In the End

I was listening to a podcast about free will the other day, and one of the speakers used a very interesting turn of phrase; describing free human volition and intent as "an uncaused cause." Which is a very good way of contrasting it with Determinism, which tends to view the human will as an effect, when then goes on to cause other effects.

It was interesting, because whether or not human volition is viewed as uncaused by outside events or circumstances is one of those things that is rarely viewed consistently. As I see it, it tends to be linked to whom someone wants to give the credit or the blame to. And that tends to be the crux of debates around free will; whether or not humans are blame and/or praiseworthy for their actions, in the sense that many debates tend to have at least one participant who comes down on the side of free will specifically due their attachment to blame or praise.

Of course, a lot of arguments work this way, especially when lay people debate philosophy; there are a number of arguments against relativism that effectively come down to: "If relativism, then X is not objectively wrong, but X must be objectively wrong, therefore relativism must be wrong." It's that self-serving bias that makes philosophy difficult, and I wonder if philosophers will ever find a good way around it.