 one. Hello, I'm JJ Waukeen and welcome to Philosophy and What Matters, where we discuss things that matter from a philosophical point of view. Our topic for this episode is the nature of free will. We believe that we act freely most of the time. When we decide the person to love, a career to pursue, or how to live our lives, we have a sense that we are doing all these things freely and voluntarily. Since the beginning of philosophy, however, our notion of free will has been drawn into question. On the one hand, if everything is a matter of faith, as in F-A-T-E, then how can we be free? Likewise, how can we be free if everything is determined by the history of the universe and the laws of nature? Our notion of free will implies other concepts that matter to us. For example, concepts of moral responsibility and legal accountability. What happens to those things if we don't have free will? Joining us to discuss the nature of free will is my dearest friend, Brian Garrett, professor at the School of Philosophy at the Australian National University, and the author of my favorite metaphysics book, What is this thing called metaphysics? Hi Brian, welcome to Philosophy and What Happens. Hello, good to be here. Okay, so before getting into our topic, let's first discuss your philosophical background. How did you get started in philosophy, and who or what influenced you? Well, I suppose I did some philosophy at high school. I remember, not that I understood it, but I remember trying to read AJ Ayer's language, Truth and Logic, and I even plowed through all of Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies, which is something I could never do now, but I did then. So I remember enjoying reading them, whether I understood those other questions. And I suppose also, like a lot of people in my generation, I think I was influenced by a famous BBC series called Men of Ideas, that was chaired by Brian McGee, who's also a philosopher. This is about 1978. And he interviewed all the top philosophers of his day, you know, Ayer, Quinton, what else? Bernard Williams. Williams, Chomsky, so yeah. So that was a very good introduction to philosophy, I think. And it seems to me that you are effectively doing the same thing in the Philippines, all you the Brian McGee of Manila. Okay, thanks for the kind words. Okay, so you studied at St Andrews and Oxford. So what was it like to be in those institutions? Yeah, no, no, I was very lucky. I mean, I went to St Andrews as undergraduate to do philosophy and economics. But I certainly realized what why they called philosophy, sorry, why they called economics the dismal science. So I kind of dropped economics and did philosophy. And in fact, at St Andrews, you could do more philosophy than probably anywhere else in the country, because they had two departments, logic and metaphysics and moral philosophy. So you could basically spend your whole time doing pretty much nothing but philosophy. And I suppose that the big figure there was Crispin Wright, he was the dominant presence when I was there. So he was a big influence. And then when I went to Oxford to do the Biffle-Diffle combination, again, I was fortunate to have very good teachers, people like Sir Peter Strossen just before he retired. Paul Snowden, Derek Barfitt, even had a term with Tony Quinton or Lord Quinton. I remember nothing about what he said, but I just remember that he was incredibly funny guy. It was a very amusing term anyway. So St Andrews and Oxford were a very, very useful influence. Okay, so what was it like to be under Peter Strossen, Derek Barfitt, and all those big names? How did they influence you, your way of thinking? Well, I mean, it's very good. I mean, they were all very conscientious and they actually read, you know, read my stuff and I talked to them every every few weeks. Yeah, I think probably Barfitt and Snowden were the ones that helped me the most. Because I think at that time they were at the kind of height of their powers or their careers, as it were. And they were very useful. Okay, so most of your work centers on topics in metaphysics. So why did you specialize in this area of philosophy? Well, I think it's largely a matter of taste. I mean, you know, when you're an undergraduate or you go through all the different topics and you find the one that you find most interesting. And I suppose eventually I settled on to it. I did my Biffle thesis on the Seriety's Paradox and my Diffle on Personal Identity. So I suppose I'm moving from philosophy of language to metaphysics. And then yeah, I just find I just find topics in metaphysics that the most interesting, you know, questions to do with free will or universals or whatever. So it's basically a matter of taste. But that's what I found most interesting. Okay, so at least in your work, so by the way, guys, to our audience, Brian Garrett has a book on Personal Identity. I use that in my dissertation as well. He was my so called supervisor while I was doing that. Okay, so only so cold. Okay, let's go to the idea of free will. How do philosophers understand the notion of free will? Right. Well, I mean, one problem to begin with is that that different philosophers understand it in different ways. So so we're really going to be talking about sort of fatalists, and then we'll be talking about compatibilists and libertarians. So we'll be tight, we'll be defining what we mean by that as we go along. But but so so one idea of what it is to act freely, which is really an issue with the fatalists and the libertarian is the idea that you act freely, just in case you have a range of alternative actions open to you. So if I'm in a situation where I have to choose between A and B, and let's say I choose a, then my choice was free, just in case I could have done B instead. So you can you can maybe call this something like the open future conception of free of free will or free action. Okay, so I think in the literature, it's