Talk:Libertarianism (metaphysics)/Archive 1

Libertarian determinism

I am a true libertarian (free market anarchist) hard determinist (nonbeliever of the concept of free will), thus, I am a contradiction to the statement "All libertarians subscribe to the philosophy of incompatibilism". I think this should probably be rephrased?

The whole article is about metaphysical libertarianism, it would be tedious to keep re-iterating the point. 1Z 13:02, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I just realized this myself. Many political libertarians tend to use free will and metaphysics in general as an argument though, this confused me. I interpreted the article as something along the lines of "political libertarian ideas concerning metaphysical concepts".

NPOV

Alas, my contributions to this sort of philosophy article are always my biggest problems from an NPOV perspective, since I've usually decided long ago that there just isn't a reasonable argument on the other side, so I don't even know what to write for "the opposition". :-)

So if someone knows of any arguments that purport to resolve the "not-random but not-determined" issue, this article needs it... Evercat 01:06, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You wanted a rewrite, you got it. 1Z 03:26, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Libertarianism (philosophy)

Moved from User talk:The Anome

Hi - I see it was you who started Libertarianism (philosophy) - someone added something and the whole article ended up being inconsistent, so I've commented out a substantial part of it...

I'm not even clear myself these days what Libertarianism actually is. Is it:

1. The view that if Alice is free she "could have done otherwise".

Or is it:

2. The view that if Alice is free then some causal chains are started by her, and there are no prior causes of this.

There are certainly arguments to the effect that Alice "could have done otherwise" even if the prior state-of-the-world entails that Alice does not do otherwise, so the 1st view can be made consistent with compatibilism and determinism. However, I doubt that the 2nd view can.

I rather thought that Libertarianism was the 2nd view, however what you wrote makes me wonder if it's the 1st... Evercat 01:55, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Anyway, can I ask you for a source on the "compatible with determinism" bit? As I look through Google, it really seems like libertarianism is the combination of incompatibilism with the view that we do have free will, ie see this Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry: libertarian free will, the kind of free will that is incompatible with causal determinism. or this one: A libertarian is an incompatibilist who believes that we in fact have free will and that this entails that determinism is false. Evercat 14:37, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I was just trying to keep the previous text as an alternative view. You've now convinced me, and I'll move the other text to the talk page. -- The Anome 22:56, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

Removed from the article

I removed the following paragraph from the article, after discussion between myself and Evercat:

Some libertarians take the philosophical view that determinism and free will are compatible. They believe the fact that one's choice may be in theory determined or predictable, does not alter the fact that it was a free choice. For example, being able to predict that someone will not cross the street when a car is coming, is not taken to imply the person has no free will. He makes that choice because he wants to live. We may be able to predict that choice, because we know the person enjoys life, but it is still the case that the person chose what he wanted to choose.

incompatibilism & compatibilism

All libertarians subscribe to the philosophy of incompatibilism which states that reality is indeterministic.

could anyone change this expression? i think it is not accurate: compatibilism or incompatibilism just states whether freedom and determinism is reconcilable or not. It is not about any deterministic or indeterministic view of the world. pls correct either me or the text. cheers.

You're right, it's entirely possible to be an incompatibilist and believe that reality is deterministic, though one of course will not then believe in free will. Still, all Libertarians will have to be incompatibilists... I'll try and fix up the text. Evercat 18:50, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Improving the article

I've never heard of "libertarianism" being used this way. The article badly needs references to "philosophical" libertarians, or at least to people who use the term.

Move?

In my opinion, as libertarianism (the political philosophy) is a philosophy, too, this the name for this article doesn't really differentiate it. I propose moving this to "Libertarianism (free will)." Let me know what you think. Dave

Perhaps Libertarian free will would be a good title, though it would require some small modifications to the article text. Evercat 20:09, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Done.Dave 01:42, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)

I went ahead and re-moved (haha) the article to "Libertarianism (metaphysics)". It's called "libertarianism" more than "libertarian free will", and metaphysics is sufficiently distinguished from politics to be unambiguous. Philwelch 23:10, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

References?

Why no references to books or external links of any actual published thought regarding libertarianism in metaphysics? --Serge 22:50, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

History...

What this article lacks is an explanation of the history of "libertarianism", especially as applied to actual use of the word in relation to the idea. did Hume refer to it by that name?

