What's the difference?

A good definition of libertarian free will?

Ex post facto confabulating rationalization aka wishful thinking (e.g. "I could have made another choice that I didn't make" ... without also changing the prior unknown conditions which had constrained whatever had caused you to have made the actual choice :roll: ).

For example, "Could have done otherwise" or "The ability to make choices not constrained by determinism or randomness". — Cidat

The first definition you mention relates to the Principle of Alternative Possibilities, or PAP, which is widely discussed in the literature about free will, determinism, and responsibility. It is the idea that you cannot be held responsible for what you did if you could not have done otherwise. This "could" can have a compatibilist interpretation if it is understood to refer to a capacity that you possessed but did not actualize in the circumstances; it would have been actualized if, for instance, you had been motivated to do better.

A compatibilist would emphasize the distinction between external circumstances over which you have no control and the internal "circumstances" that are part of your own volitional makeup. An incompatibilist, however, would not accept this argument and would assert that free will (and therefore, personal responsibility) is only possible if there was an opportunity for you to have acted otherwise in the exact same "circumstances" (including your own mental states and prior dispositions).

The second definition you mention addresses concerns about the source of your actions. It seeks to address, among other things, Robert Kane's luck argument. The idea is that if deterministic laws of nature or mere luck (such as quantum randomness) are responsible for your choices and actions, then you cannot be held accountable for them because you are not the source of these actions.

In a paper I wrote on the topic, I distinguished between two types of incompatibilism that I called (1) leeway incompatibilism and (2) source incompatibilism. A leeway incompatibilist would argue that free will (and responsibility) is not compatible with determinism because determinism leaves no room for genuine alternatives to have occurred. A source incompatibilist (like Galen Strawson) would say that determinism undermines free will and responsibility because it makes it impossible for agents to be the ultimate source of their actions. According to his view, the state of the world in the distant past is the real source of what you do. (Strawson's argument, his Basic Argument, is a bit more detailed than that.)

My own view is that compatibilism is incorrect, but the two types of incompatibilism mentioned above are also misguided. Instead, I advocate for a form of libertarianism that is compatible with determinism at the low level of the physical implementation of our cognitive abilities but not with determinism at the emergent level of our rational decisions. The belief that determinism governs both levels if it operates at the lower level stems from misguided views about supervenience.

"The ability to make choices not constrained by determinism or randomness". — Cidat

What would make the above definition of free will (or any other definition) a "libertarian" definition?

What for the discussion is the subject? The notion of what a 'libertarian' is in contemporary or historical sense, or the logical demonstration of knowledge of 'free will'.

I would also struggle to find an instrumental definition of the use of the term 'free will' when interspersed with the notion of a 'libertarian'.

Is the author of the question asking if a 'libertarian' has a principled and dogmatic duty to a cause or number of causes?

If so you would need to find a present day 'libertarian' of the political activist variety who has stood for elections and enquire with he or she what causes and beliefs are held.

If you mean the type of 'libertarian' you find in online forums who appear to have some cultish fetish for the iconic authors of certain works on economy, again you would be obliged to find out if the mindset of such a person was causally dogmatic in servitude to a creed of ideas and principles.

Again if you found such a person politically campaigning or making public speeches you might
enquire as to how their thought process to common issues of society and governance would
effect remedy. If such a person could not adapt to your scenarios and they, given all reasonable
time to respond, can only reel off tracts from cult texts then the extent to which they are reliant on them as the source of answers, it may reveal how much of their present action is determined by idealism or ideological creed.

It would also rather depend whether being a 'libertarian' only meant signing up to preach its creed.
Much as a PR person knows they are performing a duty of their job.

And how much can be said of the person committed to their job that they either have the mindedness to form new opinions or act on new beliefs formed from those opinions?

If there is the matter of acts of 'determinism' then it is at the level of conscious processing of
new information. The subject in its ontological universe may be committed to being an
authority in 'libertarian' ways as much as the rightness of action he or she finds concreteness in
situational ego.