also known as the principle of alternative possibilities. Yeah, yeah, it's the idea that there are alternatives open to you. So I mean, I mean, as we'll see that the fatalist wants this, I mean, another way of putting that is that, okay, so there's the action that you will do. But we all think there's lots of things that you could have done instead. So at any one time, there's lots of things I can do, even though there's only one thing I will do. And what the fatalist thinks, for example, is that that's not true, right? If that was true, we'd be free. But that's not true. In fact, the only thing that we can do is just what we will do. So that's another expression of this, the open future alternative actions view of free will. So it seems a matter of having alternatives that you could have done instead. So it's like, you're saying that you're free in doing some action if you could have done otherwise. Yes, if you could have done something else. Yeah, basically. I mean, we're going to refine that a bit later. But that's the basic idea. So that's one conception of free will, which is to say we associate with a fatalist and libertarian that will come to later. But the other idea of free will, and this is what you get with the compatible list, is really that an action is free, just in case it flows from your beliefs and desires or it's explained by your beliefs and desires or some people would say caused by your beliefs and desires. And the important thing is that you're in no way interfered or manipulated by other people. So if I'm walking towards the pub, right, there's my action walking towards the pub. And if that was caused by my, you know, desire for a beer, and my belief that the pub has a beer, then my action is free. And as long as no one was coercing me or manipulating me or interfering, then my action is free. So you might call this the kind of ownership just for the sake of a label that the ownership conception of free will, because the idea is that my actions are free, just if I own them, right, just if they are the authentic expressions of my beliefs and desires. Okay, let's have a handle of this one. So you're under this conception, you're free, so long as your action was brought about or caused by your beliefs and desires. Right, right. Yeah. And I mean, as we'll see that that's meant to be compatible with determinants. That's the idea. Okay. So this is one problem to start with. There are actually two notions of free will that we have to deal with, not just one. Okay, there may be others too, at least those two. There are two main obstacles to our notion of free will. So let's start with the challenge of fatalism. So what is fatalism? And why is it a problem for our notion of well, right? Well, I mean, fatalism, I mean, so in my book, I have two different chapters. There's a chapter on fatalism, and there's a chapter on free will and determinism. And I don't think this this is not this is not just sort of bookkeeping. I think that these are two quite different ways of attacking free will. Now, fatalism is by far the oldest. And we know we find it in Aristotle. So the fatalist basically thinks that we are, you know, prisoners of fate. In other words, that we can only do what we will do. So if you go back to this picture of multiple alternatives, the fatalist thinks that we don't have multiple alternatives. That's an illusion. Anything we do, we must have done. It was inevitable that we do that thing. The word and really these alternatives open to us. So I mean, it's a bit hard to define exactly what makes an argument fatalist. But I think it's fair to say that I mean, I mean, one thing you can say, although this is just a negative condition, is that it doesn't it doesn't mention notions like determinism or indeterminism, right? That's not that's not the issue. That's the other attack on free will. So fatalism is sometimes called logical fatalism. And the idea is here is that we're trying to rely on purely logical ideas, such as the law of excluding middle that says that for all propositions P, either P or not P. Now, I don't think I mean, that's in the right direction. But I don't think it's exactly right. I mean, for one reason, I think assumptions about the nature of time and the nature of the future come in. And that's not logic, that's metaphysics. And of course, there's also theological fatalism, which again involves, you know, the assumption of God's existence, which is not logic. So it's kind of hard to define. But it's best seen by just looking at particular examples of fatalist argument. Okay, so let's look at two particular examples here. Aristotle see battle argument and the argument from antecedent. Let's start with Aristotle see battle argument. Can you give us a history first, before we get into the details? Well, I know nothing about I don't know whether this was I mean, this was discussed prior to Aristotle, it probably was. But I mean, I really have have have no idea. But this is the first argument that you normally get whenever you discuss discuss fatalism. It's the sea battle argument. So maybe you want to put it up or the slide up. Okay, so let's look at the argument here. Yeah, so so this is so the starting premise again. So this is an instance of it will exclude the middle either P or not P. So either there will be a sea battle tomorrow or there will not. That's the starting premise. So two, if there will be, then it's inevitable that there will be. If there will not be then it's inevitable that there will not be. So therefore, from one, two and three, you get four. It's either inevitable that there will be or inevitable that there won't be. And of course, this is nothing special, but sea battles or tomorrow, whatever happens at any future time is inevitable. So so that's the sport. I mean, what what I mean, I use the word inevitable here. It doesn't it doesn't mean logically necessary. It means something like simply out with