Saul Smilansky: Libertarian free will is impossible, Pt. 3

In previous installments, we noted that Saul Smilansky's arguments against the coherence of libertarian free will amount to question begging. In part two, I even quoted Smilansky anticipating that objection from those who disagree with him. At the end of pt. 2 I ended with the commitment to look into Smilanksy's attempts to answer objections based on indeterminacy.

1) David Wiggins

Wiggins' objection is hardly worth treating, riddled as he is with doubts as to whether it even works. Smilansky presents Wiggins as belonging to the camp that attributes free will to a type of occurrence along the lines of quantum particle formation. I would call that position entirely wrong-headed if it places a "random" occurrence as the cause, in turn, of a responsible decision. That understanding of Wiggins leaves the "self" in a determined state.

2) Richard Sorabji

Sorabji's position appears far more interesting than Wiggins', and may end up being close to the one I favor. As Smilansky puts it:

While this model succeeds in limiting the range of possible actions to those produced by the agent's will, the agent cannot determine which action out of a few alternatives he will in fact take, and the result will be thus morally unsatisfactory.

I think I've shown that Smilansky's conclusion does not follow. If a given action may turn out A or ~A on a 50/50 basis, we cannot fix the outcome on the probability, as with "A occurred because A had a 50 percent chance of happening." That explains nothing. And if we rule out a prior causal chain, we are left only with the action of choosing (along with the corresponding outcome). And without a prior cause the only cause we can reasonably posit is the acting agent (the "self") its own self.

So, contrary to Smilansky, the outcome is under the control of the acting entity in a morally satisfactory way. And as I have illustrated earlier, the character of the acting entity likewise may be modeled as under the substantial control of that entity.

3) Robert Kane

Smilansky allows that Kane's model manifests considerable complexity, but offers a simplified version to facilitate discussion. Smilansky paraphrases Kane thus:

In the paradigmatic case a person is inclined in two irreconcilable directions, say, to do her duty and to advance her career. She is tempted by self-interest but makes an effort to do her duty, and 'chaotically amplified indeterminacies' in her brain, surrounding her 'self-network', play a role in bringing about the outcome. Since it is her will that is divided, any outcome will be her own, but because of the indeterminism it will not be causally determined.

Smilansky responds by asserting that Kane's model does not give us what we need in terms of the PSA. And his explanation amplifies the indications that his PSA serves as an assumption of determinism: "When reviewed objectively, this amounts to a suggestion that effort is the source of (e.g. moral) value, but any non-compatibilist 'freedom' expressed by it derives from a source beyond the agent's control, i.e. indeterminism."

But isn't that patently obvious to the point of tautology? Of course if we rule out indeterminism we are left only with compatibilist options.

To understand Kane, I think, Smilanksy needs to refrain from positing indeterminism as itself the cause of indeterminstic outcomes. It is indeterminism that allows differing outcomes to fall under the agent's control in the first place, which is the very thing that compatibilism can never offer. Recall that under determinism, identical conditions x always lead to one outcome regardless of the number of trials. Indeterminism is the result of the actions of the libertarian agent. Not the cause of the agent's actions. Though of course we never reach the varied results unless we refrain from assuming the truth of determinism.

I hope I've treated Smilansky fairly. It always represents a challenge to accurately capture the other person's meaning when coming from an opposite paradigm of understanding, and the language we use in the free will debate lends itself to fallacies of ambiguity.

That said, it appears as though Smilansky has overstated his case and failed to account for ways in which the libertarian model can answer every challenge he offers except the challenge to explain indeterminism in terms of determinism. That last challenge is illegitimate.


Saul Smilansky: Libertarian free will is impossible, Pt. 1
Saul Smilansky: Libertarian free will is impossible, Pt. 2