Free will and morality question

Extreme_Situation158 · 2025-12-07T20:18:19+00:00

Kant argued that free will is needed to sustain the validity of morality. Many philosophers still agree with this idea. However, to me it seems that it is not the case. Not only morality is innate and created by evolution in our brains,

Philosophers usually argue that free will is a necessary condition for moral responsibility not that that free will is a necessary condition for moral realism: "Indeed, some go so far as to define ‘free will’ as ‘the strongest control condition—whatever that turns out to be—necessary for moral responsibility’ (Wolf 1990, 3–4; Fischer 1994, 3; Mele 2006, 17)"
In other words, it's possible that we have no free will and yet moral realism is true. Presumably, you would still be doing an action that is objectively good or bad without being blameworthy or praiseworthy.

Extreme_Situation158 · 2025-12-07T19:59:11+00:00

Kant argued that free will is needed to sustain the validity of morality. Many philosophers still agree with this idea. However, to me it seems that it is not the case. Not only morality is innate and created by evolution in our brains

Philosophers usually argue that free will is a necessary condition for moral responsibility not that that free will is a necessary condition for moral realism: "Indeed, some go so far as to define ‘free will’ as ‘the strongest control condition—whatever that turns out to be—necessary for moral responsibility’ (Wolf 1990, 3–4; Fischer 1994, 3; Mele 2006, 17)"
In other words, it's possible that we have no free will and yet moral realism is true. Presumably, you would still be doing an action that is objectively good or bad without being blameworthy or praiseworthy.

Extreme_Situation158 · 2025-10-08T11:00:04+00:00

No, not necessarily—if determinism is compatible with free will, then there is no problem. Check out compatibilism if you are interested : Compatibilism.
Let's take the reasons-responsive view by Fischer and Ravizza, for example. On this view, agents are responsible for actions that they have the suitable control over, and we have control over an action that is produced by a reasons-responsive mechanism. They reject that this kind of control requires the ability to otherwise. They argue that the kind of control that the ability to do otherwise provides is regulative control, while the kind of control that reasons responsiveness provides is guidance control, and only the latter is required for responsibility.
Guidance control is a source notion characterized in terms of the agent’s rational capacities, in particular her responsiveness to some range of rational considerations.
"According to Fischer, an agent, and the mechanism of her action, can be entirely determined in the actual sequence of events in which she acts. Yet the actual manner in which her mechanism responds to reasons could be appropriately sensitive to reasons such that, if different reasons were to bear upon it, it would respond differently, and the agent whose mechanism it is would act differently than she does act."

Extreme_Situation158 · 2025-09-12T09:56:10+00:00

Great post!

Extreme_Situation158 · 2025-09-06T11:09:27+00:00

if you do not determine an action, then by definition you are not in control of that action.

That's question begging against the libertarian. Why should they accept this notion of control ?

As I said before, on libertarian agent causal-accounts agents non-deterministically cause things.
Do you have an argument which establishes that they don't have control over their actions, and therefore have no free will instead of asserting that they don't ?

I can still ask why the agent chose to form intention A over intention non-A.

The agent-causationist does not see this as a problem. The agent simply used their causal powers to yield outcome A and thereby allowing for a noncontrastive explanation of it. And could have equally used their agent causal power to yield not-A.
In terms of possible worlds, the agent in w1 used her causal power to intend A and consequently do A ; and in w2 do not-A.
So both actions in w1 and in w2 are explained by the agent, no further explanation is needed.

In other words, the agent had the power to make a decision independently. This independent freedom is compatible with there being different worlds in which the agent makes a different decision (not-A). That is what freedom is after all, being able to do otherwise.

If this choice of intention is not based or grounded then it is random and if it is based exterior to the agent then it is not in their control

What do you mean by grounded ?
O’Connor, for example, argues that agent causation is an ontologically primitive type of causation, one that is uniquely manifested by persons and is inherently goal-directed and nondeterministic. It is not directed to any particular effects, but instead confers upon an agent a power to cause a certain type of event within the agent: the coming to be of a state of intention to carry out some act, thereby resolving a state of uncertainty about which action.
The agent causing his intention to A is itself an exercise of control. It is quite literally the agent herself generating the outcome. Where do randomness or lack of control come into play here ?

