NationStates Jolt Archive

In the "Moral Duty?" (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=553245&page=5) thread it has come to a question of what exactly free will constitutes. Rather than discuss that particular matter there and miss responses by people who aren't looking at it I am making a seperate thread to sort this issue out.

[Kant]'s going several steps further than that. He seems to think that because we're confronted with external influence X, we must necessarily then choose action Y. So the only way to make Y a free variable is to eliminate X.

But that's not how the world works. There's X, but the function that produces Y is not the same for everyone. It's our individuality, our own values and our own ranking of outcomes, that allows us to pick a Y from a whole set of possible actions.
So we all serve different masters. What of it? We are still bound to the causal chain: our will is still bound to biological "want", to how nature crafted us. We are unique, but we are not free--not until we seek independent justification.

Now, Kant and Soheran seem to be saying that if we are reacting to the material situation, to our physical needs or wants, then that is a constraint on our free will. We are predisposed to choose a certain alternative. We should be taking a step back, ignore our own situation and endeavour to pick the right thing

That's taking another argument to the extreme, namely the one that if you're starving you're not actually free because you are forced (not necessarily by anyone in particular, but forced nonetheless) to find food, and so a lot of choices that you would have made if you were well-fed aren't actually realistic options. Since material and physical reality imposes certain constraints on our actions even in less extreme cases, it stands to reason that such constraints limit our free will and should be blocked out as much as possible if we want to make a free decision.

Now, to me that sounds silly. Just because I like cake doesn't mean that I don't have the freedom to eat something else or eat nothing at all, even if I choose to eat cake 99.99% of the time. Free will isn't about making choices random. I saw something on TV the other day about a remote-controlled rat, which would get stimulated on one side and if it went that way, it would be rewarded with a hit to the pleasure centre of the brain. That rat still had a free will (in so far as you can talk about free will in animals), it still had the option to go the other way, regardless of how improbable that choice is. The only way for free will to cease existing is if there is literally no alternative course of action that can be taken, if the rat's legs themselves were remote-controlled for example.

The idea of dividing myself from my will and aim for things that aren't constrained by such minor matters as my physical existence, ie my needs and wants, is not a realistic option for anyone. The idea that exercising free will would consist of choosing things we don't like or want the same number of times as things we do like, ceteris paribus, doesn't make sense in the real world.

So what is free will?

Now, Kant...[seems] to be saying that if we are reacting to the material situation, to our physical needs or wants, then that is a constraint on our free will.


The problem with Kant is his failure to explain the origin of this passion that drives us to pursue freedom in the first place. Is not this thing driving us to separate ourselves from our basal passions and embrace reason itself a basal passion?

...I am making a seperate thread to sort this issue out.


What millenia of human thought cannot accomplish, surely NSG can do in a mere thread. :p


Since material and physical reality imposes certain constraints on our actions even in less extreme cases, it stands to reason that such constraints limit our free will and should be blocked out as much as possible if we want to make a free decision.


I would personally be less concerned about nature "coercing" me to eat, and most concerned about the political authority or economic power which coerces me to do something if I want to eat.

EDIT: Libertarians often respond to socialists along the lines of "It's not my fault that you have to eat." But this response misses the point. No, it's not anyone's that I have to eat. It could, however, be an act of injustice if one keeps me from eating.


Now, to me that sounds silly. Just because I like cake doesn't mean that I don't have the freedom to eat something else...


How did we just jump from the issue of starvation to the issue of preference or taste?


That rat still had a free will (in so far as you can talk about free will in animals), it still had the option to go the other way, regardless of how improbable that choice is.


So there is no such thing as coercion or violence then? Of course one could ultimately choose to take the bullet to the face, but that really wouldn't be a free choice, would it?

A rifle-toting concentration camp guard tells his prisoner "Hey, you could choose to run if you really wanted to, but you have to be a responsible individual and accept the consequences of your free choice."

I'm not going to dismiss this very extreme idea of free will quite yet, but it does seem that it contains the equally extreme danger of elevating "blame the victim" to a whole new sickening level. "You chose to take the bullet; you've got no one to blame but yourself."



The only way for free will to cease existing is if there is literally no alternative course of action that can be taken, if the rat's legs themselves were remote-controlled for example.


