I wonder why you are favoring this form of the argument for incompatibilism, starting with a premise denying control over facts of the future, over the more commonly encountered versions of van Inwagen's consequence argument, which rather start with the much more uncontroversial premise that no one has power over facts of the past. — Pierre-Normand

I actually make use of that argument. Check out one of my earlier posts. The argument I gave depends on the one in the SEP article.

But I don't see how my argument:

1. If we do not have power over the facts of the future we cannot choose to do otherwise.
2. No one has power over the facts of the future.
3. Therefore, we cannot choose to do otherwise.
4. We have free will only if we can choose to do otherwise.
5. Therefore, we do not have free will. — ToothyMaw

is an instance of the modal fallacy, even if my serial killer example might not be absolute proof that we cannot choose to do otherwise if we have no power over the facts of the future. The facts of the future are directly the result of our actions, which, given how I defined character, are indeed features of our character, or will, which must exist independent of external causes to be free. Our previous character, and thus actions, are the result of factors external to ourselves, so our choices and the resultant actions cannot be free (determinism is true). It seems undeniable to me then that our own actions are facts of the future that we must not have control over unless we could could have acted differently then we did due to a factor that is not external. To presume that one could have acted differently due to a difference in character that is not external to the will, however, is to assume that determinism is false. It follows that since determinism is true, premise 2 is supported, along with 1. 4 must also be true, as it is derived from my definition of free will. Thus, my argument applies.

You are obviously no longer being serious, if you ever were.

And I disputed that we have free will, so unless you can find a flaw in my argument you cannot say it is false because we exist with aseity. Unless you just assume that we have it. And it sounds like that is what you are doing.

Not to say I'm some psychopath out to fuck everything up; I just want to actually get to the bottom of this.

The reason of virtually everyone represents them to be morally responsible for what they do. That means that we have unbelievably powerful prima facie evidence that we are morally responsible. — Bartricks

I don't really care.

This, for example, is not a good argument:

1. We are not morally responsible
2. therefore, we are not morally responsible. — Bartricks

Then I'll change my argument.

1. No one has power over the facts of the past and the laws of nature.
2. No one has power over the fact that the facts of the past and the laws of nature entail every fact of the future (i.e., determinism is true).
3. Therefore, no one has power over the facts of the future.


1. If we do not have power over the facts of the future we cannot choose to do otherwise.
2. No one has power over the facts of the future.
3. Therefore, we cannot choose to do otherwise.
4. We have free will only if we can choose to do otherwise.
5. Therefore, we do not have free will.

Is this logically invalid? I think not. Dispute a premise.

I mean maybe you are forgetting, but my position originally was that we have no basis for the concept of moral responsibility. It is enough for me to show that we don't have aseity according to you.

magical abilities — ToothyMaw

Correction: aseity

What you're saying is that free will requires having some control over the facts of the past. — Bartricks

No, free will requires power over the facts of the future; you would need to have magical abilities to be able to alter the facts of the past in the present, which is what

1. No one has power over the facts of the past and the laws of nature. — ToothyMaw

means. It doesn't say "no one had power over the facts of the past."

The argument up to 6 establishes what's needed: aseity. If you challenge 7 you are not challenging that we need aseity, you are challenging that we have it. — Bartricks

Yes.

The idea of "having power over the facts of the future" seems a little obscure to me. I would rather rely on the more straightforward definition that you gave in the opening post of your previous thread:

"Free will: the ability to both choose between different alternative courses of actions and to act free of external causes." — Pierre-Normand

I will change my definition in the OP. I had the previous definition in mind. Sorry.

With the previous definition in mind, one's control over one's actions entails control over the facts of the future; they can bring about future outcomes with their free choices. Not to mention the first argument implies that one couldn't have done otherwise, and if one couldn't have done otherwise one does not have free will according to my definition of free will. I'll try to now respond to you without any straw manning, as you were responding to something a little different.

