If beliefs and desires cause our actions...

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

... then what is the effect, as it goes, of the belief in or desire for nondeterminstic free will?

Let's suppose a positive incompatibilist (distinct from the negative kind, who believe determinism and agency irreconcilable, and unreconciled against the latter) is about to A or B (we don't know from the outside which to predict). So let's say we know this person's strongest desire will cause their action, will cause A or B. Now, if this person's strongest desire is to not choose based on some predeterministic sort of motive, then it would seem that the desire could not be fixed to cause A or B, but either at least seemingly indeterminately.

Of course, this argument goes off a very simple picture, of causation-of-behavior-by-strongest-desire. On a deeper psychological determinism, it might be true that all our behaviors are really caused by deep factors that make no reference to agential concepts. For if determinism as such is true, it follows that all belief in or desire for free will is delusional. Now, the question would be, whence does the belief or desire arise, then? For example, sometimes it is said to grant a sense of "power" to those who believe in it. I won't even deny the splendor of the suggestion, or that I've made it myself on occasion. Be that as it may, however, doesn't it also carry the tenebrous weight of absolute responsibility? Appeals to emotional weakness as an explanatory factor in non-"naturalistic"/"physicalistic" (whatever those are) beliefs or desires, seems rather unfair to me, for ultimately such thinking is going to lead us to wonder why people accept "naturalism" or "physicalism" and unless we plan on claiming that such people are just "smarter" or "more honest" than the "non"-versions, we are going to find plenty of reasons to think that the "scientific" attitude (such as it is elided) is plenty of times founded on emotional delusions all its own. Indeed, it is the simple-minded counterposition of certain hyperenthusiastic Christians that people deny their God despite the truth of this being and His "Word" being obvious to everyone, to the point that everyone automatically knows themselves to be sinners before God in the Christian sense--and so these hyper-Christians think it is just our gloating wish for self-will, or our despondency before the judgment of a Lord Whose standards are righteously exacting, that prompts us to deny this obvious knowledge. This is neither fair, in my sight.

[aliantha]

This is why I'm Neopagan. No pesky determinism-vs.-free-will concerns!

Well, it's one of the reasons, anyway.