I need only increase the cost of your doing something other than what I want high enough in order to make the result essentially the same. With the added bonus of showing off my "humanity" and "caring nature" because I didn't have to break your knees.

Economic coercion is especially well suited toward these ends. You'll starve without me, so you better damn well do as I say. But at least I've provided an opportunity for today's young people to make something of themselves.


[ Life under Socialism (http://www.libertarian.to/NewsDta/templates/news1.php?art=art432) ]


You really really need to watch this film (http://www.thetake.org/), as it completely exposes and destroys Rand's (and Marx' and Lenin's and Stalin's and Mao's) strawman. Then we can see how the Twentieth Century Motor Company far better describes contemporary global capitalism.

Originally Posted by Soheran
So we all serve different masters. What of it? We are still bound to the causal chain: our will is still bound to biological "want", to how nature crafted us. We are unique, but we are not free--not until we seek independent justification.

But what is the causal chain bound to? We experience an effect and assign a thing(s) to be its "cause".

So what is free will?

Free will is a concept, a part of our self-identity. It is an illusive force that we participate in, in the firm belief that there is a "we" that participates in it. The goal of free will is not to support the idea of a choice to be made between things, but to acknowledge responsibility for a decision already made of which we have become aware only after the fact (after a choice has been made). Free will is a concept in place to support that idea that there is a "me" that made "a choice" and hence must assume responsibility for it.

What millenia of human thought cannot accomplish, surely NSG can do in a mere thread. :p
I see no reason to assume that all those random guys with publishing deals are any smarter than we are. The only difference is that we have to be able to express ourselves in a way a reader understands, while Kant knew no such necessity...

I would personally be less concerned about nature "coercing" me to eat, and most concerned about the political authority or economic power which coerces me to do something if I want to eat.
You have to do something irrespective of the system you find yourself in. The something changes from system to system, and we could rank them according to what that something is (for example, buying some food in a supermarket may be easier than having to grow it yourself, leaving you more spare time and life span to do something else even if we subtract the time it takes you to earn the money you need).

But that's not immediately important. The idea that our will isn't really free because we're predisposed to doing something due to nature is the really perplexing thing.

How did we just jump from the issue of starvation to the issue of preference or taste?
"Since material and physical reality imposes certain constraints on our actions even in less extreme cases, it stands to reason that such constraints limit our free will and should be blocked out as much as possible if we want to make a free decision."

Whether I'm starving (which makes food a material need) or I just have a craving for cake (which makes cake a material want, the difference between that and a need not being clear-cut at all times), I'm under the impression Kant would call both an inclination which we should seperate ourselves from to make a really free decision.

So there is no such thing as coercion or violence then? Of course one could ultimately choose to take the bullet to the face, but that really wouldn't be a free choice, would it?
If you choose to take the bullet, that ends your life. And as such it also ends any chance you have of achieving anything at all you consider worthwhile. Now, it may be that you don't have that chance anyways and getting shot sounds like a pretty good idea to you, but more likely you get shot against your will (according to my definition, ie the act of getting shot does nothing positive for you).

Whether I get paid to make pizzas or the rat gets a bit of stimulation, both are rewards and we can expect that they either are the values we strive to achieve or the means to achieve something else beyond that. They're positive things, while coercion is negative.

It's also different because it negates thought, of course. If you point a gun to my head than what I think about your goal becomes irrelevant. It can be patently wrong (and if you need to force me in all likelihood it is) but to me that doesn't matter anymore.

So my will, the ability to choose things I like, using the ability to think to choose them, is compromised when physical violence is involved. I don't think the same could be said for employed work, or the rat (if it could think, that is).

Economic coercion is especially well suited toward these ends. You'll starve without me, so you better damn well do as I say. But at least I've provided an opportunity for today's young people to make something of themselves.
But what you're saying is a lie. I won't starve without you because the decision on whether or not I starve is made by me. Even more importantly, even if it turns out that I have to do as someone says, that someone doesn't have to be you. That's why competition is such a neat thing - I can find someone with whom I agree and who shares my premises, values and thoughts on how to make them reality.