For an embodied human agent to act in the world doesn't consist in the agent stepping outside of her own embodiment, as it were, and for her to control the role her own body (and brain) plays in the causal chain of physical events. Acts of agency rather consist for an embodied person to play such an ineliminable causal role in the chain of intelligible events (i.e. intentional actions and their intended or foreseeable consequences). — Pierre-Normand

what determines what she intentionally does is her own act of practical deliberation. The specific nature of this action, described in high-level intentional terms, may supervene on some set of physical facts about her bodily movements and brain activity. But the higher level intentional action (which may or may not be praiseworthy or blameworthy) that those lower level physical facts happen to materially realize isn't set by the laws of physics. That's because the laws of physics are silent regarding what bodily motions constitute intelligible actions, and what good or bad reasons for acting are. — Pierre-Normand

It seems there is a confusion of "physical facts" and just "facts". A fact could entail that an action was performed, whereas a physical fact could be gravity's existence or a brain state.

What if a serial killer reflects upon his despicable acts and thus chooses to work towards redeeming himself? He is playing an ineliminable role in a causal chain in the act of reflecting on intelligible previous actions, but these actions are still fixed - as facts that he now has no power over - directly affecting a new, intelligible action (that is the result of an intent derived from previous facts). In this example his deliberation supervenes on previous facts; he is acting with the intent to redeem himself, but it doesn't change the facts of the past, which do not themselves change because of his deliberation. Thus his current intent, which results in an action, is resulting from a fact of the past that he cannot control. That seems to me to be external causation without any disembodiment.

Even if we must be the judges of what an intelligible action is, that doesn't mean that what we are judging to be an action isn't a small portion of a universe subject to the laws of cause and effect.



Please read my whole post; I outline an argument against the premise that we have free will later on.

As I said in the moral responsibility thread, it is not clear to me on what grounds 5 can reasonably be denied. For if 2 is granted, then one accepts that if one is not morally responsible for that which caused one's initial character, then one's non-responsibility for the cause transfers to the effect. — Bartricks

I totally acknowledge this here:

Our character is in constant flux, developing due to our own actions and interactions with an environment constrained by physical laws. Our actions and a mix of those factors, for which we are not morally responsible, dictate our character, and through this blend our subsequent character is formed, from which our subsequent actions flow. — ToothyMaw

My reply is that you don't account for the effect of other's free choices, something that follows from assuming free will to support your premise:

1. If we have free will, we exist with aseity. — ToothyMaw

Can we establish if this is the case? It seems as if you accept it here:

if 2 is granted, then one accepts that if one is not morally responsible for that which caused one's initial character, then one's non-responsibility for the cause transfers to the effect. If one grants that - and that certainly seems self-evidently true to my reason - then surely one must accept it when more causes for which one is not responsible are added? — Bartricks

But I want some confirmation before moving forward.

I doubt babies have an “initial character”. You develop a personality/character as you grow up. — khaled

There is undoubtedly a certain measure of initial character that is, if not predetermined, then factored into one's development from one's birth. Thus, that doesn't seem to be a good point to me; I only defined aseity as being self-originated, not totally self-sufficient, which is how it is used in its positive sense. But I am not using it that way here.

@Bartricks @Pierre-Normand @khaled

Relaxing some of the causal assumptions that yield an implausible externalization of agency might be another way to achieve the same result. — Pierre-Normand

I don't see how this would be different from some sort of indeterminism, which would have you going against the PAP. And even if you claim that that is question begging and that compatibilist ideas of free will sidestep the PAP, you have to come up with a positive account of agency compatible with determinism that gives us moral responsibility, not just a new definition for "free will". This seems impossible to me unless you can address the following two arguments:

1. No one has power over the facts of the past and the laws of nature.
2. No one has power over the fact that the facts of the past and the laws of nature entail every fact of the future (i.e., determinism is true).
3. Therefore, no one has power over the facts of the future.

1. We have free will only if we have power over the facts of the future.
2. No one has power over the facts of the future.
3. Therefore, we do not have free will.

