Determism is sort of useless as a moral compass that way. You can't say "Oh, the criminal is just a ball acting according to pre-determined events" without recognizing that so are the judge and jury
Yeah, this is a good point. I think determinism, like evolution, is really just a description of reality, and therefore its application to morality is limited.
However, I do think that moral systems that model themselves around an accurate description of reality tend to be better than those that do not. For example, one of the reasons that racism is morally wrong is because it is factually wrong as well. The abortion debate almost hangs in the balance based on the debate about the nature of the human soul, and one of the reasons I am pro-choice is because I do not think that zygotes can be said to have a "soul" in reality.
I got to thinking... determinism cannot be used as an excuse for anything both for reasons for and against determinism itself.
Here's a nice little paradox. A criminal in court appeals to the jury and uses this theory as an excuse. For some reason, the jury sees the light and agrees: this guy really had no other fate in store than being a criminal. They realize that their destinies are just as set as the criminal's, their choices just as meaningless, and therefore lose the will (*ahem*) to exercise free will. Are they choosing to drop "free will"? If they decide to go out and do something crazy now, is that because they were destined to all along? If recognizing and understanding this theory has affected them... oh shit, my brain.
I need to take a moment.
That's why determinism has no real use as a guide to our actions. Because you don't know exactly what is determined to happen. You can accept that everything is determined. But you will never notice it when making decisions, you still have the feeling of making decisions and being in charge, just as you do now, as this is how our brain/mind works. It is a nice question from a theoretical philosophy's point of view, but from the point of view of practical philosophy, it's nothing really new. Biochemistry, Psychology and Neuroscience have already improved our understanding of what affects how we behave, how people become criminals and such. In many judicial systems, this is taken into account, and has been for a long time. Mentally ill criminals are in most cases sent to a psychiatrical institution rather than a prison to maybe cure them and keep harm from society, and the concept of revenge has long since no place in an enlightened court of justice. Of course, this can always be improved on, should be in future and is by no means near perfect now, but, from a practical point of view, in my opinion the question of free will is of no great significance. It cannot change the way our minds work, unless we exchange them for computers some time in the future or so.
The way we should work out our ethic/moral concepts is debate, discourse, consense and democratical decision-making on a free market of ideas. You know, like in Churchills famous qoute, maybe it's the worst system except all the others we have tried.
Determism is sort of useless as a moral compass that way. You can't say "Oh, the criminal is just a ball acting according to pre-determined events" without recognizing that so are the judge and jury
Yeah, this is a good point. I think determinism, like evolution, is really just a description of reality, and therefore its application to morality is limited.
I don't understand what you are saying here, but I agree with what you say after. I think I don't understand what you are saying here because I agree with what you say after. What do you mean?
I think determinism is very practical in regards to morality because it provides an accurate model of the dynamics that guide action. I think it's incredibly relevant to morality and disruptive of current models because it's a description that flies in the face of most of the dominant paradigms (which, I think, are largely informed by the gut-feeling free will illusion).
Also, disabusing people of the current notions may actually cause them to act differently. A jury that understands that the criminal is in the same victim boat as his victims may consider his punishment accordingly. A victim who realizes that his assailant was in the same victim boat as him has a very rational argument for forgiveness, regardless of the crime committed (though naturally, the cathartic emotional response isn't easy to overcome).
That's why determinism has no real use as a guide to our actions. .
I agree with this in one sense: Even in a Newtonian universe, the calculations required to predict the universe state t+x probably can never be accomplished in a time period x. This makes sense to me and seems a popular view--the universe is deterministic at a macro level but the complexity of the universe makes it unpredictable hence impossible to distinguish from an indeterministic universe. However, you phrase it in an almost meaningless way: what do you mean by "guide to our actions"?
themightypuck on
“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
0
Options
MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
I think determinism is very practical in regards to morality because it provides an accurate model of the dynamics that guide action. I think it's incredibly relevant to morality and disruptive of current models because it's a description that flies in the face of most of the dominant paradigms (which, I think, are largely informed by the gut-feeling free will illusion).
Determinism isn't exclusive of free will, because prediction isn't exclusive of free will. It's true that the arrangement of physical matter in my brain was such that I was going to order vanilla, and because of that I couldn't have done otherwise. However, that arrangement of physical matter in my brain is me. I am nothing over and above my brain, and the fact that it was configured in such a way that I was going to order the vanilla is just the very same fact as me preferring vanilla. Hence, I ordered it because I wanted it and because I chose it, because the facts of me wanting it and choosing it are just the very same facts as the facts of what was physically going on in my brain at the time.
Edit: this is also why determinism isn't exclusive with moral responsibility.
i just dont see how determinism is relevant or useful for anything.
Recognizing that environment influences behavior is very relevant or useful on its own, but determinism has so far been unable to explain behavior universally enough and in enough detail to be at all meaningful. It's often more about stickin' it to the churchies than actually seeking truth. And in a lot of cases just a convenient excuse.
Too dismissive: Determinism (even, if I understand it right, compatibilistic determinism) has serious implications for such religions, ie, that God is seriously evil or seriously weird, since when he created the universe he created it such that lots of its inhabitants would be hell-bound sinners. It moves the problem of evil back a step, and renders it unsolvable. It's big! And since Christianity is a big deal in our world, the theological implications are important. I don't think it's fair to wave this side of determinism away just because you're allergic to militant atheists or whatever.
That idea is hardly new; it actually pre-dates modern determinism. "Everything is pre-ordained" is a fairly common religious idea, if not one that has much traction at the moment.
I think that "free will" is an incoherent and nonsensical concept.
When you make a decision, when you exercise your supposed will, what factors influence your decision? Loren and other determinists claim that your will is predetermined, or in other words constrained by physical factors, and in fact those factors are what constitute your will. I don't really understand what the other side is claiming. If will is "free," what is it free of? What is it not constrained by? Your personality is a biological function, that's pretty clear; it can be altered completely by manipulation of the matter in your brain, or even just the hormones in your body. If you're "free" of the constraints of that, what is your motivation? How can you make a decision? What is the "self" that operates, somehow independent of material elements, to make decisions?
"free will" isn't really the strawman everyone is trying to make it out to be.
like i said in my earlier post: choosing ice cream = act of free will. bleeding =/= act of free will. i dont think it's that hard.
do determinist really believe that there is no difference between choosing ice cream and bleeding?
If you believe in free will, there must be some cut off (you can't have a "little bit" of free will, just like how you can't be "a little pregnant.") Where is this cut-off, and how on earth did you determine it?
of course you can have a "little" free will. there was a gunpoint example which illustrates that well. also, children. no one can tell you exactly where the line should be drawn, but it's definitely a sliding scale.
are you really taking the position that choosing vanilla over chocolate is perfectly identical to a jewish mother choosing a son over a daughter by nazi gunpoint?
That's kind of the point. They're both essentially without value except as a convenient excuse.
I disagree. In economics, for example, human beings were classically treated as "rational actors" or whatever, with total free will. But now (as I understand it) there is a new way of thinking called behavioral economics that treats human beings more as deterministic billiard balls. (I read an article a while ago about how Barack Obama's economic advisors are all behavioral economics, and that this model is what drives innovations like the iPod).
It also matters from a legal/moral perspective. If people are in complete control of their destiny then they should be held completely accountable for their crimes. If people are billiard balls then we should take full account of their environment, upbringing, genetics, and other material factors separate from their actions when dealing judgment.
what about children? should children be treated identically as adults? if not, why?
i just dont see how determinism is relevant or useful for anything.
Recognizing that environment influences behavior is very relevant or useful on its own, but determinism has so far been unable to explain behavior universally enough and in enough detail to be at all meaningful. It's often more about stickin' it to the churchies than actually seeking truth. And in a lot of cases just a convenient excuse.
