Free will, Agency, Self, and Life

Part 1. Definitions

It is always necessary to clarify the meanings of terms before using them in propositions.

We can start here by arguing about the following definitions. After a certain amount of arguing, I will assert a final meaning and we will move on, using that meaning in the arguments. After that, any deviation from the defined meaning will need a modifier attached to the word to explain the deviation. Our definitions will start with Webster’s Deluxe Unabridged Dictionary definitions, unless and until the need to refine them is obviously necessary.


FREE WILL

Free Will, it is claimed by some, is without meaning, an empty concept. That apparently is because the claimant has already decided that it does not exist. But that assertion will need proof, we will see. Others have claimed an inability to understand the concept, whatever it is; those will have to step aside until they figure it out.

free will 1. The human will, regarded as free from restraints, compulsions, or any antecedent conditions; freedom of decision or choice.
2. The doctrine that people have this; opposed to determinism
Webster’s Deluxe Unabridged Dictionary; Second ed; 1979.

Arguments will be anticipated concerning the additional definitions of “restraint”; “compulsion”; “antecedent conditions”, and the meaning of “freedom”. Perhaps it might help to look at plato.stanford for additional resolution to the definition.

”’Free Will’ is a philosophical term of art for a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives. Which sort is the free will sort is what all the fuss is about."
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/

For our purposes we will grant that there are some constraints, certainly those of our abilities, our environment, our genetic endowment. But these do not eliminate the ability to choose to go to an ice cream store, choose not to buy anything, and choose to leave after robbing it.

Or, for example, our inability to fly by flapping our ears does not preclude our invention of the helicopter to enable our desire to fly. So constraints exist but are not fatal to the existence of free will.

We might be afflicted with compulsions. But not all of us would have the same compulsions and a compulsion afflicting the ability of one person would not necessarily inhibit the abilities of another person. Compulsion is not fatal to the existence of free will.

The term, “antecedent conditions”, needs additional resolution in order to determine which conditions are in play, and whether the individual is entirely captive of those conditions, or whether they influence but do not determine the individual’s choices and actions. For our purposes here we will grant that antecedent conditions influence, without fully determining the decisions and choices which an individual makes. This will obviously be in contention; but it is in no manner a definition of the human condition that a person’s choices and actions are fully determined by antecedent conditions.


AGENCY

a’ gent, n 1. One who performs actions, exerts power, or has the power to act; as, a moral agent.
2. an active power or force; that which has the power to produce an effect; as, heat is a powerful agent.

For purposes of human agency, we will use the concept of human causation of effects, those effects being outside the expected causation of the known four physical forces. The example of the invention of helicopters serves again. All the elements of a helicopter are material, and respond to the four physical forces; it is the invention of the helicopter, and its manufacture and implementation which is not an expectation of the four forces, working alone. An additional agent has been added.



SELF

There is currently a school of denial which asserts that there is no self, that what we think of as “me”, is just a combination of belief systems and memories and other mental constructs. However, it is possible to think of those things as components of “mind”, so for our purposes here, the self will be congruent with “mind”. When the concept of “mind” is challenged, we will deal with that independently.


LIFE

There is also a school of thought that the concept of life is meaningless, that the essence of life is merely the possession of DNA, which fully describes the thing which has it. This ignores that dead carcasses also have DNA, and that living things do have characteristics which non-living things do not, a few of which are to take in nutrients and expel waste, adapt to surroundings and to reproduce their kind. There is an acknowledgement of such in evolutionary circles, where the concept of life coming only from other life is necessary for the common ancestor theory.

For our purposes here we will take “life” to mean human life with the attributes of mind, self, agency and free will, until shown conclusively otherwise.