Thursday, December 10, 2009

Standard Materialism, Non-Standard Materialism, and Libertarian Free Will

I think there are standard and non-standard forms of materialism. I consider a form of materialism to be standard if it holds to three theses.




1) Reality at the basic level is mechanistic. There is no teleology, no intentionality, no subjectivity, and no normativity at the basic level.



2) The basic level (typically called physics) is causally closed.



3) Higher level states (such as the biological, the mental, or the sociological) supervene upon the physical. Given the physical, the higher level states must be exactly as they are.



It seems to me that if you accept this picture, nothing like libertarian free will can be coherently maintained. Now if one is trying to call oneself a materialist and reject part of this picture, in other words, if one adopts a non-standard form of materialism, in virtue of the fact that, say, everything in the mind has a spatial location, then you might be able to find room for libertarian free will.



Which always makes we wonder about Christians, like van Inwagen, who call themselves materialists. Do they really conform to the standard definition of materialism?

34 comments:

Anonymous said...

"It seems to me that if you accept this picture, nothing like libertarian free will can be coherently maintained."

And nothing like Calvinistic compatibilism can be maintained either. So your claim about your view being unfriendly with naturalism and the Calvinists being more friendly with it has, at this point, zero force.


I'd say Calvinistic compatibilism necessarily denies (1), (2), and (3).

Furthermore, of course no Christian materialist holds to the above. But if this is how show libertarianism's incompatibility with naturalism, then your point about the Calvinist is lost.

I'd add that the distancing element, however, isn't the indeterminism or the freedom. So there's nothing special here that libertarianism has over Calvinistic determinism.

Blue Devil Knight said...

What is your working definition of libertarian free will?

Anonymous said...

Libertarian freedom is brute factually affirmed. That's how a materialist settles the issue.

Anonymous said...

BDK, libertarian freedom presupposes the principle of alternative possibilities.

William said...

Does causal closure completely exclude physically indeterminate or undetermined events, such as theories of quantum indeterminancy would allow? If so, would most theoretical physicists deny causal closure?

It seems to me that there might be some wiggle room between materialism and determinism?

Gordon Knight said...

PvI confuses me.

He admits that there is a hard problem of consciousness for the materialist, but then goes on to say that dualism does not help. Its just as as hard, says PvI, to understand how an immaterial thing can posess intentionality.

I just don't get this. The reason its hard to see how a material object like the brain can have intentionality is that we believe we know the properties the brain has, and these properties do not include meaning or intentionality.

There is nothing intrinsically baffling about intentionality. We know it ourselves every time we reflect on thought, what is baffling is the materialist claim that intentionality can be instantiated in a material thing.

There is nothing baffling about roundess, nothing baffling about squareness, but a round square is a different sort of fish.

Does anyone know what underlies PvI's reasoning?

The Uncredible Hallq said...

It's probably the phrase "immaterial thing" that's getting him. Compare Chalmers' view of qualia: it's not that some "immaterial thing" that has qualia, but rather, that qualia are just immaterial at a raw level. Such a move is open to people who reject dualism over intentionality--though, unfortunately, I'm not sure that move gets you a soul.

As for PvI on free will, he admits free will is mysterious, so I take it that there's no telling, on his view, how free will fits in with the material world. We know free will is incompatible with determinism, but there's not much more we know.

Mark said...

I just don't get this. The reason its hard to see how a material object like the brain can have intentionality is that we believe we know the properties the brain has, and these properties do not include meaning or intentionality.

What you're trying to say is that we can't see how intentionality could arise from the physical properties brains are known to possess, and this constitutes our reason for thinking brains in themselves lack intentionality. But we also don't have a picture of how it could arise out of the known properties of immaterial minds. Sure, you could posit that intentionality is simply basic to such minds, but you could do the same thing with brains. Either way, immaterialism is unhelpful.

Blue Devil Knight said...

Someone said:
'BDK, libertarian freedom presupposes the principle of alternative possibilities.'

Then electrons have libertarian freedom. Also, compatibilism is fine: if my cultural and natural environment had been different, my brain would have developed differently, and I'd be implementing different alternative possibilities right now.

At any rate, anonymous hasn't really helped me too much is there a better working definition out there so I can see what I think about it?

Blue Devil Knight said...

Does anyone use hamiltonian mechanics to argue for teleology in physics?

Mark said...

Then electrons have libertarian freedom.

PAP places a necessary condition on free action, not a sufficient one.

Also, compatibilism is fine: if my cultural and natural environment had been different, my brain would have developed differently, and I'd be implementing different alternative possibilities right now.