You really really need to watch this film (http://www.thetake.org/), as it completely exposes and destroys Rand's (and Marx' and Lenin's and Stalin's and Mao's) strawman. Then we can see how the Twentieth Century Motor Company far better describes contemporary global capitalism.
I don't think The Take answers my fundamental questions. To what degree does it go into how the factory is actually supposed to do business? As far as I know, it talks mainly about the struggle to get the factory in the first place. The only thing approaching a business strategy I know of was a deal to supply parts to another collective.

Why is it better to not have enough money to buy the things you want when all wages are equal than when they're not? The thing you call a strawman is honest enough to realise that by not allocating things based on need you're not taking the train of thought to its end. A factory taken over as a community project cannot make anyone rich. As far as real examples are concerned, it seems that the workers generally stay quite poor. As an allocation it's no fairer than the previous system, where the capitalist takes a proportion of the profit in return for the upwards potential (and the initial investment, which these workers of course never made, failing to answer another question about the system).

The problems I have with the movement are a) the problems I have with democracy in general and b) the problems of long-term, general feasibility. The film can't answer either - it's an advocacy flick that cannot and doesn't try to do anything other than advocate a certain agenda. That's not to say that one shouldn't watch it, or that it doesn't cover an area that should get more coverage - but to say that it answers any questions, exposes or destroys anything is a step too far.

The link in my signature is with regardless to a somewhat larger factory where wages are paid according to need rather than the neither-here-nor-there approach of "everyone gets the same". And it raises issues that you don't here about when you look at things like The Take, hence it stays.[/off-topic rant]

NL: What's your problem with determinism again?

Edit: You're really conflating two different things, as I've tried to point out in the moral duty thread... it's not that inclinations can't play a role if we're free, it's just that they cannot determine their role for themselves.

Is not this thing driving us to separate ourselves from our basal passions and embrace reason itself a basal passion?

Short answer: no. It's our rationality itself, which gets us to see the arbitrariness of inclination. We are not inclined to rationality, we are obliged to rationality; reason gets us to see, to put it roughly, what "works" and what "doesn't work" in answering the questions for which we are necessarily concerned (like what to believe and what to do.)

(More precisely, yes, it is a "passion"--Kant calls it "respect"--but it is one founded in reason.)

To give my own perception of free will : It's a social construct, much like human rights, morals and the like. It does exist if we allow it to, but with severe restrictions.
Our biological determination, our social nature and our basic survival needs limit the numbers of decisions we get to make, and those we do get to make will be influenced by our heritage and genetic makeup as well as our experience and perceptions.

Since material and physical reality imposes certain constraints on our actions even in less extreme cases, it stands to reason that such constraints limit our free will and should be blocked out as much as possible if we want to make a free decision.

If I'm totally paralyzed, do I not have free will? I do, I just don't have the way to act on it.

It's a film about a whale.

Baby freely choose not to hurt me, not to hurt me, no more.

It's a film about a whale.

About a whal.

Free will is a pretty phrase that sounds like something we really want to have but is defined in such a narrow way that anything we do can be explained away as not qualifying as true free will. If you eat cake because you like it you are a slave under your desires. If you don't eat cake to prove that you are not a slave under your desires then you are a slave under your desire to be free from your desires. No matter what choice you make there is some excuse for saying the choice wasn't true free will.

You don't need to meet the ridiculously narrow definition of free will to make independent choices on your own. Your personality, desires, mood, knowledge, memories, instincts and such things are parts of who you are, if a choice is based on those things then it is truly your choice since it is based on a part of you. If you can make a decision without consulting external influences after being presented with the choice then you can make choices on your own even if you based the choice on previous external experiences (that cake is good) that are now your own internal memories.

Then there is also the limitation that being able to predict what someone else will choose means they don't have free will in the choice. The better you know someone the more you can predict about their choices. Even if you know someone likes cake it is still their own preference and still their own choice to eat cake because they like it. So they still make independent choices even if you know them well enough to predict what they will choose.

About a whal.