human control or influence. So it's on human control. Sorry. So that's your notion of inevitability here. Yes, yes, I define it as being something out with human control or influence. Okay. So so the question that I mean, well, there's a number of questions. I mean, one is what Aristotle himself thought of this argument. It's generally agreed that he didn't agree with the argument. But but scholars differ on where where he faulted it. And in fact, I mean, those are two ways I think in which you can fault it and different scholars think that Aristotle actually endorsed the each solution. So the question is that a good argument? And I think the answer is is no. So as I said, I think there are two ways you can resist it. I mean, I'm assuming it's a it's a valid argument. So if the premises are true, the conclusion is true. But so if we're going to question it, we have to reject one or more of the premises. So so the two strategies of reply are either to reject premise one, or to reject premises two and three. So I'll just I'll just say something about that. Now that so the first strategy. And again, some people think this was Aristotle's own view is to reject premise one. So you're rejecting the law of excluding middle. The principle that for all propositions or statements P, P or not P. Now, you might think this is very radical as a response to give up what what we're taught in first year logic as a basic law. Yeah, a law of reasoning, right? Yes, but I suppose the reason why you might, you know, the way you might try and justify it is by pointing out the kind of peculiarity of the of the propositions that you're concerned with, namely, there will be a sea battle tomorrow. And there will not be a sea battle tomorrow. So these are often called future contingents. And what you mean by that is that that their truth is not determined by anything in the present or the laws of nature. So that idea here would be let's say that there's a naval commander who tonight will decide whether or not there's going to be a sea battle. So now it has not been decided whether there'll be a sea battle or not. So it's a future contingent. Right? I mean, so for example, so there's a reason that Aristotle chose that example, as opposed to say, either the sun will rise tomorrow or the sun will not rise tomorrow. Because arguably, the sun will rise tomorrow is not a future contingent, right? That's a consequence of the laws of nature. So so so he's choosing a proposition that would count as a future contingent. So this is simply as example of a future contingent. Okay, well, I mean, some people think so that question is what what truth value should we give future contingents? So let's say there will be a sea battle tomorrow. Should we now regard that as true or false? Well, some people think the answer is no, they think precisely because it's not fixed or determined, it doesn't have a truth value. So it's neither true nor false. I suppose so. Yes, I mean, people talk about it being indeterminate. I'm not sure whether they think of that as a third value or rather the absence of either of the truth values. Again, the different ways you can go in that. But anyway, it's definitely not true. And it's definitely not false, right? So it doesn't have a truth value. I mean, they think it'll become true or it's present tense counterpart will become true or false tomorrow. But now it doesn't have a truth value because there's nothing now that makes it true or false. Okay, so how is this different from the sun will rise tomorrow? Does it have a definite value? Well, we're assuming that that that there is something now that makes it true that the sun will rise tomorrow, namely, the laws of nature. Maybe maybe some condition of the universe some earlier time. But we're assuming that because this is a human, this is the result of a human decision that's yet to be made. It shouldn't get a truth value. And there's also another consideration that's relevant here, which is the nature of the future. Because you might think, I mean, some people think that the future is unreal. It's yet to come. Well, it doesn't exist. All right, we'll stop. So I mean, CD Broad had this growing, growing universe view, where the idea was that the past and present are real. But the future is unreal. So if you thought the future was unreal, then that might be another reason to say that there will be a sea battle tomorrow is neither true nor false, because the reality that would make it true, namely, the future doesn't exist. So there's also so there could also be this metaphysical aspect to it too, could be another reason for saying that it's neither true nor false. But of course, a lot of philosophers these days would think would say that past present future are equally real, in which case you couldn't make that response. Okay, so so the point is, so the reason why this is relevant is that if you would say the same thing about there will not be a sea battle tomorrow. So both there will be a sea battle tomorrow and there will not be a sea battle tomorrow would would be not true. But if a disjunction has two disjuncts which are not true, and it's a disjunction, the whole disjunction cannot be true. One is not true. So you've shown what's wrong with the argument, it's got its opening premise is false or at least not true. So this this would be the this would be the first solution to to avoiding conclusion five, which of course we all want to avoid. Yeah, because that's the fatalist conclusion that we don't have for you well. Right, right. Okay, so if we say that this sentence, this there will be a sea battle tomorrow is indeterminate. Isn't it the case that the whole disjunction is indeterminate as well? Yeah, well, well, it doesn't, I mean, maybe but the important point is that it's not true. Because I mean, we only we only accept cogent arguments that have to have true premises. So as long as it's not true, whether you call it indeterminate