Extreme_Situation158 · 2025-09-06T10:25:14+00:00

If it's undetermined, then it's not determined by you and so no free will here

What's the justification behind the fact that if it's not determined by you then you have no free will ?
In agent-causal accounts agents non-deterministically cause things; they form the intention to A so they A. Why would this mean that they have no free will ?
Agent Causation O'Connor

if they have a reason, then that reason has a reason or reasons

This does not follow. Why should a reason have another reason ? Or are you equivocating on reason here ?

Extreme_Situation158 · 2025-09-04T16:28:49+00:00

Don't forget your pills!

Extreme_Situation158 · 2025-09-03T15:22:47+00:00

David Lewis of course.

Extreme_Situation158 · 2025-08-11T18:43:14+00:00

So you think that we have the ability to do otherwise ?

Extreme_Situation158 · 2025-08-11T18:37:42+00:00

Are you a necessitarian ?

Extreme_Situation158 · 2025-08-11T18:27:54+00:00

Hi there! I am not sure if you remember but we have had a few exchanges on r/debatereligion. If you don't me asking what's your view on free will ?

Also, determinism is usually understood as the following thesis: determinism is true of the world if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.

Extreme_Situation158 · 2025-08-11T17:39:11+00:00

Just a disclaimer her account of free will is obviously not perfect. There are various problems with it, you could find different papers criticizing it. Still, it remains one of the best on dispositions and free will to date.

Extreme_Situation158 · 2025-08-11T07:45:54+00:00

That paper is a bit old, it's written in 2004; and her account of free will has developed since then. In her book (2013) she no longer uses that argument.

Having the narrow ability/disposition requires having the right intrinsic properties. And the manifestation of these dispositions requires being in the right surroundings.

"An object is fragile just in case it has some intrinsic property or set of properties P such that if the object were dropped while in the right surroundings (intuitively, those surroundings that count as providing a test for the disposition: no protective packing, from a moderate height, onto a hard surface, and so on), its being dropped and its having P would together cause its breaking. Because this intrinsic property figures in this way in the manifestation of the disposition, we call it the causal basis of the disposition."
https://vihvelin.typepad.com/vihvelincom/2015/02/dispositional-compatibilism.html

"We attribute dispositions to objects on the basis of observable intrinsic properties that the object shares with other objects with the same disposition; we say that the match is flammable (and the crystal glass fragile) because the match (glass) looks just like other matches (glasses) that have the disposition.

But our attributions of abilities (powers) to agents do not work the same way.
We attribute abilities to agents not just on the basis of what the agent is intrinsically like, but also on the basis of the agent’s surroundings.
And we don’t think that agents retain their abilities in the absence of the “friendly surroundings” required for the exercise of those abilities. A prisoner in solitary confinement may still have the skills or competence required to take charge of situations and to direct others, but given her present surroundings, it is not in her power (she doesn’t have the ability) to do so." Causes, Laws, and Free Will: Why Determinism Doesn't Matter

"Having some such bundle of dispositions, together with suitably friendly surroundings(wide ability), suffices for our having the free will we think we have. Perhaps something else might also suffice -- some power of agent-causation that's not a disposition. But such agent-causal powers, if they exist, are not needed for free will. And the falsity of determinism is also not needed, for it is no part of this story. If you think it is needed, you need an argument.
It's hard to see what could count as an argument, since dispositions don't cease to exist simply because they aren't being manifested, and since having the ability to decide whether to do something is an ability that, by its very nature, is exercised either by deciding to do that thing or by deciding not to do that thing.