That's not a case in which I might have decided otherwise when I act. It's a case in which my actions' remote causal determinants might have been different in the past.

Anonymous said...

If intentionality "is just basic" to brains, then naturalism/materialism is either false or trivial.

False if it's the standard materialism, as Victor Reppert (correctly, I think) reports standard materialism.

Trivial if materialism is now expanded to include things like intentionality (and/or subjectivity, teleology, etc).

And you're getting some brand of "immaterialism" either way.

Mark said...

Nevertheless, (substance) dualism doesn't help, as van Inwagen seemed to be saying.

Anonymous said...

BDK: Let's settle this in a chess match!

Victor Reppert said...

I think I argued once that naturalism has trouble dealing with even compatibilist free will, if it's the case that there a problem with mental causation.

aletheist said...

I enjoy the exercise of trying to boil philosophy down to starting assumptions. Most people would likely agree with this fairly modest axiom: something exists and can be known. I see no point in arguing with anyone who disputes this; its denial is self-defeating. However, it seems to me that intentionality follows directly from it, along with the laws of logic and causality, because those things are necessary for us to have knowledge of anything. Is it really that easy to refute naturalism/materialism/physicalism, or am I being overconfident in thinking so?

William said...

I would say that "standard materialism" as Dr. Reppert defines it is a "straw man" but for the many philosophers who seem to hold to it:

http://philpapers.org/surveys/

Blue Devil Knight said...

Mark: yes, I wasn't arguing for those things, but simply pointing out consequences of anon's characterization of free will.

Robert said...

Blue Devik Knight asked:

“At any rate, anonymous hasn't really helped me too much is there a better working definition out there so I can see what I think about it?”

If you mean by a working definition of libertarian free will why not the definition provided by Alvin Plantinga a staunch proponent of libertarian free will:

“If a person is free with respect to a given action, then he is free to perform that action and free to refrain from performing it; no antecedent conditions and/or causal laws determine that he will perform the action, or that he won’t.”

Robert

Blue Devil Knight said...
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Blue Devil Knight said...

Robert: thanks that resonates with how many philosophers talk, so is helpful. Note it is a quite nontrivial notion, and seems far from what the man on the street (the target of Victor's previous post) would readily understand (much less agree with). Once it gets to this level of specificity, I find a lot to disagree with in terms of free will being a "natural" position.

Using that characterization, it seems likely we would see cultural differences in our anthropological questionnaire.

Robert said...

“Robert: thanks that resonates with how many philosophers talk, so is helpful. Note it is a quite nontrivial notion, and seems far from what the man on the street (the target of Victor's previous post) would readily understand (much less agree with).”

The man on the street would have no trouble understanding and agreeing with Plantinga. Plantinga gives a precise definition using philosophical terminology, but let’s make it simpler for the man on the street using the same concepts as Plantinga but put more simply.

Take any particular action that you are thinking about doing. If you can both do that action or choose not to do that action, then you have free will. If you have to do that action, if it is impossible for you to refrain from doing it, then you have no free will with regard to that particular action. Free will says that regarding that one particular action that you are thinking of doing, if there is some necessitating factor that forces you to do the action, then you don’t have free will.

Or put yet another way, if you have a choice with regard to a particular action (you could choose to do it or choose not to do it and choose to do something else) then you have free will. If some necessitating factor exists before your action which forces you to do it or not do it, then you don’t have free will with regard to that choice. Free will then is synonymous with HAVING A CHOICE.

“Once it gets to this level of specificity, I find a lot to disagree with in terms of free will being a "natural" position.”

Once you see that it refers to whether or not we ever have choices, then you should be able to see that most people, especially the man on the street believes and would agree that indeed we at least sometimes have choices in regards to our actions (that we can choose to do them or choose not to do them).

Robert

Blue Devil Knight said...

Robert: The way I think about freedom or choice is here. Even if choices are part of the natural order, that doesn't mean we can't hold people responsible, to shape their decision-making machinery, and such.

In my take on the situation, we do have choice/freedom, the experience of an open future with many possibilities, and the ability to use our minds to decide how to act, to balance options and weigh different futures. However, this doesn't imply we are free from nature or that there is some extra ingredient needed beyond biology/physics to make decisions.

So I can agree with your:
"Once you see that it refers to whether or not we ever have choices, then you should be able to see that most people, especially the man on the street believes and would agree that indeed we at least sometimes have choices in regards to our actions."

Sure, I can agree with this. The psychology and neurobiology of choice is thriving, and there is a lot to learn from the science. This is very different from saying that:
"no antecedent conditions and/or causal laws determine that he will perform the action, or that he won’t."

I disagree with this, but certainly agree that we make choices, decisions, I decide whether to get the Mounds or Snickers bar (as discussed in my post linked above).

One thing isn't clear: for Platinga does quantum mechanics consist of causal laws?

Robert said...

Blue Devil Knight wrote:

“So I can agree with your:
"Once you see that it refers to whether or not we ever have choices, then you should be able to see that most people, especially the man on the street believes and would agree that indeed we at least sometimes have choices in regards to our actions."”

Well if you can agree with that, that we sometimes HAVE CHOICES, then you would hold to what is technically called libertarian free will.

“Sure, I can agree with this. The psychology and neurobiology of choice is thriving, and there is a lot to learn from the science.”

So there is a field in science that specifically investigates our having and making choices?

“This is very different from saying that:

"no antecedent conditions and/or causal laws determine that he will perform the action, or that he won’t."”

Allow me to clarify Plantinga, or at least what I take him to be saying here. He is saying that if we ***have*** a choice (say we can choose either the Mounds or Snickers bar) then there is ***no necessitating factor*** prior to our making the choice, which necessitates our action. If a necessitating factor was present, then we would **have to** do something rather than **freely choosing** to do something. The necessitating factor would take away options and limit your choice to one option alone.

So say someone put a device in your mind that completely controlled you so that whenever faced with what appeared to you to be a real choice between the Mounds or Snicker bars. In reality, say the device would control you and necessitate that you always take the Mounds bar. That device would be what Plantinga is referring to when he says there is no “"antecedent conditions and/or causal laws determine that he will perform the action, or that he won’t”. Plantinga is saying that if there is any such necessitating factor, a factor that necessitates one particular action so that we have to do that action, then we are not acting freely; we do not have free will. WE DO NOT HAVE A CHOICE with respect to that action.

“I disagree with this, but certainly agree that we make choices, decisions, I decide whether to get the Mounds or Snickers bar (as discussed in my post linked above).”

Well that is just it, if we make decisions (decisions presuppose our having and then making a choice), if **we** decide, if it is up to us, “whether to get the Mounds or Snickers bar”, then we really have a choice. In those circumstances we are acting freely as there is no necessitating factor that exists prior to our making the choice which necessitates the choice. If you really could pick or choose either candy bar, then you have a choice, your action is not necessitated, you are acting freely. But if there is some necessitating factor that causes you to choose one bar and makes it impossible for you to choose the other bar, then you are not acting freely and you do not have a choice regarding that particular action.

Robert

Blue Devil Knight said...
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Blue Devil Knight said...

Robert: I wouldn't agree that having 'choice' implies what Platinga says. I'm not sure if you read my analysis in the post I linked to, but I would like to see specifically what you find wrong with it, and how adding new ingredients would help.

The scheme I mentioned there seems basically right as a model of choice/decision making, and is consistent with naturalism, and I don't see it leaving anything useful out.

I guess the philosophers can argue about whether it is really choice or other semantic issues, and perhaps their alternative models and what they would add.

The somewhat new field of neuroeconomics studies the neurobiology of decision making. There is an older review article here. The field is exploding, and I haven't really kept up with it. For instance, based on brain activity we can predict what you will do before you are conscious of what you will do (e.g., they know you will pick the Mounds bar before you know you will pick the Mounds bar).

These classes of data actually seem quit hard for dualists to deal with.

Arnold Guminski said...

I agree with Victor Reppert that what he calls standard materialism is incompatible with libertarian free will. I also think it is incompatible with compatibilist free will, since so-called standard materialism entails epiphenominalism. I have some additional comments.

First, it is likely that what Reppert calls was previously nonstandard. I prefer a term such as " (RPM)

Second, when Reppert says that according to RPM (aka standard materialism) "[r]eality at the basic level is mechanistic" I understand him to say that he stipulates by way of definition that the substantive entities “at the basic level” are entities with only physical properties or as from which nonphysical properties are hypothetically abstracted. But, it seems to me, he does not mean to stipulate by that there cannot be nonphysical properties (e.g., intentionality, qualia) that are irreducible, or those some nonphysical properties are not causally potent. If he means, however, that if there are irreducible nonphysical properties then they are causally impotent, it follows that his statement “2) The basic level (typically called physics) is causally closed” is analytically necessary or, worse, a misleading truism. Reppert, I think, is dialectically stacking the deck (as it were) by asserting that “[r]eality at the basic level is mechanistic,” because if mental properties are irreducible and causally potent even if ontologically and temporally emergent, then reality at the basic level (in another sense) is not only mechanistic.

