Is free will skepticism self-refuting?

Question

If humans are supposed to use reason to support their claims but lack free will then it seems like we don't exercise rational thought because we're not free to adjudicate from among the reasons. If this is the case, then our confidence in our beliefs seems to be undercut including our skepticism in free will, hence the self refutation. Is skepticism of free will a self-refuting position?

Answer 1

The ability to "freely choose" between multiple answers (one correct and n wrong ones) is not necessary to produce the right answer. That's how computers produce correct answers.

The more freedom a reasoning entity had in choosing a wrong answer, the less it's answers should be trusted.

To be confident, we need the ability to check the result of our reasoning against some ground truth. That is sufficient. And if that is possible, then inability to freely choose wrong answers would warrant more confidence, not less. A deterministically learning algorithm would use both those 2 abilities, to check answers and to only pick correct inferences to infer the conclusion that it itself is fully deterministic.

Answer 2

A computer program that plays chess or Go also needs to make choices. At each move, it has several choices, several possible continuations, several legal moves. It needs to plan ahead and model ("imagine") those choices and model relevant, likely responses. It needs to summarize and evaluate those plans in a heuristic and rational way, as far as possible, and select the move that seems "best" according to whatever further criteria of "best" it has.

A computer program obviously does not have a libertarian free will. But do we need to make any assumptions about humans beyond these capabilities in order to explain human choice actions?

Suppose we define (libertarian) free will as follows:

"A subject has free will" = "When deliberating about what to do, the subject has certain options (of which the subject is aware as option). When and if a subject actually makes a choice (selects one of the options), neither the fact that the subject selects one option (rather than doing nothing) nor the particular option that is selected in any way depend on physical causes - at least not in such a way that that fact (that an option is selected), or the particular selection could be predicted by anyone with any chance of being correct greater than by a random prediction."

(In "predicted by anyone" we could restrict this to "predicted by anyone other than the subject", though it's difficult and seems self-contradictory to assume that there could be actions that only the subject themselves could in principle predict. Wittgenstein's argument against the possibility of private languages might also be relevant in thise context. But to keep things a bit simpler, let's just restrict it to "predicted by someone other than the subject themselves".)

(Note that when we introduce a likelihood of making correct predictions, this really only makes sense when these scenarios -- choice actions and classes of choice actions -- are repeatable. But this is indeed exactly what we want. We're not talking about temporal singularities, even though this aspect of the problem also often seems to be ignored, especially by defenders of libertarian free will. It matters that we're speaking about repeatable actions and events.)

It seems obvious to me that this concept of free will sees choice actions as absolutely indeterministic, and thereby unpredictable (and irrational). The problem is that this can not be a basis or a justification of moral responsibility or accountability. For instance, if someone promises to do something, the promise is only trustworthy if we know that the person is really committed ("determined") to keep it. Promising to do something implies making one's actions predictable to others and presupposes being able to predict one's own actions. Assuming that this is based on a libertarian free would undermine this, make it inexplicable that we ever trust anyone (inclusing ourselves) to keep their promises.

The phrase "making one's actions predictable" is not meant as some magical step, of course. It's tantamount to simply predicting one's own actions (either to oneself or someone else) and presenting them in the form of a social bond. (The performative speech act of 'promising' implies that one allows the other to demand accountability for breaking the promise, in case one breaks it later). But a subject cannot simply predict anything. There is always a context of "normalcy" (also usually ignored in the abstract defenses of libertarian free will).

For instance, an addict may sincerely belief they "have" certain options and promise themselves or someone else "I will never smoke again", but this may not be a very reliable prediction. (I wonder how many believers in 'libertarian free will' have ever struggled to overcome a real addiction.) In daily life, in actual choice actions, "having options a and b" need not be as clear cut as libertarians might need it to be.

In short, if free will is understood as "libertarian free will", rather than "compatibilist free will", skepticism of free will does not refute itself. It's rather the reverse: libertarian free will makes choices actions inexplicable, and thereby, in a sense, refutes itself.

Answer 3

Yes; here is one way that a free will skeptic generally undercuts himself. I don't remember who first said it, but I remember hearing that if we have no free will, our beliefs are like soda fizz bubbling over a glass; what we think is ultimately determined by blind chemical processes. Differences in opinion are reduced to differences in inputs and to individual "quirks" in the way each person's brain calculates answers. But if that's the case, who's to say that one "soda fizz" is more "true" than any other? Who's to say of the person that fundamentally disagrees, that he is any less correct? Their "soda fizz" is just different, and no less determined. And that includes the very skepticism of free will itself.

Thus, a person cannot consistently hold that free will skepticism is true, let alone argue why others should adopt it as a matter of truth. All he can consistently say is that the inputs into his thinking, coupled with the individual quirks of his brain's complex processes, have produced skepticism of free will in his particular case.

Answer 4

free will or the lack of thereof does not contradict reason, it gives it another meaning. lacking free will and reason is not much more than being a rock, though keeping reason basically means that we make decisions or take beliefs based on what we already know, and compile it together with our pre-existing values to come up with a an answer to any problem.

skepticism against free will means that through this type of reasoning, a person concluded that their decisions are not through free will but by rational, though often flawed from lack of knowledge or incorrect beliefs, reasoning. I hope this is an insightful answer

Answer 5

Lacking free will one would not be able to do anything that would require making choices.

A belief is a choice, a claim is a choice, skepticism is a choice, reasoning is a series of choices.

This means that free will skepticism is self-refuting.