Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!caen.engin.umich.edu!brian
From: brian@caen.engin.umich.edu (Brian Holtz)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: DVM's request for definitions
Summary: Three definitions: free will, self-determination, and volition
Keywords: philosophy, free will
Message-ID: <894@maize.engin.umich.edu>
Date: 25 May 88 17:03:53 GMT
References: <29049@yale-celray.yale.UUCP>
Organization: caen
Lines: 68

will" and to discuss "what the consequences of adopting one of them 
would be for morality."  I'd like to do some of both.

It seems to me that determinists and anti-determinists have been arguing 
about different things when they argue about free will, namely:

1. determinist "free will": the ability to make at least some choices 
that are neither uncaused nor completely determined by physical forces

2. anti-determinist "free will": the ability to make at least some 
choices that are neither uncaused nor completely determined by external 
physical forces

(By an "uncaused choice" I mean a choice whose outcome depends on 
physical events that are in principle unpredictable.  I think this is 
what some people have meant when they call certain choices "random", and 
mention quantum effects.)

If you accept definition (1) (as I do), then the only alternative to 
determinism is dualism, which I don't see too many people defending.

If you accept definition (2) (as T. William Wells' posting suggested), 
then you run into the difficulty of distinguishing "external" and 
"internal" forces.  As Cliff Joslyn said in response to Mr. Wells, 

   we must say that reflexes, dreams, delusions, compulsions, etc., are
   all *OUTSIDE* of "me".  As the earlier lively conversation on whether
   thoughts can be controlled shows, we can carry this distinction-
   making on, narrowing the scope of the "willing agent" in the mind to
   a singularity (my Will), about which we cannot gather evidence about
   causal processes, nor make meaningful theories as to necessary and/or
   sufficient conditions.

I don't think this difficulty is insurmountable, and if psychologically 
principled distinctions can be made between the "willing agent" and the 
rest of "me", then here I think is consolation for those who do not wish 
to define "free will" out of existence.  They can just draw a line 
around some part of their minds, and declare that part free of external 
determination.  The internal determination that would would remain could 
be embraced as *self*-determination.  Thus I will take definition (2) as 
a definition not of free will, but self-determination.


I think we can preserve all the desirable moral consequences of free 
will if we replace "free will" in our ethics with a modified version of 
self-determination, which I will call volition.  The key to volition is 
that it should be operationally indistinguishable from free will.

3. volition: the ability to identify significant sets of options and to 
predict one's future choices among them, in the absence of any evidence 
that any other agent is able to predict those choices.

There are a lot of implications to replacing free will with my notion of 
volition, but I will just mention three.

- If my operationalization is a truly transparent one, then it is easy 
to see that volition (and now-dethroned free will) is incompatible with 
an omniscient god.  Also, anyone who could not predict his behavior as 
well as someone else could predict it would no longer be considered to 
have volition.

- The ethical problem of responsibility can still be managed if it is no 
longer seen to derive from a truly free will, but is rather assigned or 
claimed (as suggested by Kevin Brown's posting).

- Metaphysical arguments about the possible free will of machines would 
no longer be relevant. If a machine can predict its behavior better than 
anyone/thing else, it has volition; otherwise, it does not.