An adherent of some version of non-RPM (e.g., what I call ) might insist that a physical substantive entity may have nonphysical properties that are not only irreducible but causally potent. So it would be a grave mistake for a commonsensible naturalist to use the term “brain states [or events]” as synonymous with “brain physical states [or events].” What is necessary for him is to refer to “brain physical states” and “brain mental states.”

Third, I think that if there are some nonphysical properties (e.g., qualia and intentional states), then it does seem to me that not all higher level states supervene upon the physical (i.e., “[g]iven the physical, the higher level states must be exactly as they are”).

Fourth, I agree that libertarian free will is compatible with the meaning of a materialist version of commonsensible naturalism—although I am a compatibalist .

Fifth, Reppert asks what I think (pace Reppert) is a rather silly question:”Which always makes me wonder about Christians …who cal themselves materialists. Do they really conform to the standard definition of materialism?” And the answer is: of course not since so-called standard materialism precludes the existence of supernatural, spiritual beings. So-called Christian materialists are theists, confessing the existence of at least one supreme disembodied spirit but affirming that human persons are corporeal substances which higher-order mental properties (e.g., the power to reason).

My chief complaint about Reppert’s argument(s) from reason is that he marginalizes or minimizes all versions of non-RPM, thereby artificially enhancing the probative value of his argument. Whatever may be the case in academia (including its press) I would wager that the majority of those intelligent people who believe that human persons are only physical substances but with irreducible mental properties also believe that some mental states or events are not only irreducible but causally potent.

But even were adhererents of versions of non-RPM in a minority, Reppert’s AFR can be faulted for the same reason that a critic of orthodox Christianity can be faulted for urging that he has discredited it when he has (allegedly) only refuted Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, but not orthodox Protestantism—albeit such Protestants are a minority among orthodox Christians. (By I mean someone who accepts the doctrinal teachings of the first four ecumenical councils.)

Blue Devil Knight said...

What does RPM stand for?

Arnold Guminski said...

Thank you so very much, Blue Night Devil. "RPM" is my abbreviation for my preferred term: "Radical Physicalist Materialism."

Arnold Guminski said...

Sorry, Blue Devil Knight for calling you Blue Night Devil--What could I have been thinking? This, unfortunately, has been my day for gaffes.

Blue Devil Knight said...

I've been called much worse :)

Robert said...

Hello BDK,

“The scheme I mentioned there seems basically right as a model of choice/decision making, and is consistent with naturalism, and I don't see it leaving anything useful out.”

Oh I would say that you left something out: it’s called the human soul! :-)


“I guess the philosophers can argue about whether it is really choice or other semantic issues, and perhaps their alternative models and what they would add.”

I don’t care about **semantics**, what I do care about is whether or not we ever have a choice where we really could actualize either possibility and the choice is up to us.


“The somewhat new field of neuroeconomics studies the neurobiology of decision making. . . .”

Thanks for the information on this.

“For instance, based on brain activity we can predict what you will do before you are conscious of what you will do (e.g., they know you will pick the Mounds bar before you know you will pick the Mounds bar).”

Now I assume that a whole lot of neurons are active in our brains when we are thinking correct? Do we have to account for the activity of all of these individual neurons when we are both conscious and thinking about something when making a choice? Imagine how slow our actions would be if we had to consciously think of all of the activities occurring in our brains before we say, make a choice? Seems to me that our body/brain and soul work together and are unified in our thinking activities. It also seems to me that you have to “prime the pump” so to speak in order for conscious thinking to proceed as rapidly as it does. If that is true, what is wrong with the fact that some part of the process of choice making involves events that are physical and involving the brain and yet are beyond your conscious awareness and before your conscious choice in time?

Robert

Blue Devil Knight said...

Robert: that is basically how I described it in my link (as I said there, what I proposed is consistent with dualism or materialism as a model of the contents of what we experience). Just from my perspective, something reaching consciousness is also a neural process through-and-through, while others would want there to be an extra ingredient at certain key steps in decision making.

William said...

Robert: The point of the fact that we can use fast electronics to predict a choice before the person knows the choosing is done is that the soul in ordinary human consciousness cannot be acting independently of the brain; it's more likely that the brain is dualistic at the level of the organelle or even below that.

When we note that the subject is making a choice before she realizes that she has made that choice, we are more or less like the Harris exit pollsters predicting an election outcome before the electorate realized whom it has elected. The electronics are taking advantage of their greater speed in computing the outcome in a very restricted circumstance. Choice seems to involve the subconscious in a process of collating and pruning data points, not unlike an election.

The soul is not the dictator of the body; top down influences are only partial.