Furthermore, in terms of the aseity argument, the application of these two arguments is not question begging imo because the point of the aseity argument, as you point out, is to show how free will can be compatible with determinism and indeterminism; determinism is essentially assumed in premises 5 and 6, in addition to an indeterministic view of free will in 2. I am essentially making an effort to show that:

2. We have free will. — ToothyMaw

is false. You cannot presuppose that we have aseity to deny these two arguments, because they attack a premise necessary for the conclusion that we exist with aseity.

I fixed it a little I think.

1) I am not morally responsible for anything iff I am not morally responsible for my initial character, the environment, the laws of nature that prevail in it, and other people's choices.
2) I am morally responsible for some of other people's choices.
3) Therefore, I am morally responsible for some things.
4) I am not morally responsible for my initial character, environment, or the laws of nature that prevail in it.
5) Even if I am not morally responsible for my initial character, environment, and the laws of nature that prevail in it, I still am morally responsible for some things.
6) Thus, even though I am not morally responsible for my initial character or for my environment and the laws of nature that prevail in it, I am morally responsible for some things.

I'll make it formal:

1) I am not morally responsible for anything iff I am not morally responsible for my initial character, the environment, the laws of nature that prevail in it, and other people's choices.
2) I am morally responsible for some of other people's choices.
3) Therefore, I am morally responsible for some things.
4) I am not morally responsible for my initial character, environment, or the laws of nature that prevail in it.
5) Thus, even though I am not morally responsible for my initial character or for my environment and the laws of nature that prevail in it, I am morally responsible for some things.

Unless I'm mistaken 5 is the negation of 5. If there is a flaw in my logic please point it out.

And if you say we are sometimes responsible for other people's choices, then there is something we are morally responsible for and thus 5 is false.

You write:

if I am not in any way morally responsible for A, and not in any way morally responsible for B, and A and B are wholly causally responsible for C, I am not morally responsible for C — Bartricks

I actually agree with this. However, implicit in 5 is the assumption that the only things that affect us are our environment, initial character, and the laws of nature. I also agree that these are almost the only things we could be morally responsible for.

But what about other people's potentially free choices? Wouldn't you have to address those? You are presupposing that all that affects us are external factors that can, presumably, be traced back indefinitely. But you must also specify, so as to guarantee that we are not morally responsible for anything, that we are not morally responsible for other people's (potentially free) choices, as you admitted that one can come into existence yet still have the freedom to choose between alternative courses of action (even if it doesn't magically make people morally responsible).

If you specify that we are not responsible for other people's choices, then a large swathe of what is considered abhorrent behavior is excused.

Do you deny that you have to take into account other people's choices?

This premise assumes that we are only the products of initial character, environment, and the laws of nature that prevail in it:

5. If I am not morally responsible for my initial character and not morally responsible for my environment and the laws of nature that prevail in it, then I am not morally responsible for anything — Bartricks

Otherwise there could be a moral element to our actions. However, if we are the product of only those things, there is no moral element to any of our actions, so your premise:

7. I am morally responsible for some things — Bartricks

Is false.

Not to say I'll make a duplicate thread!

I'll have to take a look at your argument now that you have modified it. I'll see if I can deny a premise, but if not, I will conclude that we exist with aseity and thus have free will (until I can come up with a good counterargument or come across a better argument). This might take some time and a new thread if this one is abandoned because I'm not quick enough.

You changed this premise:

5. If I am not morally responsible for my initial character and not morally responsible for my environment and the laws of nature that prevail in it, then I am not morally responsible for anything — Bartricks

What I meant was that it was semantically invalid. It now appears to be totally valid.

Address the category error. Or does that not matter for some reason? I'm being serious; I'm claiming that one of your premises is not logically valid. That seems to me to mean that there is something wrong with your argument.

You ask me to confirm the validity of your argument so that I have to deny a premise, when, really, your argument is indeed logically valid but the following premise of yours suffers from a category error:

F) If we have come into existence, then everything we do is a product of initial character, environment and laws of nature, none of which we are in any way morally responsible for.

I have explained why this is the case. Please address this issue.

