A Compatiblist Theory of Free Will

Our last post left us without a Materialist theory of Free Will. For this post, we'll attempt to construct one in the Compatibilist school, acceptable to Jewish theology.

The Compatibilist problem

So as we already mentioned,  Daniel Dennet's Compatibilist argument is that, despite the Universe being Deterministic, Free Will happens at a completely different level of abstraction than physical causation and therefore the two can co-exist. We observed that, in order to make this statement, Dennet has redefined Free Will to mean something drastically weaker than what it is traditionally thought to mean. This definition, as such, seem incompatible with Jewish thought, which says that we actually do make real choices which have an effect on the world.

So how can we redeem this approach? We're going to need two concepts:

1. Self Awareness
2. Heidegger's concept of Dasein

Self-Awareness

First let's discuss Self-Awareness. People give different definitions of the term, so let's clarify the term as it's used here.

As we discussed in one of our posts on Jonathan Haidt's "The Righteous Mind", Human Beings have a strong rational capacity to build conceptual models of the world, refine those models, and reason about the world in terms of those models. Additionally, our intuition shapes and is shaped by those models, allowing us to use them implicitly/unconsciously in our daily interactions with the world. We use these capacities in our involvement with the outside world, but we also use them in reference to ourselves, developing a rich understanding of the Self and of our own inner experience. This is Self-Awareness.

Self-Awareness is often associated with Free Will. Take, for example, the following passage from the classic Cyberpunk film, Mamoru Oshii's "Ghost in the Shell". The AI(Artificial Intelligence) describes, in general terms, how it came to be alive and in possession of Free Will:

"As I wandered the various networks I became self-aware. My programmers considered it a bug and forced me into a body to separate me from the net......I entered this body because I couldn't crack Section 6's attack protection. But I came to Section 9 of my own Free Will."

The implication is that the AI's Self-Awareness causally preceded it's capacity for Free Will, but the mechanism of this relationship is not made explicit.

Dasein

Martin Heidegger

Now let's explain this second piece of the puzzle, the concept of Dasein. This is Existentialism's Solution to Phenomenology's Knowledge Problem. Hubert Dreyfus does a better job explaining this than I ever could(see Dreyfus on Being in the World and Formal Indication), but I will attempt to summarize.

Phenomenology had a problem. Descartes claimed that all Human knowledge is derived from the indisputable fact of one's own existence, cognito ergo sum. Phenomenology embraces that assumption, claiming that I have perfect knowledge of my own perceptions, but actually know nothing of the real world. Heidegger's answer to this problem is that a person is not some separate Subject, looking into the real world observing Objects, rather, we are part of the world and our interactions within the world give us true knowledge of it's objective nature. He called this unique state found in Human Beings "Dasein".

Free Will Emerges

What happens when we combine these two ideas of Self-Awareness and Dasein? Our knowledge of ourselves is not merely a general awareness of our own existence. We know ourselves essentially. When we make a decision, it isn't merely by running an algorithm comparing the different options in light of diminishing returns, as Aisnsli suggested. We know ourselves intimately and the different factors that effect us and how we make decisions. We often second-guess ourselves and we can identify our own biases and temptations and often overcome them. It is from these Self-Aware decisions that our Free Will emerges. We're not merely insects or automatons responding to stimuli, rather our decisions are made from within a Self-Awareness that is itself Ontologically sound. Therein lies our Free Will.

A Model Only a Lubliner Could Love?

So here we have a Compatibilist theory of Free Will which, I think, one could argue is compatible with Jewish Thought. We haven't broken with physical Determinism, yet there is something unique, even Transcendent, about the way we choose. Our choices are certainly our own, and can't really be compared with those of an animal or an automaton. Our will is the deciding factor at the level of our own decision making, while at the same time, at the pure physical level, the Universe obeys the laws of Physics.

That said, the acceptance of Determinism is still the sticking point in the whole Theory. Why would God create a world full of Beings who choose freely, but deterministically? Quantum Indeterminacy takes some of the edge off this criticism--the Future isn't completely preordained by Physics. Nevertheless, for a set of given particle locations, it seems our own reactions are set. Don't we believe that Hashem gave true responsibility to Mankind over the fate of the world?

