Sam Harris on free will (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, January 24, 2013, 15:33 (4114 days ago)

Alvin Plantinga says Harris is wrong:-What we have here looks like a classic bait and switch: announce that you will show that we don't have freedom in the ordinary sense required by moral responsibility, and then proceed to argue that we don't have freedom in the sense of maximal autonomy. It is certainly true that we don't have freedom in that sense: not even God could have that kind of freedom. That is not because God could not have performed infinitely many actions—no doubt he could have—but because God is necessarily all-knowing, all-powerful, and perfectly good. This means that God has not freely chosen to have that character; there never was a time at which he had both the power to bring it about that he had that character, and also the power to bring it about that he did not have that character.-It's not at all clear to me why Harris devotes most of his energy to arguing that we don't have maximal autonomy. But he does also declare that we don't have freedom in the ordinary sense: "we know that determinism, in every sense relevant to human behavior, is true. Unconscious neural events determine our thoughts and actions—and are themselves determined by prior causes." How do we know that? Harris puts it like this: "Either our wills [i.e., our decisions and choices—AP] are determined by prior causes and we are not responsible for them, or they are the product of chance and we are not responsible for them." Another way to put it: either I am determined to do what I do by prior causes, or I do what I do by chance. In the first case I clearly don't have freedom. But the same holds in the second: if what I do happens just by chance, then too I don't do it freely (if I can be said to do it at all), at least not in a way which implies that I am responsible for that action.-"This is a familiar argument, and one with a long history. But is it a good argument? I don't think so. Why think that if it is within my power to perform an action, but also within my power to refrain from so doing, then what I do happens just by chance? Maybe I have a good reason for doing what I do on that occasion—then it wouldn't be just by chance that I do it. Last Sunday you contributed money to your church; no doubt on that occasion it was within your power to refrain from contributing. But it surely wasn't just by chance that you made that contribution. It isn't as if you just flipped a coin: "Heads, I'll contribute; tails, I won't." No; you had a good reason for contributing: you want to promote the good things your church does. We Christians think God freely arranged the whole marvelous scheme of Incarnation and Atonement, whereby we sinners can once more be in a proper relationship with God. God did this, and did it freely; it was within his power to refrain from so doing, thus leaving us in our sins. But it surely doesn't follow that he did it just by chance!-
http://www.booksandculture.com/articles/2013/janfeb/bait-and-switch.html?paging=off