On my site there’s already an article on proving freedom of will:
Freedom of will exists. But somebody might feel like that proof, I’ve written, is not enough. After lots of discussions, I’ve came to a clear understanding of what exactly is the main proof of the freedom of will, let’s call it initial source. Why exactly did people accept principal of freedom of will as an undeniable fact, as axiom.
All of our knowledge about surrounding world is built on objective senses, like vision, audition, smelling, taste and touch. But it’s not only about physical senses; besides them we also have a non-material senses. For example: a sense of morality.
In moral sense we can distinguish a sense of justice. I would say, that it’s a special sense, which is obligatorily influencing any decisions in relationships between people. It’s, probably, the brightest and most used component of moral sense, if you would let me put it this way. And that’s because our sense of justice is a basis for our whole law enforcement system. And in substance, a main purpose of law and law enforcement system existence is for recovering and maintaining of justice in society. Had we not an objective feeling of justice, had we not known what is justice and had we not felt (or understand it) the same way, we would never have been able to create a law system, that we have, both international and national, cause every law system is based on justice. And exactly cause of objective sense of justice any judge can adjudicate justly, exactly because every single one of us has, generally, the same sense of justice and that’s why we can judge about justness or unjustness of decision by any court.
Most revolutions, are, actually, happening due to violation of justice. When sense of justice gives such a great disturbance at deeds of government, at corruption in court and cynical adjudications made by them, that people just can’t tolerate this anymore. That’s how revolutions happen. And revolution in Ukraine, revolution of human dignity, to call it correctly, is a direct confirmation of it.
Sense of justice is a really strong sense! People are willing to die for the justice itself!
But for the existence of justice, for normal functioning of the sense of justice there is one required and irreplaceable condition.
Existence of the freedom of will.
Without existence of freedom of will any punishment becomes unjust! Cause it’s required for human, for being responsible about his deeds, to be a cause of those deeds. In other words, to be having a freedom of will. Freedom of will is a required condition for carrying responsibility by a human being for its deeds. Let’s try to imagine that there is no freedom of will and our sense of justice is getting kind of jammed. It so happens, that we will be always feeling that any punishment or blame is unjust. So what is the point of this sense, if without freedom of will it will always give us the same output: “any punishment is unjust”. Why do we have that sense, if there’s no freedom of will? This sense, then, becomes pointless and unnecessary, and even harmful, cause that way anarchy would have to settle down in society, cause punishment is applied to restore justice, but without freedom of will restoring justice is impossible, cause just punishment is only possible for the person that has freedom of will. Without freedom of will it so happens that every crime is automatically having lunacy or influence of force majeure status applied to them. For example: security of bank can’t be responsible for stolen money, if robbers, having an obvious advantage in force, beat him up and tied him up. Security couldn’t have interrupted the robbery and so, he can’t be responsible for loss of money. Without freedom of will, every criminal should be justified, based on the fact, that was not his will to act like that as he was forced by circumstances to act that way and he couldn’t act in different way in principal. And so, it means, that punishing him would be unjust.
If there would be no freedom of will, there would be no sense of justice, cause it would be pointless, worthless and harmful, without existence of freedom of will. Same way as animals that leave in environment with no light have no eyes. They just don’t need eyes due to uselessness. But we have eyes, so there is a light, which we perceive. And even if someone would have to live in a place without light since their very childhood, we could still guess that there has to be light by existence of eyes!
Same applies to sense of justice. If it exists, there has to be a freedom of will! Freedom of will is required condition for normal functioning of sense of justice! And if we are able to distinguish just from unjust, it means, that freedom of will for sure exists. Other way we wouldn’t have been able to distinguish just from unjust. Same way, as we couldn’t distinguish objects if we would be in darkness. We can distinguish just from unjust only with existence of freedom of will.
Same way as we can state, that there is a light by being able to distinguish objects with our eyes, we can say that freedom of will exists by being able to distinguish just from unjust.
I feel like this argument is rather circular. If free will, in the libertarian sense, did not exist, but we knew that justice did, that would require us simply to fix our understanding of justice to match a realistic account of the will. If free will did not exist, you could not be able to require it on the basis of a definition of justice which assumes the possibility and reality of free will.
Why then does justice exist? Without free will, justice does not make sense. Any punishment without free will is unfair. What is the circular argument?
Justice exists, everyone feels it thanks to conscience. And if there is justice, there must be freedom of will, otherwise it can not be.
You can’t prove that justice requires free will in the libertarian sense. That simply must be assumed. In determinism, you do act X because of the causal interactions of your brain, circumstances, biology, etc. You have an experience of consciously willing act X, regardless of the fact that your will was determined entirely by prior causes. So why can one not say that this conscious willingness is the ground of just punishment?
You also cannot prove that justice exists just because people’s consciences tell them so. You’d have to prove first that consciences are basically truthful, or even infallible. If human conscience is fallible or significantly impaired, then you cannot prove anything at all from its testimony. And none of this even attempts to deal with the fact that different people can have conflicting convictions from their conscience, or that some people have none.
Justice requires that a person be the primary cause of his actions. It should be Causa sui in the traditional sense. To be responsible for own choice, it is necessary to be the cause of this choice, by this it is understood that there is no previous reason for choosing. If determinism is correct, then any choice of a person is caused by events that are beyond his control. So there can not be any responsibility for this, and any punishment will not be fair.
