When you see free will being made a precondition for moral behavior, it means that the speaker is not concerned with doing the right thing. They are concerned with winning virtue points.
I think that “free will” can be understood as either itself an everyday concept, or else a philosopher’s way of talking about and possibly distorting an everyday concept. The term has two components which we can talk about separately.
A “willed” act is a deliberate act, done consciously, intentionally. It is consciously chosen from among other possible acts. Examples of acts which are not willed are accidental acts, such as bumping into someone because you didn’t know they were there, taking someone else’s purse because you confused it with your own, etc.
A “free” act is uncoerced. A coerced act is one that is done under compulsion. For example if a mugger points his gun at you, giving him your wallet is a coerced act.
We are more likely to judge acts immoral if they are both willed and free. We are less likely to frown on accidents. If someone took your purse on purpose, because they wanted your money, you would probably think badly of them. But if they took your purse by accident because it looked just like their purse, then you would be much less likely to be upset with them once they had returned the purse apologetically. And similarly, if someone has done you some harm but it turns out they only did it because they were being coerced, then you are more likely to forgive them and not to hold it against them, than if they did it freely, e.g. out of personal malice toward you.
This is all very earthly, very everyday and practical, and has no special relationship to religion or God. There are good practical reasons for letting harms slide if they are accidental or coerced, and for not letting harms slide if they are deliberate and uncoerced.
The upshot is that we are much less likely to consider actions immoral if they are unwilled or unfree—i.e., accidental or coerced.
A “willed” act is a deliberate act, done consciously, intentionally. It is consciously chosen from among other possible acts. Examples of acts which are not willed are accidental acts, such as bumping into someone because you didn’t know they were there, taking someone else’s purse because you confused it with your own, etc.
That’s what I referred to as “intentional”. A computer program with goals can have internal representations that comprise its intentions about its goals, even if it isn’t conscious and has no free will. When I wrote, “Knowing the agent’s intentions helps us know if this is an agent that we can expect to do the right thing in the future”,
that was saying the same thing as when you wrote, “If someone has done you some harm but it turns out they only did it because they were being coerced, then you are more likely to forgive them and not to hold it against them, than if they did it freely, e.g. out of personal malice toward you.”
A “free” act is uncoerced. A coerced act is one that is done under compulsion. For example if a mugger points his gun at you, giving him your wallet is a coerced act.
That’s not the usage of “free will” that philosophers such as Kant are talking about, when they talk about free will. When philosophers debate whether people have free will, they’re not wondering whether or not people can be coerced into doing things if you point a gun at them.
So, what you’re saying is true, but is already incorporated into the post, and is a supplemental issue, not the main point. I thought I already made the main points you made in this comment in the OP, so it concerns me that 9 people upvoted this—I wonder what they think I was talking about?
I rewrote the opening section to be more clear that I’m talking about philosophical free will. I see now how it would be misleading if you weren’t assuming that context from the name “Kant”.
Compatibilists’ arguments are that determinism does not matter; what matters is that an individuals’ will are the results of their own desires and are not overridden by some external force.
That seems to be pretty close to what I wrote. So apparently the compatibilists have an idea of what free will is similar to the one I described.
It’s interesting that at least twice, now, you said what “free will” isn’t, but you haven’t said what it is. I think that nowhere do you successfully explain what free will supposedly is. The closest you come is here:
“Free will” in this context refers to a mysterious philosophical phenomenological concept related to consciousness—not to whether someone pointed a gun at the agent’s head.
That’s not an explanation. It says that free will is not something, and it says that what it is, is a “mysterious philosophical phenomenological concept related to consciousness”—which tells the reader pretty much nothing.
And now in your comment here, you say
That’s not the usage of “free will” that philosophers such as Kant are talking about, when they talk about free will. When philosophers debate whether people have free will, they’re not wondering whether or not people can be coerced into doing things if you point a gun at them.
but you leave it at that. Again you’re saying what free will supposedly is not. You don’t go on to explain what the philosophers are talking about.