Too dismissive: Determinism (even, if I understand it right, compatibilistic determinism) has serious implications for such religions, ie, that God is seriously evil or seriously weird, since when he created the universe he created it such that lots of its inhabitants would be hell-bound sinners. It moves the problem of evil back a step, and renders it unsolvable. It's big! And since Christianity is a big deal in our world, the theological implications are important. I don't think it's fair to wave this side of determinism away just because you're allergic to militant atheists or whatever.
i dont think it actually changes anything though.
1) no one knows if anyone is a hell bound sinner (it could just be an empty threat) and besides, god works in mysterious ways, or whatever. im sure someone religious could smother your reasoning with religious babbling.
2) determinism can't be proven.
3) if determinism is true, it affects nothing.
I think determinism is very practical in regards to morality because it provides an accurate model of the dynamics that guide action. I think it's incredibly relevant to morality and disruptive of current models because it's a description that flies in the face of most of the dominant paradigms (which, I think, are largely informed by the gut-feeling free will illusion).
Determinism isn't exclusive of free will, because prediction isn't exclusive of free will. It's true that the arrangement of physical matter in my brain was such that I was going to order vanilla, and because of that I couldn't have done otherwise. However, that arrangement of physical matter in my brain is me. I am nothing over and above my brain, and the fact that it was configured in such a way that I was going to order the vanilla is just the very same fact as me preferring vanilla. Hence, I ordered it because I wanted it and because I chose it, because the facts of me wanting it and choosing it are just the very same facts as the facts of what was physically going on in my brain at the time.
Edit: this is also why determinism isn't exclusive with moral responsibility.
I don't mean this to be pithy, but am I supposed to interpret that as a dissent, or...?
You might check the thread. If you do, you'll find that I have spent few, if any words concerned with prediction. My concerns with determinism have almost exclusively involved looking at history to account for actions, not using determinism as some kind of portent. Perhaps I have not been clear about the time frame that I am looking at, and in looking at what you quoted, I suppose I can see how that may be open to interpretation, or perhaps I misunderstand the meaning of "prediction" that people have been using.
Regardless, my confusion over so many people's predilections towards discussing it should be apparent. Perhaps you or someone else could fill me in.
Regarding free will, given that my working definition of it, and what I have found that essentially all other reasonable interpretations of it boil down to, is essentially an illusion, and that yours is at least in part a "phantom", if I read you correctly, I don't think we're in some great disagreement where it is concerned, and I think whatever intellectual conflict we may have in that respect is largely a semantic one, which is why I haven't addressed you further on that matter. If this is not the case, please let me know.
like i said in my earlier post: choosing ice cream = act of free will. bleeding =/= act of free will. i dont think it's that hard.
do determinist really believe that there is no difference between choosing ice cream and bleeding?
Here is how I see this question:
do determinist really believe that there is no difference between 2+2=4 and 10^3=1000?
Of course they're different. But they're both math.
So regarding what you said, of course they're different. But they're both deterministic, and I'm not sure how you're arguing how one is "freer" (or whatever) than the other (this is an invitation for you to elaborate). The same with your later example.
I also think you're trying to choose emotionally resonant examples to... I dunno, why are you choosing apparently innocuous examples to compare to ones that cause distress?
I will allow for a second that we could possibly, maybe, somehow develop this ability of transference between possible worlds, but, as long as the processes of transference are goverened by laws, doesn't the ability itself still fall under the determinist umbrella?
Well, maybe, but I could imagine it not being so (mind you, we're entirely in idle speculation here) - in the model I'm thinking of, all MATTER is essentially deterministic, and would appear to follow deterministic laws as "you" observed it through your succession of bodies that serve as your way to experience the material world in a linear fashion. Keeping it relatively simple, I'm imagining a situation where things like motion are actually an illusion (sort of like the way movies appear to move but they're really still pictures being observed in sequence very quickly), which eliminates niggling problems like even Zeno's Arrow (which is often easily dismissed, but is ultimately still kind of a good question if you look at it a certain way), ultimately allowing for the closest I've imagined to a unified field theory and replacing all the other problems with the one mysterious problem (what is an observer? "soul"?).
So pretend that's how it works, and we'll keep our universe(s) incredibly small - there are basically three universes. One that's the start - which is your body standing there facing two buttons, 1 red, 1 green. Again keeping it ludicrously simple, that static universe is connected to two others based on the two possible choices the observer could make - one branch consists of your body with its finger on a depressed red button, and the other exactly the same but with the green button depressed instead. All of those universes exist - a being who existed beyond 4 dimensions would be able to look at the the same way we'd look at a comic strip that branches out to two different possibilities - the deterministic part is that those static universes would always stay the same, and they'd appear to follow a set of laws that were consistent between the first "panel" and the "next." However, the "observer" would still have the "free will" to choose exactly which body he would move into by making the choice between buttons.
Just as an imaginary exercise, does that make the slightest bit of sense at all? If not, it's almost definitely because I'm explaining it poorly or forgetting something important, and not because there's not the slightest bit of merit to the idea, I think...
like i said in my earlier post: choosing ice cream = act of free will. bleeding =/= act of free will. i dont think it's that hard.
do determinist really believe that there is no difference between choosing ice cream and bleeding?
Here is how I see this question:
do determinist really believe that there is no difference between 2+2=4 and 10^3=1000?
Of course they're different. But they're both math.
So regarding what you said, of course they're different. But they're both deterministic, and I'm not sure how you're arguing how one is "freer" (or whatever) than the other (this is an invitation for you to elaborate). The same with your later example.
I also think you're trying to choose emotionally resonant examples to... I dunno, why are you choosing apparently innocuous examples to compare to ones that cause distress?
so you sincerely see no qualitative difference between my choosing between flavors of ice cream and my blood cells carrying oxygen to other cells in my body? both are just programmed responses by my body that have similar (albeit different in magnitude) moral implications?
if that is truly the case, i dont see how determinism can address any issues related to progression from childhood into adulthood. do you believe that there are things adults should be allowed to do that children should not be allowed to do? if so, why?
i'm not trying to choose emotionally resonant examples. im simply using examples that best illustrate how thoroughly inadequate determinism turns out to be if you use it as the basis of any moral system.
so you sincerely see no qualitative difference between my choosing between flavors of ice cream and my blood cells carrying oxygen to other cells in my body? both are just programmed responses by my body that have similar (albeit different in magnitude) moral implications?
What do you mean qualitative? They're obviously "different" insofar as they give you different results based on different inputs and operations, eerily similar to the math analogy, but it's still determinism, insofar as everything is caused by the interactions of genetics and environment.
Are you suggesting that there is something other than genetics and environment involved here? Could you elaborate?
if that is truly the case, i dont see how determinism can address any issues related to progression from childhood into adulthood. do you believe that there are things adults should be allowed to do that children should not be allowed to do? if so, why?
What do you mean when you mention "determinism addressing issues"? No one's offering it as a moral system on its own, but it is an explanation of phenomenon and the reasons why things are they way they are and happen the way they do, not dissimilar to the theory of evolution.
It also matters from a legal/moral perspective. If people are in complete control of their destiny then they should be held completely accountable for their crimes. If people are billiard balls then we should take full account of their environment, upbringing, genetics, and other material factors separate from their actions when dealing judgment.
It also matters from a legal/moral perspective. If people are in complete control of their destiny then they should be held completely accountable for their crimes. If people are billiard balls then we should take full account of their environment, upbringing, genetics, and other material factors separate from their actions when dealing judgment.