or false, doesn't really matter. It's not true. And then so you have actually, so you might well say it's it's yes, you might say it's indeterminate if both disjuncts are indeterminate. Okay. What's another response to this argument? Right, well, the other response, which which may have occurred to most people is to wonder why why exactly we should accept two and three. Right, I mean, two and three are very strong claims. And we haven't really been given any argument to believe them. So I mean, I mean, so it's quite natural to think, well, I mean, if we suppose that it is true, for example, that there will be a sea battle tomorrow, how does it follow that it's inevitable? Right, that that seems to require an argument. I mean, why should truth imply inevitability? I mean, it doesn't. I mean, it may be true that I will have eggs for breakfast tomorrow. But it doesn't seem to me that that's inevitable. I mean, even if I will have eggs for breakfast tomorrow, I could have had corn flakes instead. So there seems to be a glaring gap, or at the very least, two and three need some sort of defense as to how you're supposed to move from truth to inevitability. And on the face of it, you could just deny two and three. And just say that that proposition can be true without just being inevitable. Because that the idea of collapsing truth into inevitability looks a bit too much like the faithless conclusion anyway. So we shouldn't really concede that at the outset. Right, if the end, the argument now begs the question, if that's okay. Yeah, or at least we need some support, some reason to believe two and three, because on the face of it, they look evidently deniable. Okay, so for you, what's the verdict against this particular fatalist argument? Is it any good? No, I mean, I'm happy to go with either response. I don't have any particular views on this. But I mean, either of those replies seems to me perfectly reasonable. So I don't think we have to accept five. Okay, so let's turn to another fatalist argument, the argument from anti-seedent. Okay, well, I mean, so this argument actually appears. I know you've discussed time and time travel in the famous paper by David Lewis, which is one of his most readable papers on time travel. He discusses and rejects this argument. So this is an argument. Again, you can see why it's kind of called logical in character, because it's exploiting what is called the sort of timelessness of truth. That's to say, if some proposition is true, it seems that you're entitled to prefix it with in 1800, it was true that I mean, if so, let's say, you know, Morrison is Prime Minister in 2020, well, then it was true in 1800. Morrison would be Prime Minister in 2020. So it just seems that kind of dramatically, you can always make that, that move, and you will end up with something true. And this fatalist argument tries to exploit that that so-called timelessness of truth. Okay. So let's consider this version of the argument. Right. So by happy coincidence, I am currently me too. Okay, so, so we make this move, I mean, someone might object to it, but I'm not going to object to it here. So I'm assuming that we can move to in 18, or any, any past time. No, it doesn't matter, 1800s, either. In 1800, it was true that I am currently I in 2020, drinking coffee. So I'm willing to I'm willing to grant that, okay, for the sake of argument. And then so then we have three. But I have no choice about what was true in 1800, which on the face of it sounds right. Yeah, that's true. Nothing I can do now to affect how things were in 1800. So therefore, I have no choice about whether I'm currently doing drinking coffee. In other words, my drinking coffee is not a free action. So I mean, this is so this is superficially, you know, a kind of plausible argument. Again, it seems to me it's it's it's valid. It's a valid argument in the sense that if if one two and three are true, then then four is true. So again, the question and I'm not going to question premises one or two. So so that gives you a bit of a clue as to what I'm going to reject, which is of course, premise three, right? And I would say that that and this this I think is is is Lewis is lying to that we should reject premise three. So so premise three, as I say, is superficially plausible. I mean, because obviously there's lots of things in 1800, over which I have no control or which I have no choice about, like the population of London in 1800. I have no control over that or no choice about that what that what that was. But if you look at if you look at proposition two premise two, this is a very odd truth about 1800. Now, in fact, I mean, what Lewis wants to say is it's not it's not really a truth about 1800 at all. It's actually a truth about the present disguised to look like a truth about 1800. So it's much more natural, I think, to kind of to kind of reverse the the reasoning and to say that well, actually, that there are some things I can control about 1800. I mean, because I can control I have a choice about whether I'm drinking coffee now. So I have a choice about whether or not in 1800, it was true that I'm drinking coffee now. Okay. So so the real so the problem with the faithless reasoning and you get this and other faithless arguments is that they're trying to subvert the intuitive direction of dependence. Right, so it's not that. So the wrong way to think of it is that the truth because two is true. That is somehow forcing me to drink coffee now. That's completely the wrong way around. Rather, the reason to two is only true because you are drinking coffee coffee now. Right. So once you see that, then then you see that in fact, in this case, three is premise three is just false, or at least at least there's even no reason to accept it whatsoever. We can say that because of the peculiar kind of propositions we're concerned with, we do have a choice over whether they're true, because I have a choice