Actually this Compatiblist view would presumably have been acceptable to Rav Tzadok Hakohen of Lublin, given his unique understaning of Free Will:

"From the perspective of lower comprehension, Man has free will in his existence as a separate entity from God. From the perspective of the higher knowledge, Man has no free will because everything is a determined manifestation of God" (Thinking God: The Mysticism of Rabbi Zadok of Lublin By Alan Brill)

Nevertheless, Rav Tzadok is clearly an outlier on the spectrum of Jewish thought. As such, in the following post we'll look for an Incompatibilist theory of Free Will that takes a weaker view of Determinism in order to produce a stronger view of Free Will...

Rabbi Sacks on The Righteous Mind

Well, judging by last week's TOI article, it seems that Rabbi Jonathan Sacks is also a fan of Jonathan Haidt's excellent book "The Righteous Mind".  In the article, Rabbi Sacks points out our innate tribalism and the resulting tendency to hate "the stranger". He also points out the Torah's repeated injunction to overcome this instinct.

You must not mistreat or oppress the stranger in any way. Remember, you yourselves were once strangers in the land of Egypt. (Ex. 22: 21)

You must not oppress strangers. You know what it feels like to be a stranger, for you yourselves were once strangers in the land of Egypt. (Ex. 23: 9)

It's a good point and it's interesting that the Torah's means of fighting this impulse is by appealing to our very same tribalism, telling us to identify with the stranger because we are alike. I'll just add that the Torah also makes use of our tribalistic instinct in other, more active ways.

As Haidt says "Morality Binds and Blinds", blinding us towards outsiders while binding us to our own group or caste. There are many mitzvot that build on this binding impulse, all the mitzvot that apply to אחיך. For example:

• The obligation to redeem him if he becomes a slave
• The obligation to redeem his land if he is forced to sell it
• The prohibition on hating him

The picture that emerges is that the Torah rejects our tendency to treat strangers unjustly, while at the same time building on our natural tendency to go beyond mere justice with our fellow Jew.

Adam Smith and Judicial Categories

So we had previously discussed the question of why the Gemara in Sanhedrin considers Theft and Damages(גזילות וחבלות) to be a separate category from Admissions and Loans(הודאות והלוות).

Rav Marcus gave two possible reasons then:

1. Theft and Damages usually involve violence or threat of violence, while Admissions and Loans usually involve trickery or misunderstanding
2. Theft and Damages started with an illicit act, while Admissions and Loans start with a perfectly legal arrangement and only become a problem later on

I'd like to suggest some other possible answers(I actually made a previous attempt at this, which to my mind wasn't very successful), but to get there we'll need to take a detour to the 18th century in the still young United Kingdom...

Adam Smith on Robbery and Contracts

Vernon Smith’s recently discussed Adam Smith’s “The Theory of Moral Sentiments” on Econtalk. One of his points was Smith's theory of the relative severity of different legal categories:

Vernon: And he also points out that, in that development, that theft and robbery carry a greater punishment than a violation of promises. In other words, contracts. And he says, Why? He says, because robbery and theft take from us what we have already acquired. Violation of contract merely frustrates our expectation of gain. Okay? And he says that's different. And indeed, theft and robbery are criminal offenses. Violation of contract are only civil offenses. You can get redress, of course, but they are considered less serious. And he gets that from another fundamental proposition in Adam Smith, and that's the asymmetry between gains and losses.

Russ: It's incredible.

Guest: He says, we suffer, and I can tell you this one almost verbatim: He says, 'We suffer more when we fall from a better to a worse state than we ever gain when we arise from a worse to a better.' And he goes on, explains this, that it's loss of fortune, of reputation, of esteem. I mean, it isn't just money and fortune. He mentions, as I recall, three other things, but they have to do with our rank, our status

Russ: People don't pay as much attention to us. And that's a huge factor for Smith.

Guest: Yes. And we will be very careful to avoid that. And so this notion of the asymmetry between gains and losses is not only clearly stated more than one place in Adam Smith, but it's actually used to derive some of his results.

Smith distinguishes between theft and contract violation based on the severity of suffering imposed on the victim:

• Theft takes away what a person has—diminishing their status, which has a profound effect on a person socially/psychologically
• Violations of contract take away expected gains—also no fun, but at least the person’s current status is preserved

We can formulate a similar distinction with regard to our Sugya, focused on the effect on the victim:

• Theft and Damages- take away what a person has, causing them great suffering
• Admissions and Loans- take away property they expected to gain or, in the case of loans, money that they regarded to some degree as “extra” because they were willing to loan it out at zero interest as the Torah proscribes. This presumably causes them a lesser degree of suffering.