I personally think this is the most important implication of determinism: a different intent for the justice system. If you understand that a criminal is not "evil" or "morally bankrupt", simply "broken", then the obvious focus of the justice system becomes (a) how to fix criminals so that they behave correctly, (b) how to protect other citizens in the meantime, and (c) how to prevent future criminals.
I was initially going to make a thread on the ethical implications of determinism, but...
That is, it has implications, and I would suggest very severe ones in many cases. It's not a moral school of thought on its own, though.
i just dont see how determinism is relevant or useful for anything.
Recognizing that environment influences behavior is very relevant or useful on its own, but determinism has so far been unable to explain behavior universally enough and in enough detail to be at all meaningful. It's often more about stickin' it to the churchies than actually seeking truth. And in a lot of cases just a convenient excuse.
Too dismissive: Determinism (even, if I understand it right, compatibilistic determinism) has serious implications for such religions, ie, that God is seriously evil or seriously weird, since when he created the universe he created it such that lots of its inhabitants would be hell-bound sinners. It moves the problem of evil back a step, and renders it unsolvable. It's big! And since Christianity is a big deal in our world, the theological implications are important. I don't think it's fair to wave this side of determinism away just because you're allergic to militant atheists or whatever.
I'm waving it aside because the only function it serves is as a tool for militant atheists to piss off churchies. That whole battle is obnoxious. And the first-cause argument it'll spawn most of the time is obnoxious.
That flies into the face of every argument I and many others made in this thread, VC, including the two I quoted and limed directly above your post. Congratulations. Do you have me on ignore or something?
That flies into the face of every argument I and many others made in this thread, VC, including the two I quoted and limed directly above your post. Congratulations. Do you have me on ignore or something?
You haven't filled the gap between "people are influenced by their environments" and "people are exclusively controlled by their environments and have no actual power to make decisions". You don't need to be a hard-determinist to believe that marketing works or that rehabilitation should be the primary objective of corrections. You're doing that thing you love to do where you overbroaden definitions of concepts to include everyone whether they agree with you or not, like you do with "atheism". It doesn't actually put more people on your side, it just makes it easier to lie with statistics. Which doesn't help since you're not compiling any response-data anyway.
ViolentChemistry on
0
Options
MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
I think whatever intellectual conflict we may have in that respect is largely a semantic one, which is why I haven't addressed you further on that matter. If this is not the case, please let me know.
tl;dr: say again?
Well, my point is that the deterministic nature of the universe has no effect on, well, anything, and you seem to think that it does--for instance that it should inform our moral judgments.
That's why determinism has no real use as a guide to our actions. .
However, you phrase it in an almost meaningless way: what do you mean by "guide to our actions"?
The original question was, I believe, how the acceptance that we have no free will would change our moral concepts.
What I wanted to express was, that it cannot. We can accept that everything is determined, but as we will, due to the nature of the world, never know exactly what is determined to happen, it will not change the way how we make decisions, be they free or not. What should and has changed our moral concepts is the insight that human behaviour is influenced by many factors that individuals cannot control.
It also matters from a legal/moral perspective. If people are in complete control of their destiny then they should be held completely accountable for their crimes. If people are billiard balls then we should take full account of their environment, upbringing, genetics, and other material factors separate from their actions when dealing judgment.
It also matters from a legal/moral perspective. If people are in complete control of their destiny then they should be held completely accountable for their crimes. If people are billiard balls then we should take full account of their environment, upbringing, genetics, and other material factors separate from their actions when dealing judgment.
I personally think this is the most important implication of determinism: a different intent for the justice system. If you understand that a criminal is not "evil" or "morally bankrupt", simply "broken", then the obvious focus of the justice system becomes (a) how to fix criminals so that they behave correctly, (b) how to protect other citizens in the meantime, and (c) how to prevent future criminals.
I was initially going to make a thread on the ethical implications of determinism, but...
That is, it has implications, and I would suggest very severe ones in many cases. It's not a moral school of thought on its own, though.
VC, I'm supposing that you have me confused with someone else, and I encourage you to read the OP as well as the rest of the thread, where I rarely fail to mention environment and genetics (or a rough synonym) in the same breath.
I think whatever intellectual conflict we may have in that respect is largely a semantic one, which is why I haven't addressed you further on that matter. If this is not the case, please let me know.
tl;dr: say again?
Well, my point is that the deterministic nature of the universe has no effect on, well, anything, and you seem to think that it does--for instance that it should inform our moral judgments.
That seems like an odd statement to make. The universe is deterministic, ergo it has an effect on everything inside the universe. It informing our morality is only a matter of using the information we have available, of providing information as to why things are the way they are and why things happen the way they do.
If I haven't been clear as to how I feel that knowledge of determinism should impact our ethics, here is a compilation of most of what I said on the matter up to page 5:
From page 1:
I think an obvious implication is that those of us who are fortunate to lead largely happy lives ultimately are the beneficiaries of luck, and people who lead largely shitty lives are ultimately (conversely) victims of luck.
...
...I would add that I think there's a strong argument to be made that, given that good people who lead good lives are merely lucky, and that one significant moral obligation is that we should work to increase the odds of people begin able leading fortunate lives as best we can.
Similarly, that we should view people who we would otherwise view as leading contemptible and agonizing lives ultimately as victims, rather than villains.
...
Here's the quandary: Punishing a criminal is like punishing a robot for its own malfunctions, but punishing such a robot for its own programming can be an effective preventative measure for future malfunctions.
As such, we should punish only to prevent. There is nothing good, in itself, about retribution. The suffering inflicted on wrongdoers is just as sad as the suffering of everyone else. It is warranted only with the growth it brings in the welfare of others, through the prevention of future crime.
Page 2:
The feeling that acts of cruelty towards perceived offenders is a good thing is a stubborn feeling that isn't easily ground away, particularly in the cathartic sense. But, at least in my experience (and I suspect a fair number of others), steering toward a paradigm where determinism is closer to the forefront of moral thought tends also to lead people toward compassion.
...
...There's no reason for hatred of individuals when the causes are outside of the perpetrator.
Page 4:
I think it's fairly safe to say that emotions are stronger than reason, but reason can also severely blunt the impact of emotion when understanding is increased.
Page 5:
Regarding (3), condemnation of the person isn't warranted, but it's useful. Condemnation of his circumstances are warranted, but they largely are not useful, except where those condemnations fall on ears that are affected towards change. Ergo, I would argue that we should do both, but be aware of (and work to change) the ultimate culprit, which would be the environment and the genetics of the individual involved.
The notion of free will is and has been exceedingly useful for society up until now, but at the moment, it's getting rapidly eroded in its usefulness as its illusory nature is coming to light. Low serotonin, for example, has been linked to crime. Being abused as a child increases the likelihood of being an abuser as an adult. "Free will" shifts the responsibility of society away from these more subtle culprits, and cathartic, vengeance-seeking justice (against the individuals) hardens our hearts against the extreme urgency of their plights.
tl;dr, part 1:
1. No one deserves punishment or blame, nor does anyone deserve praise. The suffering of criminals is just as bad as the suffering of innocent people. Everyone is ultimately either fortunate or unfortunate.
As such, there is nothing good, in itself, about retribution and the feeling enthusiasm towards the practice is merely the result of genetic expediency, not reflecting of some higher moral truth. Punishment is warranted only with the growth it brings in the welfare of others, through the prevention of future crime.
2. An ideology that looks exclusively for the causes behind the actions of individuals tends to steer its adherents towards compassion, as it automatically diminishes the role of the individual to that of a tool of factors that they had no control over.