You can, more often than not, learn as much from the history of a thing as you can from any encyclopedic explanation of it (other than its history). Hopefully someone can add a history to this item. --Kaz 01:24, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I must say that although this article contains some valuable information, it seems to be affecteed by POV. It talks as much as deterministic counter-arguments to libertarianism as it does libertarianism itself. The inference that could be drawn is "libertarians say this, but actually they're wrong for these reasons." May I also propose a counter-argument to the idea that our perception of free choice is only an illusion. Logic is all that leads determinists to their conclusions, which in itself is a form of perception, as much as any other thought-form. Although it does seem effective in discovering practical truths, that is not to say that it is the sole means to truth. Furthermore, if we cannot trust our internal perception of free will, why should we trust any other perceptions any more? Absolutely everything that we conclude, is, aferall, based on nothing more than our perception of the world. -Scott

I have incorporated a version of that objection into the new article.1Z 03:27, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Objection to supernatural libertariansim

"This objection is merely a failure to understand what supernatural libertarianism is proposing -- a non-physical component to the pscyhe, a soul, in which the free will resides."

On the contrary: the whole point of appealing to brain science is that if you can explain the mind using only physical components, a non-physical psyche is redundant. 1Z 22:14, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Chemical reactions

Regardless of whether someone feels aware of their decisions, they are nevertheless influenced by causal factors. One could easily argue that, like a chemical reaction or electrical circuit, the human brain is quite predictable if one understands all the factors involved in its processes. If one was aware of all the chemical reactions in a certain brain (Endorphans etc), the neurons and bio-electical impulses and any other aspects of the brain how they function in relation to all the information the brain recieves (caused by outside influences of the body) and the actual physical matter of the brain itself then, after much calculation, one could determine what the brain would tell the body to do next. This makes the idea that the entire universe is one massive chemical reaction still in process and is merely reacting to the prior aspects of the 'reaction'.

I have removed most of this passage.

1. It assumes determinism is true. If indeterminism is true, no amount of information will allow complete prediction.
2. It assumes identity theory is false.
3. it contains a number of misspellings.
4. The "massive chemical reaction" bit is inappropriate. Gravity is not chemical, for instance.

In general it is OR-ish. 1Z 21:15, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Physical Indeterminism

Indeterminism is not the same as unpredictability. The change from

The truth of indeterminism in modern physics is not sufficient to prove libertarianism — it might be incompatible with indeterminism as well!

to

The unpridictable nature of quantum mechanics is not sufficient to prove libertarianism — the randomness may itself be deterministic, as in rolling a dice.

basically switches the subject.1Z 21:32, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Panpsychism

There needs to be a mention of panpsychism in the Naturalistic Libertarianism section. For instance, see this Amit@Talk 03:16, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Conclusion

Could someone include references to support the view that most contemporary philisophers do not support libertarianism? The fact, if it is one, is not apparent from the article. A review of current thinking on the subject would be helpful.

Also, which religions hold libertarianism as a tenet?

Madgenberyl 14:52, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Article needs to be rewritten, but lacks sources

1. The article reads like a debate. During the "initial objections" some of the opposing views are immediately shot down. OnNecessary For Rationality someone wrote "Without volition, there is no difference between rational discourse and parotting. Her comments carry no more persuasive force than the message on an answering machine," which is rediculous and inappropriate for Wikipedia.

2. I'm still confused as to where the line between free will and determinism is drawn. If someone makes a choice based on acquired knowledge, is that free will or is it determinism? What is the source of free will?

I'd be interested in rewriting this article in a non-debate style, except there aren't any sources listed or referenced. I would basically be rewriting someone elses original research, and even with the appropriate tone it would still be subject to deletion.

--Kilojake (talk) 02:22, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

It all depends up on your interpretation. Philosophers take the same circumstances and come to way different conclusions. Somewhere in the McKenna's Stanford article he defines free will as “the ability of persons to exercise control over their actions necessary for moral responsibility”. Going more detailed, most philosophers have believed that you have to have alternate possibilities to have free will. Thus compatibilists appeal to hypothetical possibilities. Incompatibilists have pointed out that in a sense these possibilities cannot be chosen, which has put compatibilists on the defensive. Since Frankfurt's 1969 paper (Frankfurt counterexamples, philosophers have come to realize that it's not alternate possibilities that truly matter, but whether your actions are caused by yourself. Kane calls this the Ultimate Responsibility (UR) criterion. I should make a section on definitions, where we could clear up a lot of the misconceptions about free will. ImperfectlyInformed | {talk - contribs} 18:21, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

What is libertarianism as a concept of dialection?