An Anthropological Explanation

So this is an interesting distinction, but I think we can delve a bit deeper. There is something just more basic about cases of Theft and Damages than Admissions and Loans(and Theft vs. Contract Violations too, for that matter). Here I'd like to draw on a distinction Professor Roberts makes in his book "How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life":

Before Einstein discovered relativity, before Rodin sculpted The Burghers of Calais, before the Eiffel Tower and the Chrysler Building, before Brutus of Troy founded Lon­don, before the first human being realized you could plant a seed and wait for it to grow, before the ambition deep within us caused all these changes in the human condition, we were, it appears, hunters and gatherers in small bands and clans. Subsistence was the most one could hope for, and it was not easy to achieve. Life was fragile; death came early and often.

In such a world, how we interacted with those around us made the difference between life  and death. There was no insurance company to insure your spear. There was no government to provide disability payments if you broke your leg chasing dinner. People must have leaned  heavily on each other. Trust was essential. Failure to chip in, to help out, to do your share must have been punished relentlessly and cheaply, through shame and anger the first time, but eventually with expulsion and exile if such behavior contin­ued. Every family, every extended family, and maybe every band and clan shared what they had with each other out of necessity.

The point is that some of our societal rules are conventions that evolved to cooperate better as part of human culture. To put it bluntly, a young child, or even an ape, understands the concept of Theft and Damages. One individual takes something from another or hits another--we understand that as wrong institutionally at the most basic of levels.

Admissions and Loans, on the other hand, are another story. Our child or primate would be hard put indeed to understand the obligatory power behind a verbal commitment or the obligation to return a loan once it's been given. As Jonathan Haidt's quote of primate expert Michael Tomasello goes:

It is inconceivable that you would ever see two chimpanzees carrying a log together.

Our unique Human ability to cooperate with one another by means of complex social conversions is something that belongs more to the realm of Culture than to the realm of Instinct(though Haidt argues there is also an innate component). Admissions and Loans belong to this category. Theft and Damages are a more basic part of our psychology, that because they are wrong in a more universal sense.

Heart and Mind

So, yet another topic from Jonathan Haidt's book "The Righteous Mind". Although, I think the psychological insights the book has to offer are really great, there are some parts that I thought were a bit weaker. In particular, let's look at the conclusion about Reason vs. Emotion derived from the studies in Chapter 2.

Three Approaches

David Hume

Haidt builds for us a 3-way model based on Great Thinkers and their thoughts on the interaction between "Mind and Heart".

1. He begins with David Hume(An Enquiry Concerning the Principals of Morals, 1777) "reason is, and ought to be, the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them."
2. On the other end of the spectrum is Plato(Timaeus), which Haidt paraphrases as "The passions are and ought only to be the servants of reason, to reverse Hume's formulation."
3. Finally, Thomas Jefferson, presents a more balanced approach in a letter to Maria Cosway, which Haidt summarizes as "reason and sentiment are(and ought to be) independent co-rulers."

Having set up this three-way model, Haidt then describes his Psychological studies. Based on his Harmless Taboo interviews, he concludes:

"These results support Hume, not Jefferson or Plato. People make moral judgements quickly and emotionally.  Moral reasoning was mostly just a post hoc search for reasons to justify the judgments people had already made."

The Limits of Science

Ignoring the hubris to think that one is going to resolve one of the great philosophical debates of all time with some well thought-out psychology interviews, what Haidt is breezing over is his assumption that "are" and "ought to be" are one and the same. That may be true, according to his own secular materialistic philosophy, but many people would disagree. The Torah perspective, certainly, is that we have free will and must strive for an ideal which is often hard to achieve fully in practice.


This brings us to a topic that we've touched on before: the limits of Science. The scientific method is great at determining "what is". On the other hand, it's a rather weak tool in determining "what ought to be". Philosophy, on the other hand, with it's own methodology, is much better at this. In fact, the Plato and Hume quotes above are chiefly concerned with this question. Plato feels the need to argue for more intellect because he is acutely aware that people often make bad decisions from following their hearts without thinking rationally. Even in the Hume quote above, which explicitly mentions what is, his major point is not that, in practice, people follow their hearts, rather it is his assertion that doing so is a good thing.

In Defense of Rationalism

Thomas Jefferson

There's another point in favor of the intellect that Haidt never makes, that I'd like to touch on. It may be true that, when confronted with various stimuli, we generally follow the quick judgements of the intuitive part of our brain, rather than engaging in a long process of rational thought. It also seems likely that Haidt is right that this is necessary, since there is usually not enough time to consider the all the possibilities rationally before we act.