3. Schools of thought that retain some breed of the notion of "free will" shifts the responsibility of society away from altering and considering the circumstances surrounding individuals, and cathartic, vengeance-seeking justice (against the individuals) blinds people to the importance--the all-encompassing importance--of those circumstances.
tl;dr part 2, super truncated version:
1. Determinism has a strong impact about our considerations regarding justice, particularly regarding the treatment of criminals.
2. Determinism as a lens through which to view the world increases compassion by eroding the importance of the role of the individual in crimes.
3. Determinism as a lens through which to view the world increases the awareness of the importance of environmental and genetic factors in the actions of individuals.
Loren Michael on
0
Options
MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
1. No one deserves punishment or blame, nor does anyone deserve praise.
This doesn't follow from determinism. I know you think it does, but it doesn't. People still deserve praise and blame for the choices that they make, and I pointed out in my post how determinism doesn't take away people's ability to make choices.
Your views on moral responsibility are actually not far from my own, however, they're not true in virtue of determinism. If anything, I'd say they're more supported by a original position style argument--which is not that far from the sort of thing you're presenting. It just doesn't have anything to do with determinism.
Suggesting that people deserve praise and blame given determinism seems (to me) like suggesting that a gun deserves blame for its involvement in the shooting of someone, or that a scalpel deserves praise for saving someone.
Maybe I'm working under a different definition of "deserve", but I think I simply don't agree with your position on choice, or maybe I just don't understand it.
Could you please clarify and/or restate your argument?
Loren Michael on
0
Options
MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
Suggesting that people deserve praise and blame given determinism seems (to me) like suggesting that a gun deserves blame for its involvement in the shooting of someone, or that a scalpel deserves praise for saving someone.
Guns do not choose to fire: people choose to fire guns.
You might object along the following lines: "But we can look at the physics of the situation, and see that your firing of the gun was caused by an electrical impulse, which was in turn caused by some neuron activity, which was caused by something else, and so on down the line. Furthermore, all these causal links were necessarily so. You never made the choice to fire the gun, you were merely subject to a chain of cause and effect, and essentially no different from a domino falling when pushed."
I would then respond: "But I did make a choice. That chain of activity, the neurons firing, the impulse, and so on, constituted my choice. I am nothing over and above my brain, and the fact of my brain being in such a way that I will fire the gun is just the very same fact of me being the sort of person who would choose to fire the gun in that situation. The electrical impulse that originates in my neural activity is my choice.
Furthermore, the truth of determinism has nothing to do with free will. The opposite of determinism is randomness. Imagine that we discover that quantum effects are, indeed, random, and that together they sum to be significant enough to effect the outcomes of neural processing. If that were the case, then our behavior would not be predetermined in time, there would only be probabilities that one thing or another would occur. How would that change anything? It wouldn't. It would simply mean that, by your argument, our choices would be controlled by the random result of quantum fluctuations in addition to deterministic laws.
I have a challenge for you: describe to me a situation in which a person would have free will, in the sense you think is significant. I will tell you about how your description is incoherent, because my view is the only view that makes sense, and on my view people have free will just the way they are."
so you sincerely see no qualitative difference between my choosing between flavors of ice cream and my blood cells carrying oxygen to other cells in my body? both are just programmed responses by my body that have similar (albeit different in magnitude) moral implications?
What do you mean qualitative? They're obviously "different" insofar as they give you different results based on different inputs and operations, eerily similar to the math analogy, but it's still determinism, insofar as everything is caused by the interactions of genetics and environment.
i mean qualitative in that regardless of whether i am conscious or not, my blood carries oxygen to my cells. if i am unconscious, i cannot buy ice cream. i don't really think it's that hard.
Are you suggesting that there is something other than genetics and environment involved here? Could you elaborate?
im suggesting that your use of "genetics" and "environment" are too broad and hence inadequate and useless. it's like me asking, "are you suggesting something other than matter and energy are involved here?"
the question is a dumb one. of course im not. im suggesting that you need to break down environment and genetics into finer detail. otherwise you're just saying, "the entire universe is composed of matter and energy." yeah, well okay. and?
if that is truly the case, i dont see how determinism can address any issues related to progression from childhood into adulthood. do you believe that there are things adults should be allowed to do that children should not be allowed to do? if so, why?
What do you mean when you mention "determinism addressing issues"? No one's offering it as a moral system on its own, but it is an explanation of phenomenon and the reasons why things are they way they are and happen the way they do, not dissimilar to the theory of evolution.
i guess you are agreeing with me that determinism is inadequate then.
that being the case, i would still be interested to hear what you have to say on children not being given the right to do certain things. why is that? if we are all just billiard balls, then why should an adult billiard ball's "decisions" be given more respect and weight than a child's?
Suggesting that people deserve praise and blame given determinism seems (to me) like suggesting that a gun deserves blame for its involvement in the shooting of someone, or that a scalpel deserves praise for saving someone.
Maybe I'm working under a different definition of "deserve", but I think I simply don't agree with your position on choice, or maybe I just don't understand it.
in addition to everything mr^2 wrote after this (which i agree with), i add the following:
if we are all just billiard balls or if we deserve as much blame or praise for our actions as a scalpel or gun, then why give a shit at all about people? if my throwing a person off a rooftop is effectively no different from my kicking a toaster off the roof, then why should we care about our fellow "machines" at all?
either people are important and different from machines or they aren't. which is it? if they are identical, then killing a person should be treated with the same amount of indifference as dismantling a toaster or eating a steak. if people and machines should be treated differently, then there must be some reason for such.
so which is it? are we billiard balls or are we not? you can't have both.
Well, maybe, but I could imagine it not being so (mind you, we're entirely in idle speculation here) - in the model I'm thinking of, all MATTER is essentially deterministic, and would appear to follow deterministic laws as "you" observed it through your succession of bodies that serve as your way to experience the material world in a linear fashion. Keeping it relatively simple, I'm imagining a situation where things like motion are actually an illusion (sort of like the way movies appear to move but they're really still pictures being observed in sequence very quickly), which eliminates niggling problems like even Zeno's Arrow (which is often easily dismissed, but is ultimately still kind of a good question if you look at it a certain way), ultimately allowing for the closest I've imagined to a unified field theory and replacing all the other problems with the one mysterious problem (what is an observer? "soul"?).
So pretend that's how it works, and we'll keep our universe(s) incredibly small - there are basically three universes. One that's the start - which is your body standing there facing two buttons, 1 red, 1 green. Again keeping it ludicrously simple, that static universe is connected to two others based on the two possible choices the observer could make - one branch consists of your body with its finger on a depressed red button, and the other exactly the same but with the green button depressed instead. All of those universes exist - a being who existed beyond 4 dimensions would be able to look at the the same way we'd look at a comic strip that branches out to two different possibilities - the deterministic part is that those static universes would always stay the same, and they'd appear to follow a set of laws that were consistent between the first "panel" and the "next." However, the "observer" would still have the "free will" to choose exactly which body he would move into by making the choice between buttons.
Just as an imaginary exercise, does that make the slightest bit of sense at all? If not, it's almost definitely because I'm explaining it poorly or forgetting something important, and not because there's not the slightest bit of merit to the idea, I think...
I'm somewhat inclined to think that we don't have to be bound by matter to be subject to determinism. If someone beyond four dimension could observe what we aren't, it means there is some deductive aspect to it, which means that there are rules of some sort (however we want to define "rules"), and at that point we're back to determinism.
It's like Spinoza's argument for a single substance, it doesn't have to involve physics or matter for it to be deterministic - only necessary. [Not pulling the pretense card by bringing up Spinoza; I'm just refraining from summarizing it for now, so we don't get even more sidetracked.]
Basically, anything that can be bound by reason of some intellect must be guided by principle or necessity in some way - or else all is chaos.
