{"id":9999,"date":"2012-01-20T18:38:29","date_gmt":"2012-01-20T18:38:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2012\/01\/20\/dennett-on-the-consequence-argument-against-compatibilism-2\/"},"modified":"2012-01-20T18:38:29","modified_gmt":"2012-01-20T18:38:29","slug":"dennett-on-the-consequence-argument-against-compatibilism-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2012\/01\/20\/dennett-on-the-consequence-argument-against-compatibilism-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Dennett on the Consequence Argument Against Compatibilism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daniel Dennett is a compatibilist: he holds that determinism and free will are logically compatible. (Compare Dennett's position to Coyne's hard determinism <\/a>and free will illusionism.)  On p. 134 of Freedom Evolves<\/em> (Penguin, 2003), Dennett considers the following incompatibilist argument. It<\/span>
will be interesting to see how he responds to it.<\/span><\/p>\n

1. If determinism is true, whether I Go or Stay is completely fixed by the laws of nature and events in the distant past.<\/span>
   <\/span>
2. It is not up to me what the laws of nature are, or what happened in the distant past.<\/span><\/p>\n

3. Therefore, whether I Go or Stay is completely fixed by circumstances that are not up to me.<\/span><\/p>\n

4. If an action of mine is not up to me, it is not free (in the morally important sense).<\/span><\/p>\n

5. Therefore, my action of Going or Staying is not free.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dennett considers the above argument to be fallacious: "it commits the same error as the fallacious argument about the impossibility of mammals." (135) The 'mammals argument' is given on p. 126 and goes like this (I have altered the numbering to prevent confusion):<\/span><\/p>\n

6. Every mammal has a mammal for a mother.<\/span>
   <\/span>
7. If there have been any mammals at all, there have been only a finite number of mammals.<\/span><\/p>\n

8. But if there has been even one mammal, then by (6), there have been an infinity of mammals, which contradicts (7), so there can't have been any mammals. It's a contradiction in terms.<\/span><\/p>\n

The two arguments, says Dennett, "commit the same error." He continues:<\/span><\/p>\n

     Events in the distant past were indeed not "up to me," but my<\/span>
     choice now to Go or Stay is up to me because its "parents" — some<\/span>
     events in the recent past, such as the choices I have recently made<\/span>
     — were up to me (because their parents were up to me), and so on,<\/span>
     not to infinity, but far enough back to give my self enough spread<\/span>
     in space and time so that there is a me for my decisions to be up<\/span>
     to! The reality of a moral me is no more put in doubt by the<\/span>
     incompatibilist argument than is the reality of mammals. (135-136)<\/span><\/p>\n

It is clear that the 'mammals argument' goes wrong since we know that there are mammals. There are mammals even though there is no Prime Mammal nor an infinite regress of mammals. Gradual evolutionary changes from reptiles through intermediary therapsids led eventually to mammals. Thus mammals evolved from non-mammals. Dennett wants to say the same about events that are 'up to me.' Events before my birth were not up to me, but some events now are up to me since they are the <\/span>causal descendants of acts that were up to me. Dennett seems to be saying that events that are up to a person, and thus free in a sense  to support attributions of moral responsibility, have gradually <\/span>evolved from events that were not up to a person, and hence were unfree. Freedom evolves from unfreedom.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is a creative suggestion, but what exactly is wrong with the above consequence argument? I see what is wrong with the 'mammals argument': (6) is false. But which premise of the incompatibilist   argument is false? The premises are plausible and there is no error in logic. If the error is the same as the one in the 'mammals argument,' as Dennett say, what exactly is this error? Presumably, the error is <\/span>the failure to realize that the property of being up to me is an emergent property. So is Dennett rejecting premise (1)?<\/span><\/p>\n

But the truth of (1) is merely a consequence of the definition of 'determinism.' Since Dennett does not reject determinism, it is quite  unclear to me what exactly is wrong with the incompatibilist argument. <\/span>The analogy between the two arguments is murky, and I fail to see what exactly is wrong with the incompatibilist argument. Which premise is to be rejected? Which inference is invalid? Talk of freedom evolving is too vague to be helpful.<\/span>
 <\/span>
Or am I being too kind?  The notion that freedom evolves from unfreedom is perhaps better described as inconceivable, as inconceivable as mind emerging from "incogitative Matter" in Locke's memorable phrase.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Daniel Dennett is a compatibilist: he holds that determinism and free will are logically compatible. (Compare Dennett's position to Coyne's hard determinism and free will illusionism.)  On p. 134 of Freedom Evolves (Penguin, 2003), Dennett considers the following incompatibilist argument. Itwill be interesting to see how he responds to it. 1. If determinism is true, … Continue reading “Dennett on the Consequence Argument Against Compatibilism”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[366,301],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dennett","category-free-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9999\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}