Energetic Procession

Steve Hays indicates that he can understand how I was “thrown off by his elliptical syntax and this serves as a basis for my supposed misunderstanding. The problem is that I wasn’t thrown off by Hays’ syntax but by the factual errors and conceptual confusions. The definitions Hays gives are mistaken and the conclusions are not implied by the premises.

An example of factual errors is the “thumbnail” definitions of various positions that he gives. My problem wasn’t with the fact that the definitions were “thumbnail” but that they were simply wrong. Hays wrote,

“ii) This raises the question of what, if anything, would count as evidence for LFW even if LFW were true. There are three logical alternatives:
a) Hard determinism: We are not free to do otherwise even if we wanted to do otherwise.
b) Soft determinism: We are free to do otherwise if we want to do otherwise—although we are not free to want to do otherwise.
c) Indeterminism: We are free to want to do otherwise.”

If libertarianism is true, that is if there is libertarian free will, then Hard Determinism and Soft Determinism are false. Moreover if libertarianism is true then indeterminism as a theory of causation is also true since it is a necessary condition for libertarianism. Hard Determinism is a species of incompatibilism, that freedom and determinism logically both cannot be true. Consequently Hays is just wrong to say that if there was libertarian freedom then Hard Determinism is a logical possibility. Hays is also wrong to say that if libertarian free will existed then Soft Determinism is a logical possibility. Soft Determinism is the thesis that determinism is true and is compatible with freedom, though not with libertarian freedom.

I wasn’t committing a “word=concept fallacy” as Hays maintains. I stated what the basic idea was and what I wrote was sufficient to pick out the ideas in question. Hays brings forward ideas that are contradictory to the ideas he is attempting to define. I wasn’t claiming that the definitions that I gave included everything, but they certainly included what I wrote and they don’t include what Hays said they did. It is certainly possible to define General Relativity without having to explain all of the consequences and supply every model. But it is not possible to define it by saying that it includes concepts that it doesn’t and that are contradictory to it.

Conditional Analysis. Hays thinks that I begged the question by stating that alternative possibilities are the exclusive domain of libertarians since it is possible to give a conditional analysis. Compatibilists have argued that statements about the ability to do otherwise such as “A could have done x instead of y” can be reconciled with determinism.

Conditional analysis is constructed to show that an agent could be said to have the ability to do otherwise given the truth of determinism. Determinism requires that certain past circumstances together with the laws of nature are sufficient to bring about present states of affairs. If the past or the laws of nature had been different, then present circumstances would in fact be different. The Compatibilist argues that we can understand statements concerning the ability to do otherwise in light of different antecedent states of affairs.

Conditional analysis (CA) proposes that we understand statements such as “x could have done y” to mean that if prior causal states had been different, then the agent would have done y. The fact that the agent would have done otherwise is how we are to understand the ability to do otherwise. Suppose that some agent had an intention I1 to perform some act D1. But she might have had a different intention, I2 to perform some other act D2 had different antecedent causal states obtained. I2 would be sufficient to bring it about that an agent did do otherwise (D2) than she actually did (D1). In other words, statements such as “x could have done y” should be interpreted as “x would have done y, if x had willed, desired, chosen, or intended differently than she did.”

This way of reading “could have done otherwise” statements may not seem initially plausible. Imagine that determinism is true and that you act from the desires that are brought about by antecedent states of nature plus the laws of physics. It still appears to be true that you are doing what you desire or intend to do. It seems that you are not in any way constrained by antecedent causal states. For all intents and purposes, the compatibilist notes, you act freely provided that there are no obstacles or impediments to carrying out the desires or intentions you have. If you had desired something else or intended to do something else you would have performed acts in accordance with those desires or intentions, again assuming that there were no impediments to your carrying out the said act. Given different antecedent conditions you could have done otherwise and therefore determinism is compatible with AP.
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