Suggesting that people deserve praise and blame given determinism seems (to me) like suggesting that a gun deserves blame for its involvement in the shooting of someone, or that a scalpel deserves praise for saving someone.
Guns do not choose to fire: people choose to fire guns.
You might object along the following lines: "But we can look at the physics of the situation, and see that your firing of the gun was caused by an electrical impulse, which was in turn caused by some neuron activity, which was caused by something else, and so on down the line. Furthermore, all these causal links were necessarily so. You never made the choice to fire the gun, you were merely subject to a chain of cause and effect, and essentially no different from a domino falling when pushed."
I would then respond: "But I did make a choice. That chain of activity, the neurons firing, the impulse, and so on, constituted my choice. I am nothing over and above my brain, and the fact of my brain being in such a way that I will fire the gun is just the very same fact of me being the sort of person who would choose to fire the gun in that situation. The electrical impulse that originates in my neural activity is my choice.
I agree with all of that, but given that "choice" is the result of the situation and the composition of our body at the time, I'm not sure how "blame" is appropriate here. That electrical impulse is akin to the gunpowder igniting. it's one in a long series of events from which there could have been no other result. The "choice" of the electrical impulse is the same as the "choice" of the gunpowder.
Are you using "blame" as a means to indicate one of the links in the causal chain that leads to a given event? If that is the case, I have no qualms about your term, but I think we would disagree about what "deserves" to be blamed (that is, what factor is most appropriate to single out) in the causal chain.
Furthermore, the truth of determinism has nothing to do with free will. The opposite of determinism is randomness. Imagine that we discover that quantum effects are, indeed, random, and that together they sum to be significant enough to effect the outcomes of neural processing. If that were the case, then our behavior would not be predetermined in time, there would only be probabilities that one thing or another would occur. How would that change anything? It wouldn't. It would simply mean that, by your argument, our choices would be controlled by the random result of quantum fluctuations in addition to deterministic laws.
I agree with all of that.
I have a challenge for you: describe to me a situation in which a person would have free will, in the sense you think is significant. I will tell you about how your description is incoherent, because my view is the only view that makes sense, and on my view people have free will just the way they are."
This is from the OP of this thread:
Simply put, we are all products of our genes and our environment, neither of which is under our control. Everything we do, everything we will do, is subject to these two forces, and we can't do anything about it, as we are all thoroughly within the prison of genetics and environment the moment we are conceived.
One could try to articulate that there is something more, but one will immediately find such a something impossible to visualize or articulate clearly, for anything that is not in our genes or environment is imperceptible, and I would argue, largely inconceivable.
I would put "free will" as one of the things that the second paragraph refers to as being impossible to visualize or articulate clearly. I'm not particularly satisfied with any definition I've seen beyond, as noted on the first page of this thread in reply to Yar, the feeling of agency. I have repeated variations on this sentiment throughout this thread.
So, I'm not sure why you put this particular challenge to me. I'm the guy who thinks "free will" is inconceivable.
So, I will agree with you. And when you say that people have free will just the way they are, I will say, "free from what? Is there a conceivable alternative where the will of people could 'not be free' compared to the current state of affairs?" Basically, I think "free will" is incomprehensible and vestigial in any context but for describing that feeling of agency.
That's why determinism has no real use as a guide to our actions. .
However, you phrase it in an almost meaningless way: what do you mean by "guide to our actions"?
The original question was, I believe, how the acceptance that we have no free will would change our moral concepts.
What I wanted to express was, that it cannot. We can accept that everything is determined, but as we will, due to the nature of the world, never know exactly what is determined to happen, it will not change the way how we make decisions, be they free or not. What should and has changed our moral concepts is the insight that human behaviour is influenced by many factors that individuals cannot control.
OK so we are on the same page. hi5.
themightypuck on
“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
― Marcus Aurelius
VC, I'm supposing that you have me confused with someone else, and I encourage you to read the OP as well as the rest of the thread, where I rarely fail to mention environment and genetics (or a rough synonym) in the same breath.
Simply adding the word "genetics" doesn't fill the gap, and I encourage you to come up with something of substance to say.
There's a significant difference between acknowledging that people are influenced by their environment and claiming that they're unilaterally controlled by it in all things.
This is "the gap" you speak of, yes?
I have difficulty imagining a universe where people commit actions not caused by their environment/genetics. Unless this is simply us using the word "environment" in a different way, I'm afraid I don't understand your objections to determinism (largely because you have yet to explain them in any great detail).
Is this just you railing against the usefulness of determinism, or do you actually disagree with determinism itself? If so, I would be interested in hearing about your alternative view of how people come to certain decisions, particularly the part not controlled by "environment."
There's a significant difference between acknowledging that people are influenced by their environment and claiming that they're unilaterally controlled by it in all things.
This is "the gap" you speak of, yes?
I have difficulty imagining a universe where people commit actions not caused by their environment/genetics. Unless this is simply us using the word "environment" in a different way, I'm afraid I don't understand your objections to determinism (largely because you have yet to explain them in any great detail).
Is this just you railing against the usefulness of determinism, or do you actually disagree with determinism itself? If so, I would be interested in hearing about your alternative view of how people come to certain decisions, particularly the part not controlled by "environment."
It makes a claim that it can't substantiate, and it fails to explain the mechanisms that lead to different behaviors effectively. Bear in mind many people can't imagine a universe where Jesus wasn't the messiah but rather just a popular hippie.
that being the case, i would still be interested to hear what you have to say on children not being given the right to do certain things. why is that? if we are all just billiard balls, then why should an adult billiard ball's "decisions" be given more respect and weight than a child's?
if we are all just billiard balls or if we deserve as much blame or praise for our actions as a scalpel or gun, then why give a shit at all about people? if my throwing a person off a rooftop is effectively no different from my kicking a toaster off the roof, then why should we care about our fellow "machines" at all?
either people are important and different from machines or they aren't. which is it? if they are identical, then killing a person should be treated with the same amount of indifference as dismantling a toaster or eating a steak. if people and machines should be treated differently, then there must be some reason for such.
so which is it? are we billiard balls or are we not? you can't have both.
You seem to be deriving an "ought" from "is" here, and it's eerily reminiscent of the sentiment of folks who claim they'd go out raping and killing if they didn't believe in God.
Simply because everything is billiard balls, as it were, doesn't infer that we have an obligation to be dispassionate toward people, as you seem to be implying.
My position is that we are prisoners of prior events that we have no control over, and that the most useful steps we should take is to identify where we should go from here. I haven't been extremely clear about where I think that should be, but it boils down to a lot of utilitarianism and a little of some other stuff.
VC, I'm supposing that you have me confused with someone else, and I encourage you to read the OP as well as the rest of the thread, where I rarely fail to mention environment and genetics (or a rough synonym) in the same breath.
Simply adding the word "genetics" doesn't fill the gap, and I encourage you to come up with something of substance to say.
I'll encourage you to elaborate on where you perceive this "gap" to be. If you want me to use different terminology, you can go with nature and nurture instead of genetics and environment and get the same position, if I understand those terms as well as I think I do.
It makes a claim that it can't substantiate, and it fails to explain the mechanisms that lead to different behaviors effectively. Bear in mind many people can't imagine a universe where Jesus wasn't the messiah but rather just a popular hippie.
I don't think comparing "I can't imagine a non-deterministic universe" with "I can't imagine Jesus isn't divine" is at all fair.
One is an unsubstantiated claim, while the other is the natural result of viewing the universe in a materialistic way. Unless you make a claim to some non-physical entity, how else can you explain the phenomenon of human action? Do you have some explanation for how human beings could conceivably make a choice free of the control of environment/genetics?
