Q&A: "The Science of Freedom" — A Solution or Just Pushing the Problem Off?
"The Science of Freedom" — A Solution or Just Pushing the Problem Off?
Question
Hello Rabbi! I read your book The Science of Freedom with great interest. For the first time I came across a systematic and serious treatment of the real problem involved in the concept of free will. The Rabbi understands and formulates the problem and the attempt at a solution in an exceptional way.
But in my opinion the solution is not satisfactory at all.
Let’s begin with the metaphor of the traveler standing on his path and choosing where to go (if he does not choose to simply roll along according to determinism). In this case the traveler “activates” a power of will and sometimes chooses against the convenient topography. But the obvious question is: how does this free will itself operate? Doesn’t this choice itself require exactly the same metaphor?
Again, the determinist will answer that the electrical connections and chemical reactions in the brain cause the person to act as he did. But the libertarian will recoil from this analysis and protest, saying that a person chooses freely, without (absolute) dependence on prior factors.
But of course the question arises: what does “freely” mean? If it is caused by prior factors, then it is not free; and if it is not caused by anything, then it is random. What is that alternative route on which the libertarian insists?
This is exactly how the Rabbi describes the will as being created ex nihilo — but that raises the question of how we can impose responsibility on a person for a will that came into being out of nothing. To say that this is “his will” is misleading: the will was not created by him, but rather independently of him, and only then attributed to him.
This free will does not solve anything; it only pushes the difficulty one step back — not what is the source of a person’s choice, but what is the source of the free will. If we want to illustrate this with a modern example, we might think of the movie Inside Out, where people have four figures inside their heads who are responsible for the person’s functioning — each representing a different emotion: anger, sadness, joy, and disgust.
But how do these four figures, who manage the person’s life, make their own decisions? Do they too have four figures inside their heads?
In short, it seems that the Rabbi has only pushed the problem one step back, and that there is no escape from describing choice either within a deterministic system or as random. The alternative would be to admit the fact that we are limited in our understanding and cannot understand our own choice.
And to admit that we lack the concepts needed to explain free choice, just as materialists lack the concepts needed to explain consciousness.
Answer
If you finished the book, I address this at length there. I disagree with your assumption that there are only two possibilities — determinism and randomness — and argue that free will is a third possibility. Moreover, I explain that there is no need at all to explain what free will is any more than the other two, which are less familiar to us, and yet nobody demands explanations and definitions for them. In addition, I explained that free will is directed toward future goals (teleological), whereas determinism is driven by the past (causal). I don’t see any need for further clarification beyond that.
You speak about concepts that we lack in order to explain free will, but that is precisely the mistake I’m talking about. You are looking to explain it, and apparently your expectation is that I do so in terms of the other two mechanisms — because otherwise, why would any explanation be needed at all? Moreover, in whose terms do you expect to receive this explanation? In terms of the other two mechanisms?
Therefore I am not pushing anything back, since I am not claiming at all that there are causes that drive free will, and therefore there is no causal chain that one can trace backward.
Discussion on Answer
I think the explanation is this: when I say “I have free choice,” I function in that sentence in two different roles: the speaker and the subject. It is a kind of observation, except that the observer and the observed are the very same entity.
By contrast, the causal mechanism is perceived as something present before our eyes. When I say “A caused B,” this is a statement whose two subjects are both external to me. Here I am only the speaker.
Therefore choice is perceived as a kind of experience and not as an observation. People do not see self-observation as observation, but as something subjective. They refuse to wear both hats at the same time: the observing subject and the observed object. By the way, Ron Aharoni’s (wonderful) book, The Cat That Isn’t There, argues that all philosophy is nothing but different examples of confusion between these two. And from here comes the conclusion that this is something subjective, perhaps even an illusion.
It reminds me of Maharit’s novel interpretation in explaining Maimonides’ view that there is no overreaching in the sale of a Hebrew slave (even though he was not equated with land). Maharit explains that when a person sells himself, the seller and the object being sold are the same entity, and overreaching exists only in a transaction with three parties — that is, a transaction in which object A passes from the hands of B into the hands of C. And of course there is the well-known discussion in Atvan DeOraita about whether my prohibitions on another person also apply when I perform them on myself (for example, if one rounds his own hair, does he transgress both the prohibition of the one who cuts and the one whose hair is cut). And of course one could continue to analyze this further.
We’re still waiting for the column on Aharoni that was promised (ever since I became a father, I’ve known that “maybe” is a term of promise).
Too bad I didn’t internalize the lesson from when I became a father: when you say “maybe,” children see it as a promise, and they may also demand that you fulfill it. 🙂
It’s a heavy one, but definitely an interesting challenge. I’ll try (“I’ll try” is like “maybe,” right?).
Rabbi,
According to what you’re saying, it follows that there’s a good chance that our understanding that we have free choice is an illusion. If so, why do you assume that we really do have it and not remain skeptical? (Here you have a serious reason to be one.) Or even deny the existence of choice in favor of what is familiar — determinism..
How does that follow? That’s the standard skeptical argument. As I wrote here, determinism is not what is familiar. On the contrary, it is less familiar than free will.
Based on your agreement with Ron Aharoni.
I really don’t agree with him. Saying that the book is wonderful does not indicate agreement. See for example here:
Do you have an explanation for people’s tendency to ask for an explanation of choice? As you say, people don’t ask this about other things, and there is all the more reason not to here, but that raises the question of why people can’t live with it. You could argue that it’s just habit, but that doesn’t sound right to me.