Compatibilism

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From the course by The University of Edinburgh

Introduction to Philosophy

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The University of Edinburgh

Introduction to Philosophy

3426 ratings

This course will introduce you to some of the main areas of research in contemporary philosophy. Each module a different philosopher will talk you through some of the most important questions and issues in their area of expertise. We’ll begin by trying to understand what philosophy is – what are its characteristic aims and methods, and how does it differ from other subjects? Then we’ll spend the rest of the course gaining an introductory overview of several different areas of philosophy. Topics you’ll learn about will include: Epistemology, where we’ll consider what our knowledge of the world and ourselves consists in, and how we come to have it; Philosophy of science, where we’ll investigate foundational conceptual issues in scientific research and practice; Philosophy of Mind, where we’ll ask questions about what it means for something to have a mind, and how minds should be understood and explained; Political Philosophy, where we'll investigate whether we have an obligation to obey the law; Moral Philosophy, where we’ll attempt to understand the nature of our moral judgements and reactions – whether they aim at some objective moral truth, or are mere personal or cultural preferences, and; Metaphysics, where we’ll think through some fundamental conceptual questions about free will and the nature of reality. The development of this MOOC has been led by the University of Edinburgh's Eidyn research centre. To accompany 'Introduction to Philosophy', we are pleased to announce a tie-in book from Routledge entitled 'Philosophy for Everyone'. This course companion to the 'Introduction to Philosophy' course was written by the Edinburgh Philosophy team expressly with the needs of MOOC students in mind. 'Philosophy for Everyone' contains clear and user-friendly chapters, chapter summaries, glossary, study questions, suggestions for further reading and guides to online resources. Please click "Start Here" and navigate to the "Optional Reading" page for more information.

From the lesson

Do We Have Free Will and Does It Matter?

(Dr. Elinor Mason) We typically feel that the actions that we make are the result of our own free choices. But what if those actions are simply the end result of a long chain of cause and effect? What does this mean for free will? In this module, we'll look at the concept of determinism. In particular, we'll consider the implications that determinism might have for the notion of free will.

Compatibilism7:59

Hard Determinism3:30

Meet the Instructors

Dr. Dave Ward
Lecturer in Philosophy
University of Edinburgh
Professor Duncan Pritchard
Professor of Philosophy
University of Edinburgh
Professor Michela Massimi
Full Professor
Philosophy
Dr. Suilin Lavelle
Lecturer in Philosophy
University of Edinburgh
Dr. Matthew Chrisman
Reader in Philosophy
Philosophy
Dr. Allan Hazlett
Dr. Alasdair Richmond
Dr.
Philosophy
Guy Fletcher
Lecturer
Philosophy
Elinor Mason
Senior Lecturer
Philosophy

The next attempt to solve the problem of free will and determinism is compatibilism.

Compatibilism is the view that although we don't have metaphysical free will,

we are determined. It doesn't matter.

We nonetheless have moral responsibility.

We have the thing that matters.

How does this argument work? Let's start with Hume.

Hume makes a distinction between being free and being constrained.

So he says we shouldn't contrast being free with being determined,

we should contrast being free with being prevented from doing the things we want to do.

So on Hume's view,

we're free when we can follow through on our decisions,

and we're constrained when we're in prison,

or in some other way,

prevented from doing the things we want to do.

So Hume changes the terms of the debate and solves the problem in that way.

What he's really saying is, "Look,

we shouldn't be thinking about determinism,

determinism just is the case."

So, there might be a sense of freedom that's opposed to determinism,

but that isn't the interesting sense.

The sense of freedom that we should be interested in is

just the totally ordinary sense of being able to walk around and do what we want to do.

To many, this is seemed like a somewhat lame response.

It seems that in changing the subject,

Hume really has missed the important point.

But I think that there's a really important insight in what Hume says,

and that view is shared with contemporary compatibilists who build on this insight.

The insight is this,

what matters is that we decide what to do,

that we are the ones making decisions about our actions.

That's the thing that really matters.

So here's this argument as it comes from Harry Frankfurt.

In a very famous article,

Freedom and the Concept of a Person,

published in 1971, Frankfurt gives

an example which philosophers are still discussing today.

Here's a version of that example.

So imagine that an evil neuroscientist has

found some way to control Neera's decision-making,

and imagine that Neera is about to vote in an election.

If she votes for candidate A,

the neuroscientist will intervene and ensure that she chooses to vote for B.

But if she chooses to vote for B on her own,

the neuroscientist won't intervene.

So let's imagine that Neera does decide to vote for B.

She makes the decision on her own,

that's what she does, the neuroscientist doesn't intervene.

What do we think about Neera's responsibility?

Most of us would say she's responsible.

That was her own decision.

That's where Frankfurt says, "Aha, you see,

it doesn't matter that she didn't have any alternate possibilities.

It didn't matter that that's the only thing that she could do."

The only thing that matters in this situation is that

Neera in fact made her own decision.

So again, the general point here is that

making your own mind up because of your own reasons is what makes you responsible.

It's not the fact that you could have done something else.

So, Frankfurt's point is determinism doesn't matter.

Maybe it's true that we can't do anything other than what we do,

but if we decide to do that on our own,

that's enough to make us responsible.

Here's another version of that argument,

this one from Peter Strawson.

Strawson points out that as we go about the world

engaging in ordinary interpersonal relationships,

we react to people on the basis of what we perceive to be their motivations.

We react to them on the basis of what we think is their quality of will,

as Strawson puts it.

What we think they're up to.

Are they trying to hurt us?

Are they trying to help us?

It's on the basis of those thoughts that we

praise or blame them or resent them or whatever it is.

Strawson's point is that it doesn't really matter where their quality of will,

where their motivations comes from.

In particular, it doesn't matter if those motivations are determined.

What matters is that we think people have those motivations and that

we continue to react to them with what Strawson calls the reactive attitudes,

things like resentment and gratitude.

These are an essential part of our interpersonal relationships, says Strawson,

and these abstract questions about determinism just don't matter,

what matters is that somebody really is trying to hurt us for example.

Strawson makes this clear by talking about excuses.

He points out that to have an excuse is to not have done the thing we think you did,

so to not have been trying to hurt.

If we say, "I wasn't trying to hurt you,

I was blown by the wind."

Then we let the person off the hook.

We say, "Oh, in that case, I don't blame you."

So Strawson points out that that kind of

excuse doesn't generalize to the case of determinism.

We can't say, "I wasn't trying to hurt you.

I was determined."

You were still trying to hurt me,

it's just that you may have been determined to do so.

But the bit that matters,

Strawson says, is the trying to hurt bit.

So that's how Strawson develops Hume's insight.

The thing that really matters is the actual quality of our motivations,

not where they come from.

The objection that we might give to a compatibilism of

this sort is the same objection that applies to Hume which is,

isn't this just changing the subject?

We started looking for free will,

and now, you're giving us something a little bit different.

You're saying, "Well, we can still react to each other in these ways and that's fine."

But we might just say,

"Look, that's not what we wanted."

These reactions aren't justified if determinism is true.

So we seem to have a problem here.

Strawson, Frankfurt, Hume are telling us just focus on motivations,

just focused on the way the person is,

but that's not where we started.

What we started with was wanting to know if people are free.

Let me summarize what I've said so far about compatibilism.

Compatibilists say that there are features of our acts,

the way that we behave,

the way that we are that matter,

and they matter to moral responsibility,

and they matter even if we don't have metaphysical free will.

The worry about that is that it doesn't go deep enough.

It's offering us a pale shadow of what

we were looking for when we started looking for free will.

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