"Free Will Explained" is a poor explanation of free will

I had high expectations when I began reading Dan Barker's book, "Free Will Explained." Being a firm non-believer in free will, I figured that Barker, an avowed atheist, would give free will the same de-bunking as Sam Harris and numerous other scientifically minded authors have.

I'm a free will junkie.

I find this subject fascinating. I've read most of the books that argue free will doesn't exist, even though we humans believe we possess it. So since the subtitle of Barker's book is How Science and Philosophy Converge to Create a Beautiful Illusion, I expected a rational, reasonable, factual explanation of not only why free will is an illusion, but the benefit of giving up a belief in it.

Well, even before I got through the introduction, I found myself writing more and more question marks in the margins, because what Barker was saying made so little sense.

He admits that free will is a fiction. Determinism rules through chains of causes and effects. So far, so good.

Where Barker lost me is his contention that "Free will is a product of judgment." He claims that "free will is irrelevant -- it doesn't even exist -- until you judge behavior. It is a retroactive product of judgment."

He's talking about a particular sort of judgment, moral judgments. Supposedly free will is a social truth, like marriage. Well, this goes against how almost everybody in the world, aside from Barker, I guess, looks upon free will.

Almost everybody feels like they possess free will, even though it is an illusion. Likewise, almost everybody says "the sun is setting" rather than "the Earth is revolving." We feel like we have free will when we're alone, just as we see the sun setting when we're alone. If someone is by themselves on a desert island, they are still going to feel like they have free will, no moral judgement required.

We choose a flavor of ice cream. We pick a book to buy. We decide where to go on vacation. None of these decisions entail making moral judgments, unless the meaning of "moral" is stretched far beyond its normal usage. I fail to see how a sense of free will only arises after a judgment is made, but this is a core tenet of Barker's book. 

Now, what bothers me the most about "Free Will Explained" isn't the crazy way Barker looks upon free will, but the implications he draws from that viewpoint. Unlike virtually every other author who writes about the illusion of free will, somehow Barker is simultaneously able to embrace the reality of determinism while also claiming that we are morally responsible for our actions.

"We can be completely unfree, yet also completely accountable for our own actions," he writes. Barker further asserts that "moral accountability only needs to go as far back in time as the mental decision to act was made."

So even though someone's decision to rob a bank, say, was completely determined by their genetics, upbringing, and countless life experiences, Barker is fine with the justice system assuming that they possessed free will and could have chosen to not rob the bank. Hence, it is perfectly justified, in Barker's view, to exact retribution for freely willed acts, rather than viewing criminality as something that society needs to be protected from, and the criminal rehabilitated from.

Barker goes so far as to write, "Yes, the brain tumor (or whatever) is one of the causes of the action, but the individual human being is the actual perpetrator. It is irrelevant to ask whether the person was ultimately free or not. We only assume the person was immediately free."

Huh? Barker admits that free will is an illusion, It doesn't exist. Yet somehow he is OK with a judge or jury assuming that someone with a brain tumor was "immediately free" at the moment of making a decision, even though the tumor caused them to act in a certain unlawful way.

One of the more annoying parts of Barker's book is when he raises the straw man of determinists failing to praise people or favoring moral education. He says that when his children took their first steps and he clapped his hands to congratulate them, "Should I have acted like a dull determinist and coldly remarked to my kids, 'That's no big deal. You had no choice'?"

Geez. Barker doesn't understand how us determinists view reality. Everything at the level of everyday life is determined, everything! (I'm leaving out quantum phenomena, though arguably these also are determined, albeit in a probabilistic sense.)

A determinist is going to praise their children because this is what they have been determined to do. If they don't, then they have been determined to do that. There's no getting outside of the bounds of determinism in our causal universe. 

At the end of his book Barker notes that "Free will is not a scientific truth, it is a social truth." Again, this doesn't make sense. An illusory sense of free will exists in humans because it has some sort of evolutionary advantage. This makes it a scientific truth. The illusion of free will also is a scientific truth, as Barker readily admits.

Yet he persists in believing that it is better that people believe in the illusion, than in the truth. He appears to be fine with exacting retributive justice that is justified by a judge or jury assuming that someone possessed the free will to not commit a crime. 

