...
That is, in fact, "account[ing] for the nature of the means and mechanisms of how decisions are made."
No it doesn't. The assumption is that it is 'you doing it' - and that is true on the surface.
Yes, it does. Because "on the surface" is where 'we' live. It is all about us, our bodies, and how those bodies interact with reality.
Eliminative materialism literally buys you nothing when it comes to explaining the nature of human cognition. It just denies the obvious.
Simply saying 'it is you' doesn't take the nature of means and mechanisms of your existence and experience into account.
The key point that is either brushed over, ignored or dismissed in the compatibilist description of free will is that 'you' do not choose your own condition....yet it is your non chosen condition that determines what you are, who you are, how you think, what you think and what you do in any given instance in the continuum of time and events as the system evolves (compatibilists acknowledge determinism).
Agents make their choices on the basis of what they know and the outcomes that they desire at the time.
The problem is that the 'you that is doing it' - namely the brain - has no regulative control over its own condition, its neural architecture and whatever is happening at the cellular and network level, lesions forming, brain trauma, chemical imbalances, etc....which of course may be expressed as a 'you' who has cognitive attributes that are not adaptive, willed or wanted'
For instance;
On the neurology of morals
Patients with medial prefrontal lesions often display irresponsible behavior, despite being intellectually unimpaired. But similar lesions occurring in early childhood can also prevent the acquisition of factual knowledge about accepted standards of moral behavior.
Consequently;
''An
action’s production by a deterministic process, even when the agent satisfies the conditions on moral responsibility specified by compatibilists, presents no less of a challenge to basic-desert responsibility than does deterministic manipulation by other agents. '
I hope you realize at some point that I am not denying the physical nature of brain activity. Of course, you use the term "brain" to refer to brain activity, since brains themselves don't produce any mental activity if they just sit there. Lesions affect brain activity, hence mental activity. Why should a compatibilist have a problem with that? What do you think "compatibilism" refers to? A denial of causality?
I know that you don't deny the physical nature of brain activity. It's the crucial element of our lack of agency in terms of not having access to the means and mechanisms that generate us as conscious beings and our experience of the world.
The brain does not choose its own neural makeup, does not choose how it functions, it does not choose its strengths and weaknesses. Where for instance, you may be good at maths while someone sucks at maths, not because either of you willed it, but how the cards were dealt.
Which is why ''an action’s production by a deterministic process, even when the agent satisfies the conditions on moral responsibility specified by compatibilists, presents no less of a challenge to basic-desert responsibility than does deterministic manipulation by other agents.''
Cognitive function is an emergent property of physical brain activity, just like other physical systems have emergent properties. If your car gets a flat tire, that affects your ability to drive it. When you teach someone how to drive, you don't need to teach them how to fix a flat tire, although that skill could come in handy. The point is that the transportation function of the system is affected by how well its components interact with each other to produce that function, just as cognitive function depends on how the physical components of the brain interact with each other. Systems have functional properties that depend on their components but are not directly describable or predictable in terms of their components. You can look at trees or forests, but you shouldn't confuse the two. Forests are large ecosystems with special properties, and trees are much smaller ecosystems with different properties.
Of course.
Their choices are causally determined by circumstances. In hindsight, they may judge that an alternative choice would have led to a more desirable consequence, and that's how they learn from experience.
But that's essentially the point. That it is the state and condition (not a matter of choice) of the system, the brain, in any given instance that determines the decision and action taken in that instance....and had the system been in the condition it is going to be in a moments time, we would not have said or done the silly thing we did in the instance of making the blunder, something we may regret the rest of our lives.
That is decision making, but decision making, for the reasons given above, is not governed or regulated by free will.
That depends entirely on how one chooses to construe the concept of "free will". I favor basing definitions on actual usage, and people don't actually use the expression to describe control over goals and desires. Hard determinists do. Ordinary people use the expression to describe control over actions that lead to satisfaction of goals and desires. Those are givens in the decision-making process. What isn't a given is which action to take in pursuit of a goal or desire. Given that we have competing goals and desires, we need to calculate likely outcomes
before acting. From the perspective of a hard determinist (or omniscient deity), the results of the calculation are as inevitable as the solution to a mathematical equation. To an agent embedded inside of the unfolding temporal sequence, the result is unknown until the calculation has actually been made.
Having control over our actions is not exempt from the deterministic processes of the underlying mechanisms. The means of control is related to the behaviour that is being controlled, sometimes successfully, sometimes not: addictions, habits, rituals, etc, where there may be no controlling the undesirable addiction or habit without external help, which depending on the problem, may or may not help.
Since they are responsible for the choices they make, their behavior may differ when making similar choices in the future.
Responsibility in the sense that it is ultimately you as a brain that is generating mind and responding to events around you that makes decisions and acts upon them, but the issue of free will lies with the nature of agency, and that agency is not a matter of free will because ultimately you don't get to choose your own condition.
But you do in the course of time, which is what you experience. That's the point. The issue of free will and the nature of agency only make sense from the perspective of someone faced with an uncertain future. The future is inevitable and certain in the imagination of a hard determinist, so free will is neither necessary nor sensible from their perspective. Nothing is uncertain, just a clockwork cascade of causal effects. It is in the nature of agency that free will does exist, because the future is always uncertain to agents. If you want to understand what is 'free' about free will, then you have to understand the nature of agency.
What you don't choose, and can't choose is your genetic makeup and neural architecture, which is the very means of how you think and how you respond to events. Take a group of people and ask them what they would do in a given situation to how different personalities and character comes into play.
''The
increments of a normal brain state is not as obvious as direct coercion, a microchip, or a tumor, but the “obviousness” is irrelevant here. Brain states incrementally get to the state they are in one moment at a time. In each moment of that process the brain is in one state, and the specific environment and biological conditions leads to the very next state. Depending on that state, this will cause you to behave in a specific way within an environment (decide in a specific way), in which all of those things that are outside of a person constantly bombard your senses changing your very brain state. The internal dialogue in your mind you have no real control over.''
Right. Nobody disputes that, but you have misconstrued the concept of free will.
I take the definition that is given by compatibilists; to act according to one's will without being forced coerced or unduly influenced.
It is not about having momentary control over one's desires, only one's actions. Free will is about achieving fulfillment of the desires that one has and perhaps regulating the desires that one has in the future. Our hardwired need to learn from experience is what determines the purpose and function of free will.
Our actions are determined prior to conscious awareness, as is the will to act. Our will is not freely chosen, it is fixed by an interaction of inputs and memory function prior to conscious representation in the form of thought and action.
We have the ability to make decisions and act upon them, but this ability has nothing to do with free will because - quite simply - 'action production by deterministic processes' is not a matter of free will.
And that the point where compatibilism fails. It fails because it focusses on external force, coercion and undue influence while downplaying or ignoring the very nature of the underlying means of thought, decision making and action.
