Experiments in Philosophy

[groovedaddy]

Aristotle once wrote that philosophy begins in wonder, but one might equally well say that philosophy begins with inner conflict. The cases in which we are most drawn to philosophy are precisely the cases in which we feel as though there is something pulling us toward one side of a question but also something pulling us, perhaps equally powerfully, toward the other.

But how exactly can philosophy help us in cases like these? If we feel something within ourselves drawing us in one direction but also something drawing us the other way, what exactly can philosophy do to offer us illumination?

One traditional answer is that philosophy can help us out by offering us some insight into human nature. Suppose we feel a sense of puzzlement about whether God exists, or whether there are objective moral truths, or whether human beings have free will.

The traditional view was that philosophers could help us get to the bottom of this puzzlement by exploring the sources of the conflict within our own minds. If you look back to the work of some of the greatest thinkers of the 19th century Mill, Marx, Nietzsche — you can find extraordinary intellectual achievements along these basic lines.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/experimental-philosophy/?th&emc=th

[Jim__]

1. I disagree with his premise on this question.

By his premise, I mean his statement on free will:

What is it that draws us in these two conflicting directions? The philosopher Shaun Nichols and I thought that people might be drawn toward one view by their capacity for abstract, theoretical reasoning, while simultaneously being drawn in the opposite direction by their more immediate emotional reactions. It is as though their capacity for abstract reasoning tells them, “This person was completely determined and therefore cannot be held responsible,” while their capacity for immediate emotional reaction keeps screaming, “But he did such a horrible thing! Surely, he is responsible for it.”

I think what draws us so strongly to believe that we have free will is that our experience tells us that we do. We make decisions all the time, and they are apparently free. The conflict comes in when we look at our brains which are constructed of material that experience tells us reacts in a determinsitic way to various events.

The example question does not seem to me to be directly on the question of free will but rather on the question of moral responsibility. The example question immediately becomes conflated with questions about a desire for justice that will be more strongly brought out in an emotional situation than in a purely intellectual sitation.

In the given example, they've already answered the free will question. They have preset the situation so that there is no free will. So, it doesn't look to me like the property they wish to test is the property that they are actually testing.

[groovedaddy]

2. Agreed. n.t

[phantom power]

3. I'll tell you what I think people mean when they think "free will."

(In case anybody is dying to know)

When people say "I have free will" they mean "My own behavior can surprise me, and surprise other people." I think if more people understood that even a modestly complicated system (to say nothing of a human being) can be both deterministic and irreducibly complex*, people wouldn't get all knotted up over the question.

We are each deterministic agents embedded in a larger deterministic system (the universe). The fact that we are deterministic in no way means that our behavior is predictable, or that we will ever stop surprising ourselves, or ever stop being surprised by the universe.

So, yes, we have free will, and yes, we are deterministic machines! No problemo.

(*) a system where the fastest way to compute its future state is to actually run the system is irreducible.

[Nihil]

4. Nice post. (n/t)

:toast: