I see i was totally off base before. I still don't understand the 'new concept' of free will. Actually, I do understand it to a sufficient decree but I can't understand the repercussions properly.
Now, "decisionmaking free of the abstract oppression of understanding" is one definition, that probably best aligns with the functionality of most people's intuitive understanding of the term (even if it doesn't align to most people's intuitive understanding of the term itself, which is delusional). But it is of something that disappears the more people learn and the better we get at control and detection of brain activity. If we have a problem with this, we can do like some compatibilists do, which is to change the target oppressor against which "freedom" is framed. For instance, defining "free will" as "a net expression of desire not inhibited or redirected by antagonists."
FWIW, quite a lot of my writing in this thread was an argument that we should do something like this. I take free will to be an important term because of some of the results of it - moral culpability and the like - not merely the abstract notion of libertarian free will, so I take the radical approach of tossing the term free will along with the notion of libertarian free will to be tossing out the baby with the bathwater.
Then again, I've previously argued (though I don't think on these boards?) that the Putnam example is simply confusing things - that the referent 'water' in general use means neither H2O nor the ancient elemental water, but instead means stuff like that stuff out in my swimming pool that behaves in certain ways. I can be mistaken about its properties, but ultimately "composed of H2O" is just one of its properties. This stands in contrast to a chemist's use of the term water, if we care to go deeper into the Putnam example.
In short, the semantics of a word aren't all that important. The term 'Free Will' is used for certain things. It is generally taken to mean libertarian free will, but I contest that nearly all of the important discussion around free will has, as a basic motivator, the things that we deem as valuable benefits of having free will, and not the notion of libertarian free will as such. Free will is like water; under the hood, it doesn't turn out to be what we thought it was, but all the significant properties that made us care in the first place are still there.
...The Tufts University philosophy department makes functionalism seem pretty persuasive.
I'm a radical on the issue of luminiferous aether, like nearly everyone.
For good reason - the two cases are not analogous.
The average person didn't think that water was composed of pure, elemental water until Greek thinkers started to put it out there that that was what water is. After that, lots of people were convinced that water was a pure element, but it was still a relatively academic piece of 'knowledge' tacked onto something which they had a great deal of practical knowledge about. The term 'water' held a very strong meaning for those people before they ever learned about the ancient elements, just like it holds a very strong meaning for us before we ever learn chemistry or hear about hydrogen and oxygen atoms.
For the vast majority of people (but not all people - e.g. chemists), the crucial thing for naming something 'water' has to do with how it behaves, not what it is fundamentally made out of. We might be interested to learn what it's made out of (we might even say that's what it is), but at the end of the day that academic knowledge is not the thing that defines water to us.
Luminiferous aether works differently. The first we hear of it is as part of that abstract theory. It isn't an interesting fact to apply to a referent we already have, it's a new referent. And to us, that new referent is defined in terms of that abstract theory. If the theory is grossly wrong, the term is worthless.
In short, claiming that the stuff in my swimming pool is not water would be confusing and misleading, while claiming that the vacuum of space is actually a luminiferous aether would be confusing and misleading.
In short, claiming that the stuff in my swimming pool is not water would be confusing and misleading, while claiming that the vacuum of space is actually a luminiferous aether would be confusing and misleading.
I think this is the crux of it, regardless of the historical origins of the terms or that to which they're associated. "Semantic ethics" is about molding nomenclature in service of coherent, consistent conference of information, and most (if not all) philosophical conversations reduce to semantic ethics unless kept aloft by sirens of mysticism or incoherence (like libertarian free will).
EDIT:
I shouldn't so brazenly declare the goal of semantic ethics, as if there's "A goal." The goal could be anything. The goals motivating my advocacy of semantic conservativism with regard to free will are:
1) I believe it's helpful to reject libertarian free will and the "buck stops here responsibility" folklore that comes along with it.
