Q&A: Does Belief in Free Will Satisfy the Urge for Pride?
Does Belief in Free Will Satisfy the Urge for Pride?
Question
Clearly, a priori this is a personal question, and for each person the answer may be different.
But in my opinion, almost anyone who understands what is being discussed will agree that the trait of free choice adds value to a person. Because claims of the form “I have free will” mean that I am different from all the other phenomena in the world that are subject to the laws of nature. “I am special.” Naturally, that raises a person’s value in his own eyes (and in the eyes of others). So from this simplistic analysis it follows that belief in free will satisfies the urge for pride.
- Do you agree that belief in free will does in fact satisfy the urge for pride?
- And if so, then perhaps one should suspect that, from the outset, the entire belief in free will stems solely from the urge for pride overpowering a person’s intellect and forcing him to think that this is how things are?
- Leaving aside the urge for pride: in your view, is the belief that there is free will the result of a reasonable conclusion or a decision?
- If it is a reasonable conclusion, what is the consideration that leads you to that plausible inference? A consideration that a scientifically educated person would accept. (The claim “that’s how it feels to me” does not satisfy a scientifically educated person who is skeptical of a scientific conception based on feelings.)
Answer
1. There is something to that.
2. Entirely reasonable. I devoted a book to it.
3. See there and in the article here on the site. https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%91%D7%98-%D7%A9%D7%99%D7%98%D7%AA%D7%99-%D7%A2%D7%9C-%D7%97%D7%95%D7%A4%D7%A9-%D7%94%D7%A8
Discussion on Answer
Same with 3. I read what you wrote, and with so much text and so many arguments I came away confused. So I’m asking: is it a conclusion, or a decision, or something else? The answer to that is supposed to be short.
Regarding 4: the answer doesn’t work for my weakened mind, which can’t hold hundreds of lines of text in memory, analyze them simultaneously, and draw a conclusion from everything written.
Do you have a short, concise argument that can be explained to the average person in half a minute to a minute at most?