Good point :D

I do not pretend to understand Kant, however, my limited understanding is that he did not have a "proof" for will, but said that belief in the existence of will is necessary for their to be any discussion of morality. This is from his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals:
Morality is thus the relation of actions to the autonomy of the will...
So I don't think we can prove that free will exists, or that Kant had a proof of it. That said, I do "believe" in it. But this thread already accepts the existence of free will and rather asks what the nature of that will is. Here is my thought.

Let us assume there are four kinds of beings: pure matter, animals, humans, angels and God. I will use each of these to flesh out my idea of free will. I am also supposing at least a dualistic and possibly trinitarian view of metaphysics including matter, mind and will (or soul/spirit?). I believe this also to be necessary because, if there is only matter, there is no morality for all is deterministic.

Pure matter (say, rocks or water) have absolutely no will or mind whatsoever. They are entirely subject to the physical laws around them. A rock has no choice in whether it goes up or down or erodes. An ocean has no choice in whether it goes in or out with the tide. There is no will and, thus, no moral action associated with such physical things. I do not blame the weather for brining rain to my parched ground or a hurricane.
On the other end of the spectrum is God. God is pure Spirit/Will (and, one could assume, Intelligence/Mind.) God also is beyond morality. Rather, God IS morality. If there is a higher morality to which God must appeal His actions to see if they are "good" or "bad", then that morality is God. If God destroys the Earth, it is Good for that is all He does. I believe that, God is Love and, being Love, all His actions are in my best interest (as much as I can understand love). However, my belief is irrelevant to the morality or immorality of His actions. Thus, God is, like a rock, beyond descriptions of morality.
Animals are a step up from pure matter. They have some intelligence, but are mostly driven by programming. One can change their programming, but it then becomes a case of which programming is the strongest. Dogs have been domesticated, but there is also a wolf somewhere inside. Have I programmed him to sit strong enough that it will override his innate programming to hunt? Now, a dog has some ability to make decisions, but these decision are just more complex methods of carrying out said programming. Thus the maxim, "All dogs go to heaven." Even if a rottweiler maims and kills your child, it is not held morally responsible. It might be put to sleep, but not in retaliation. Only because the programming it exhibits is dangerous. They make choices all the time, but these choices are not free.
Angels are an interesting choice. I'm guessing here and this is more for the sake of exploring the idea of will than me actually addressing the nature of angels. I think angels, like God, are pure spirit/will and intelligence/mind. The difference is they do have a higher Authority which judges their actions and which they can obey, or disobey. However, I think they have only one choice. When an angel, who knows (more or less) all and who is in the unveiled presence of the Good, of God, of Love; chooses to disobey or act against God, that's it. There may be many ways to obey, but willfull defiance with absolute knowledge of what that means and with no excuse of ignorance, means eternal rebellion. What would change the mind of an timeless being in a billion years when they already knew what they were doing a billion years ago?
Finally, human beings. We find ourselves placed precariously between the rising ape and the falling angel. Both dust and divine. We have the determinism of dust, the programming of the pooch, the intelligence of the angel and the law of Love all written inside us. Our free will is not nearly as free as that of the angel, but neither are we as determined as the dog.

This is what I think the nature of our free will is. It sounds very much like the categorical imperative of Kant and the universal maxim of Sartre.
Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul and strength;
and love thy neighbor as thyself.
Or, barring belief in God, simply:
Love thy neighbor as thyself.
It is in loving that we act on our free will. It is in the putting aside of our self interest for the interests of others; in giving Nietzsche's philosophy the middle finger :upyours: and embracing all to the detriment of ourselves that we are truly free.

Peace,
Kester of the Boragoves (http://poor-blogger.blogspot.com/)

In the "Moral Duty?" (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=553245&page=5) thread it has come to a question of what exactly free will constitutes. Rather than discuss that particular matter there and miss responses by people who aren't looking at it I am making a seperate thread to sort this issue out.




Now, Kant and Soheran seem to be saying that if we are reacting to the material situation, to our physical needs or wants, then that is a constraint on our free will. We are predisposed to choose a certain alternative. We should be taking a step back, ignore our own situation and endeavour to pick the right thing

That's taking another argument to the extreme, namely the one that if you're starving you're not actually free because you are forced (not necessarily by anyone in particular, but forced nonetheless) to find food, and so a lot of choices that you would have made if you were well-fed aren't actually realistic options. Since material and physical reality imposes certain constraints on our actions even in less extreme cases, it stands to reason that such constraints limit our free will and should be blocked out as much as possible if we want to make a free decision.