about what I'm currently drinking. Okay, so what's your verdict with regard to this argument? Is it any good any version of this one? No, well, I mean, my general view is that is that that I mean, I look at other faithless arguments in my book, but generally speaking, faithless arguments are always bad. They're always some false premise or there's a kind of fallacious move, or some dodgy inference. Yeah, so generally, I think that the arguments that we're calling faithless, I think are don't don't really work. They're not they're not convincing. But many people have that kind of attitude, a fatalistic attitude about life, right? That life is fated to be this way. Well, they might, but if you ask them, it's not clear what they're based on argument, or just a kind of, you know, depression. I mean, to the extent that we're trying to articulate arguments here, they don't seem to be very good. Okay, so let's turn into another challenge to the notion of free will, the challenge of determinism. So what's determinism all about? And why is it a problem to our notion of free will? Right? Well, so as I said, fatalism was around with with Aristotle. So that's an ancient idea. But the problem of determinism free will only really emerged with with the emergence of the thesis of determinism. And that only really, really came about came to the fore with with Newton and the rise of science and the enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries. So I don't think people really thought in terms of determinism before this period. So sometimes people define determinism as the future that every event has a cause. Well, I don't think that quite quite captures it because you need to add that the cause, you know, determines or necessitates its effect. So I wouldn't I wouldn't I wouldn't use that definition. I think a better idea is this simply that determinism is the view that given the laws of nature, and the state of the universe at any arbitrary time t, it's impossible for the history of the universe before and after t to be to be different or to be other than it actually is. So in a way, this is a radical metaphysical denial of alternatives. So if the universe is deterministic, then the future is determined, right? That's to say that the actual future is the only possible future. So so this is what I mean, a lot of people believed, at least until last century, you know, if you observe that the motion of the planets on this kind of the regularities that we observe around us, I suppose this gives us some sort of evidence to believe that the universe is deterministic. But of course, if that's what you think, then then there is a kind of immediate puzzle. Namely, Namely, how can how can free agents, because we are part of the universe to everything about us. So how can free agents exist in a deterministic universe? Right? I mean, if all actions are determined, because our actions are just movements of matter, bodily movements, if they are determined, how can they be free? So that's the that's the sort of initial puzzle. Okay, let's try to be clear about the thesis first. So determinism is a physicalist thesis or an empirical thesis? Well, right. Well, that's a good point. Yes, I mean, determinism is an empirical thesis, right? It's an empirical claim about how the universe is. So so even if determinism is true, it's not a necessary truth, not logically necessary, that determinism is true. So yes, so it's a thesis that it would be up to suppose, up to science to validate or to undermine. So it's not strictly speaking, a philosophical thesis. It's an empirical scientific thesis. Okay, so it's a scientific thesis that given the loss of nature and the history of the universe that we know now, the future is determined by these things. Right, right, right. Okay. So it's a problem for free will because we're part of the universe. We are determined by these laws of nature. So how can we be free if such is the case? Right. Well, I mean, I mean, it's kind of obviously a problem if you if you go for the open future or alternative paths, view of free will, I mean, you can see how there's an immediate tension there. Of course, but this is why you have we have the two different responses to this this puzzle. So there's the compatibilist and the libertarian, which are the only views really at which we have free will. So if you believe in free will, you pretty much have to be either a compatibilist or or a libertarian. And so shall I just mention those those responses? Yeah, so what is compatibilism all about in libertarianism? Yeah, yes, right. So so the compatibilists are people like Hobbes and Hume and last century, AJ Air, they're all famous compatibilists. So so you have to remember that their definition of free will. Right. So their definition was what I'm calling this ownership view that that you act freely, just in case your actions result from your own beliefs and desires. So so their idea is that my my my actions are unfree. If they are coerced by someone else or manipulated by some mad scientist, or someone puts a gun to my head or whatever. Then I'm unfree. But they don't think this is what they think anyway. They don't think that the mere truth of determinism undermines my my free will. Right. As long as my actions result from my beliefs and desires, and there's no external interference, then I act freely. And that's meant to be quite compatible with with the fact that we are physical beings in a physical universe completely determined. Yeah, so compatible. So the compatibilist thinks, look, no, there is no problem here of determinism and free will. They're not incompatible. They're actually compatible. And now the libertarian, of course, has the very opposite view, right? The libertarian thinks, yes, free will and determinism are indeed incompatible. And it's pretty obvious to see why, because I mean, the libertarian endorses this open future view of free will. So in fact, their