I think that “free will” is an idea with origins in daily life which different philosophers have attempted to clarify in different ways. Some of them did, in my opinion, a good job—the compatibilists—and others did, in my opinion, a bad job—the incompatibilists. Your exposure seems to have been only to the incompatibilists. So, having learned the incompatibilist notion of free will, you apparently find yourself ill-prepared to explain the concept to anyone else, limiting yourself to saying what it is not and to saying that it is “mysterious”. I take this as a clue about the incompatibilist concept of the free will.
I think that “free will” can be understood as either itself an everyday concept, or else a philosopher’s way of talking about and possibly distorting an everyday concept. The term has two components which we can talk about separately.
A “willed” act is a deliberate act, done consciously, intentionally. It is consciously chosen from among other possible acts. Examples of acts which are not willed are accidental acts, such as bumping into someone because you didn’t know they were there, taking someone else’s purse because you confused it with your own, etc.
A “free” act is uncoerced. A coerced act is one that is done under compulsion. For example if a mugger points his gun at you, giving him your wallet is a coerced act.
We are more likely to judge acts immoral if they are both willed and free. We are less likely to frown on accidents. If someone took your purse on purpose, because they wanted your money, you would probably think badly of them. But if they took your purse by accident because it looked just like their purse, then you would be much less likely to be upset with them once they had returned the purse apologetically. And similarly, if someone has done you some harm but it turns out they only did it because they were being coerced, then you are more likely to forgive them and not to hold it against them, than if they did it freely, e.g. out of personal malice toward you.
This is all very earthly, very everyday and practical, and has no special relationship to religion or God. There are good practical reasons for letting harms slide if they are accidental or coerced, and for not letting harms slide if they are deliberate and uncoerced.
The upshot is that we are much less likely to consider actions immoral if they are unwilled or unfree—i.e., accidental or coerced.
That’s what I referred to as “intentional”. A computer program with goals can have internal representations that comprise its intentions about its goals, even if it isn’t conscious and has no free will. When I wrote, “Knowing the agent’s intentions helps us know if this is an agent that we can expect to do the right thing in the future”,
that was saying the same thing as when you wrote, “If someone has done you some harm but it turns out they only did it because they were being coerced, then you are more likely to forgive them and not to hold it against them, than if they did it freely, e.g. out of personal malice toward you.”
That’s not the usage of “free will” that philosophers such as Kant are talking about, when they talk about free will. When philosophers debate whether people have free will, they’re not wondering whether or not people can be coerced into doing things if you point a gun at them.
So, what you’re saying is true, but is already incorporated into the post, and is a supplemental issue, not the main point. I thought I already made the main points you made in this comment in the OP, so it concerns me that 9 people upvoted this—I wonder what they think I was talking about?
I rewrote the opening section to be more clear that I’m talking about philosophical free will. I see now how it would be misleading if you weren’t assuming that context from the name “Kant”.
Checking the Wikipedia article on free will:
That seems to be pretty close to what I wrote. So apparently the compatibilists have an idea of what free will is similar to the one I described.
It’s interesting that at least twice, now, you said what “free will” isn’t, but you haven’t said what it is. I think that nowhere do you successfully explain what free will supposedly is. The closest you come is here:
That’s not an explanation. It says that free will is not something, and it says that what it is, is a “mysterious philosophical phenomenological concept related to consciousness”—which tells the reader pretty much nothing.
And now in your comment here, you say
but you leave it at that. Again you’re saying what free will supposedly is not. You don’t go on to explain what the philosophers are talking about.
I think that “free will” is an idea with origins in daily life which different philosophers have attempted to clarify in different ways. Some of them did, in my opinion, a good job—the compatibilists—and others did, in my opinion, a bad job—the incompatibilists. Your exposure seems to have been only to the incompatibilists. So, having learned the incompatibilist notion of free will, you apparently find yourself ill-prepared to explain the concept to anyone else, limiting yourself to saying what it is not and to saying that it is “mysterious”. I take this as a clue about the incompatibilist concept of the free will.