Does the subject have 'free will'. On an individual basis without claiming anthropological certainty,
having decided their class of person. The answer lies in the extent you could engage in participatory conversation and to what extent the synthesis of new conceptual arrangement modify the hierarchy
of beliefs in terms that were posited as the creed of the person. In other words whether the ideas
or solutions a 'libertarian' posits as terms or remedies in economics have been taken on purely as ideas
or as a succession of interpenetrating factors and causes with precedence that allow plausible
determination in there operations. And that they can be elucidated as such.

Or alternatively such a person may be socially committed to the social creed of the matter and
no inquiry would yield self evident understanding of the formulation of the ideas held.

Whether randomness is the consequent of the alternative to determinism by understanding, that is
another point of inquiry. That when an ideologically primed individual is challenged to reveal the
concepts that bring about the understanding, again perhaps challenged to solve an analogue of
the same problem, there is the problem of the subjective will.

Since creativity is a subjective expression, the fact that there is this apparent difference between
the observer and the observed, that free will can only be simply a matter of constraint has more
tractable ground in reality. You might therefore wonder whether the lack of engagement in
self agency with notions in novelty are for the presence of a constraint which could be external
social pressure, in the form of power hierarchies or individual in the form of instinctual disposition to
the making of new ideas which in play run against an established mode of being and mindset.

Freedom it can be said is limited by partiality, which has a number of causes including an establish
identity of the subject as a subject historically socially conditioned.

I don't want to seem confused, but 'rational free will' and its absence is not a marker for constraint in my opinion, since ideas alone have operational efficiency from unconscious sources in the brain. I think we sometimes refer to those as gestalt or unconscious picture thinking, and for the subject's universe are its own determinations and options for courses of action in its own process of determinate willing.

I would also struggle to find an instrumental definition of the use of the term 'free will' when interspersed with the notion of a 'libertarian'. — Alexander Hine

In the context of the philosophical debate and literature about free will, determinism and responsibility, the term "libertarian" has a different meaning than it has in political philosophy. In this context, a libertarian is someone who is an incompatibilist (and hence believes free will and determinism are incompatible) and who believes that human beings have free will. Libertarians therefore also believe determinism to be false. People like Roderick Chisholm, Peter van Inwagen or Robert Kane, who are libertarians in that sense, don't necessarily espouse the view of political libertarianism.

Substance dualism.

My own view is that compatibilism is incorrect, but the two types of incompatibilism mentioned above are also misguided. Instead, I advocate for a form of libertarianism that is compatible with determinism at the low level of the physical implementation of our cognitive abilities but not with determinism at the emergent level of our rational decisions. The belief that determinism governs both levels if it operates at the lower level stems from misguided views about supervenience. — Pierre-Normand

So, the emergent level of our rational decisions is not determined at all by neuronal activity? Or are you making a Spinozan point that the rational decision and the neuronal activity are the same thing understood from different perspectives?

So, the emergent level of our rational decisions is not determined at all by neuronal activity? Or are you making a Spinozan point that the rational decision and the neuronal activity are the same thing understood from different perspectives? — Janus

I think the relationship that low-level features of our cognitive apparatus have to our high-level rational performances is one of enablement (and sometimes impediment) rather than determination.

Suppose you are being challenged to explain how you arrived at some belief, or formed some intention, after some episode of deliberation. The how question usually refers to the justification of your belief, or decision, and aims at probing the cogency and soundness of your justificatory argument. The probe, or challenge, can be conducted (as well as your defense) in complete abstraction of the underlying implementation of your cognitive abilities. If the how question rather aims at uncovering what enables you to thus reason, remember previous questions asked to you, not forget contextually relevant aspects of the problem, etc., then, in that case, features of your low-level cognitive functions become relevant, and likewise in the case where the source of particular cognitive deficits are at issue.

You seem to be saying that rationailty drives the brain, rather than the brain drives rationality. What if the ability to be rational is embodied in neural structures, and rational processes are preceded by, and the outcomes of, neuronal processes? Processes of (valid) reasoning seem to follow the rule of logical consistency, but they sometimes fail to maintain that; could that be seen as a neuronal malfunction or dysfunction? Should we think that the series of neuronal processes that enable a rational train of thought are completely deterministic? If every thought is preceded by a neuronal event, and neuronal events follow one another deterministically then freedom of thought would seem to be an illusion.

