According to you it is my random arising of wishes and beliefs that make me free. Sorry, that does not work for me. A complete chaotic character, then doing this, then doing that is free, but the person who is consistent in his wishes, beliefs and actions, is able to give the reasons why he acts as he does, is not?
Right. What you appear to miss is that, in practice, you can't tell the difference. And, to clarify, it is the "random arising of wishes and beliefs" (which I suppose is your translation of "could have done otherwise under the same set of starting conditions")
plus control that makes you free.
You may be a special type of compatibilist who thinks that free will is incompatible with indeterminism. ;-)
What does the first person say when he is asked for the reasons for his actions? "Oh it just popped up in my mind that I wanted to do this, no special reason."
Right, see, you don't appear to understand how it works. Do you direct every one of your own thoughts consciously? Under compatibilism? Under the paradigm you currently accept? Did you decide to hate nougat-flavored ice cream? Was that (negative) desire under your control? No, it wasn't. What's under your control (under LFW or CFW) is the decision you make based on the interplay of your wishes and desires. That's why I stressed to Stephen that there are two types of desires in play: Those that influence decisions and those that correlate with decisions (I want to do x, I do x). You want to eat vanilla ice cream, you want to eat strawberry ice cream. If you choose one then you've frustrated the desire for the other, in a sense. A LFW model says you won't always pick vanilla over strawberry given the same conditions. The LFW model says *you* decide which desire to follow rather than your desires inevitably impelling your decision. And that's the only way, IMHO, that we can conceive of rationality. The choice is between the potential for rationality (people remain free to act irrationally or non-rationally) and Strawson's all-encompassing luck.
Edit: Hmmm... just found that you once] said that the indeterminism lies in the correlation between desire and outcome. Did you change your model? If not you should explain this. Or is the indeterminism located between a desire and a choice?
I was saying that
freedom, not indeterminism, is rooted in the correlation between desire and outcome (that's the concept of control, what LFW and CFW have in common). Look again and it should be clear to you.
You're arguing against the "could have done otherwise" element of LFW, but your presentation is a tad ambiguous. Are you drawing a distinction between being "determined" to choose vanilla 50 percent of the time/strawberry 50 percent of the time and a random event? If so, I don't see the distinction.
I don't see what you do not understand. The determined element is I do not take the nougat because I despise of it. The random element is the choice for vanilla or strawberry. Because I like both I have no special reason to take one or the other. Having no reason and just take one of both is not a specially strong example of an expression of free will.
Okay, I see I mistook something you said. When you said "My wishes and beliefs determine a small spectrum of possible actions." to took it to mean that the decision to eat vanilla ice cream or strawberry was determined, even though you also described it as chance. But this does leave an ambiguity in your description. You like vanilla. You like strawberry. But assuming that the desire for each is perfectly equal it appears you would say that it is not free will if you take either one (or neither) since that would constitute chance. I expect Stephen to regard you as close to conversion to his POV, based on that. ;-)
As such, being forced to take vanilla by somebody else is also not a very strong example of confining my free will. I could have taken it anyway.
That kind of depends on how you address the issue above, IMHO. It's not clear that you have your version of free will if your desires place you on the horns of a perfect dilemma (50/50), trilemma (1/3,1/3,1/3), etc., regardless of control.
Your bringing in "blood strawberry ice cream" does not add anything. That would very clearly make a distinction between vanilla and strawberry, and I would have a strong reason to take the vanilla.
Blood strawberries add a qualifying distinction between vanilla and strawberry, which you deny and admit in adjacent sentences. And I mentioned doubt about whether blood strawberries exist in reality, which allows you to waffle on how seriously you take the idea. Perhaps if you delay your decision by two seconds you take the idea of blood strawberries more seriously. Or maybe you take it
less seriously. Either way, we have a controlled delay in the deliberation process affecting the eventual outcome.
Then the answer is rather easy: as long as I am able to give reasons for my actions, and therefore take the responsibility for my actions, I am morally culpable for my actions.
Okay, no special pleading there. You can be externally controlled but as long as your thoughts are "yours" (whatever that means) then you have CFW. This is consistent with the Calvinist understanding of human freedom under God's meticulous control. That was my follow-up question, whether there is a difference in your free will under CFW if God created you knowing what you would do, or if you happened by chance to be determined to do the exact same thing God intended in the former scenario.
As I said some pages back, responsibility is the ability to give reasons for my behaviour. It all boils down to that I am not responsible for who I am, but for what I do. You, as a mean manipulator of my brain, are not much different from my genes.
I think you're answering consistently, yet in a way that most others would find obviously objectionable. That by itself doesn't make you wrong, of course.
My genes 'forced me' not to like nougat ice cream, and now maybe you 'force' me to like it. But what you, my brain manipulator, in fact did is changing my personality. If my new personality is able to give the reasons for my behaviour, and take responsibility for it (which is of course relevant in moral choices), then my actions are free.
Methinks it's possible for people to be responsible for things for which they deny responsibility ("take responsibility for it"). Otherwise I follow what you're saying.
From the outside, we of course see what a mean person you are: you changed the personality of somebody, and so we can also make you responsible for my possibly condemnable actions, plus the 'killing' of my old personality. However, if your manipulations are reversed, then my old personality is back, and I would not feel responsible for my condemnable actions at all, because that was not me. I would not recognise my previous condemnable actions as my actions.
I'm not so sure that's the case. Sometimes people do a complete change regarding certain types of actions, and there's no apparent evidence of third-party coercion. I don't think you can know you would fail to recognize your own actions, though quite possibly you'd say something like "I don't know why I did that" even if you knew the rationale that motivated you at the time. You wouldn't recognize now the validity of the rationale you used then. Let's suppose I was especially evil and compelled you to eat & enjoy nougat-flavored ice cream. You remember doing it and why ("For some reason I thought it would taste good"), but you can't imagine doing it again.
So I guess I have just one more question. When you appear in court for the crime I forced you to commit (eating nougat-flavored ice cream is a first-degree
felony???) is the judge correct to sentence you just as harshly as me? You were responsible for your actions. Should you just do your best to get a judge that either accepts LFW or else Strawson's view that responsibility is impossible (seems like having a "Not Guilty" sign in the chair would serve just as well in the latter case)?