Your main objection seems to not be with determinism itself, but rather the usefulness it has in predicting the actions of an intelligent agent. I do not disagree with you here. Given the highly complex nature of human action, expecting anyone to ever have complete knowledge of all of the many, many stimuli that collectively caused any one action is preposterous.
I don't see why you require this omniscient knowledge of every cause before you accept determinism as being the most credible explanation for human action. If you do not find it to effectively explain human behavior, do you have some alternate explanation?
VC, I'm supposing that you have me confused with someone else, and I encourage you to read the OP as well as the rest of the thread, where I rarely fail to mention environment and genetics (or a rough synonym) in the same breath.
Simply adding the word "genetics" doesn't fill the gap, and I encourage you to come up with something of substance to say.
I'll encourage you to elaborate on where you perceive this "gap" to be. If you want me to use different terminology, you can go with nature and nurture instead of genetics and environment and get the same position, if I understand those terms as well as I think I do.
Once again, where you go from decisions being informed by externalities to decisions disappearing entirely, but don't explain the middle part.
It makes a claim that it can't substantiate, and it fails to explain the mechanisms that lead to different behaviors effectively. Bear in mind many people can't imagine a universe where Jesus wasn't the messiah but rather just a popular hippie.
I don't think comparing "I can't imagine a non-deterministic universe" with "I can't imagine Jesus isn't divine" is at all fair.
One is an unsubstantiated claim, while the other is the natural result of viewing the universe in a materialistic way. Unless you make a claim to some non-physical entity, how else can you explain the phenomenon of human action? Do you have some explanation for how human beings could conceivably make a choice free of the control of environment/genetics?
Your main objection seems to not be with determinism itself, but rather the usefulness it has in predicting the actions of an intelligent agent. I do not disagree with you here. Given the highly complex nature of human action, expecting anyone to ever have complete knowledge of all of the many, many stimuli that collectively caused any one action is preposterous.
I don't see why you require this omniscient knowledge of every cause before you accept determinism as being the most credible explanation for human action. If you do not find it to effectively explain human behavior, do you have some alternate explanation?
Physicalism is not a synonym for determinism. I don't need to claim a non-physical entity until you can explain all the physical entities in the brain and demonstrate that none of them allow you to think things you've never seen. And it really shouldn't take more than a cursory observation to determine that lumping all human action together as a single phenomenon is ridiculous.
Physicalism is not a synonym for determinism. I don't need to claim a non-physical entity until you can explain all the physical entities in the brain and demonstrate that none of them allow you to think things you've never seen. And it really shouldn't take more than a cursory observation to determine that lumping all human action together as a single phenomenon is ridiculous.
Why would I need to demonstrate that the brain is not capable of thinking "things you've never seen"? Do you believe the ability of the human brain to visualize images it has never witnessed with its own eyes to in some way refute determinism? All it reveals is that the human brain has a sophisticated ability to combine simple observed facts into complex images. While I may be capable of imagining a very unique visual image, I am doing so by combing the many visual stimuli I have received over the course of my life.
Since this is in no way incompatible with determinism, I fear I am misunderstanding your point. Would you perhaps mind elaborating?
Posts
However, I do think that moral systems that model themselves around an accurate description of reality tend to be better than those that do not. For example, one of the reasons that racism is morally wrong is because it is factually wrong as well. The abortion debate almost hangs in the balance based on the debate about the nature of the human soul, and one of the reasons I am pro-choice is because I do not think that zygotes can be said to have a "soul" in reality.
That's why determinism has no real use as a guide to our actions. Because you don't know exactly what is determined to happen. You can accept that everything is determined. But you will never notice it when making decisions, you still have the feeling of making decisions and being in charge, just as you do now, as this is how our brain/mind works. It is a nice question from a theoretical philosophy's point of view, but from the point of view of practical philosophy, it's nothing really new. Biochemistry, Psychology and Neuroscience have already improved our understanding of what affects how we behave, how people become criminals and such. In many judicial systems, this is taken into account, and has been for a long time. Mentally ill criminals are in most cases sent to a psychiatrical institution rather than a prison to maybe cure them and keep harm from society, and the concept of revenge has long since no place in an enlightened court of justice. Of course, this can always be improved on, should be in future and is by no means near perfect now, but, from a practical point of view, in my opinion the question of free will is of no great significance. It cannot change the way our minds work, unless we exchange them for computers some time in the future or so.
The way we should work out our ethic/moral concepts is debate, discourse, consense and democratical decision-making on a free market of ideas. You know, like in Churchills famous qoute, maybe it's the worst system except all the others we have tried.
I don't understand what you are saying here, but I agree with what you say after. I think I don't understand what you are saying here because I agree with what you say after. What do you mean?
I think determinism is very practical in regards to morality because it provides an accurate model of the dynamics that guide action. I think it's incredibly relevant to morality and disruptive of current models because it's a description that flies in the face of most of the dominant paradigms (which, I think, are largely informed by the gut-feeling free will illusion).
Also, disabusing people of the current notions may actually cause them to act differently. A jury that understands that the criminal is in the same victim boat as his victims may consider his punishment accordingly. A victim who realizes that his assailant was in the same victim boat as him has a very rational argument for forgiveness, regardless of the crime committed (though naturally, the cathartic emotional response isn't easy to overcome).
I agree with this in one sense: Even in a Newtonian universe, the calculations required to predict the universe state t+x probably can never be accomplished in a time period x. This makes sense to me and seems a popular view--the universe is deterministic at a macro level but the complexity of the universe makes it unpredictable hence impossible to distinguish from an indeterministic universe. However, you phrase it in an almost meaningless way: what do you mean by "guide to our actions"?
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
Too dismissive: Determinism (even, if I understand it right, compatibilistic determinism) has serious implications for such religions, ie, that God is seriously evil or seriously weird, since when he created the universe he created it such that lots of its inhabitants would be hell-bound sinners. It moves the problem of evil back a step, and renders it unsolvable. It's big! And since Christianity is a big deal in our world, the theological implications are important. I don't think it's fair to wave this side of determinism away just because you're allergic to militant atheists or whatever.
"free will" isn't really the strawman everyone is trying to make it out to be.
like i said in my earlier post: choosing ice cream = act of free will. bleeding =/= act of free will. i dont think it's that hard.
do determinist really believe that there is no difference between choosing ice cream and bleeding?
of course you can have a "little" free will. there was a gunpoint example which illustrates that well. also, children. no one can tell you exactly where the line should be drawn, but it's definitely a sliding scale.
are you really taking the position that choosing vanilla over chocolate is perfectly identical to a jewish mother choosing a son over a daughter by nazi gunpoint?
what about children? should children be treated identically as adults? if not, why?
i dont think it actually changes anything though.
1) no one knows if anyone is a hell bound sinner (it could just be an empty threat) and besides, god works in mysterious ways, or whatever. im sure someone religious could smother your reasoning with religious babbling.
2) determinism can't be proven.
3) if determinism is true, it affects nothing.
I don't mean this to be pithy, but am I supposed to interpret that as a dissent, or...?
You might check the thread. If you do, you'll find that I have spent few, if any words concerned with prediction. My concerns with determinism have almost exclusively involved looking at history to account for actions, not using determinism as some kind of portent. Perhaps I have not been clear about the time frame that I am looking at, and in looking at what you quoted, I suppose I can see how that may be open to interpretation, or perhaps I misunderstand the meaning of "prediction" that people have been using.
Regardless, my confusion over so many people's predilections towards discussing it should be apparent. Perhaps you or someone else could fill me in.