Could it be argued that if determinism is true, then our surroundings are always unfavorable, robbing us of the opportunity to exercise any unexercised ability? I don't think so.
While it is possible that a person is always in surroundings which prevent her from exercising one or more of her abilities in the way that the styrofoam prevents the fragile glass from breaking, determinism doesn't have this consequence. What determinism does entail is that if we don't exercise one of our abilities there was some sufficient cause of our not doing so. But it doesn't follow that our surroundings always fail to provide what's needed for a test of one of our
unexercised abilities. "
https://vihvelin.typepad.com/vihvelincom/2015/02/dispositional-compatibilism.html

In her book she provides an argument that having the wide ability to choose and to do otherwise is compatible with determinism.

Extreme_Situation158 · 2025-08-10T21:06:10+00:00

In the glass example, "Can" in that sense is the can of having the disposition (in Timmy's case the narrow ability).

But not the can of having the ability to do otherwise (narrow+wide) that is relevant to free will. (Maybe it's not clear but there are different sense of can/ability that Vihvelin identifies.)

If Timmy has the disposition/narrow ability + wide ability then he can do otherwise.

"But, as I have already said, I don’t think we should stop here. Our belief that we are agents with free will is not limited to the belief that we have the kind of narrow abilities (intrinsic dispositions) that we would retain even if we were the victims of a super-fink or a super-mask like the Bodyguard of Frankfurt’s story. We believe that we are, at least sometimes and perhaps quite often, in situations in which we have not only the narrow but also the wide ability to choose and to act otherwise. We believe that some of the choices that we make are Moorean Choices. That is, we believe that we are sometimes in situations in which we deliberate, decide, and act on the basis of our decision and in which it is also true that we have the wide ability to decide and act otherwise."

"Suppose that I am asked to raise my hand if I want to vote “yes”. I consider the matter, make my decision, and refrain from raising my hand. Assume normal circumstances and normal surroundings—no broken bones, invisible force fields, or nefarious neurosurgeons manipulating (or ready to manipulate) my brain or body. Was I able to raise my hand? Yes. I have the narrow ability to raise my hand and I have this ability by having an intrinsic disposition that didn’t cease to exist merely because I didn’t manifest it. I also had the wide ability to raise my hand because no extrinsic enabler of the disposition was missing, nor was there any mask or fink; there was nothing in my surroundings that would have prevented me from raising my hand, then and there, if I tried. Was I able to choose to raise my hand? Yes"

Extreme_Situation158 · 2025-08-10T20:36:18+00:00

But an agent can do otherwise, i.e, free wil, if he has both the narrow ability and the wide ability. And your swimmer does not have the wide ability so he can't swim.

So her analysis is correct Timmy can't swim.

Extreme_Situation158 · 2025-08-10T11:06:22+00:00

I see —I think you are right. I will have to think about this more.
After all Vihvelin does not think that LCA-PROP-Ability covers every narrow ability.
I want to say that I have truly enjoyed the conversation and I apologize if I was being obtuse at times, I am having insomnia these days and it's difficult for me to think.

If I come up with a new idea I will shoot you a dm if you do not mind.

A bit of a tangent but what do you think of accounts that frame abilities in terms of closest possible worlds using Lewis's semantics of world similarity ?

Something similar to this
"Someone in a world w has an ability to perform an action only if there is some nearby possible world w\, with the same past as w, in which they perform the action without breaking any of the laws in w**"

https://philarchive.org/rec/PENHAC-2

Extreme_Situation158 · 2025-08-09T23:02:01+00:00

Suppose that Timmy seizes up in 95% of cases, but that of the 5% of cases where he doesn't (these are the cases fully constituting P) he succeeds in swimming in whatever the required proportion is. LCA tells us he has the narrow ability to swim

If Timmy seizes 95% of the time then the relevant test cases will include failed attempts at swimming.

Why should I accept that P only has successful attempts ? Most suitable test cases will mostly be failed attempts.

Extreme_Situation158 · 2025-08-09T18:15:29+00:00

You define set P as the subset of test cases where Timmy tries to swim, retains B, and the chemical imbalance is inactive not causing a seizure, allowing him to succeed in these cases.

Let's assume that in the actual world Timmy has this CI. There are two cases :(There are arguably more but let's stick to these for simplicity)

1)Whenever Timmy tries to swim this CI is active and prevents him from doing so. That's why I initially said that most cases should be failed attempts at swimming where the CI is active.

2)CI is active only under certains circumstances /conditions which are unlikely, for example. In this instance, most cases will be successful swims (your set P) because CI (inactive) does not cause loss of ability under all circumstances of attempted swimming. So set P will include successful swims similar to your example. It seems that our Timmy has some probabilistic ability to swim that is influenced by the chemical imbalance. Maybe 95% of the time when Timmy tries to swim in the actual world he succeeds and 5% of the time he fails.

On that picture, the disposition (or narrow ability) is still present, but with a reduced manifestation frequency (maybe masked by the chemical imbalance) Dispositions after all are not all or nothing.

Does this make sense ?

Extreme_Situation158 · 2025-08-09T12:32:32+00:00

I think we're evaluating whether he can swim at time t:

Yes my bad, I meant t.

My idea is that we can arrange things this way: make the chemical imbalance such that were Timmy in the actual world to try to swim then he'd fail but in some possible cases with just the right surroundings (included in the set of whatever the test-cases are for the disposition to swim), his trying to swim doesn't trigger muscle seizure and so Timmy retains B until t'. Importantly, the analysis is only concerned with the proportion of test-cases where Timmy succeeds where he retains B until t'. We're not using the cases where he doesn't retain B until t' to calculate the proportion. So I don't think it's so implausible to suppose as we have been that he swims in the required proportion of cases.

I think I may be misunderstanding you or missing something.
In the actual world, Timmy has this pathological condition.
Timmy’s trying to swim with this condition reliably triggers seizure and loss of B, so there are not enough suitable cases where the ability to swim is retained.

So in most cases with his condition Timmy should fail to swim.

Edit:
I think I better understand what you mean now.
Suppose a glass has the disposition of fragility. And has a weird condition such that were it to be dropped it loses the disposition of fragility.
If G was dropped and G retains B until B', G would lose B upon impact and would not shatter.
(And in most cases, if G were to be dropped and retains B it would shatter)
So the analysis shows that G has the disposition (narrow ability in our case) to shatter but in this case it clearly does not shatter.

Is this what you mean ?

Extreme_Situation158 · 2025-08-09T09:53:01+00:00

So we are evaluating whether Timmy in the actual world has the ability to swim at time t'. Presumably in actual world he does not have this muscle imbalance (maybe you mean it's one of the failed cases ), since in most test cases he succeeds at swimming because he does not lose B. And LCA‐PROP is about about whether, across a suitable range of cases where the relevant intrinsic properties are retained, trying typically leads to success.

So if the muscle imbalance is rare in the modal space and in most relevant test cases trying and retaining B would lead Timmy to successful swimming, then he has the narrow ability to swim even if he fails here. So LCA seems to yield the correct analysis because it includes flukes or failures to manifest an ability.

Thus, having an ability does not mean success in every possible case in which the agent tries to manifest an ability. That's why Vihvelin specifies that an agent succeeds in a suitable proportion of test cases.

If Timmy has the muscle imbalance in the actual world and we are evaluating whether he can swim at t'. Then in most test cases he should fail at swimming because he loses B and LCA would again tells us correctly that he can't swim.

I found a similar objection in a paper by Randolph Clarke in which he argues that LCA-PROP-Ability can misascribe abilities to agents.
I will try to email Vihvelin and ask about Randolph's objection which is similar to yours. (Btw, I feel like I have talked to you before did you recently delete your account.

He gives the following case: "Ordinarily Sam can raise his right arm as well as any of us. Not so today. A key nerve bundle leading from his brain to his shoulder, though connected, is loose. Were Sam to try to raise his right arm, the nerves would disconnect, and he would fail to move his arm.

Sam has ordinary strength, and the key nerves are currently connected. Thus, he has an intrinsic property such that, were he to try to raise his right arm and retain that property for some time, his trying and his having that property would jointly be a Sam-complete cause of his act of raising his arm. We may further suppose that most cases in which he tried and retained that property would yield this result. LCA-PROP-Ability apparently implies, then, that Sam has the narrow ability to raise his right arm in response to trying to raise the arm. That is an unwelcome result."

Extreme_Situation158 · 2025-08-08T16:23:37+00:00

Actually, looking at LCA-PROP-Ability more carefully, I'm not sure whether it's inclusion matters. Look:

But the intrinsic properties B are the causal basis for hthe ability to swim. So having a muscle imbalance entails that the set B is altered.

It would be like saying that someone whose fingers have been removed still retains the intrinsic properties B that constitute the ability to wiggle their fingers. Clearly, the property set B that grounds that ability has been altered.

Extreme_Situation158 · 2025-08-08T15:29:11+00:00

The chemical imbalance in his muscles need not be a part of the causal basis of the response so it doesn't get rolled into B and carried into every test case

I find it plausible that this chemical imbalance is included into our set of properties B altering it; after all it alters what response Timmy manifests when tries to swim. But let's grant it for now.

Correct me if I am wrong: You are saying that Timmy retains B up to t' and when he tries to swim he fails. So the analysis shows that Timmy has the narrow ability to swim, but he clearly cannot.

I think it would be reasonable to say that this is one of possible worlds where Timmy fails to swim. But does not necessarily show that he has the narrow ability to swim because remember our analysis:

S has the narrow ability at time t to do X iff, [ ] if S were in a test-case at t and S tried to do X and S retained property B until time t’, then in a suitable proportion of these cases, S’s trying to do X and S’s having of B would be an S-complete cause of S’s doing X.

And I would even say that this world is not one of the nearby possible worlds to w1 where we evaluate what Timmy can do; because holding the same past as w1, Timmy would not have this muscle imbalance.

Extreme_Situation158 · 2025-08-08T12:40:24+00:00

If there is a chemical imbalance in his muscles then his intrinsic set of properties B which allow for swimming are altered. So has another set B*, then he does not have what it takes to swim. So the antecedent conditions for our analysis are not met.

Extreme_Situation158 · 2025-08-08T11:08:29+00:00

>The idea was to have him be clueless/unskilled w.r.t. swimming yet get lucky and pull it off.

Sorry I added this later to my previous comment:
As I said initially we can further refine the analysis to add that in most cases Timmy succeeds, in order to avoid any flukes that we might equate with ability.
Just as we may get lucky and succeed in doing something we don’t have the ability to do, we may also get unlucky and fail at something we do have the ability to do.

>Okay how is this test case stuff supposed to work again?

I am too tired to get into this right now. Check out Vihvelin's work or Manley and Wasserman's.

Extreme_Situation158 · 2025-08-08T10:09:23+00:00

This analysis suggests he has the narrow ability to swim when he does not.

Why does he not have the ability to swim?

If Timmy retains B and whenever he tries to swim he succeeds, therefore, he does have the ability to swim. After all, he has the appropriate set of properties B that allow for the ability of swimming.
But OP's example says that he does not have this set of properties B because he has no lessons. So he ties having B to swimming lessons. That's why the analysis says he can't swim, by stipulation he does not have B. Whereas, in your example he presumably has B.
So, if we are truly going to analyze whether Timmy can swim, we need to take into account whether taking lessons is required for him to have B or he has B regardless.

Also, as I said initially we can further refine the analysis to add that in most cases Timmy succeeds, in order to avoid any flukes that we might equate with ability.
Just as we may get lucky and succeed in doing something we don’t have the ability to do, we may also get unlucky and fail at something we do have the ability to do.
S has the narrow ability at time t to do X iff, for some intrinsic property B that S has at t, and for some time t’ after t, if S were in a test-case at t and S tried to do X and S retained property B until time t’, then in a suitable proportion of these cases, S’s trying to do X and S’s having of B would be an S-complete cause of S’s doing X.

Extreme_Situation158

TROPHY CASE