Free-will debates misfire because both sides miss how motives acquire their status

Evidence

Thus at the outset we can see what is lacking in those tedious discussions between determinists and the proponents of free will. The latter are concerned to find cases of decision for which there exists no prior cause, or deliberations concerning two opposed acts which are equally possible and possess causes (and motives) of exactly the same weight. To which the determinists may easily reply that there is no action without a cause and that the most insignificant gesture (raising the right hand rather than the left hand, etc.) refers to causes and motives which confer its meaning upon it. Indeed the case could not be otherwise since every action must be intentional; each action must, in fact, have an end, and the end in turn is referred to a cause. Such indeed is the unity of the three temporal ekstases; the end or temporalization of my future implies a cause (or motive); that is, it points toward my past, and the present is the upsurge of the act. To speak of an act without a cause is to speak of an act which would lack the intentional structure of every act; and the proponents of free will by searching for it on the level of the act which is in the process of being performed can only end up by rendering the act absurd. But the determinists in turn are weighting the scale by stopping their investigation with the mere designation of the cause and motive. The essential question in fact lies beyond the complex organization “cause-intention-act-end”; indeed we ought to ask how a cause (or motive) can be constituted as such. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1070

Categorization

• XREF: This directly sets up Beauvoir’s treatment of freedom and situation; also resonates with the compatibilist/libertarian debate Sartre dissolves rather than enters. — connects to: Free will that succumbs to evil influence is self-contradictory; Attention is an interface, so free-will versus determinism debates about it are pointless. — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 497; Market debates mirror the 1960s technology debates’ false dichotomy of adulation versus refusal. — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 121 (+1 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Free will that succumbs to evil influence is self-contradictory; Attention is an interface, so free-will versus determinism debates about it are pointless. — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 497; Market debates mirror the 1960s technology debates’ false dichotomy of adulation versus refusal. — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 121 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Free will that succumbs to evil influence is self-contradictory #exemplifies (0.72)