Even if you argue that our initial character and our actions causally result in our future character, and, thus, the actions that flow from our character, we are still interacting with an environment that affects us and are bound by the laws of nature. Furthermore, you must specify that our actions are the product of our environment and the laws of nature in addition to initial character before saying that our actions are only the product of initial character, our environment, and the laws of nature. Thus, to support this assertion you must make an additional claim that we are the product of our environment and the laws of nature.

If you do that the argument I gave contradicting the existence of free will earlier applies.

Of course it's valid, but you are being a slippery eel, drawing attention away from the flaw in your argument by demanding I accept its logical validity. The premise:

F) If we have come into existence, then everything we do is a product of initial character, environment and laws of nature, none of which we are in any way morally responsible for — Bartricks

Allows your argument to be logically valid, but it is not logically valid itself.

You write:

C) If we have come into existence, we are not morally responsible for our initial character.

And also:

D) We are not morally responsible for our environment or for the laws of nature.

These two claims are obviously true, but you need to specify in a premise that we are the product of environment and the laws of nature, otherwise the premise:

F) If we have come into existence, then everything we do is a product of initial character, environment and laws of nature, none of which we are in any way morally responsible for — Bartricks

Just assumes that we are products of environment and the laws of nature contingent merely upon having come into existence. That presupposes that there are no moral elements to our decisions if we have come into existence without specifying the conditions under which we exist; you can say that if we are the products of initial character, environment, and the laws of nature that we must not have moral responsibility, but you do not make the conditional claim that we are the products of our environment and the laws of nature before saying that that is all we are a product of, when you need to for your premise to make sense, otherwise, once again, you are assuming that just because you have come into existence you are the product of your environment and the laws of nature.

There seems to be a confusion of "product of the laws of nature" and what I mean by "bound by the laws of nature". We should agree on which of those terms to use, as you say product, but then imply that nature only constrains actions.

My argument is that you need to change a premise in support of (1) (something I have already explained that you have not addressed well), and that if this premise is changed, it leads to the conclusion that we both have aseity and are not bound by the laws of nature. If this is true, we do not have free will, which I will demonstrate.

After changing the premise the continuation of your argument becomes:

1. If we have come into existence, are the product of our environment, and are bound by the laws of nature, then we do not have free will.
2. We have free will.
3. Therefore, we have not come into existence, are not the product of our environment, and are not bound by the laws of nature.

While this might seem sufficient for establishing that we have aseity and therefore free will, there is the following counterargument:

1. (following from (3) of the previous argument) If we have not come into existence, are not the product of our environment, and are not bound by the laws of nature, we have free will.
2. We are bound by the laws of nature.
3. Therefore, we do not have free will.

Dispute one of my premises. They all follow from your argument when it is modified to make sense.

Just edited this post to make it more clear; sorry.

I'm referring to this argument:

1. If we have come into existence, we do not have free will.
2. We have free will. (premise (2))
3. Therefore we have not come into existence (we exist with aseity). — ToothyMaw

Do you deny that you use this argument? Am I straw manning you?

If we have come into existence, then everything we do is a product of initial character, environment and laws of nature, none of which we are in any way morally responsible for — Bartricks

I am doing - if I exist with aseity then I am not the product of anything, am I? Nothing created me. That's the point. If I exist with aseity then I have not come into being. Laws of nature govern what goes on, not what exists. — Bartricks

Then why did you use the term "product of the laws of nature" earlier if it only governs what goes on?

You're the one who isn't addressing the argument I made: you need explicitly to deny a premise in it. — Bartricks

I don't need to deny a premise but rather carry out your argument to its conclusion: the conclusion is that we we have aseity and are not bound by the laws of nature. As you said, aseity negates being a product of external causes but doesn't negate the fact that we are still bound by the laws of nature, which, as you admit, dictate only what goes on. The conclusion to the aseity argument must be rejected because it is blatantly false; we cannot violate the laws of nature with our actions.

No, there's me with my initial character. If that has been created by factors external to me - which it will have been if I don't exist with aseity - then I am not morally responsible for being the me that I am with the character that I have, yes? You've agreed with that. — Bartricks

I only agreed that if one comes into existence one is only not morally responsible for their initial character.