definition of free will is actually explicitly indeterministic. So here's the idea. So I mean, according to the libertarian, again, if I'm faced with a choice between A and B, and I freely do A, then it must be the case that I could have done B instead. Right. But with the crucial proviso, the past and the laws of nature remaining constant. Right. So they think that when you come to a free act, a free choice between A and B, and I do A, it must be the case that I could have that instant, I could have done B instead, with the past and laws of nature remaining exactly the same as they are now. Well, that that that can only be true given in determinism, because that that possibility is what determinism rules out. So if that's what a free action is, then it can only occur in an indeterministic setting. So for a libertarian, since we have free will, free will in the sense of having an open alternative, open feature, it means that determinism is false. Right. Well, if you go to the next slide, yeah, we'll see that there's a further move that the libertarian makes. So what I was pointing out was just that the libertarian endorses premise one and it follows, you know, pretty obviously from from his definition of free will. But the libertarian, I think, then goes a bit further because he assumes two, right? You don't have to assume two. You could, I mean, you could reason, you could reason determinism is true, so we don't have free will. But that's not how he reasoned. He says, so we have free will. So the libertarian thinks that we are free. And so he concludes that the universe is indeterministic. So it's actually giving us this philosophical proof of the truth of indeterminism, which is an interesting addition to make. So which of these two views is true? Well, OK, so having sort of set out what the views kind of roughly are in a very sketchy way, we have to see whether either of them is acceptable. And unfortunately, I think that the answer is no. So this isn't going to be a very positive kind of talk. So the trouble with with compatibilism. Well, the trouble with it is it's OK if all you're doing is focusing on a particular action and the beliefs and desires that lead to it. And that's all that you're told, then it sounds fair enough. Right. So so take the example I use in my book. So Smith, you know, wants to rob the bank. So. So he does so and he escapes with the loot. So so that this would be a paradigm case of free action for the for the compatibilist. Right. So because it was simply Smith's belief and desire that led him to rob the bank. There was no one with a gun to his head. He wasn't forced or manipulated. His action was simply the result of his own beliefs and desires. So this ought to be a paradigm example of a free action for the for the compatibilists. But the trouble is once you sort of, you know, pan out a bit and you think, well, just a minute, but his beliefs and desires. It doesn't really matter whether that whether you think of them as physical and physical, but his beliefs and desires are themselves events in the world. And they themselves have causes and indeed they were determined by prior causes and those causes were in turn determined by prior causes and so on and so on, stretching right back to events before Smith was even born. Well, once once you've panned out like that, then it seems to me that it's very hard to think of Smith as a free agent. Right. In fact, these beliefs and desires now seem to be just like events that occur in him over which he has no more control than he does over the motion of the planets. So I mean, the problem is that our assumption that Smith was free rested on the idea that he really did own his own beliefs and desires. But once you see that his beliefs and desires are just the consequences of events that happened way before he was born, then that intuition of ownership seems to disappear. And obviously what holds for Smith in this example would hold for all of us. So so that seems to me the the intuitive problem with with the compatibilist definition of free will. But it's actually not compatible with determinism. The one once you once you take a bigger picture of what's going on, then then the idea that the agent is free doesn't really seem very plausible. So so one person who's run with this and made it a bit more precise is Peter van Nwagen, who has this thing called the consequence argument, which is a kind of a sharpening of the kind of thing I was I was saying here. So I think we have a slide of this. So this is a kind of more formal way of putting what I was kind of getting at. So if determinism is true, then our acts are the consequences of the loss of nature and events in the remote past. So so that was what I meant by that the ultimate causes of Smith's belief and desires will be things before he was born. But it's not up to us what went on before we were born. And neither is it up to us what the laws of nature are. Therefore, the consequences of these things are not up to us. So this is a slightly more formal way of putting the same the same point or the same worry. And van Nwagen does indeed think that this is a good argument and it shows that that compatibilism is not is unacceptable. I mean, there was a famous reply to it by David Lewis in a paper called Can We Break the Laws? That it would be too difficult to go into here. I mean, Lewis thinks that it's a kind of equivocation and it's actually not. It's not a good argument. But to my to my sort of simple mind, it does seem to be a pretty a pretty compelling objection to compatibilism. OK, so how about libertarianism? Well, you won't be surprised to hear it doesn't get any better. No, no. Well, it seems to me. Look, I mean, people have written, you know, books and PhD feasts on this. And so what I'm doing is very is very superficial. But I mean, there are two obvious objections, I think, to to the libertarian view. So so one one it goes back to the