Libertarian freewill states that humans contain a component which is uncreated and or supernatural. This component energy/dynamus as a physical component enables Entelechy. Since energy can not be created or destroyed since it is not created it is the supposed supernatural component that the anti-freewill groups decry does not exist. Since energy has no cause therefore no causation as it's origin (see the laws of the conservation of energy). Not all things have causation that actually themselves force an event to occur. Determinism from the position of Hindsight bias (which is actually what determinism, necessitarianism is) would also deny Aristotles' sumbebekos it would imply that mankind has the ability to see all the workings of the Universe and predict the outcome of one event to another by that event's preceeding events. Therefore there is no sumbebekos or accidents. This would indicate a control over reality that one, mankind does not possess. And two indicates a completeness in the philosophy of determinism that the philosophy does not possess. For the philosophy can not explain that things exist, if the thing has no causation other then to deny the thing's existence (aka energy). LoveMonkey (talk) 15:46, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

The argument between the different groups of freewill can be reduced to the belief that man has energy and dynamus and ultimately man is energy (in EO man in hypostasis is energy in ousia man is created or finite) he is given these energies as grace by the Holy Spirit). Meaning that the soul is energy (just like the body) but consciousness/person is an aggregate of body and soul. The sticky point is an agreed upon definition of the word -event. Since people cause events and or choose to be effected by the event and or how they are effected by the event (this is but one example). Events do not cause themselves because events have no way of confirming value or existence this is N.O. Losskys take on Leibniz's monadism. It was this set of principles that Leibniz used to create Integral calculus or higher math. The same math that Yevgeny Zamyatin showed his novel We that cause the undermining systemizing and mechnizing of society. Leibniz uses libertarianism against lower mathmatics as a solution to the problem of evil [1] rather then say the cult solution of misotheism. This solution of misotheism separates up creation into a mind-body dualism. This dualism claiming a God of the Spirit and a God of the machine or material world. This is Leibniz argument for the monadology as in his chapters on it in Monadology (see Multiplicity of the Monad and Proof of the Existence of God pgs 270-275). LoveMonkey (talk) 17:54, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

In Eastern Orthodoxy this has always been addressed that the body and soul are both the same thing- they are energies. Our being (finite/created) is manifest by contrasting these energies with the uncreated (see gnosiology). Energy is an immanence of God, God is beyond energy but is also the source of energy (hence energy being also uncreated) in the Greek church. This was what the whole conflict with St Gregory Palamas and Barlaam was about. The monad in Platonic and explicitly neoplatonism philosophy- is energy. And this as a reflection of the structure of human consciousness states that consciousness has a perception faculty, that imposes onto the energy around us, the forms that become in our minds the material world (see Plato's idealism and realism). This is what NO Lossky taught (as did Semen L. Frank and V Soloviev as Russian Philosophy). This template (in the mind) forcing logic or order onto the chaos, energy of reality (see Empedokles in John Burnet's, Early Greek Philosophy). This faculty is/was referred to as the demiurge (creator/artist). As an intrinsic concept it is called the nous or mind of the person. Idealism in the Eastern sense more properly stated that only nonbeing (no so much nothing or nothingness) exists outside of the nous, noetic faculity or mind. It is the nous that gives the non-beng, being. This is the ontic of ontology in pre christian Hellenic philosophy. LoveMonkey (talk) 17:49, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

N.O. Lossky's published defense of libertarianism titled sobornost.

Here is a published definition of determinism and libertarianism from Professor N. O. Lossky. As sobornost or organic, spontaneous order.

History of Russian Philosophy section on "N O Lossky the Intuitivists" pg 260

“ Love can only be a free expression of personality. Determinists deny freedom of the will on the ground that every event has a cause. They mean by causality the order of temporal sequence of one event after other events and the uniformity of that sequence. Causation, generation, creation and all other dynamic aspects of causality are ruled out. Lossky proves that the will is free, taking as his starting point the law of causality but defending a dynamistic interpretation of it. Every event arises not out of itself, but is created by someone: it cannot be created by other events: having a temporal form events fall away every instant into the realm of the past and have no creative power to generate the future. Only supertemporal substantival agents-i.e., actual and potential personalities- are bearers of creative power: they create events as their own vital manifestations. According to the dynamistic interpretation of causality it is necessary to distinguish among the conditions under which an event takes place the cause from the occasion of its happening. The cause is always the substantival agent himself as the bearer of creative power, and the other circumstances are merely occasions for its manifestations, which are neither forced nor predetermined by them. The agents' creative power is superqualitative

and does not therefore predetermine which particular values an agent will select as his final end.