Then there's what i subsequently do - my actions - and what those actions may transform me into - my subsequent character. — Bartricks

But you are presupposing that none of your actions have a moral element without explaining why. You need to include the claim that we are bound by the laws of nature and are products of our environment. Your character may change, but only because you are interacting with an environment that affects you and that is constrained by the laws of nature.

The fact that you are saying "if" means that the assertion that we are the products of our environment and the laws of nature follows from the condition that we have come into existence. Those things do not follow from the condition that we have come into existence. You must also specify that we are the products of our environment and the laws of nature.

Are you going to address my post? Or just assert that you are correct? What would it mean not to be a product of the laws of nature? I pointed out your faulty reasoning and you need to address it. Maybe you missed the longer post above the last one?

This probably doesn't need to be said, but since we obviously can't do things that violate the laws of nature, your conclusion doesn't follow.

I'll make this reply more coherent, as you seemed to have misunderstood my points. I'm saying that you pack "we are the products of our environment and the laws of nature" into a premise when coming into existence really only dictates that we are not responsible for our initial character. The argument you outlined in your third to last post seems to be deductively valid, but it is not the argument you seem to think it is because it leads to the conclusion to the aseity argument including the claim that we are not bound by the laws of nature and our environment. The important one is the "laws of nature" bit because even if we exist with aseity we are bound by the laws of nature. I'm not making this claim to absolutely disprove moral responsibility but rather to show that we don't exist with aseity, which is the crux of your argument.

To start, you make the following argument, I presume, to prove we exist with aseity:

1. If we have come into existence, we do not have free will.
2. We have free will. (premise (2))
3. Therefore we have not come into existence (we exist with aseity).

The first premise must be modified because of the argument you outlined in support of it. I will show why this is the case.

You make this argument:

A) If we have come into existence, then we have been caused to come into existence by events external to ourselves
B) If we have been caused by external events, then we are not morally responsible for our initial character
C) Therefore, if we have come into existence, we are not morally responsible for our initial character — Bartricks

I totally agree with this and acknowledge that it is deductively valid. However, later you write:

F) If we have come into existence, then everything we do is a product of initial character, environment and laws of nature, none of which we are in any way morally responsible for — Bartricks

The reasoning here seems faulty to me; the premise C) merely dictates that coming into existence means not being responsible for one's initial character. To say that coming into existence means that we are also products of the environment and laws of nature does not follow. I agree that we are not morally responsible for any of those things, but, given the fact that our moral responsibility is contingent upon both coming into existence and other factors not related to coming into existence, one cannot make the claim that coming into existence accounts for all the factors - factors that you appear to account for in F).

One could modify the premise to be: "if we have come into existence and are the products of our environment and the laws of nature, then everything we do is the product of initial character, environment, and the laws of nature, none of which are we morally responsible for."

G) Then becomes: "Therefore, if we have come into existence and are the products of our environment and the laws of nature, we are not morally responsible for anything we do."

The aseity argument then becomes:

1. If we have come into existence, and are the products of our environment and the laws of nature, then we do not have free will.
2. We have free will.
3. We have not come into existence and are not the products of our environment or the laws of nature.

I'm not totally certain what it means to not be the product of the laws of nature, but I do know that even a person with aseity cannot do things that defy the laws of physics (except self-originate). If this is the case it seems your argument is more in favor of godhood then aseity.

Actually, upon thinking about it, even if you have aseity you are still constrained by the laws of nature - you cannot perform actions that are physically impossible according to the laws of physics. Thus, the conclusion to the aseity argument is not an argument for aseity.

Actually, upon thinking about it, even if you have aseity you are still constrained by the laws of nature - you cannot perform actions that are physically impossible according to the laws of physics. Thus, the conclusion to the aseity argument becomes false if it is modified in the way above.

Correction: the aseity argument conclusion changes because "if we have come into existence we do not have free will" becomes: "Therefore, if we have come into existence, and we are the products of our environment and the laws of nature, then we do not have free will."

The conclusion becomes: "Therefore we have not come into existence and and we are not the products of our environment or the laws of nature."

