Q&A: Free Will
Free Will
Question
Recently I saw on the HaAyin HaKore forum an argument against free will that seemed very strong. I’m copying it here, and I’d be glad to hear the Rabbi’s opinion about this argument.
The law of the excluded third
The term “free will” refers to the possibility of choosing between several alternatives. For the sake of simplicity, let us assume two. When one has to choose between them, this can be done deterministically, according to a fixed algorithm, similar to a flowchart as programmers commonly use, and it can be done randomly by rolling a die, or by means of its quantum equivalent—a radioactive atom and a Geiger counter. The attempt to find another possibility besides these two quickly brings us to the same conclusion Avigdor Kahalani reached when the ballot counting ended: there is no third way. When someone claims that in addition to these two possibilities one can also choose “freely,” and we press him to explain how such a choice is made, it always ends with his bringing in another factor: his urge, or his will, or his soul—factors “free” of any physical limitation, which are somehow supposed to answer our request. “I chose freely according to what I felt like, what my will instructed me,” he will say.
But after a moment’s thought it becomes clear that Mr. Will, the new agent called in to the rescue, must also make that same mysterious “free” choice from one list or another, and we have solved nothing. After all, “free will” itself also has to decide somehow what it wants or what seems proper to it, and it too stands before a list and before the very same problem we started with. The lists, by the way, need not be identical: “I” may be facing a list containing the two items “eat the chocolate bar in front of me” or “do not eat the bar,” and my will instructs me according to the choice it made from another list: “dieting is good” and “chocolate is tasty.” The lists are different, but the problem is the same problem, and therefore these agents solve nothing; they merely roll the problem over to another level, in the spirit of “whoever wants to confuse will distance his testimony.” Even in a world of souls free of every physical constraint, in a world with laws unfamiliar to us or in a world with no laws at all, the agent we chose cannot escape the need to choose. Aside from summoning yet another agent and passing this hot potato into his hands, I have encountered no satisfactory explanation of the question: how, in the final analysis, does one choose freely?
Answer
I answered this stale argument in my book and in an article that summarizes it. It presents Peter van Inwagen’s dilemma argument, which I explained is simply a misunderstanding that begs the question. Its assumption is that either the outcome is determined deterministically by the circumstances, or else it is arbitrary. But the libertarian claims that there is a third possibility: determination through voluntary decision. This is not deterministic, because I decide one way or the other. And it is not arbitrary, because I act on the basis of a value judgment and for the sake of a purpose, not just for no reason.
Discussion on Answer
At the beginning of chapter four. But the full answer appears in chapter two, where I distinguish between this approach, libertarianism, and randomness.
What you’re writing is exactly the escape to will that he’s talking about.
But the question is: why does a person want A and not B? In the end, it’s either causal or random; it is never his choice.
And that is exactly the mistake I’m talking about. When you ask why he wants it, you assume that it has a cause. But the meaning of freedom of will is that it does not. It has a purpose, not a cause. He chooses it for some purpose.
What does it mean that he chooses for some purpose? Why does he choose this purpose and not another one? Why don’t others choose this purpose?
In the end this is a regress: Reuven chose A because he wanted to (and in that desire we can include wanting some purpose or anything else). Now let us ask about the desire: is there a reason he wanted A? If there is a reason, it’s not his fault; if there is no reason, it’s not his fault. If it’s because he wanted to want it, then why did he want to want it? And so on and so on.
I answered that very clearly. There’s no point repeating it again and again.
Which chapter / page in the book does the Rabbi talk about this?