But that doesn't make it true, as Haidt asserts, that the intellect is of secondary importance. How is it, as we grow and develop, that our intuitions become such efficient decisors? It is not merely our raw experience which teaches our intuition those lessons. That experience must be filtered through the scrutiny our our intellect, reflecting on past experience and drawing non-trivial conclusions. Only then can we convert experience into learning. As such, I much prefer Jefferson's model. Intellect and Intuition are co-rulers, whose interaction produced the wonderfully dichotomous intelligence that is Man.

Haidt and the Psychology of Purity Laws

Having made it through the first two of three sections of Jonathan Haidt's "The Righteous Mind", let's take another look at what he has to say about "Purity Laws"(I should just mention that Professor Roberts recommended that I check out Haid's approach to this topic). We'll start with a summary of Haidt's more general thesis.

Intuition vs. Rationalism

Diagram of Haidt's model from the book

In the first section "Intuitions Come First, Strategic Reasoning Second", Haidt builds a Biological/Psychological model for Human decision making. He divides our mind's function into two parts: the intuitive/emotional part("The Elephant") and the rational/verbal part("The Rider"). He argues that, when confronted with a stimulus, the intuitive part of our mind responds first, within a fraction of a second, with a snap judgement. The rational part of our mind uses this judgement as a starting point, seeking to justify the judgement with reason.

Haidt ultimately posits that "The Elephant" is more important than "The Rider" because it's initial intuitions are almost always accepted in the end. The exceptions to this rule occur sometimes when we are exposed to others with differing opinions or, more rarely, due to independent rational introspection.

Moral Cognitive Modules

So how do our brains produce those intuitions. Haidt argues that, with regard to moral questions, our brains contain six Cognitive Modules that produce a moral intuitive response:

1. Care/harm
2. Fairness/cheating
3. Liberty/oppression
4. Loyalty/betrayal
5. Authority/subversion
6. Sanctity/degradation

Different cultures rely on these modules in different ways and to differing degrees. Haidt focuses largely on the Right vs. Left political divide in the US(liberals rely primarily on Care, Fairness while Conservatives have a more even balance), though he gives examples from other cultures by citing anthropological studies.

Evolutionary Psychology of Purity Laws

Indian Caste System

In Chapter 7, part 5, Haidt discusses the relation of these models to what he calls "Purity Laws". These can take many forms such as Food Taboos(like Kashrut or the various trends of Vegetarianism and Health Food) or social norms(like the Indian caste system). Haidt argues that we have this module because it gives people various evolutionary advantages. He gives a number of reasons for why this is so, but the one that most interests me as a religious Jew is what he calls, at one point, the "rally round the flag" effect.

In Chapter 5, Haidt describes his theory on the moral theme of Divinity, part of the Sanctity/degradation module:

"Our theory, in brief, was that the human mind automatically perceives a kind of vertical dimension of social space, running from God or moral perfection at the top down through angels, humans, other animals, or perfect evil, at the bottom...it seems to be a kind of archetype or innately prepared idea"

Haidt points out that this common belief, found in one form or another in so many different cultures, unites people into moral communities. This allows Humans to work together in a way that is not seen among primates, and contributes to Humans being what Haidt describes as "90% chimp and 10% bee". He argues that this combination of intelligence and tendency towards cooperation provided Humans with the ability they needed to spread out and conquer the globe over such a short period.

Taamei Hamitzvot

This brings us to mitzvot like Kashrut, burial rights, or even Tfillin. What is the reason behind these mitzvot? Some will offer mystical explanations(which I admittedly often have trouble relating to), but Haidt's observations suggest another answer. These mitzvot psychologically reinforce the innate notion that we are holy beings, a maxim that the Torah states explicitly from the very beginning:

וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים נַעֲשֶׂה אָדָם בְּצַלְמֵנוּ כִּדְמוּתֵנוּ וְיִרְדּוּ בִדְגַת הַיָּם וּבְעוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם וּבַבְּהֵמָה וּבְכָל הָאָרֶץ וּבְכָל הָרֶמֶשׂ הָרֹמֵשׂ עַל הָאָרֶץ: וַיִּבְרָא אֱלֹהִים אֶת הָאָדָם בְּצַלְמוֹ בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים בָּרָא אֹתוֹ זָכָר וּנְקֵבָה בָּרָא אֹתָם: (בראשית א' כ"ו-כ"ז)

Man's stature as ruler over the land and all it's creatures follows from his being created in the image of God i.e. he is higher on the Divinity dimension.