By the way, I'm not arguing for determinism, but even if the processes of the brain were indeterministic, how would that change the situation? Perhaps allow for novel thought processes?

For example, "Could have done otherwise" or "The ability to make choices not constrained by determinism or randomness". — Cidat

A good definition is self-determination. That is you have a personality, a character, desires that are part of who you are and are not completly determined by external forces such as neurons.
In other words you are (to at least a small degree) an actual independent force of nature.

"The ability to make choices not constrained by determinism

I do not think this works. If the the world is not such that doing one thing determines/entails another, how can we make meaningful decisions about anything?

For instance, if I feel bad about having purchased a lobster to cook, I can choose to drive down to the ocean and set it free. My actions can align with my values because they entail specific consequences. I want to prevent the lobster from harm. I know that lobsters live along the coast and can thrive there. Thus, my releasing the lobster entails that it gets a second chance to live a natural life.

But if my putting the lobster down into the coastal waters it came from might result in teleporting it into a boiling pot of water in some seafood restaurant, what choice did I ever have? Likewise, if dropping lobsters into boiling water also causes them spontaneously teleport back to the ocean half the time, how am I to implement my values into actions, a seeming prerequisite of freedom?

Freedom requires that our actions determine other events. Developers of a video game don't give the players freedom by allowing them to press buttons on the controller, but then having the inputs, or lack of input, do something unpredictable in every event.

Freedom also requires that our events are determined by other events. If I go dump my lobster in the ocean for no reason I can fathom, then my behavior is just arbitrary. For me to be free to do something like "quit my job," I need to be able to have that choice determined by something else, e.g. I decided to quit because I found the work boring and my boss was rude. If I quit based on no determining factors then I haven't decided on a choice, I've just been along for the ride, experiencing arbitrary actions I cannot fathom the origins of.

Even if our movements were "discovered by science to be determined by some magical soul particle that activates neurons," we wouldn't think we were commiting voluntary action when we had a muscle spasm. We would need to have a determining reason for the action, like grabbing a glass of water because we feel thirst, for it to be a choice.

or randomness

Randomness presents the same set of problems. However, degrees of uncertainty that force us to assess things probabilistically do not seem to preclude freedom in the same way. I can be somewhat unsure if act A will produce goal B, or somewhat unsure of why I would like to attain goal B in the first place, and still make a decision based on assessed probabilities. But again, for us to be free, the probability that we are actually right about our assessments has to be non-arbitrary. The mechanisms underlying outcomes must be rational and something we can understand, even if we will never understand it entirely, otherwise we are back to the realm of the arbitrary.

Freedom itself is a contradictory. You can't have pure freedom. If I can simultaneously move up and down, eat my cake and have not eaten it, etc. then I cannot make a choice. Absolute freedom requires a flight from any determinateness, as all determinations are constraints. You can't make a shape that is a triangle and also have it have 4 sides.

Freedom also only exists in the context of change (becoming). You can only be free in becoming because the past is fixed and the future can't have been decided on yet, else where is the freedom? Becoming free entails the ongoing passage of any "decisions" into "the decided;" it exists only in the mysterious twilight between "already has," and "not yet."

A free being would have to fall withing the happy midpoint of absolute constraint and absolute freedom in a way that is, unfortunately, hard to define rigorously. Freedom isn't unique in this regard. We spill a lot of ink trying to define complexity in the natural sciences and end up with "something that is neither too orderly (constrained) or too chaotic (maximal degrees of freedom); adaptive, changing in response to inputs, but not so adaptive that its structure is totally determined by inputs.

I would even go as far as to say that any free entity must be complex. It needs the same ability to respond dynamically to inputs and discern between them, and yet to maintain an essential structure even as it undergoes dramatic changes in response to internal and external stimuli. This similarity isn't just coincidence; when we talk of complexity we are talking about degrees of freedom in discernible responses to interactions.

I would say a person is free when they:
-Make one of many conceivable actions.
-Experience a sense of volition in acting.
-Want to act in the way that they do act.
-Want to want to act in that way (Frankfurt's higher order volitions, e.g., I might want to take heroin, but I also can have a higher order desire not to want to take heroin- a drug addict is not fully free)
-Know why they are acting and would not act otherwise if they had more relevant information.


Given these standards, all freedom is relative. We can understand "well enough," why we do something, but we will never know ALL the relevant information, since that would require understanding the origins and evolution of the universe. Having our actions be determined by other events, relations, is a prerequisite for freedom, not anathema to it.

You seem to be saying that rationailty drives the brain, rather than the brain drives rationality. What if the ability to be rational is embodied in neural structures, and rational processes are preceded by, and the outcomes of, neuronal processes? Processes of (valid) reasoning seem to follow the rule of logical consistency, but they sometimes fail to maintain that; could that be seen as a neuronal malfunction or dysfunction? — Janus

Yes, I am suggesting that rationality drives the brain, while the brain "drives" rationality in a different sense: through enabling us to think rationally. Likewise, the driver drives the car while the car "drives" the driver (through enabling the driver to go where they want to go). The main difference, of course, is that the car and the driver are separate entities whereas the brain is a part of a whole person. But I don't think that undermines the point of the analogy.

Should we think that the series of neuronal processes that enable a rational train of thought are completely deterministic? If every thought is preceded by a neuronal event, and neuronal events follow one another deterministically then freedom of thought would seem to be an illusion.

By the way, I'm not arguing for determinism, but even if the processes of the brain were indeterministic, how would that change the situation? Perhaps allow for novel thought processes?

Unlike libertarians like Robert Kane, I don't think indeterminism at the level of the physical or neurophysiological implementation of our rational deliberation processes is required to allow those (high-level) decision processes to be indeterministic. This argument for that is complicated but I'm recruiting GPT-4's help to make it clearer.

In a paper I wrote on the topic — Pierre-Normand

I would be interested in reading it - it sounds like an interesting take. I lean towards compatibilism, but I am sympathetic to some libertarian perspectives, particularly agent-causal.

I would be interested in reading it - it sounds like an interesting take. I lean towards compatibilism, but I am sympathetic to some libertarian perspectives, particularly agent-causal. — SophistiCat

I'll happily send you the pdf through PM. I was planning on revising it with GPT-4 in order to increase the readability and overall structure, in the near future. (A process already begun, actually, here and here)

Yes, I am suggesting that rationality drives the brain, while the brain "drives" rationality in a different sense: through enabling us to think rationally. Likewise, the driver drives the car while the car "drives" the driver (through enabling the driver to go where they want to go). The main difference, of course, is that the car and the driver are separate entities whereas the brain is a part of a whole person. But I don't think that undermines the point of the analogy. — Pierre-Normand

So, are you suggesting that there is an additional component to rational thought, a purely semantic aspect, that is enabled by, but is not itself determined by, neuronal activities, and that can feed back into the neuronal activities and change them, thus creating a situation which is not completely physically deterministic? Or something like that?

So, are you suggesting that there is an additional component to rational thought, a purely semantic aspect, that is enabled by, but is not itself determined by, neuronal activities, and that can feed back into the neuronal activities and change them, thus creating a situation which is not completely physically deterministic? Or something like that? — Janus

I'm not saying that our proclivity to be swayed by rational arguments, for instance, changes our neuronal processes. To take another analogy, a word processor's ability to rearrange text when the user modifies the width of a page or column isn't something that "changes" what the computer's CPU does. (The CPU maps inputs to outputs in the exact same way regardless of the program that it is running.) Rather, the manner in which the word processor (qua application) structures the functioning of the CPU+memory+peripherals ensures that this high-level function is possible. The CPU enables this but only on the condition that a well behaved (unbuggy) word processor has been loaded in memory. Our being accultured and taught language likewise are conditions under which our brains enable us to rationally deliberate and think but not the source of the cogency of our thinking.

(The CPU maps inputs to outputs in the exact same way regardless of the program that it is running.) — Pierre-Normand

I know little about computers, but on the face of it seems to me that, even if the CPU maps inputs to outputs in the same way whatever program it is running, the actual inputs and outputs themselves are not the same.