Now, to me that sounds silly. Just because I like cake doesn't mean that I don't have the freedom to eat something else or eat nothing at all, even if I choose to eat cake 99.99% of the time. Free will isn't about making choices random. I saw something on TV the other day about a remote-controlled rat, which would get stimulated on one side and if it went that way, it would be rewarded with a hit to the pleasure centre of the brain. That rat still had a free will (in so far as you can talk about free will in animals), it still had the option to go the other way, regardless of how improbable that choice is. The only way for free will to cease existing is if there is literally no alternative course of action that can be taken, if the rat's legs themselves were remote-controlled for example.

The idea of dividing myself from my will and aim for things that aren't constrained by such minor matters as my physical existence, ie my needs and wants, is not a realistic option for anyone. The idea that exercising free will would consist of choosing things we don't like or want the same number of times as things we do like, ceteris paribus, doesn't make sense in the real world.

So what is free will?

According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy free will is:
...a philosophical term of art for a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives.

For more details, consult link: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/

The Catholic Encucopedia states that free will is:
free will, moral liberty, or the liberum arbitrium of the Schoolmen... It ramifies into ethics, theology, metaphysics, and psychology. The view adopted in response to it will determine a man's position in regard to the most momentous issues that present themselves to the human mind. On the one hand, does man possess genuine moral freedom, power of real choice, true ability to determine the course of his thoughts and volitions, to decide which motives shall prevail within his mind, to modify and mould his own character? Or, on the other, are man's thoughts and volitions, his character and external actions, all merely the inevitable outcome of his circumstances? Are they all inexorably predetermined in every detail along rigid lines by events of the past, over which he himself has had no sort of control? This is the real import of the free-will problem.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06259a.htm

And, of course, Wikipedia shows that:
The question of free will is whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions and decisions. Addressing this question requires understanding the relationship between freedom and cause, and determining whether the laws of nature are causally deterministic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will

You chose which of these sources define free will for you or, of course, you can give your own definition of it.

To me, free will is the ability that humans (and animals too) have to chose what course of action to take in order to achieve something. It's the ability to freely chose what and what not to do, say, believe, ect. And, if Christianity is true, this ability was granted by God Himself.

It's also different because it negates thought, of course. If you point a gun to my head than what I think about your goal becomes irrelevant. It can be patently wrong (and if you need to force me in all likelihood it is) but to me that doesn't matter anymore. If you're starving, the same conditions apply. You're not going to care much about what the person offering food wants in return.

Free will is a pretty phrase that sounds like something we really want to have but is defined in such a narrow way that anything we do can be explained away as not qualifying as true free will. If you eat cake because you like it you are a slave under your desires. If you don't eat cake to prove that you are not a slave under your desires then you are a slave under your desire to be free from your desires. No matter what choice you make there is some excuse for saying the choice wasn't true free will.

You don't need to meet the ridiculously narrow definition of free will to make independent choices on your own. Your personality, desires, mood, knowledge, memories, instincts and such things are parts of who you are, if a choice is based on those things then it is truly your choice since it is based on a part of you. If you can make a decision without consulting external influences after being presented with the choice then you can make choices on your own even if you based the choice on previous external experiences (that cake is good) that are now your own internal memories.

Then there is also the limitation that being able to predict what someone else will choose means they don't have free will in the choice. The better you know someone the more you can predict about their choices. Even if you know someone likes cake it is still their own preference and still their own choice to eat cake because they like it. So they still make independent choices even if you know them well enough to predict what they will choose.


I like that phrase 'slave unto you desires' If the 'will' part of free will, is equal to 'What I will', or 'What I want' or 'What I desire' then being a slave unto ones desires is certianly engaging in free will.

Free Will is nothing but the abliity to have a choice. No matter that your choices are restricted, no matter that your choices are products of your enviroment, if you have a choice between A and B, then when you make that choice you are excersising your free will.

I'd say it's being able to take the selfless, or stupid, option.

If you're starving, the same conditions apply. You're not going to care much about what the person offering food wants in return.