point you were making about about it's an empirical matter where the determinism is true. So the libertarian's conclusion that our universe is is indeterministic is really sort of hostage to fortune. I mean, I mean, it may be that today, scientists think that indeterminism is true, but it may be that scientists in the future think that determinism is the determinism is true. So so if that's how it turns out, then then the libertarian would have to just give up on the idea of free will. So so his whole view is kind of postage to how the science turns out in a way that you don't really want a philosophical view to be. I mean, you might also think it's a bit odd, just as an aside, when I when I went through the earlier argument you could have a philosophical argument for indeterminism. That itself seems a bit odd if we agreed that it's an empirical question, you know, one for science to tell us whether determinism is true or not. They're really the philosophers, no business giving us an a priori argument that that indeterminism is true. But the second and perhaps perhaps that the really the objection that everyone focuses on is that indeterminism and, of course, it's not enough just that there be indeterminism somewhere in the universe. But that wouldn't give us free will. I mean, indeterminism has to be something in our brain or a central nervous system or something to do with us. But the general worry is that indeterminism doesn't seem to give us a kind of hospitable environment for free will. I mean, if you imagine. If you imagine that you're deliberating on some important moral, you know, question, you have to decide between, you know, A or B, whatever. And so you weigh all the pros and the cons and eventually you say, OK, I think A is the best thing to do, right thing to do. And then you do A. So we take that to be a paradigm of a kind of free, rational decision, free, rational action. And I mean, it would be really odd to think that there was some indeterministic element in that that your decision depended on some indeterministic brain event. I mean, that would be really weird. I mean, if anything, that would undermine your idea that it was really a weird decision, because I mean, random things are things that you have no control over. Right. So the real worry, I mean, so P.F. Strossen, who, you know, my old supervisor, he actually in a famous paper of freedom or resentment, I think, used the phrase panicky metaphysics to describe the metaphysics of libertarianism. I think this is what he was he was getting at. This is a, you know, you don't want to end up here thinking that your freedom resides in some indeterministic event in your brain. This is not where we want to be. And it doesn't seem to give you free will anyway. In fact, if anything, it seems to undermine your free will. So. So we're so things are not looking too good, right? Even though the faithless argument doesn't work, it does look as if we have another kind of overarching argument. That basically both compatibilism and libertarianism don't work. So it seems that, so in other words, it seems that free will is incompatible with determinism and free will is incompatible with indeterminism. And that would follow that therefore necessarily no one is free necessarily. You know, free will is impossible. Would seem to be the conclusion if you agree with with what I've been saying so far. Yeah, but if that's the case, then how about moral responsibility and legal accountability? How would you? Yeah, well. Well, OK, I mean, one reason why people people focus on this issue is a lot of people it's not so much because of the the metaphysical question of are we free, but because it's linked to the question of whether or not we are morally responsible because it's normally assumed that someone can be more responsible only if they are free. So so the question here is, I mean, suppose we agreed with all this and we agreed that free will is impossible. And how do we how do we sort of get by? I mean, we have all these practices that depend on the assumption that we are free, that other people are free, that we are responsible. Other people are responsible. How will those how are those going to to survive? And yeah, so it seems to me that that I mean, not for the first time in philosophy, you know, we're caught in a kind of paradox that that sort of reason forces us to deny the possibility of human freedom. And yet, you know, most of our human practices rest on the assumption that we are free and responsible. So obviously, this is not comfortable. A comfortable position. I mean, it's worth mentioning what I mean. So the son of Peter Strossen, Galen Strossen. Who actually was one of the examiners on my D Phil. So his father was a supervisor and his son was the examiner. So I got I got that stitched up quite nicely. I mean, he's got this view. I mean, he's the most extreme advocate of the view that I mean, his view would dovetail with what I've been saying. But but he thinks, of course, that the whole obsession with determinism and indeterminism is all beside the point, right, because I won't go into this too much here. But basically, he thinks that the problem is with the notion of free will itself, right? He thinks that the notion of free will is just itself incoherent, right, because he thinks that that free will requires a kind of self determination, which is actually logically unsatisfiable in the way that self creation is logically unsatisfiable, right? It doesn't make any sense to create yourself because to create yourself, you'd have to be there first to do to do any creating. Unless you're a God. Well, maybe God has always existed. So he didn't have to come into existence. Right. So so he's got this very radical view. And, you know, and you're right, presumably all the notions that rest on free will, holding people legally and morally responsible would lose their would lose their their ground or their basis. And