I know little about computers, but on the face of it seems to me that, even if the CPU maps inputs to outputs in the same way whatever program it is running, the actual inputs and outputs themselves are not the same. — Janus

The mapping being the same means that the process is deterministic and insensitive to the high-level requirements of the word processing task. It is, we may say, the specific goal-oriented structure of the word-processing program (i.e. its design and functionality) that ensures that, when this program is loaded in memory, the user's imputed command to change the column width causes the words to redistribute themselves appropriately. The input-to-output mapping effected by the CPU on discrete chunks of 64 bytes doesn't explain this high-level behavior of the word-processor.

And likewise with our high-level acculturated proclivity to organize our behaviours in a goal-oriented fashion, in relation to the low-level functioning of our brains and neurons. The main difference, of course, is that, as a tool, the word-processor's function is pre-programmed by us and remains fixed over time. We, on the other hands, are able to assess our own ultimate goals in accomplishing any task and revise them when appropriate. This ability that we have to reassess and modify our own goals is an essential part of the explanation (and justification) of our behaviours.

Suppose you are being challenged to explain how you arrived at some belief, or formed some intention, after some episode of deliberation. The how question usually refers to the justification of your belief, or decision, and aims at probing the cogency and soundness of your justificatory argument. The probe, or challenge, can be conducted (as well as your defense) in complete abstraction of the underlying implementation of your cognitive abilities. — Pierre-Normand

Is this a difference that contradicts determinism?

If someone asks me how I beat some opponent at some computer game, I can describe it in such terms as predicting their moves, using attacks that they’re weak against, etc., or I can describe it as pressing the right buttons at the right times. Your approach to free will seems similar to the first kind of explanation and the determinist’s approach seems similar to the second kind of explanation. But they’re not at odds. They’re just different ways of talking.

So I would think that if you accept the underlying determinism then your position is compatibilist, not libertarian.

For me it goes to “sourcehood”. Basically, the source of the action is that which willed it, decided it, governed it, chose it etc. Until anyone can show that an action is not self-generated, but begins at some other place and time, so-called libertarian free will is the only good answer to the question of free will.

Thanks for your explanation, unfortunately I don't have the background to properly understand what you're saying, so I cannot form a judgement of its veracity or even plausibility.

Is this a difference that contradicts determinism?

If someone asks me how I beat some opponent at some computer game, I can describe it in such terms as predicting their moves, using attacks that they’re weak against, etc., or I can describe it as pressing the right buttons at the right times. Your approach to free will seems similar to the first kind of explanation and the determinist’s approach seems similar to the second kind of explanation. But they’re not at odds. They’re just different ways of talking.

So I would think that if you accept the underlying determinism then your position is compatibilist, not libertarian. — Michael

I accept the low-level determinism but deny that it, together with some thesis of supervenience, entails high-level determinism. Broadly, we may say that the doctrine of determinism entails that all the facts about the past together with the laws of nature uniquely determine the future. But I think that whenever we determine our own actions on the basis of our reasons for doing them (and likewise for the beliefs that we endorse), then, in those cases, the facts about the past and the laws of nature are irrelevant to the determination of our actions and beliefs as characterized in high-level terms.

In order to make sense of this, it is necessary to delve a little deeper into the arguments that make the contrary thesis seem compelling (and that Jaegwon Kim has formalized as a causal exclusion argument). And it is also necessary to elucidate with some care the notion of possibility that is at issue in Harry Frankfurt's principle of alternative possibilities (PAP). When both of those tasks have been accomplished, it becomes easier to see how an agent-causal libertarianism can be reconciled with merely physical determinism. As I said to SophistiCat, I intend to recruit GPT-4's assistance for rewriting my paper on this topic in order to improve its readability.

Until anyone can show that an action is not self-generated — NOS4A2

Lots of philosophers, and an even larger number of scientists, believe that they have shown exactly that (or that it is obvious and that denying it can only amount to a form of pre-scientific mysterianism). I don't believe anyone has actually shown that, but that is indeed the root of the disagreement.