Regarding free will, given that my working definition of it, and what I have found that essentially all other reasonable interpretations of it boil down to, is essentially an illusion, and that yours is at least in part a "phantom", if I read you correctly, I don't think we're in some great disagreement where it is concerned, and I think whatever intellectual conflict we may have in that respect is largely a semantic one, which is why I haven't addressed you further on that matter. If this is not the case, please let me know.
tl;dr: say again?
Here is how I see this question:
do determinist really believe that there is no difference between 2+2=4 and 10^3=1000?
Of course they're different. But they're both math.
So regarding what you said, of course they're different. But they're both deterministic, and I'm not sure how you're arguing how one is "freer" (or whatever) than the other (this is an invitation for you to elaborate). The same with your later example.
I also think you're trying to choose emotionally resonant examples to... I dunno, why are you choosing apparently innocuous examples to compare to ones that cause distress?
Well, maybe, but I could imagine it not being so (mind you, we're entirely in idle speculation here) - in the model I'm thinking of, all MATTER is essentially deterministic, and would appear to follow deterministic laws as "you" observed it through your succession of bodies that serve as your way to experience the material world in a linear fashion. Keeping it relatively simple, I'm imagining a situation where things like motion are actually an illusion (sort of like the way movies appear to move but they're really still pictures being observed in sequence very quickly), which eliminates niggling problems like even Zeno's Arrow (which is often easily dismissed, but is ultimately still kind of a good question if you look at it a certain way), ultimately allowing for the closest I've imagined to a unified field theory and replacing all the other problems with the one mysterious problem (what is an observer? "soul"?).
So pretend that's how it works, and we'll keep our universe(s) incredibly small - there are basically three universes. One that's the start - which is your body standing there facing two buttons, 1 red, 1 green. Again keeping it ludicrously simple, that static universe is connected to two others based on the two possible choices the observer could make - one branch consists of your body with its finger on a depressed red button, and the other exactly the same but with the green button depressed instead. All of those universes exist - a being who existed beyond 4 dimensions would be able to look at the the same way we'd look at a comic strip that branches out to two different possibilities - the deterministic part is that those static universes would always stay the same, and they'd appear to follow a set of laws that were consistent between the first "panel" and the "next." However, the "observer" would still have the "free will" to choose exactly which body he would move into by making the choice between buttons.
Just as an imaginary exercise, does that make the slightest bit of sense at all? If not, it's almost definitely because I'm explaining it poorly or forgetting something important, and not because there's not the slightest bit of merit to the idea, I think...
so you sincerely see no qualitative difference between my choosing between flavors of ice cream and my blood cells carrying oxygen to other cells in my body? both are just programmed responses by my body that have similar (albeit different in magnitude) moral implications?
if that is truly the case, i dont see how determinism can address any issues related to progression from childhood into adulthood. do you believe that there are things adults should be allowed to do that children should not be allowed to do? if so, why?
i'm not trying to choose emotionally resonant examples. im simply using examples that best illustrate how thoroughly inadequate determinism turns out to be if you use it as the basis of any moral system.
What do you mean qualitative? They're obviously "different" insofar as they give you different results based on different inputs and operations, eerily similar to the math analogy, but it's still determinism, insofar as everything is caused by the interactions of genetics and environment.
Are you suggesting that there is something other than genetics and environment involved here? Could you elaborate?
What do you mean when you mention "determinism addressing issues"? No one's offering it as a moral system on its own, but it is an explanation of phenomenon and the reasons why things are they way they are and happen the way they do, not dissimilar to the theory of evolution.
That is, it has implications, and I would suggest very severe ones in many cases. It's not a moral school of thought on its own, though.
I'm waving it aside because the only function it serves is as a tool for militant atheists to piss off churchies. That whole battle is obnoxious. And the first-cause argument it'll spawn most of the time is obnoxious.
You haven't filled the gap between "people are influenced by their environments" and "people are exclusively controlled by their environments and have no actual power to make decisions". You don't need to be a hard-determinist to believe that marketing works or that rehabilitation should be the primary objective of corrections. You're doing that thing you love to do where you overbroaden definitions of concepts to include everyone whether they agree with you or not, like you do with "atheism". It doesn't actually put more people on your side, it just makes it easier to lie with statistics. Which doesn't help since you're not compiling any response-data anyway.
Well, my point is that the deterministic nature of the universe has no effect on, well, anything, and you seem to think that it does--for instance that it should inform our moral judgments.
The original question was, I believe, how the acceptance that we have no free will would change our moral concepts.
What I wanted to express was, that it cannot. We can accept that everything is determined, but as we will, due to the nature of the world, never know exactly what is determined to happen, it will not change the way how we make decisions, be they free or not. What should and has changed our moral concepts is the insight that human behaviour is influenced by many factors that individuals cannot control.
That seems like an odd statement to make. The universe is deterministic, ergo it has an effect on everything inside the universe. It informing our morality is only a matter of using the information we have available, of providing information as to why things are the way they are and why things happen the way they do.
If I haven't been clear as to how I feel that knowledge of determinism should impact our ethics, here is a compilation of most of what I said on the matter up to page 5:
...
...I would add that I think there's a strong argument to be made that, given that good people who lead good lives are merely lucky, and that one significant moral obligation is that we should work to increase the odds of people begin able leading fortunate lives as best we can.
Similarly, that we should view people who we would otherwise view as leading contemptible and agonizing lives ultimately as victims, rather than villains.
...
Here's the quandary: Punishing a criminal is like punishing a robot for its own malfunctions, but punishing such a robot for its own programming can be an effective preventative measure for future malfunctions.
As such, we should punish only to prevent. There is nothing good, in itself, about retribution. The suffering inflicted on wrongdoers is just as sad as the suffering of everyone else. It is warranted only with the growth it brings in the welfare of others, through the prevention of future crime.
...
...There's no reason for hatred of individuals when the causes are outside of the perpetrator.
The notion of free will is and has been exceedingly useful for society up until now, but at the moment, it's getting rapidly eroded in its usefulness as its illusory nature is coming to light. Low serotonin, for example, has been linked to crime. Being abused as a child increases the likelihood of being an abuser as an adult. "Free will" shifts the responsibility of society away from these more subtle culprits, and cathartic, vengeance-seeking justice (against the individuals) hardens our hearts against the extreme urgency of their plights.
tl;dr, part 1:
As such, there is nothing good, in itself, about retribution and the feeling enthusiasm towards the practice is merely the result of genetic expediency, not reflecting of some higher moral truth. Punishment is warranted only with the growth it brings in the welfare of others, through the prevention of future crime.
2. An ideology that looks exclusively for the causes behind the actions of individuals tends to steer its adherents towards compassion, as it automatically diminishes the role of the individual to that of a tool of factors that they had no control over.
3. Schools of thought that retain some breed of the notion of "free will" shifts the responsibility of society away from altering and considering the circumstances surrounding individuals, and cathartic, vengeance-seeking justice (against the individuals) blinds people to the importance--the all-encompassing importance--of those circumstances.
1. Determinism has a strong impact about our considerations regarding justice, particularly regarding the treatment of criminals.
2. Determinism as a lens through which to view the world increases compassion by eroding the importance of the role of the individual in crimes.
3. Determinism as a lens through which to view the world increases the awareness of the importance of environmental and genetic factors in the actions of individuals.
This doesn't follow from determinism. I know you think it does, but it doesn't. People still deserve praise and blame for the choices that they make, and I pointed out in my post how determinism doesn't take away people's ability to make choices.
Your views on moral responsibility are actually not far from my own, however, they're not true in virtue of determinism. If anything, I'd say they're more supported by a original position style argument--which is not that far from the sort of thing you're presenting. It just doesn't have anything to do with determinism.
Maybe I'm working under a different definition of "deserve", but I think I simply don't agree with your position on choice, or maybe I just don't understand it.
