order to avoid this, I think the OP needs to clarify that it is arguing for it being true that one should believe in leeway free will even if leeway free will is false. If it were presented that way, then I don't think it would be a fallacy anymore.

The wager is a double edged sword. It cuts against the authority of any given time because nothing like that can answer the personal desire for salvation. If one continues along that line, there is no way to cover the bet. The point of the bet is that we do not own what is needed to secure a loan for that purpose.

We are free to recognize that or not. But only in that game of cards.

I agree. In order to avoid this, I think the OP needs to clarify that it is arguing for it being true that one should believe in leeway free will even if leeway free will is false. If it were presented that way, then I don't think it would be a fallacy anymore. — Bob Ross

This is pretty much what I was doing from the beginning, and perhaps the source of confusion. I wasn't arguing that free will exists, only that we ought to believe in (leeway) free will, even if it may not exist, because it's the only way to yield (in my opinion, and one I admittedly would need further argumentation to justify) a sensible position. That said, I did, albeit briefly, describe in the argument why I think each possible position in the matrix is or isn't sensible.

A couple things to note though. I'm not saying that one should believe in free will despite thinking the contrary is true because they "like" it or it makes them feel comfortable. In fact, I'm not even saying, "if free will is false, one should still believe in free will", because I don't believe it's known whether or not free will exists, if such a thing can even be known. If we knew for a fact that leeway freedom doesn't exist, I'd pretty much concede anything, because I don't think it would matter whether or not we believe, since we'd only do what we're determined to do anyway. But as it stands, as we don't know for a fact if leeway freedom does or doesn't exist, we ought to believe it, because we have nothing to lose if it ends up being false, and everything to gain if it is true.

Perhaps this a good way to transition into a discussion about the possibility of leeway freedom also, because, as is clear, I'm not convinced that we cannot have it. I'm not sure whether or not I'm a compatibilist, but whatever determinism the world appears to have I believe is theoretically compatible with the ability to do otherwise, although the reasoning does invoke a type of indeterminancy.

For example, let me ask you this: how would you describe the determinancy of a die roll? Because to me a die roll can basically function as determinant so long as the chance governing the die roll does not change. If the rule is constant, then even if the outcome is random, we can still determine the prior events and its outcomes.

I don't think it is clear enough in the OP that you are making an argument, not about the truth of the matter, but the weighing of costs of believing either way. Perhaps I just misread it (:

If you were just trying to argue that:

we have nothing to lose if it ends up being false, and everything to gain if it is true.

Then, I don't see at all in your OP, upon a quick re-read, where you argue for that. I think your OP would be much better if you just outlined what we gain from believing that we have leeway freedom as opposed to believing the contrary. As of now, I don't see what benefit(s) it has over compatibilism.

Also, I should note that, if I am understanding you correctly now, your argument isn't about what we gain if it is true but, rather, by believing it (which is not technically what you said in the above quote).

I'm not sure whether or not I'm a compatibilist, but whatever determinism the world appears to have I believe is theoretically compatible with the ability to do otherwise, although the reasoning does invoke a type of indeterminancy.

In a traditional sense:

Libertarians believe in leeway freedom, compatibilists in sourcehood freedom. The former believes agents are sources of indeterminacy, the latter that we are not. The former believes that we have the ability to do otherwise, the latter does not.

In a looser sense:

A compatibilists is anyone who believes that we have free will but not that we have the ability to do otherwise. So this could include, for example, people who aren’t convinced determinism is true but still do not believe that we have the ability to do otherwise.

Personally, I am a compatibilist in the looser sense. I am not particularly convinced that everything is causally determined, but, at the same time, I do think that, when it comes to agents, we clearly do not have the ability to do otherwise. If anything has that ability, it would be (by my lights) something at the quantum level and that doesn’t meaningfully make is sources of indeterminacy when it comes to our actions.

For example, let me ask you this: how would you describe the determinancy of a die roll?

If one rolls a 6-sided die and it lands on a 5; and then the clock of cosmic time were rewound such that one rolls again; then I have no reason to believe that that person would not roll another 5 and every reason to believe they would (considering all the relevant factors are the exact same: nothing has changed except for rewinding time). Unless time itself is doing something magical here, then I don’t see how it would be anything other than a 5. In fact, every time we were to perform this experiment, it would always turn out to be a 5. Now, if we were to add in the mix that a spec of dust changed along with rewinding the time, then I am uncertain what will result in the rolling of the die (because I am not sure how impactfull that causal change will be on the outcome).

Because to me a die roll can basically function as determinant so long as the chance governing the die roll does not change

I am not sure what you mean here: could you elaborate? Probability still exists if determinism is true: probability doesn’t entail that there is some sort of indeterminacy (ontologically) going on but, rather, a preemptive calculation of the odds of rolling any number given a fair die.