Broadly, we may say that the doctrine of determinism entails that all the facts about the past together with the laws of nature uniquely determine the future. — Pierre-Normand

Does determinism allow for stochastic quantum mechanics?

In order to make sense of this, it is necessary to delve a little deeper into the arguments that make the contrary thesis seem compelling (and that Jaegwon Kim has formalized as a causal exclusion argument). And it is also necessary to elucidate with some care the notion of possibility that is at issue in Harry Frankfurt's principle of alternative possibilities (PAP). When both of those tasks have been accomplished, it becomes easier to see how an agent-causal libertarianism can be reconciled with merely physical determinism. As I said to SophistiCat, I intend to recruit GPT-4's assistance for rewriting my paper on this topic in order to improve its readability. — Pierre-Normand

I'll be interested in reading that when it's finished.

But until then, what do you make of unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain?

There has been a long controversy as to whether subjectively 'free' decisions are determined by brain activity ahead of time. We found that the outcome of a decision can be encoded in brain activity of prefrontal and parietal cortex up to 10 s before it enters awareness. This delay presumably reflects the operation of a network of high-level control areas that begin to prepare an upcoming decision long before it enters awareness.

Does determinism allow for stochastic quantum mechanics? — Michael

It doesn't but quantum indeterminacies often are seen to provide no help to libertarians. It is also my view that they provide no help since my focus is on agent causation and for our decisions to become rendered simply stochastic and unpredictable hardly restores our responsibilities for them qua agents.

But until then, what do you make of unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain? — Michael

Most of the discussions that stems from Libet's experiments seem flawed to me for reasons that I had spelled out here.

Broadly, we may say that the doctrine of determinism entails that all the facts about the past together with the laws of nature uniquely determine the future. — Pierre-Normand

It doesn't but quantum indeterminacies often are seen to provide no help to libertarians. — Pierre-Normand

I don't see any consistency between these two statements. If, following the laws of nature is a requirement for determinism, and "stochastic" refers to actions describable by probability rather than law, then it would definitely be true that the stochasticity of quantum indeterminacies supports the rejection of determinism.

I don't see any consistency between these two statements. If, following the laws of nature is a requirement for determinism, and "stochastic" refers to actions describable by probability rather than law, then it would definitely be true that the stochasticity of quantum indeterminacies supports the rejection of determinism. — Metaphysician Undercover

For sure but libertarianism isn't the mere rejection of determinism. Libertarianism is the conjunction of two claims: (1) Free will isn't consistent with determinism, and (2) Human beings have free will. It is not sufficient that determinism be false for free will to be possible according to libertarians. It is merely a necessary condition. The libertarian philosopher Robert Kane distinguishes two tasks that he calls the ascent problem (proving incompatibilism) and the descent problem (making sense of libertarian free-will), and stresses that the second one is the most difficult:

"Abstract arguments for incompatibilism that seem to get us to the top of the mountain are not good enough if we can’t get down the other side by making intelligible the incompatibilist freedom these arguments require. The air is cold and thin up there on Incompatibilist Mountain, and if one stays up there for any length of time without getting down the other side, one’s mind becomes clouded in mist and is visited by visions of noumenal selves, nonoccurrent causes, transempirical egos, and other fantasies." pp.13-14 in The Significance of Free Will

There's also this more recent study from 2019: Neural precursors of decisions that matter—an ERP study of deliberate and arbitrary choice. In summation of the abstract:

Our results and drift-diffusion model are congruent with the RP representing accumulation of noisy, random fluctuations that drive arbitrary—but not deliberate—decisions. They further point to different neural mechanisms underlying deliberate and arbitrary decisions, challenging the generalizability of studies that argue for no causal role for consciousness in decision-making to real-life decisions.

My take: no deliberation, no consciously made choice, and a significant Readiness Potential to evidence this; conversely, where there is conscious deliberation, there is no significant RP in the choice made, implying the possibility of free will. (there are interesting editorial notes affixed to the study, but this conclusion seems to me to stand)

I found the study online, but there might be more recent relevant research as well.