My statements stand on the ubiquitous practice of the life of mankind. In particular, on the law. International law could not exist without all people having a common notion of justice. Justice is fixed legally at the international level. It simply exists and no country has attempted to challenge its existence, even atheistic. Your argument that some people may have different persuasion from conscience is as strong against the existence of justice as the presence of criminals and violators of the law would reject the law itself. The law is impossible without the existence of real justice. Once all the peoples on earth were able to agree on a single common law, then justice is the same. Since all peoples have a law, it means that justice is obvious to all. The practice of the life of mankind speaks about this eloquently. If there was no justice, there would be no law.
To deny justice – one must deny the law. But, I’m sure that you, and even any atheist, live using rights and law. I would like to see a person who denied the existence of law by the practice of life.
Assuming this for the sake of argument, what do you mean by “primary cause?” Every determinist will say that all of the last and nearest causal steps in the performance of the mental event we call a “choice” occur within the person’s own brain. Does that not suffice?
Even if we grant this, it is not hard to the determinist to reply that we are the sole cause of our actions, but we are not the sole cause of our selves. Brain A might perform act X in and by itself, but that doesn’t change the fact that the neurological makeup and the general state of brain A come from outside causes B, C, and D (e.g. DNA, input from senses, memories, etc).
This requirement seems unnecessary and unproveable. Why is it not sufficient for responsibility that person A be simply the last cause of act X, regardless of how many inside and outside causes led person A to perform the mental event of choice which led to act X?
This is only a half-truth. In determinism, the choice of a person is caused, at the last moment, strictly by processes occurring in his own brain. Most of that processing has gone on in the person’s own brain for some time. So does a person control his brain? Well, we experience a mental event which we perceive as control. The question of what this actually means and is on a physical level is where we run into the mind/body problem, and it is not resolved by simply moving to libertarian free will.
Some of the ubiquitous practices of mankind are sinful and/or irrational, so that’s not by itself a sufficient basis for anything.
This does not follow at all. Why can’t people simply agree on a system, call it “justice,” and make laws about it? Some outside, higher thing called “justice” does not have to exist for a human consensus to emerge by that name. Moreover, law is entirely possible without justice even if we take it for granted that justice exists. One could easily construct an entire legal system which does not refer to justice at all, but simply on practical matters regarding the functioning of human society. An atheists could easily argue that this is exactly what the whole human race has done, but in fact we have internalized our own system so that we have strong feelings about it and call it “justice.”
Again, to deny justice, all one has to do is deny that laws have anything other than a practical function. He simply must assert that law is useful but has nothing to do with a higher, real, ideal thing called “justice.”
Not enough, this is contrary to the essence and definition of free will. http://en.apologet.net/freedom-of-will-new-point-of-view/
And who told you that determinism is correct? Determinism, if it is part of materialism, excludes freedom of will in its essence, I understand it. But this does not mean that he is true.
Because the cause of the act was not the human mind, not his personality, but some circumstances independent of the person. I already spoke about this in the article. Without freedom of will, it happens that every crime is automatically with lunacy or influence of force.
Determinism, as part of materialism, unequivocally excludes freedom of will. If you allow determinism along with the presence of an intangible personality that does not depend on physical matter – this is another matter.
Anyone who denies justice, let him show in practice his life, that he denies justice. And if he lives, using a system of law that stands for justice, he contradicts his convictions. Let him fight for exclusion of justice from law. I really want to see this. And so – it’s empty words. I use a simple principle: the practice of life must correspond to beliefs.
It seems that you could already notice the fundamental difference between right and useful. Useful for society – not always right and fair. My moral experiment clearly shows this. It would be useful for society to adopt the Nazi laws of Germany. For example their program is T-4. Very useful program. But is it fair? You forget that the basis of law is justice. People did not just agree with each other. Natural rights could not arise simply by agreement. http://en.apologet.net/about-natural-rights-or-how-the-un-admitted-the-existence-of-god/
I don’t see how that entire argument is anything other than question-begging.
I never said it is, but I’m not convinced your arguments against it work.
Determinism doesn’t have to be materialistic, and in either case whether it excludes free will is entirely a matter of how you define free will. And I don’t see why your understanding of free will is necessary for anything, justice included.
So, your own brain isn’t part of your mind or personality? That sounds rather Gnostic.
Out of curiosity, do you think all computer calculations are either lunacy or under coercion? But of course you would be incorrect anyway. Lunacy means the mind isn’t functioning properly, which would not automatically be the case without free will, and force requires a third party, but there is no third party involved.
Determinism is not bound up with materialism. Nearly all Calvinists are determinists and supernaturalists. But even determinists who affirm an immaterial part of man are not going to say that this part of man is magically free from causality.
Anyone who denies justice, let him show in practice his life, that he denies justice. And if he lives, using a system of law that stands for justice, he contradicts his convictions. Let him fight for exclusion of justice from law. I really want to see this. And so – it’s empty words. I use a simple principle: the practice of life must correspond to beliefs.
That’s silly. Someone can practically abide by justice for the sake of social and legal pressures and convenience without believing in it. If you don’t like the idea of going to jail, you’ll obey the law no matter what you think about justice. And if you don’t believe in justice, you don’t have to care whether the law is supposedly based on justice or not, since the only possible objection to a law being based on fantasy is that it is unjust. And if you don’t want people to hate you, you’ll probably try to conform to their expectations of justice as well, no matter what you think of such things.
And laws are not always right and fair. It is very easy to argue that law is based on social utility and not on justice.
I don’t understand how this argument is actually supposed to work at all, to be honest. It seems to me like non sequitur all the way down.