” — The History of Russian Philosophy

Section II

“ That selection is the agent's free act. Consequently, the temporal order of events is not uniform even in the inorganic nature. It is quite possible that although some two electrons have millions of time repulsed each other, they will not do so the next time. But functional connections between ideal forms conditioning the existence of the world as a system-e.g. mathematical principles and the laws of the hierarchy of values and their significance for conduct conditioning the presence of meaning in the world-are independent of the agents' will. Violation of these laws is unthinkable, but they do not destroy the agent's freedom: they merely create the possibility of activity as such and of its value. Those laws condition the cosmic structure within the frame work of which there is freedom for an infinite variety of activities. The system of spatiotemporal and numerical forms provides room for activities that are opposed to one another in direction, value, and significance for the world.

The absence of rigidly uniform connection between events does not make science impossible. It is sufficient for science that there should be more or less regular connection between events in time. The lower the agent's stage of development, the more uniform are their manifestations. In those cases there may be statistical laws. Many misunderstandings of the doctrine of free will are disposed of by distinguishing between formal and material freedom. Formal freedom means that in each given case an agent may refrain from some particular manifestation and replace it by another. That freedom is absolute and cannot be lost under any circumstance. Material freedom means the degree of creative power possessed by an agent, and finds expression in what he is capable of creating. It is unlimited in the Kingdom of God, the members of which unanimously combine their forces for communal creativeness and even derive help from God's omnipotence. But agents outside the Kingdom of God are in a state of spiritual deterioration and have very little material freedom, though their formal freedom is unimpaired. Life outside the Kingdom of God is the result of the wrong use of free will.
Lossky continues here with his refutation of Ayn Rand's Objectivism (Rand his former student) which he expressed as a system of selfishness.

” — The History of Russian Philosophy

This approach is the same approach as the Black swan theory.

LoveMonkey (talk) 15:50, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm too busy to help you right now, plus I don't know anything about this area of free will and determinism. Maybe after I graduate. ImperfectlyInformed | {talk - contribs} 16:19, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Beefing up article, including etymology

I'm trying to get this article or Libertarianism listed on Template:Philosophy topics where Marxism and Liberalism are listed and am getting some resistance. So it would be helpful if there were some line references in there so it doesn't look like dubious WP:original research. I don't have access to these books and really not that familiar with all the issues, but do think they are important. Also, it would be nice to have an etymology - or at least a sentence or two - so we'd know who first used libertarianism when for metaphysics and how the use developed early on. Thanks. Carol Moore 23:53, 26 August 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc {talk}

I don't see how liberalism or marxism being listed has any influence on whether this should be listed. Those are theories of government, and this article is not. You should focus on the article Libertarianism. ^L_Wizard @ 03:14, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Obviously if this is a philosophy topic it belongs there. Anyway, I've just added sourced material. The lack of sourcing in this article in general is serious, and much of it is probably someone's personal theories. Someday when I have a chance I'm going to pare it down to a few paragraphs that are properly sourced. CarolMooreDC (talk) 18:24, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Good idea. The great bulk of unreferenced material creates a natural and apparently overwhelming resistance to article improvement. I support the idea wholeheartedly and may join you myself. Mmyotis ^{(^^o^^)} 19:04, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I had a brief urge to go through and delete most of the unsourced material here - much of it tagged for over two years -- after I did some research on what seemed credible enough to seek references for. Luckily for those who created this mass of WP:original research I reminded myself I have other projects to complete today. But one of these days I'll have a strong cup of coffee and do it in a couple of hours, so just a reminder! Any motivated editor has a right to do just that - and without bothering to seek any references at all! CarolMooreDC (talk) 15:47, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Thinking about it, I don't have time to do this. So to encourage people to abide by wikipedia rules I'll just pare it down to what is sourced. Do not put back material unless it has a source, and if a book, a page number. Please abide by the defacto contract you enter into with wikipedia to follow WP:policy when you edit here. Thanks! CarolMooreDC (talk) 23:26, 14 June 2009 (UTC)