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RE: Why we don't have the controversial kind of free will, why it's okay, and why it's important - part 1 of 2
You say "agent causation [is]... a kind of causation that science has never seen before... magic". Am I correct in assuming you are a materialist and that you believe consciousness to be an emergent property of matter?
Good question! In fact I am a materialist - but this problem isn't really about that. As Peter van Inwagen puts it in this article:
That article and this NYT article by Galen Strawson gives you a sense why. So to be a libertarian you don't just need immaterialism, you need to posit a specific, non-natural type of causation explicitly to make sense of free will. But this looks suspiciously ad hoc - no? It might be the right move if (as van Inwagen thinks) we have to have free will and know we have free will. But as I'll argue in part 2, we can get by just fine without libertarian free will.
Thank you for that article link. I would take issue with some of the premises but I would agree with Strawson's reasoning from his premises.
To your comment: So an Idealist (such as I am at present) would need to posit a specific, immaterial (is that what you mean by "non-natural?) type of causation explicitly to make sense of free will?
It seems that way, yeah. Presumably angels are immaterial (on the standard reading), but as van Inwagen argues, even they face this problem. Very briefly: do such angels act based on how they now are, or not? If the act is from how they are now, we ask how they became that way (whether the answer is from standard materialist physics or from whatever account you give of the lawful relations of ideas), and whether they are ultimately responsible for that. If the act is not a direct result of how they are now, it does not seem to be really their act.
As Strawson says, you need the miraculous causa sui to make sense of libertarian free will - you make yourself as you are, from scratch. But this (as he quotes Nietzsche saying) is a "rape and perversion of logic" - how can anything self-create?! Wouldn't you already have to be some way in order to make yourself another way?! This isn't just non-scientific, it's difficult to comprehend how even magic could do it.
Yes, I think I can see the point being made by Peter and Galen. They suppose that beings must act based on how they are now... and I guess I just do not see why it could not be that "how they are now" presents a set of live options from which they may freely choose. I could see how no being would possess limitless options at any single point in time but not why they must have none at all.
Also, it is true that every person would acknowledge that he at least has the illusion of free will (which is strange enough if we do not). If it were true that we do not freely make choices nothing we think or do would be of any significance whatsoever. Even deciding to believe that determinism is true would be meaningless! Therefore, since free will is a necessary condition of meaningfulness in life, it seems best to assume we have it. If we do not then life is meaningless and who cares?