Post Edited (Tom) : 3/20/2009 3:51:37 PM (GMT-5)

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This short description of her claims that she is not in the compatibilist camp. http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/philosophers/stump/

Eleonore Stump is a specialist in medieval philosophy who has compared Thomas Aquinas's views on free will with those in the contemporary debates and tentatively decided he was a libertarian. (Aquinas was, of course, a compatibilist with respect to God's foreknowledge.) In her comparisons, Stump exhibits her own incompatibilist position.

Post Edited (Corey) : 3/20/2009 12:21:03 PM (GMT-5)

I'm confused then, because just a bit down from that, Corey, the intro says:

“Stump develops her own version of the standard two-part argument against free will.”

Then she develops it. Just a bit here:

Excerpts from "FREEDOM: Action, Intellect, and Will" (Chapter 9 of Aquinas, Routledge, 2003, pp.300-306).

Libertarianism and causal determination

Libertarian free will is sometimes characterized in this way:

(L) an act of will, such as a decision, is free only if
[1] "the decision [is] not ... causally determined, and ...
[2] the agent could have avoided making it."

As we have seen, Aquinas does not accept the second conjunct of (L), (L2). Because of the implications of Frankfurt-type counterexamples, many contemporary philosophers also suppose that (L2) is too strong. So perhaps (L2) is not a necessary condition for libertarian free will. But what about (L1), the claim that a decision is free only if the decision is not causally determined?

In connection with (L1), it is important to ask what theory of mind a libertarian account of free will is to be embedded in. Suppose we assume, as perhaps most theories of mind now do, that there is some sort of correlation between a mental state and a set of neural firings. This will be a one—many correlation: there will need to be many neural firings to produce one mental state. The mental state of recognizing a girl across a crowded room as your daughter, for example, requires the firing of neurons from the retina through the superior colliculus, the lateral geniculate nucleus of the thalamus, and various parts of the visual cortex, and into those parts of the brain specialized for memory and the recognition of faces. The entire causal sequence of many neural firings is required to produce one mental state, which is an effect of the sequence.

This characterization of the mental state as causally brought about by a series of neural firings does not presuppose any particular sort of correlation between the mental and the physical. It is compatible with either type-type or token-token identity theories, but it does not presuppose either of them. By saying that mental states are correlated with neural sequences, I mean to make only a vague association between mental states and neural sequences, compatible with various theories of relations between mind and brain. Those who think that the mental is identical to the physical can suppose that the mental states and the neural sequences are correlated because the mental states are the neural sequences. Non-reductive materialists can take the correlation as some version of emergence or supervenience. As far as that goes, even dualists such as Aquinas, who takes the soul to be the form of the body, can accept this characterization of the mental as correlated with the physical in virtue of the mind's being implemented in configurations of the physical. Only the most extreme versions of Cartesian substance dualism will reject it. On an extreme version of Cartesian dualism — which Descartes himself may have held — some mental states, such as thinking and willing, go on only in the immaterial soul and are not mirrored by or correlated with brain processes.

On any theory of the mind, including Aquinas's, that sees a stronger tie between mind and body than extreme Cartesian dualism, there will be some sort of correlation (up to and including identity) between mental processes and brain processes. On such non-Cartesian theories, however exactly we interpret the correlation between a physical state and a mental state, the mental state is a causal outcome of physical states.

[Did she just side with those who conclude that "however we interpret the correlation...mental states are a causal outcome of physical states"?]

If (L1) is right, however, only those mental acts which are not so much as correlated with patterns of neural firings can count as free. But then libertarianism could be held only by extreme Cartesian dualists. And, clearly, there are committed libertarians who reject any form of Cartesian dualism. So (L1) is also too strong; to avoid making libertarianism a theory only extreme Cartesian dualists can hold, it needs to be revised. Because libertarians identify themselves at least in part by their opposition to compatibilism, libertarianism does need to rule out as non-free mental or bodily acts that are causally determined by something outside the agent. The claim that a free act is the outcome of a causal chain which originates in some cause external to the agent's own intellect and will is incompatible with libertarian free will. But the mere claim that a free act is the outcome of a causal chain is not.

A more reasonable version of the relevant necessary condition for libertarianism is therefore this:

(L1') a decision is free only if it is not the outcome of a causal chain that originates in a cause outside the agent.

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Maybe I’m just not following her. But her final L1’ is objectionable too. A decision is not free just in case it’s not the outcome of a causal chain that originates in a cause outside the agent. Sure, that would negate agency. But freedom of choice would be lost also if the causal chain originates in a cause INSIDE the agent if that cause is the physical complexity of the brain itself working in bottom-up causation, in which case mental states are caused by brain states.

T

Here's that whole article:

http://books.google.com/books?id=p9PcswBiYKcC&pg=PA73&lpg=PA73&dq=eleonore+stump+on+libertarian+freedom&source=bl&ots=s_gPPJ847o&sig=1zvIqTvU3uyYcODWRZQqs5h6TaQ#PPA87,M1

Tom

Stump disagrees with L2 (that we’re not free if we do not in fact face alternative possibilities) and wants to reword L1 to allow for Frankfurt-style counterexamples. She denies PAP (the Principle of Alternative Possibilities). She finds Frankfurt-style counterexamples compatible with LFW. She adds that though we may in fact face alternative possibilities some or even most of the time in cases where we are morally responsible for our choices, facing alternative possibilities is NOT itself a necessary feature of LFW. It might be that the ability to do otherwise is what medievals called an “associated accident” (something that accompanied choice most of the time but which is not essential to it).

She feels the only people who can affirm L2 are Cartesian dualists when it comes to the theory of mind.

Check out the google article.

Tom

Thanks for those thoughts; I'll need to check into it further.

In my case, I was mostly interested in the mind/body ideas, and haven't engaged her thoughts on libertarianism/compatibilism. 

Post Edited (Corey) : 3/22/2009 9:52:38 AM (GMT-5)

Isn't this basically where we went with this a few years ago, D? A double-movement of resignation and faith?

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Reflecting a bit further, even at rock-bottom the person still has two possibilities, not one: to make the leap of faith, or not.

Yeah, I'm swirling around right now.

Post Edited (Corey) : 3/22/2009 10:37:17 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (Similtude) : 3/22/2009 12:16:23 PM (GMT-5)

In short, I think they're trying to get more parsimonious than is possible. If teleological thought is categorical, it can not be shed in our metaphysics. The consensus view is that we are wired to think teleologically and causally, but that we are to shed teleology. But there is no making sense of things once we start arbitrarily denying the reality of categorical relations/conceptions. We might as well say that we need not explain anything since causality is a fictitious category that we are wired to think in terms of. That would save us the salaries we pay philosophers just to wrestle with their own intuitions!

Post Edited (Similtude) : 3/22/2009 1:46:05 PM (GMT-5)