I was recently talking with someone about the problem of free will, and I realised that for many years now I have always had the same response, without really ever soliciting broader critical feedback. The notion of free will here refers to a naive, libertarian, non-strictly-defined approach of "when I feel I make choices, I really had a choice", and all of the associated implied moral philosophy (laziness is a thing, I can be blamed for my choices etc.)
The starting assumption is that I want to believe in true things (I leave open the question of whether this epistemic duty is itself justified or not). I propose a trilemma, where exactly one of the following propositions holds:
Either the notion of 'free will' is meaningless, or
It is meaningful, and I do have in fact have free will, or
It is meaningful, but I happen to not have it
If (1) is true, then the whole discussion is moot: nothing can be true or false, and whatever I believe is equally justified.
If (2) is true, then I want to believe in having free will (since it is true that I have it).
If (3) is true, then "should" is a meaningless concept - there is no way I would be able to change my view one way or the other.
So, the only possible world where I get to make this choice is a world in which free will is true, so I should believe in it - and mostly ignore the debate about compatibilism, the nature of physics, dualism etc. Which is what I do.
One potential issue is that (1) can be true or false depending on the precise definition (but then what even is a precise definition?). Still, I suspect that no matter which one I instantiate it with, as long as it is sensible, the general (self-referential) structure of the argument will stay the same.
Thanks to Jakub S. for the feedback on this post and his suggestion to formalise this argument as the epistemic duty of maximising the probability of holding correct beliefs.
In my opinion, your trilemma definitely does not hold. "Free will" is not a monosemantic term, but one that encompasses a range of different meanings both when used by different people and even the same person in different contexts.
is false, because the term is meaningful, but used with different meanings in different contexts;
is false, because you likely have free will in some of those senses and do not in others, and it may be unknown or unknowable in yet more;
is false for the same reason as 2.
For example: your mention of "blame" is a fairly common cluster of moral or pragmatic concepts attached to discussions of free will, but is largely divorced from any metaphysical aspects of free will.
Whether or not a sapient agent metaphysically could have acted differently in that specific moment is irrelevant to whether it is moral or useful to assign blame to that agent for the act (in such discussions, usually an act that harms others). Even under the most hardcore determinism and assuming immutable agents, they can be classified into those that would and those that wouldn't have performed that act and so there is definitely some sort of distinction to be made. Whether you want to call it "blame" or not in such a world is a matter of opinion.
However, sapient agents such as humans in the real world are not immutable and can observe how such agents (possibly including themselves) are treated when they carry out certain acts, and can incorporate that into future decisions. This feeds into moral and pragmatic considerations regardless of the metaphysical nature of free will.
There are likewise many other concepts tied into such "free will" discussions that could be separated out instead of just lumping them all together under the same term.
I was recently talking with someone about the problem of free will, and I realised that for many years now I have always had the same response, without really ever soliciting broader critical feedback. The notion of free will here refers to a naive, libertarian, non-strictly-defined approach of "when I feel I make choices, I really had a choice", and all of the associated implied moral philosophy (laziness is a thing, I can be blamed for my choices etc.)
The starting assumption is that I want to believe in true things (I leave open the question of whether this epistemic duty is itself justified or not). I propose a trilemma, where exactly one of the following propositions holds:
If (1) is true, then the whole discussion is moot: nothing can be true or false, and whatever I believe is equally justified. If (2) is true, then I want to believe in having free will (since it is true that I have it). If (3) is true, then "should" is a meaningless concept - there is no way I would be able to change my view one way or the other.
So, the only possible world where I get to make this choice is a world in which free will is true, so I should believe in it - and mostly ignore the debate about compatibilism, the nature of physics, dualism etc. Which is what I do.
One potential issue is that (1) can be true or false depending on the precise definition (but then what even is a precise definition?). Still, I suspect that no matter which one I instantiate it with, as long as it is sensible, the general (self-referential) structure of the argument will stay the same.
Thanks to Jakub S. for the feedback on this post and his suggestion to formalise this argument as the epistemic duty of maximising the probability of holding correct beliefs.