Amazingly, Barker goes so far as to say, "Denying free will is a put-down to human nature." Wow. Discovering the truth that free will is an illusion is a put-down to human nature? I heartily disagree. For centuries people had the illusion that some races are superior to others, which justified slavery. They also had the illusion that women are the weaker sex and shouldn't be able to vote, among other consequences of that illusion.

Belief in free will isn't an innocent illusion. It is used to justify harsh punishments, since our justice system is founded on an assumption that, aside from insanity, people are free to either commit a crime or refrain from that behavior. Books like the one Barker wrote aren't merely wrong, they are dangerous.   

 

 

Comments

[vinny]

When the totality of consciousness / unified field split into fractals with the power to think & act separately , some fractals developed brutish intentions immediately. These fractals were placed in animal kingdom to settle their brutish intentions. This phenomenon is called Adi Karma / Primal actions / First actions. Actions performed by intentions to harm others.
[ Myron H Phelps Notes on discourses of Radhaswami faith delivered by Babuji Mahraj , Soami Bagh Agra. 1913-1914 ]

[D.r]

Dan Barker is one of your heros. And he talks bullshit. I hope you give me your troll detector insignia again, like you did before, Brian.

Dan Barker is like someone from Radhasoami that never had any of the experiences of going within seeing moons, and suns, and starts, and gurus, and then turns around and says God doesn't exist. It is ridiculousness.

[manjit]

I love that quote Vinny, thanks! I resonate with it :)

[tucson]

It appears to be impossible to perform a voluntary (self-willed) action. or for that matter, not to.

An action either :
already exists.. now,
already happened.. memory,
will happen.. imagination.

[Ron Krumpos]

“Free will” is really quite limited, despite belief that we control ourselves and our lives. We think we have endless choices...until we try to make them. Each decision must not only be based on what we “want to do,” but also on our own capabilities and what is expected of us. Nature and society imprison us, whether we like it or not.

[Spencer Tepper]

Hi Brian

Free will implies a personal responsibility to do the right thing.

Nothing wrong with that. It's an important part of raising children to be responsible and helpful adults.

Personal responsibility is a good thing. And it's good that any system of justice have within it the expectation that we are responsible to abide by the laws, and to help each other.

Are you suggesting otherwise?

[Brian Hines]

Spencer, what I'm suggesting is that an urge to raise children to be responsible and helpful adults is determined by various causes: one's own life experiences, genetics, one's upbringing, one's philosophy of life, and so on. And each of those causes have their own reasons, their own causes. Causes and effects are an endless complex chain going back to the first life on Earth. Or the Big Bang, if you like.

Having a feeling of free will also is determined. Numerous authors I've read have discussed this from an evolutionary standpoint. Groups of humans, early or otherwise, function better when there is a sense of "I am doing this freely" and "You are doing that freely." As you said, we then hold other people responsible, which typically causes them to act better. Or at least differently.

I don't believe that people freely will their actions. But society determines that people are still responsible for their actions, because obviously they did them, not somebody else. What I and many others object to is an archaic notion of retribution when someone does something wrong that flows from a mistaken belief that they could have done differently from their free will.

Protecting society from wrongdoers and rehabilitating them is fine. Punishing them just to punish them is wrong.

[Spencer Tepper]

Hi Brian
Thanks for your reply.

You wrote

"What I and many others object to is an archaic notion of retribution when someone does something wrong that flows from a mistaken belief that they could have done differently from their free will."

Is it possible to believe someone could have made a different choice, and with proper rehabilitation / re-conditioning, support, therapy and possibly restricted from engaging in self - destructive behavior, they can be helped to make different choices reliably?

Perhaps determinism is in fact the basis of all rehabilitation?

[Turan]

As I see it, morality is a culturally conditioned response and as such is entirely determined by the experiences and conditioning the brain absorbs from that culture. Within these narrow perimeters a variable number of choices can be arrived at. Our choices are therefore predetermined, arising from the information derived from the culture. This is what I understand as 'natural free will'. Only from within this framework can we be said to be held morally responsible for our thoughts and actions (perhaps this is what Mr. barker is saying).

A more basic 'natural free will' also applies to many creatures that live in social communities where genetic propensities determine the groups rules and behaviours.