Could you please clarify and/or restate your argument?
Guns do not choose to fire: people choose to fire guns.
You might object along the following lines: "But we can look at the physics of the situation, and see that your firing of the gun was caused by an electrical impulse, which was in turn caused by some neuron activity, which was caused by something else, and so on down the line. Furthermore, all these causal links were necessarily so. You never made the choice to fire the gun, you were merely subject to a chain of cause and effect, and essentially no different from a domino falling when pushed."
I would then respond: "But I did make a choice. That chain of activity, the neurons firing, the impulse, and so on, constituted my choice. I am nothing over and above my brain, and the fact of my brain being in such a way that I will fire the gun is just the very same fact of me being the sort of person who would choose to fire the gun in that situation. The electrical impulse that originates in my neural activity is my choice.
Furthermore, the truth of determinism has nothing to do with free will. The opposite of determinism is randomness. Imagine that we discover that quantum effects are, indeed, random, and that together they sum to be significant enough to effect the outcomes of neural processing. If that were the case, then our behavior would not be predetermined in time, there would only be probabilities that one thing or another would occur. How would that change anything? It wouldn't. It would simply mean that, by your argument, our choices would be controlled by the random result of quantum fluctuations in addition to deterministic laws.
I have a challenge for you: describe to me a situation in which a person would have free will, in the sense you think is significant. I will tell you about how your description is incoherent, because my view is the only view that makes sense, and on my view people have free will just the way they are."
i mean qualitative in that regardless of whether i am conscious or not, my blood carries oxygen to my cells. if i am unconscious, i cannot buy ice cream. i don't really think it's that hard.
im suggesting that your use of "genetics" and "environment" are too broad and hence inadequate and useless. it's like me asking, "are you suggesting something other than matter and energy are involved here?"
the question is a dumb one. of course im not. im suggesting that you need to break down environment and genetics into finer detail. otherwise you're just saying, "the entire universe is composed of matter and energy." yeah, well okay. and?
i guess you are agreeing with me that determinism is inadequate then.
that being the case, i would still be interested to hear what you have to say on children not being given the right to do certain things. why is that? if we are all just billiard balls, then why should an adult billiard ball's "decisions" be given more respect and weight than a child's?
in addition to everything mr^2 wrote after this (which i agree with), i add the following:
if we are all just billiard balls or if we deserve as much blame or praise for our actions as a scalpel or gun, then why give a shit at all about people? if my throwing a person off a rooftop is effectively no different from my kicking a toaster off the roof, then why should we care about our fellow "machines" at all?
either people are important and different from machines or they aren't. which is it? if they are identical, then killing a person should be treated with the same amount of indifference as dismantling a toaster or eating a steak. if people and machines should be treated differently, then there must be some reason for such.
so which is it? are we billiard balls or are we not? you can't have both.
It's like Spinoza's argument for a single substance, it doesn't have to involve physics or matter for it to be deterministic - only necessary. [Not pulling the pretense card by bringing up Spinoza; I'm just refraining from summarizing it for now, so we don't get even more sidetracked.]
Basically, anything that can be bound by reason of some intellect must be guided by principle or necessity in some way - or else all is chaos.
I agree with all of that, but given that "choice" is the result of the situation and the composition of our body at the time, I'm not sure how "blame" is appropriate here. That electrical impulse is akin to the gunpowder igniting. it's one in a long series of events from which there could have been no other result. The "choice" of the electrical impulse is the same as the "choice" of the gunpowder.
Are you using "blame" as a means to indicate one of the links in the causal chain that leads to a given event? If that is the case, I have no qualms about your term, but I think we would disagree about what "deserves" to be blamed (that is, what factor is most appropriate to single out) in the causal chain.
I agree with all of that.
This is from the OP of this thread:
I would put "free will" as one of the things that the second paragraph refers to as being impossible to visualize or articulate clearly. I'm not particularly satisfied with any definition I've seen beyond, as noted on the first page of this thread in reply to Yar, the feeling of agency. I have repeated variations on this sentiment throughout this thread.
So, I'm not sure why you put this particular challenge to me. I'm the guy who thinks "free will" is inconceivable.
So, I will agree with you. And when you say that people have free will just the way they are, I will say, "free from what? Is there a conceivable alternative where the will of people could 'not be free' compared to the current state of affairs?" Basically, I think "free will" is incomprehensible and vestigial in any context but for describing that feeling of agency.
OK so we are on the same page. hi5.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
Simply adding the word "genetics" doesn't fill the gap, and I encourage you to come up with something of substance to say.
It's neither mine nor his, there is a gap there and no one is even attempting to fill it.
This is "the gap" you speak of, yes?
I have difficulty imagining a universe where people commit actions not caused by their environment/genetics. Unless this is simply us using the word "environment" in a different way, I'm afraid I don't understand your objections to determinism (largely because you have yet to explain them in any great detail).
Is this just you railing against the usefulness of determinism, or do you actually disagree with determinism itself? If so, I would be interested in hearing about your alternative view of how people come to certain decisions, particularly the part not controlled by "environment."
It makes a claim that it can't substantiate, and it fails to explain the mechanisms that lead to different behaviors effectively. Bear in mind many people can't imagine a universe where Jesus wasn't the messiah but rather just a popular hippie.
You seem to be deriving an "ought" from "is" here, and it's eerily reminiscent of the sentiment of folks who claim they'd go out raping and killing if they didn't believe in God.
Simply because everything is billiard balls, as it were, doesn't infer that we have an obligation to be dispassionate toward people, as you seem to be implying.
My position is that we are prisoners of prior events that we have no control over, and that the most useful steps we should take is to identify where we should go from here. I haven't been extremely clear about where I think that should be, but it boils down to a lot of utilitarianism and a little of some other stuff.
I'll encourage you to elaborate on where you perceive this "gap" to be. If you want me to use different terminology, you can go with nature and nurture instead of genetics and environment and get the same position, if I understand those terms as well as I think I do.
I don't think comparing "I can't imagine a non-deterministic universe" with "I can't imagine Jesus isn't divine" is at all fair.
One is an unsubstantiated claim, while the other is the natural result of viewing the universe in a materialistic way. Unless you make a claim to some non-physical entity, how else can you explain the phenomenon of human action? Do you have some explanation for how human beings could conceivably make a choice free of the control of environment/genetics?
Your main objection seems to not be with determinism itself, but rather the usefulness it has in predicting the actions of an intelligent agent. I do not disagree with you here. Given the highly complex nature of human action, expecting anyone to ever have complete knowledge of all of the many, many stimuli that collectively caused any one action is preposterous.
I don't see why you require this omniscient knowledge of every cause before you accept determinism as being the most credible explanation for human action. If you do not find it to effectively explain human behavior, do you have some alternate explanation?
Once again, where you go from decisions being informed by externalities to decisions disappearing entirely, but don't explain the middle part.
Physicalism is not a synonym for determinism. I don't need to claim a non-physical entity until you can explain all the physical entities in the brain and demonstrate that none of them allow you to think things you've never seen. And it really shouldn't take more than a cursory observation to determine that lumping all human action together as a single phenomenon is ridiculous.
Why would I need to demonstrate that the brain is not capable of thinking "things you've never seen"? Do you believe the ability of the human brain to visualize images it has never witnessed with its own eyes to in some way refute determinism? All it reveals is that the human brain has a sophisticated ability to combine simple observed facts into complex images. While I may be capable of imagining a very unique visual image, I am doing so by combing the many visual stimuli I have received over the course of my life.
Since this is in no way incompatible with determinism, I fear I am misunderstanding your point. Would you perhaps mind elaborating?