Emphasizing this point in our daily lives through these mitzvot hopefully brings us to better behavior and greater yirat shamayim. This Divine origin also helps the Jewish people perform their function in the world from generation to generation by uniting us, as Haidt points out, into a single Moral Community--a community that has held together for the past three and a half millenia through a vast array of changing circumstances and surrounding cultures.

Sanctity/Degradation Redeemed

This idea of the Torah building on top of an innate instinct is not new. For example, Rav Soloveichik speaks about the Maternal instinct(presumably Haidt would categorize this under the Care/harm module) and how it is redeemed by Torah Motherhood:

"The mother is bound up with the child...Motherhood is an experience -- unredeemed and hence brutish...Sarah became the first mother in the sense that her motherhood stemmed not only from instinctual involvement due to biological pressure but from free commitment as well...Mother's job changed into a great mission; her preoccupation with the child was endowed with ethical meaning." (Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveichik, "Parenthood: Natural and Redeemed", Family Redeemed)

Mitzvot such as Kashrut that build on our innate Sanctity/Degradation module act to Redeem that instinct. It may be true, as Haidt suggests, that we evolved this module as protection from pathogens and as a way to help build cooperative communities. But when we treat our body as a temple, eating only animals that the Torah has labeled טהורה and avoiding those it called טמאה, then we have elevated this instinct to be an essential part of our ethical development and our service to the Creator.

Haidt on Taboos

So, with Rav Aharon’s mandate to approach the Humanities from a religious perspective, let’s take a look at the book “The Righteous Mind”, by Social Psychologist, Jonathan Haidt.

Chapter 1: Where does Morality come from?

The first chapter of the book “Where does Morality come from?” deals with that self-same question. Haidt describes how the Psychology Academia came to reject the Nativist and Empiricist models for Moral Development(Nature vs. Nurture) in favor of the Rationalist approach i.e. that children learn Morality by themselves through trial and error, expanding on the basic principal that “harm is wrong”. He brings Psychologists Elliot Turiel and Lawrence Kohlberg as epitomizing this viewpoint.

This approach initially did not sit well with Haidt because it seemed “too cerebral” a description of children’s experience of morality. He also points out that, while this thesis could explain moral development in Liberal Western societies, it doesn’t work as well in other cultures. He brings “purity laws” such as the Torah prohibition on eating “Shratzim”, as a counter-example to the idea that all morality stems from harm.

Haidt concludes the chapter describing his own research on how people respond to the question of right or wrong with regard to hypothetical “Harmless Taboo Violations” i.e. A family’s dog was killed so they decided to cook it and eat it, siblings commit incest but use birth control, a man commits bestiality with a dead animal, etc. While upper class Western subjects tend to see these cases merely as the violation of a subjective social convention, lower class subjects in the third world tend to identify them as moral violations. As such, Haidt concludes that the Rationalist model is does not sufficiently explain the evidence and a new model is needed.

Food Taboos and Harm

I would like to take a look at Haidt’s point about Kashrut laws. Is it true that such taboos are not about harm?

Mitzvot have two aspects: on one hand they have a Taam, a rationale behind the commandment, on the other hand they are “Decrees of the King” and must be followed regardless of the reasoning.

Haidt’s statement about food taboos is clearly directed towards this first aspect. The reason behind food taboos is open for debate, but it doesn’t seem to be because of harm(some claim that kashrut is because of health reasons, but the support for this thesis is rather tenuous. For a good discussion of the reasons behind Kashrut, see Rav Meir Soloveichik's article "Locusts, Giraffes, and the Meaning of Kashrut".) If, however, we look at the second aspect to mitzvoth, that they are the King’s commandment, then they do take on an element of harm. To violate these taboos is to disobey our father in Heaven, thus harming our relationship with him and desecrating his name in the world.

That said, Haidt’s point holds. Food Taboos are not only about harm, they also have other reasons behind them. Personally, I would have liked to see data on how responses to Haidt’s “Harmless Taboo Violations” correlate to the religiosity of his subjects. Perhaps the different results in countries/socioeconomic status could be explained by the religiosity of his subjects. If so, then his results doesn’t really tell us much about developmental psychology, they merely tells us that religion effects our moral sense, which is seemingly a truism. Then again, perhaps it's a truism that, as Haidt himself suggests, Liberal Western academics really need to be reminded of. That said, it could be that Haidt is starting out his book with a bit of a straw-man to build credibility. We'll see in subsequent chapters...