Mostly from some philosophical sources and widespread today from religious sources the concept of 'absolute free will' prevails. Religious scriptures often state that God gave man free will along with the idea that the mind (or soul) is separate from the brain/body and is therefore capable of making decisions independent of the persons' conditioning. To accept many spiritual teachings 'free will' needs to be sacrosanct.

It would seem that each advance science makes in understanding who and what we are will always be challenged as we are naturally programmed to believe we are more special than anything else. Perhaps this is why we fill the universe with our concepts to avoid facing up to our inevitable demise.

[Spencer Tepper]

Hi Turan:

You wrote:

"To accept many spiritual teachings 'free will' needs to be sacrosanct."

It depends. In Hinduism, it's all pre-determined.
In Christianity you have the free will to choose Christ, but outside of that you don't. Jesus gives examples of this when He speaks about seeds that fall on fertile soil, and grow very large; and seeds that fall upon stone and where the sprouts die out.

In the Old Testament, it's all God's Will.

In Buddhism, I think it's also pre-destined. Buddha accepted reincarnation.

So, I'm not sure that free will is a sacrosanct. However, when you look at Capitalism and its effect on religion, you do see that people blame poor people for being poor. However, that is also reflected in the eastern Caste systems. Acknowledging no free will, folks then attempt to say that some free will at some point caused a person's suffering. And this is often used to excuse doing nothing to help.

The idea of free will is fine. It's just using it to avoid personal responsibility to help others that is problematic, or as Brian cites, using it to blame someone and therefore excuse acts of hatred and torture.

[Turan]

Yes Spencer, that's why I said 'many religions' and not all.

I made a study of world religions many years ago and from that 'decided' out of them all, if I had to choose one it would be Taoism or Zen. And my 'choice', well that would be based on my upbringing and my close association with nature. Had I been brought up in a Christian, Moslem, Hindu or Jewish culture no doubt my mind (my cultural conditioning) would of course favour one of those. Of course, being brought up in Christianity one would choose Christ, the same conditioning process goes for the other religions and their particular god or saviour.

Personal responsibility regarding others is hardly a choice as apart from our social and cultural conditioning we are genetically programmed to survive by being part of the community.

Having no 'absolute free will' would not alter our actions as our limited 'natural free will' (the fixed choices made from our particular conditioning) would continue. We would not know we were operating without 'absolute free will' as the illusion is so ingrained in us.

[Turan]

Oh, I meant to mention that the earliest Buddhist texts talk of 'rebirth' and nor 'reincarnation' - which is a Hindu viewpoint (and deserves looking into).

[D.r]

Rebirth is not reincarnation - see Vivekananda's writings for proof of this. A Hindu debunking Buddhism.

Free will is common sense and it is obvious, blatant and within reason, despite attempts to debunk it.

[Turan]

People, probably attempting to rescue their beliefs (and positions) often debunk new discoveries. One only has to look at history to see how certain beliefs are denied for centuries - e.g. 'the Earth is flat'; 'the sun goes around the Earth'; 'the Earth is 6000 years old', 'global warming a myth'; 'cigarettes don't cause disease' - and so on. Good science is not in the business of debunking, it simply presents the facts as they are discovered and tested.

Usually the reason facts and evidence is debunked is quite often because they interfere with our beliefs and we want some certainties, some guarantees that we are special and demand to continue to exist - it is a extension of our survival instinct. To emphasise the point, once we are committed to the wheel of our beliefs our lack of an absolute free will keeps us turning on them - although there are ways to get off.

[Dungeness]

Prisoner: Why am I here?

Jailer: Because you're a scumbag who's done
a foul deed.

Prisoner: Me karma made me do it.

Jailer: Yup, all you scumbags say that.

Prisoner: Any chance of early parole?

Jailer: I'll ask the warden. I'm looking
to transfer the hell out too. One way or
another... causative chain's gotta do its
thing.

Prisoner: You into rap, bro?

[Appreciative Reader]

Brian, can you talk about (or perhaps link to) the specifics of what you have in mind when you advocate for our penal/justice system to focus on prevention of crime and rehabilitation of criminals (as opposed to going for something like "punishment")? What would such a system actually look like?

[kps]

Isaac Bashevis Singer, the Yiddish writer of children's stories and beyond, Nobel Prize winner, philosopher, and beyond, when asked if we humans have "free will" answered, "We must believe in free will. We have no choice".
kps