This contradicts your earlier premises that we are the products of our environments and the laws of nature.

I don't believe that you read my entire reply. You make the claim:

I) Therefore, if we have come into existence, we do not have free will. — Bartricks

To support the premise:

1. If we have free will, we exist with aseity. — Bartricks

The "if we have free will, we have aseity" is presumably arrived at by this argument (I'll call it the "aseity argument"):

1. If we have come into existence, we do not have free will.
2. We have free will. (premise (2))
3. Therefore we have not come into existence (we exist with aseity).

This argument only applies if you leave out the constraints to free will you acknowledge in this premise:

F) If we have come into existence, then everything we do is a product of initial character, environment and laws of nature, none of which we are in any way morally responsible for — Bartricks

Furthermore, coming into existence only affects initial character you claim here:

If we have been caused by external events, then we are not morally responsible for our initial character — Bartricks

You add the environmental constraints and the constraints due to the laws of nature and then promptly discard them so as to have a premise that can be used as the basis for the aseity argument:

G)Therefore, if we have come into existence, we are not morally responsible for anything we do — Bartricks

This should be: "Therefore, if we have come into existence, and we are the products of our environment and the laws of nature, then we are not morally responsible for anything we do."

*see correction

Unless you are making a distinction between "caused by external events" and "come into existence", which could be two separate things, but when applied to the beginning of a life I don't see how.

It appears to me you are packing some sort of soft determinism into this conclusion:

Therefore, if we have come into existence, we are not morally responsible for anything we do — Bartricks

The conclusion does not follow because you must specify that external factors such as environment and laws of nature, as you do in an earlier premise, also contribute to a lack of moral responsibility. The conclusion should be: "Therefore, if we have come into existence and our decisions are constrained by both environment and the laws of nature, then we are not morally responsible for anything we do".

It then follows that this conclusion must also be altered:

I) Therefore, if we have come into existence, we do not have free will. — Bartricks

To: "Therefore, if we have come into existence and our decisions are constrained by environment and the laws of nature, we do not have free will." Furthermore, you cannot simply negate "if we have come into existence" to mean "we exist with aseity" if the conclusion in support of

If we have free will, we exist with aseity. — Bartricks

must be altered as above; there are two separate phrases modifying the assertion that we lack free will. If the soft determinism cannot be negated then said doctrine contradicts premise (2) that we have free will, which you use to prove that we have aseity.

But surely there must be a distinction between moral acts and other acts? And if there is a distinction, then you must admit that there is a special quality to moral acts that makes them moral, it seems to me, as moral acts are presumably a subset of non-moral acts.

1. If we have free will, we exist with aseity. — Bartricks

I have an issue with this; one could not be self-originated yet have free will. They just aren't responsible for their coming into existence. They can still be the ultimate source of their own actions without aseity:

You make these claims:

if everything we do is a product of matters for which we are not morally responsible, then we are not morally responsible for anything we do — Bartricks

If we have been caused by external events, then we are not morally responsible for our initial character — Bartricks

Initial character might constrain one's choices insofar as it limits what choices are available to one, but one could still be free to choose between all of the alternatives available to them in an unconditional sense. And a lack of aseity only means that one is not responsible for their initial character, nothing else.

If we have come into existence, then everything we do is a product of initial character, environment and laws of nature, none of which we are in any way morally responsible for — Bartricks

Whether or not one comes into existence (or lacks aseity) has nothing to do with the laws of nature or the environment, but merely initial character, something you do indeed acknowledge here:

A) If we have come into existence, then we have been caused to come into existence by events external to ourselves
B) If we have been caused by external events, then we are not morally responsible for our initial character — Bartricks

It then follows from what I have written above that having free will does not mean one must exist with aseity. Thus, premise (1) is unsupported.

That argument is unsound. Premise 1 is false. If we exist with aseity then we did have power over facts of the past, for there was never a time when we did not exist. — Bartricks

Maybe you did have power over the facts of the past, but you do not have power over the facts of the past in the present, which is what that means.