that's that's that's a problem. But of course, but one thing that's worth I think worth mentioning is that in a way, this is a kind of philosophical problem itself, which is I mean, if you really did become convinced that we didn't have free will, then then we ought to give up lots of other attitudes to ourself and other people. But that seems that seems practically impossible, right? We can't. I mean, it may even be that to be an agent, you have to believe that you are free. I mean, we can't really give up this this idea of free will or the assumption that other people are are responsible. I mean, so this is one of the lines in Sir Peter Strossen's famous paper, Freedom and Resentment. I mean, he called these things that the reactive attitudes, which are basically a kind of typical human attitudes of praise and blame, resentment, etc. that you have to yourself and to other people. And part of his idea is that these are so deeply ingrained in our nature that that we couldn't possibly give them up. And he thinks that the truth of determinism or indeterminism is completely irrelevant. They can never force us to give up these reactive attitudes. Of course, you might think that that's a bit dogmatic. That's another that's another question. But it is interesting that that even if we came to believe that we don't have free will, it does seem that we would never actually, I mean, if someone stole your car, you know, you would still be annoyed with them. I mean, it's very hard to give up these attitudes, even if even if you came to believe sincerely that no one has free will. But that may be true elsewhere in philosophy. You know, so perhaps our reason for accepting that there is free will is more of a practical reason or a pragmatic reason. Yes, but but I still think that the trouble with that with the the Serpito-Straussian response is, I mean, OK, it may be true that we can't we cannot but have these reactive attitudes. But the fact that we can't but think a certain way doesn't itself show that it's right to think that way. The question of its justification. No, there's a big debate about that and whether whether that's actually a good objection. But, you know, that seems a natural thing to say. I mean, just I mean, there may be lots of attitudes that that evolution has given to us that we that we couldn't give up. But that doesn't make mean that they're true. It just means that we can't give them up. So. OK, so what's your view, your personal view on the matter, on the nature of free will? Well, I suppose I suppose I agree partly with with with Vanden Wagen. So he's someone, I think, who thinks that the arguments I've run through against compatibilism and against libertarianism are perfectly good objections. So he thinks that, yes, there are these good arguments to show that we don't have free will. But on the other hand, he seems low to give up the belief that we have free will. So he thinks that somehow or other we do have free will, but he doesn't quite know how. No, I'm not sure if I'm that optimistic. But certainly, I do think that these these objections to to compatibilism and libertarianism are really quite strong objections. So so as a theoretical notion, free will does seem to be does seem to be under under serious threat. OK, so on a more personal note, you have been a philosopher for the longest time. You have seen the career of an academic philosopher. So what's your tip for those who want to get into academic philosophy? Well, yes. Well, generally speaking, I wouldn't I wouldn't recommend it. No, I mean, I think I think nowadays, if you can become an accountant or or a lawyer or a merchant bank or something and become financially independent at an early age, then that's probably what you should do. I mean, I mean, academia over the over the recent years has changed quite a lot. I mean, there's the dominance of all this political correctness everywhere. There isn't really anything in the way of kind of free speech. I mean, any philosopher who's remotely conservative will either never be invited onto a campus or if they do get onto a campus that they'll be shouted down by radical social justice warriors. So so yeah, there's a lot going on here that seems to me to be to be to be bad. And it doesn't look like it's going to get better any time in the near in the near future. So so there's that. I mean, as for philosophy itself, well, it does seem to me, I mean, this is just a personal view that that philosophy is in a particularly kind of fallow period at the moment. I mean, if you look at the kind of things that appear in the latest mind or analysis, I mean, they're often very specialized, sometimes very formal. And there's this whole rise of empirical or experimental philosophy, which I just don't get at all. So I mean, I know I've come to the conclusion that the kind of the high point of philosophy was really last last century. I mean, then philosophy was, I think, a genuinely humane discipline. People like Russell, Ayer, Hampshire, Williams, Quinton, these kind of people. And you know, if I try and think of when the last great book of philosophy was, I would say it was it was Sol Kripke's Naming and Necessity, which was a great book. But I mean, that came out in 1980. I mean, that's 40 years ago. And there's really been there's been nothing like that since then. So. Yes, so I mean, I'm sure it will get better. But I think at the moment it's it's a it's a bit of a nadir, as opposed to a zenith. OK, so you're pessimistic concerning academic career and philosophy? Yes. So Stolger was a reasonable optimist. I'm a reasonable or maybe unreasonable pessimist. OK, so on that note, thanks again, Professor Garrett, for sharing your time with us. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. OK, so join me again for another episode of Philosophy and What Matters, where we talk about things that matter from a philosophical point of view. Cheers. Bye. Good.