2) I think it's actually dangerous to throw the volitional dictionary (will, choice, responsibility, etc.) into the bonfire, because people in general are not astute enough to realize that fatalism does NOT follow from a lack of libertarian free will. Like the many folks who thought evolution implied eugenics, many think determinism implies fatalism, and the Sam Harris route of "you don't make choices, you're not responsible, and you have no free will" is literally socially dangerous.
I see i was totally off base before. I still don't understand the 'new concept' of free will. Actually, I do understand it to a sufficient decree but I can't understand the repercussions properly.
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
FWIW, quite a lot of my writing in this thread was an argument that we should do something like this. I take free will to be an important term because of some of the results of it - moral culpability and the like - not merely the abstract notion of libertarian free will, so I take the radical approach of tossing the term free will along with the notion of libertarian free will to be tossing out the baby with the bathwater.
Then again, I've previously argued (though I don't think on these boards?) that the Putnam example is simply confusing things - that the referent 'water' in general use means neither H2O nor the ancient elemental water, but instead means stuff like that stuff out in my swimming pool that behaves in certain ways. I can be mistaken about its properties, but ultimately "composed of H2O" is just one of its properties. This stands in contrast to a chemist's use of the term water, if we care to go deeper into the Putnam example.
In short, the semantics of a word aren't all that important. The term 'Free Will' is used for certain things. It is generally taken to mean libertarian free will, but I contest that nearly all of the important discussion around free will has, as a basic motivator, the things that we deem as valuable benefits of having free will, and not the notion of libertarian free will as such. Free will is like water; under the hood, it doesn't turn out to be what we thought it was, but all the significant properties that made us care in the first place are still there.
...The Tufts University philosophy department makes functionalism seem pretty persuasive.
Then Tufts is admirable.
Functionalism is the best way for science and philosophy to play together, avoiding the trappings of mysticism.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I'm a radical on the issue of luminiferous aether, like nearly everyone.
For good reason - the two cases are not analogous.
The average person didn't think that water was composed of pure, elemental water until Greek thinkers started to put it out there that that was what water is. After that, lots of people were convinced that water was a pure element, but it was still a relatively academic piece of 'knowledge' tacked onto something which they had a great deal of practical knowledge about. The term 'water' held a very strong meaning for those people before they ever learned about the ancient elements, just like it holds a very strong meaning for us before we ever learn chemistry or hear about hydrogen and oxygen atoms.
For the vast majority of people (but not all people - e.g. chemists), the crucial thing for naming something 'water' has to do with how it behaves, not what it is fundamentally made out of. We might be interested to learn what it's made out of (we might even say that's what it is), but at the end of the day that academic knowledge is not the thing that defines water to us.
Luminiferous aether works differently. The first we hear of it is as part of that abstract theory. It isn't an interesting fact to apply to a referent we already have, it's a new referent. And to us, that new referent is defined in terms of that abstract theory. If the theory is grossly wrong, the term is worthless.
In short, claiming that the stuff in my swimming pool is not water would be confusing and misleading, while claiming that the vacuum of space is actually a luminiferous aether would be confusing and misleading.
I think this is the crux of it, regardless of the historical origins of the terms or that to which they're associated. "Semantic ethics" is about molding nomenclature in service of coherent, consistent conference of information, and most (if not all) philosophical conversations reduce to semantic ethics unless kept aloft by sirens of mysticism or incoherence (like libertarian free will).
EDIT:
I shouldn't so brazenly declare the goal of semantic ethics, as if there's "A goal." The goal could be anything. The goals motivating my advocacy of semantic conservativism with regard to free will are:
1) I believe it's helpful to reject libertarian free will and the "buck stops here responsibility" folklore that comes along with it.
2) I think it's actually dangerous to throw the volitional dictionary (will, choice, responsibility, etc.) into the bonfire, because people in general are not astute enough to realize that fatalism does NOT follow from a lack of libertarian free will. Like the many folks who thought evolution implied eugenics, many think determinism implies fatalism, and the Sam Harris route of "you don't make choices, you're not responsible, and you have no free will" is literally socially dangerous.