Talk:Robert Kane (philosopher)

Distinction from compatibilism

I'm trying to understand this before I can do any work on it. Right now I am puzzled because it seems to me that Kane's definition as presented, and taken literally, does not rule out compatibilism. It seems to me that some act of mine might satisfy this definition even though the act is determined at a deeper level by my brain acting in accordance with how it got into a particular state via the operation of scientific laws, or via God making it like that. Now, I realise that Kane is trying to rule out compatibilism, but at the moment I just can't see how his definition does it. I don't think I'm just being stupid; I think that if it confuses me it will confuse (for example) first-year philosophy students. Can someone give an explanation here on the talk page as to how it's supposed to work, and maybe we can find a way of elaborating the position in the article? I can't believe that Kane has simply made an elementary error here, so I must be misunderstanding something. Metamagician3000 23:58, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Randolph Clarke asked this question as well. Kane's answer to the question of what causal indeterminism gets you is, “ultimate control—the originative control exercised by agents when it is ‘up to them’ which of a set of possible choices or actions will now occur, and up to no one and nothing else over which the agents themselves do not also have control.” (Kane, Robert. “Free Will: New Directions for an Ancient Problem.” (2003). In Free Will, Robert Kane (ed.) (2003) Malden, MA: Blackwell, p. 243). As far as I can tell, all it means is that the sufficient conditions for your actions don't predate your birth. I'll see if I can clear up the article a bit, it's pretty confusing as it is. NickelShoe (Talk) 01:26, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I tried, but I'm not sure how much that helped. Also, I can't find the original reference for Clarke's objection, just that I cited it in an undergraduate paper. NickelShoe (Talk) 01:43, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm still a bit puzzled as to how this is a libertarian theory, but you've helped the article. Maybe we'll get some more wisdom on this. Rather than pursuing it further, I'll just scratch my head for awhile. Alas, I think it's going to be some considerable time before I'll be able to do much reading of my own on it. Metamagician3000 03:51, 1 December 2006 (UTC)\

I can see the initial confusion as to how Kane's theory is wholly libertarian in the deepest possible metaphysical sense, i.e., at all points in life it is or was or will be conceivable that you could have done otherwise, the notion of forking paths into the future. But for Kane, alternative possibilities in this sense are NOT the most crucial element in the free will debate. He does not appeal to the idea that alternative possiblities (henceforther AP) are entirely unnecessary for conceiving of free will (a la Harry Frankfurt and his followers) - indeed, AP ARE necessary for free will. However, as I said, AP are not alone what establish free will. The real basis for a belief in free will, in Kane's mind, is the notion of ULTIMATE RESPONSIBLITY (UR). Even if we can be said to have alternative possibilities for every decision that we make, it does not matter unless we can also be said to be the ultimate creators, or choosers, or deciders, or whatever, of which possibility to go with. So then, UR becomes the focus for Kane. AP are necssary, but only at certain points in a person's life: namely, at a time when a SFA obtains.

A SFA occurs at a point in time in which a person is faced with two (or more, presumably) decisions, and in this instance the person has no personal-history to lean back on, no basis in his character for choosing one option or the other. It is here that causal indeterminism and AP exist for Kane. He appeals to very recent and cuttning edge work in neurobiology and cognitive science to give his argument an empirical basis (what this is I won't get into because, frankly, I am neither in a position to agree with nor refute it. So I will, for the sake of discussion, assume that he knows what he is talking about in this area). In essence, he says that there is indeterminism at the microphysical level in the brain, and that right up to the very instant of decision either choice can be made. The question then becomes, "well, if its totally undetermined up the moment of decision, then how is it not arbitrary and thus irrational, or capricious, or lucky, or random, or whatever?" The answer - and here Kane's view becomes very novel and interesting - is the following: during this ideterminate period at which the choice is being made, the person has, say, two options, X and Y. The fact that these even stand as choices for consideration and deliberation means that either could potentially be chosen. (If that were not the case, then there would be no indeterminism and the agent would have simply chosen one. For instance, if the two choices are to eat a banana or to murder your family, for most people these choices would never even prsent themselves as a difficult, self-forming decision. Presumably, most agent's characters would have been so formed as to simply not even consider the latter alternative. Eating the banana would simply be chosen. Do you see what I mean?).

So both X and Y are choices for which the agent, call him Buck, has reasons and could potentially choose. The interesting aspect of this, which I alluded to above, is that Kane maintains that, because of the fact both options are in this sense "his" choices, it does not matter which choice is made. Either way it will be Buck's choice, and it will be free insofar as it was not causally determined. If Buck could either paint the house or watch the football game, and is deliberating and trying to decide which to do, in the end, whichever choice he makes is his free choice because both choices were his. Thus, Kane thinks that when one is going through a SFA the agent is actually trying to choose two things, but only one can win out. For Kane, the effort of deciding is itself what is indeterminate, and in the end, whichever choice is made must be viewed as Buck's free, libertarian choice.

Now, you may still wonder how this is a real libertarian account. It is precisely a genuine libertarian account because even though events that unfold between SFAs may be 'causally determined' in some sense, they are no causally determined by factors exterior to the agent himself. If Buck has decided, in our example, to watch the game, and a similar choice comes up at some point later in his life, Buck may simply choose to watch the game again. Kane would say this is not an SFA, and may not really have AP, but that doesn't matter, because the factors leading to the choice are grounded in the agent's UR at a previous point in time. The agent has formed himself; he is the ultimate creator of himself. In this sense, he is free, and in this sense he is free in a libertarian way.

68.187.225.50Andrew Cameron (amcame07@holycross.edu)

I hope all is well with Professor Kane

I have added Voluntarism and Notes from the Underground to Professor Kane's page. LoveMonkey (talk) 21:01, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Radical Libertarianism

I added a section on Kane's position among philosophers who have proposed a two-stage model of free will, based on the Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0 pages at Information Philosopher. Cmsreview (talk) 01:27, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Rating

Should this article really be low-importance on the philosophy project? From what I have heard Kane is one of the most prominent supporters of libertarianism. ReluctantPhilosopher (talk) 17:30, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, Kane's should not be low-importance, as he is one of the most important philosophers of freedom of will alive. 67.2.181.106 (talk) 02:55, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

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