Both this example and the one with the gun pointed to your head :(:sniper: are exactly what Kant is talking about. In both of those situations, the moral action requires thought. If your mind shuts down your are either acting immoraly or amorally. I'm not sure if he would equate the two.

I assume Kant would say a categorical imperative is "Don't steal." Thus, the moral action requires that your will/thought override your stomach and, if necessary, starve to death. (I don't necessarily agree with him, btw.) Likewise, if the categorical imperative is "Don't be a traitor," then no matter how many guns are pointed to your head, you don't give up the hiding place of the jews in your attic or betray the military secrets of your country.

If your brain shuts down because of hunger or fear, then I suppose you could say you are outside the realm of thought and will and, thus, not constrained by the laws of morality. That's why there are exceptions for duress or other exigent circumstances. But, when you act outside of thought (according to Kant), you are not free. You are an animal. If you are not choosing your actions, you are less than human.

Peace,
Kester

As much as it's tempting to believe in free will, i'm moving further and further toward the determinist stance, because to put it simply, free will is an illusion.

I think libertarians have a huge task to defeat all of the main determinist weapons in debate, although it is possible, there isn't really a solid footing for libertarians.

You see Determinists and Libertarians both agree on the definition of freewill, that an uncaused act is a free act, however Determinists say that the definition is tue, but in reality it is an illusion.

I find the best Libertarian methods of advocating free will are, that moral actions would play no part in a determinist world, i mean what would be the point of punishing criminals if all their actions are predetermined? One such case that managed to get the defendants on a lesser charge is the famous case of the following:
The perfect Murder, Nietzschean supermen, and the best defence lawyer of the 20th Century. The crime captured national attention in 1924 began as a fantasy in the mind of eighteen-year old Richard Loeb, the handsome and privileged son of a retired Sears Roebuck vice president. (see link)
Link (http://www.lib.niu.edu/2001/ihy010226.html)
The boys got off on a life sentance instead of the death penalty. As you can see the Freewill argument has huge political implications.

This is what sways me from taking a wholly determinist stance, it just doesn't seem right to allow someone a lighter sentance (albeit only slightly lighter) just because the person has no choice. Of course this is committing the appeals to consequences fallacy, and we end up back on square one.
Another way to argue free will might be to say, it fits in with our phenomenological point of view on the world (that is, free will feels right). But this really isn't a very strong argument either.
So i find Libertarianism doesn't really have very good arguments (unless you work really hard on them, i mean really hard), Determinism seems to have all the big toys to play with, all the better weapons to use, because it can call on the scientific method of causality to determine events. This can be disputed also, i find the best way to get around determinism is to argue about the philosophy of time, this tends to put a spanner in the Determinist works.
I'l have to think about this one
Thanks for making this thread, yes i can actually revise and talk on NSG at the same time.:)

Free will doesn't exist so long as you are motivated to do something by another force instead of, quite literally, your own choice. Furthermore, if you are conditioned like a rat in a skinner box, it becomes clear the only free will we have is the one in our own head that we so fervently believe is true.

I suppose it makes me a determinist to say it, but at least I can say with certainty I'm correct. :p

Free will doesn't exist so long as you are motivated to do something by another force instead of, quite literally, your own choice. Furthermore, if you are conditioned like a rat in a skinner box, it becomes clear the only free will we have is the one in our own head that we so fervently believe is true.

I suppose it makes me a determinist to say it, but at least I can say with certainty I'm correct. :p

Nope you are quite wrong.

When you reply to me, although it may be that it is determined that you do so, because of my reply to you. Do you choose which words you will use, and how you shall string together your senatnces so that I am able to understand your point, are are they chossen for you simply by the act of my reply to you?

Can you instead choose not to reply to me?

Free will is simply the act of choice in acordance with your will.

As much as it's tempting to believe in free will, i'm moving further and further toward the determinist stance, because to put it simply, free will is an illusion.

But if there is not free will, how are you moving towards the determinist stance? Are you not being moved to determinism just as I am moved towards free will?

A really bad series of movies about a whale. Wait, that was "Free Willy."
I know! A rilly greeet tune (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhcM_hx0zxw) by Rush! Other than that, who can say? Brain science has not advanced to the point of providing a definitive answer.

NL: What's your problem with determinism again?
That it eliminates choice and therefore any need for morality. Just as a rock must roll down a hill, in a determinist world I must do X and the fact that I have a mind has become totally irrelevant. It has become just one more characteristic of the particular lump of matter I happen to be, just like the shape or density of the rock.

You're really conflating two different things, as I've tried to point out in the moral duty thread... it's not that inclinations can't play a role if we're free, it's just that they cannot determine their role for themselves.
The question is where inclinations come from. Some of them are biological, but many of them are expressions of higher values we stand for. If I want to save a stranger from getting killed, then that's not just some random nerve impulse that happens to say that. It's the result of a value that says that human life is valuable and should be protected. Inclinations aren't foreign to our values, they're not some contamination of what we actually are or of our reason, or of reality. Our inclinations are an expression of ourselves as we exist.

The question is where inclinations come from. Some of them are biological, but many of them are expressions of higher values we stand for. If I want to save a stranger from getting killed, then that's not just some random nerve impulse that happens to say that. It's the result of a value that says that human life is valuable and should be protected. Inclinations aren't foreign to our values, they're not some contamination of what we actually are or of our reason, or of reality. Our inclinations are an expression of ourselves as we exist.

I think it would be a mistake so that Kant disagrees, but Kant's point is that inclinations have no bearing on whether or not our will is a good will or a bad will. All that matters, so far as the moral value of the action is concerned for Kant, is whether or not the act comes from a sense of moral duty to engage in the act, that this moral duty emerges out of a good will rather than by accident, and that the intent itself corresponds with the three formulations of the Categorical Imperative.

Free will in this context means choosing among competing options on correct understanding of and adherence to the proper moral duty in this situation. If we choose to do something because someone puts a gun to our head, our choices are by all rational lights determined by means external to our own will (unless you're a true Stoic, you'd hardly say that the death vs. not death are really competing options. Then again, if you're a true Stoic, you wouldn't be asking questions about free will anyway). Similarly, if we do something to ease our starvation, we are choosing not among competing options because only one option is to most sane sensible people the sane, sensible option. While it may be sane and sensible, it isn't free.

this debate itself is simply a construct of our social system and our language. The greeks believed in fate, the idea that things are simply going to happen no matter what. This is true, if we were to build a supercomputer fast enough and powerful enough it could predict everything that would ever happen and all the thoughts and choices anyone will ever make. Yet the modern version of the idea of fate is more on a scientific level. The idea of free will is on a social level, and it states that we theoretically can make whatever choice we want and are physically capable of pulling off (even though fate dictates that we won't actually make these choices). The two ideas are seperate, and both are true in their assumpptions.

Do we have free will? Sure. How do I know? Because we talk about people having choices, and in certain circumstances not having them. "You could've been nicer to that man, he was just asking a question." Yes, I could have. "You chose to steal that." Yes, I did choose it. What's important here is not the words "free" and "will", but how those words are used together. What does it mean to ascribe free will to someone? You simply are recognizing that it is conceivable that they could have done things differently. And what does that mean? You've seen them do it differently before; or have seen other people do similar things before; or you've done, or can imagine...etc.

When do people not have free will? Well, when they're being coerced, for one. Someone doesn't have free will if a gun is pointed at their head to warn them against doing the wrong thing. And that just means: we describe these situations differently.

Given this, I don't think it's appropriate to say that we don't have free will, because that's patently false. What occurs here appears to be a confusion between what we're talking about when we say "He has free will" and scientific models (i.e., "You can't have free will because everything is determined by physical laws"). Both are true-- in their own context. It's best to remember what you're actually talking about here before going off and attempting to figure out what free will really means. For what else could it mean but the use we give it?

As for causal determinism, I don't think it's true, both for the reason above and because it treats causation as if it's a logical law. It is no such thing. Physical "laws" are simply - only - limited descriptions, made by us for our use, not guidelines that nature follows. Causation is merely a label we've put on certain situations, not a rule that must (logical must) always be followed. Determinism is a useful model for science, yes. But it is not a necessary model for other things.

It's the ability to consciously choose your actions.