[Wittrs] Re: wittrs
- From: "SWM" <swmirsky@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 13:03:21 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, kirby urner <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
>
> SWM:
>
> > Isn't "free will" a different concept (which thus poses a different
> > question)
> > than "freedom"? Both have the word "free" at their core, true enough, but
> > the
> > latter seems to refer to questions of political and civil liberty whereas
> > the
> > former to questions of our ability to decide and act in a way that is
> > independent of exhaustive causal constraint. I would guess that it's
> > important
> > to keep these concepts distinct in attacking the problems which either kick
> > up.
> >
>
> I take Wittgenstein's methods to give strong encouragement to *not*
> carving the turkey so carefully, but deliberately reconnecting these
> concepts ("freedom" "will" "liberty") to their roots in real life.
>
If we don't carve carefully, we end up with a sloppy plate come Thanksgiving.
> If one has no opportunity to exercise one's will, to write a novel, to
> post a Youtube, to debate a position, then does one have "free will"?
>
> The philosophers are *too eager* to gloss over this case of a prisoner,
> want to hurry past this troubling vista to their grazing grounds, where
> "free will" is something metaphysical, more "chess like".
>
> Wittgenstein is unique among Cambridge philosophers in having
> been held as a prisoner of war -- or correct me if I'm wrong about
> that, still tuning in the history (the new study circle is proving a
> gold mine).
>
Correct. He even seems to have worked on the Tractatus, to some extent, while
held.
> >
> >> Wittgensteinians such as Sean typically make this point by "chiding" i.e.
> >> *so what* if we prove Free Will and / or God "exist" in some erudite "heads
> >> on a pin" language game of concern only in stale scholastic environments?
> >>
> >
> > Yes and a quite useful point, too, I think, when the issue begins to stray
> > into
> > the metaphysical zone of distinguishing (or trying to distinguish) between
> > what
> > is freely undertaken and what only feels as if it is freely undertaken.
> > Insofar
> > as we feel free in doing what we do, in what sense are we thus unfree?
> >
>
> In the practical world, the juries care very much about intention, and
> if she drugged him first, well that matters, as some may empathize
> with that sense of having "no volition" when "brainwashed" or, worse,
> put under tortuous conditions (e.g. with the lives of loved ones
> threatened -- or simply their jobs (livelihoods)).
>
Questions of coercion, which are relevant in cases before the law or where
moral judgment is applied, do not abrogate questions of causality and supposed
determinism. As long as we have a choice, to be coerced or to resist coerscion,
then free will is implied. The question of whether free will exists at all or
is real goes beyond such issues however (or perhaps, as Sean suggests, really
goes nowhere at all).
> What means "Free Will" when the airplane monitor screens the
> list of "not welcome countries" (rough translation) and they say it's
> OK to sniff you with dogs, look at you through a clothes-penetrating
> spy glass?
>
Coercion vs. free will again. Being free to choose doesn't mean having all
possible choices we can imagine at our disposal. It only means being able to
make the best choice (or what seems to us to be the best) given the options
before us.
> You never signed anything explicitly surrendering your freedoms, yet
> this, you are told, is the price of admission. How is it that these costs
> were affixed, and by whom?
>
Does it matter? One can always choose not to seek admission.
> You have a USA passport. Doesn't that count for something, even
> in your "own" (?) country.
>
As with everything else, the world and all that's in it are full of constraints.
> Philosophy has a long history of examining such questions and perhaps
> providing tentative answers, like the anthropologists are.
>
> > My point was that the Constitution addresses questions of freedom qua
> > liberty in
> > both its text and context and that prisons and imprisonment were always
> > part of
> > the practices engaged in by the state (and the states) from the start,
> > coincident with implementation of the Constitution. I suppose forced labor
> > in
> > that context could be argued as being extra constitutional (not authorized
> > by
> > existing text or justified contemporary practices). But the case would have
> > to
> > be made that such labor is clearly separate from any concept of punishment
> > by
> > incarceration as envisioned by the Constitution. I don't think it would be
> > enough just to point out its affinities with classical slavery.
> >
>
> The phrase "the case would have to be made" suggests some higher court
> of appeal,
Any discussion, such as this one, implies a court of appeal, i.e., the opinions
of the interlocutors, the audience, etc. Nothing "higher" than these are needed.
> when the premise is the likely abrogation of the social contract
> and the growth of a core Unfree State in the heart of North America.
>
That strikes me as an ideological claim which is separate from the
philosophical issue of what "free" means in its different uses.
> Instead of making some case, one might instead form fringe political
> party that sounds the SOS,
Every party or faction thinks it is sounding the alarm as it were. Some may be
right. Others wrong. Just being such a group, however, does not imply rightness
and so forming one is not an answer to the question of what is correct and what
isn't.
> asks national guard units to return from
> overseas pronto and start protecting Americans (yes, we're all friends).
>
Protecting Americans from what? From their government? Themselves? The factions
or parties that don't think as we do?
> Another part of the campaign platform: a free open source suite of
> voting machines (including back office counters) in every public high
> school, for civics class dissection and examination, not to mention
> frequent use (kids like to get polled).
>
Fascinating. Imagine the mess if everyone (and every faction) could meddle with
the voting machines! And you thought we had trouble now!
> So yes, the case would have to be made, but before what court of
> appeal? Obviously the good people of Cyberspace will be invited to
> attend.
>
I suspect you imagine a different "court of appeal" here than I do. And also,
perhaps, a different case to be made. You seem to be arguing for a particular
ideological position while I am only addressing the question of whether it's
wise or effective to mix different terms containing the word "free" together on
the grounds that they have that word in common.
> > Certainly you don't resolve the question by mixing up notions of what we
> > mean by
> > "free" (freedom vs. free will), I should think.
> >
>
> I think I have resolved the issue to a satisfactory conclusion: create
> a campaign platform and various media events. I see a lot of people
> already doing that, so I understand this might sound annoying, as
> "telling people to do what they're already doing" is a recipe for inspiring
> push back.
>
> Kirby
>
Yes, I think this bears out my point, that we are talking to different issues
here. You are arguing for a political position, based on something or some
things you believe about this country and its principles, whereas I am only
raising the issue of whether questions of free will are reducible to, or
interchangeable with, questions of freedom in a social/political context.
My answer to that is they aren't and that mixing them, as you seem to be doing,
amounts to a kind of confusion, even if intentionally and rationally deployed
in support of a political viewpoint. That is, the support provided by this move
is mainly rhetorical rather than logical, useful in the game of propagandizing
(as you once put it) but not in the game of producing reasons we should
logically choose one course of action over another. Thus, if free will is
invoked as part of the game of choosing, your move which aims to turn "free
will" into "freedom", actually subverts the free will issue as it masks rather
than clarifies the choices before us. In this way, one's actions are determined
by factors like emotional resonance rather than reasoned selection.
Is not freedom undermined as much by such appeals (whether subliminally
delivered or otherwise cunningly injected into the discourse) as by the
coercive factors you decry?
SWM
Other related posts:
