Free Will Zombies Should Be Punished

[the PC apeman]

Preface
This thread was inspired by a sub-discussion within the Free Will - Does it exist? (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=458297) thread.

For the purposes of this thread, “free will” refers to what I think of as compatibilist free will: the experience of feeling like we could have done other than we did. This is not an argument for or against the existence of libertarian free will (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_%28metaphysics%29): the actual ability to have done otherwise. The assumption here is that libertarian free will does not exist.

Suppose a friend asks to borrow $100 from you. You might weigh various factors: How good of a friend is this? How likely is it I’ll be repaid? Or is that important? Why does the friend need this money? What will be the impact on my financial situation? But there is a feeling that you are free to decide on either course. We feel, even if the analysis of the factors points to one direction, we could go in the other. After we’ve loaned the money or not, we feel as though it was possible to have done otherwise. This is the “free will” we experience.

Free Will Zombies
A free will zombie (or fw-zombie) is a person just like you or me except they do not experience this feeling of free will. Obviously this is a riff on the philosophical zombie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie) (or p-zombie) concept. However, unlike a p-zombie, an fw-zombie does have the same degree of consciousness, awareness, emotion, intention, imagination, intelligence, and failings as we do. They just lack the free will experience. They would be otherwise indistinguishable from us.

Actually, just to make this thought experiment a little easier, let’s say that fw-zombies do have an extra degree of awareness. They can, if asked, tell you exactly the factors that went into their decision, what weights each factor was given and what the final score was for each option they considered.

Fred
If an fw-zombie, let’s call him Fred, was presented with a friend’s request to borrow money, he’d take just as long to decide as you or I. Along the way, Fred could tell you which way he was leaning as the various factors were gathered and evaluated. He makes his calculation and acts upon it. He has no sense of being able to do otherwise. Doing otherwise would be a completely nonsensical concept to Fred. He is, however, just as emotional about his decision. He may doubt his calculations or that he didn’t consider all the factors he could have. He has the same idea as us of what the world would look like if the calculation had gone the other way. But Fred has absolutely no sense that he could have done other than what the calculations dictated.

Murder!
Like you and me, Fred and all the other fw-zombies are opposed to murder. Fred knows murder is illegal and feels it is immoral just like anyone else. He’s fully aware of the death penalty for murder (in his jurisdiction) and that’s given a very large weight in his calculations. He wants to live and be unfettered in doing whatever his calculations drive him to do. This too is given a very large weight in his calculations.

Unfortunately, as is too often the case with non-zombie people, Fred succumbs to some dire circumstances. One day he’s hit with an idea that he should murder Vic. The reasons could be money, jealousy, hatred, who knows – the same reasons anyone else might commit murder – it’s not really important. Fred adds up all the pros and cons that occur to him at that moment and the answer comes out murder. Fred has acquired the intention to kill and he does, in fact, then go on to murder Vic.

Fred might later doubt his calculations. He might worry that he didn’t consider everything he might have. But to the question of “Given the same circumstances, would you do it again?” Fred is remorseless. “Of course I would do it again, that’s what the answer was” Fred would cry.

Should we Punish Fred?
If a tree fell on your car and I asked you if the tree should be punished, you’d look at me like I was crazy. We don’t punish the tree because trees have no free will. It didn’t choose to damage the car. The tree couldn’t have done otherwise and neither could Fred.

Since we’ve already eliminated libertarian free will, no murderer could actually have done otherwise and certainly not Fred. Is Fred’s total lack of an “I could have done otherwise” experience reason enough to not punish him? I claim it is not. Fred should be punished.

A punishment that is not enforced is not a deterrent. Punishments that are enforced are not always a sufficient deterrent but they’re much better than nothing (for both fw-zombie and non-zombie alike). The feeling of being able to have done otherwise is not relevant. We can create conditions that tend to produce the outcomes we desire. It does not matter that our compatibilist version of free will, though a real experience, is just an illusion of libertarian free will.

It is in this sense that I asked “Is punishing a person really all that different from leveeing a river that floods?”

[Ludovic]

that are enforced are not always a sufficient deterrent but they’re much better than nothing (for both fw-zombie and non-zombie alike).And that's the answer. If there is a difference at all between fw-zombies and those with fw, it would be that we should punish the fw-zombies even more, because they don't really count any more than we would put down an aggressive dog.

I believe that in actuality, there is a continuum of self-awareness from said dogs upwards to higher birds and primates and then to humans, but whether we call this "free will" is a semantic argument. I also think that we should severely punish those who transgress ethics, even sometimes more harshly than the transgression. I do not want to see this enacted in the real world, however, because of the high likelihood of false positives.

[mswas]

Yeah, I have wondered about this idea when arguing with staunch materialist/atheists.

[Sophistry and Illusion]

This is funny; I published an article several years ago arguing that a community that abandoned the notion of free will would end up indistinguishable from one that didn't, because they would be forced (for consequentialist reasons) to adopt a whole set of practices entirely analogous to blaming, punishing, holding responsible, absolving from responsibility, etc. I'd link to the paper, but that would be tantamount to announcing my identity to the internet, so I guess I won't.

But one point is significant to the more general debate over punishment and free will: what reason would we have for not punishing the fw zombie? If you are a determinist, then you admit that incentives/disincentives will alter the behavior of people, and so punishing and rewarding them can alter behavior. So there are consequentialist reasons for punishing and rewarding. The only argument against doing so is a moral argument--it is unfair to hold people responsible when they are fw zombies. But this argument cuts both ways--if they can't be held responsible for what they do, neither can we be held responsible for punishing them!

[TWDuke]

I'm not sure about the staunch part, but I guess I fall into the materialist/atheist camp. I would say Fred should be punished. I'm not crazy about the term "punishment" because it has connotations of some kind of moral retribution based on an abstract but absolute standard of right and wrong. I think the legal system should be based on more pragmatic principles.

You've said that Fred weighed several factors before deciding to commit his crime. One of those factors may have been the possibility of a legal penalty. Remove that penalty, and you've given him one less reason not to commit the crime.

On the other hand, I don't think deterrence is as big a factor in homicide as some people think. In a crime of passion, the criminal likely isn't thinking much about the consequences. And the kind of psychopath who would coldly and methodically plan to kill someone else quite possibly thinks they're going to get away with it or doesn't fear punishment. In that case, putting them away protects society from future crimes.

[begbert2]

Should we Punish Fred?
If a tree fell on your car and I asked you if the tree should be punished, you’d look at me like I was crazy. We don’t punish the tree because trees have no free will. It didn’t choose to damage the car. The tree couldn’t have done otherwise and neither could Fred.

Since we’ve already eliminated libertarian free will, no murderer could actually have done otherwise and certainly not Fred. Is Fred’s total lack of an “I could have done otherwise” experience reason enough to not punish him? I claim it is not. Fred should be punished.

A punishment that is not enforced is not a deterrent. Punishments that are enforced are not always a sufficient deterrent but they’re much better than nothing (for both fw-zombie and non-zombie alike). The feeling of being able to have done otherwise is not relevant. We can create conditions that tend to produce the outcomes we desire. It does not matter that our compatibilist version of free will, though a real experience, is just an illusion of libertarian free will.

It is in this sense that I asked “Is punishing a person really all that different from leveeing a river that floods?”If a tree fell on my car and you asked me if the tree should be punished, I’d look at you like you were crazy, but only because my definition of 'punisment' only includes actions that are not calibrated to improve the situation at hand. The tree has already fallen, and it's damage is already done. Punishing it would be like punishing a dead man.

Now, let's take another situation. Suppose you have a garage door that has this mechanical quirk in its functioning that causes it to close when something crosses the "something's in the way" sensor, rather than the opposite. Then suppose that I drove through that, and it guillotined my car. If you looked at me and said, "Hmm, my garage door's misbehaving, do you think we should try and make it shape up?", I would not only not think you're crazy, I'd think you stating the obvious. The thing's behavior is bad, so we need to do something to alter its behavior. Which is the whole* purpose of punishment.

So, yeah, it makes total sense to "punish" fw-zombies; the goal is to correct their behavior so they don't cause similar problems in the future. Naturally the "punishment" is tailored to the subject and the situation; your average person can't be corrected by replacing a malfunctioning widgit, so we use indirect methods like chewing out, deprivation, and incarceration, but it's the same idea in principle.

*There actually is one other reason to punish somebody - to make ourselves feel better via the venting of emotions. And in that, punishing the tree by kicking it, cursing at it, or flailing at it wildly with a chainsaw all make perfect rational sense.)

[Blaster Master]

I'm not completely sure how consistent this world is, but I'd have to say that he deserves the punishment. FOA, in my opinion, the purpose of punishment isn't as a deterent (though it may or may not have a deterent effect), instead, it is as a sort of moral, human-enforced concept of karma; that is, it is not justice unless and unjust act has been rectified.

That said, obviously, the only way I can see this sort of world being logically consistent is if the punishment is ALWAYS carried out, otherwise no one is punishable, and laws are meaningless, which completely changes the weighting formula, such that I couldn't see anybody paying any heed to the laws.

IOW, considering that the punishment, or expectation of punishment was likely part of the calculation, one would have to logically conclude that the punishment MUST be performed, otherwise the risk will go down, and more murders will be commited.

[the PC apeman]

And that's the answer. If there is a difference at all between fw-zombies and those with fw, it would be that we should punish the fw-zombies even more, because they don't really count any more than we would put down an aggressive dog.That seems harsh given that...an fw-zombie does have the same degree of consciousness, awareness, emotion, intention, imagination, intelligence, and failings as we do.andLike you and me, Fred and all the other fw-zombies are opposed to murder. Fred knows murder is illegal and feels it is immoral just like anyone else. He’s fully aware of the death penalty for murder (in his jurisdiction) and that’s given a very large weight in his calculations. He wants to live and be unfettered in doing whatever his calculations drive him to do. This too is given a very large weight in his calculations.

[the PC apeman]

If a tree fell on my car and you asked me if the tree should be punished, I’d look at you like you were crazy, but only because my definition of 'punisment' only includes actions that are not calibrated to improve the situation at hand. The tree has already fallen, and it's damage is already done. Punishing it would be like punishing a dead man.I think we're pretty much in agreement. The word punishment does seem to cover a variety of notions. I think Fred's case is a good guidepost in focusing on a most useful meaning.

[the PC apeman]

I'm not completely sure how consistent this world is, but I'd have to say that he deserves the punishment. FOA, in my opinion, the purpose of punishment isn't as a deterent (though it may or may not have a deterent effect), instead, it is as a sort of moral, human-enforced concept of karma; that is, it is not justice unless and unjust act has been rectified.It is the view of punishment as something other than deterrent that strikes me as inconsistent in a reality without libertarian free will.

[the PC apeman]

Forgot to add... That said, obviously, the only way I can see this sort of world being logically consistent is if the punishment is ALWAYS carried out, otherwise no one is punishable, and laws are meaningless, which completely changes the weighting formula, such that I couldn't see anybody paying any heed to the laws.I'm not sure way you've capitalized ALWAYS. If one in every ten murders went unpunished would there be no deterrent at all? How about one in every thousand, million, or billion murders. Isn't there still some deterrent effect even with imperfect enforcement?

[the PC apeman]

You've said that Fred weighed several factors before deciding to commit his crime. One of those factors may have been the possibility of a legal penalty. Remove that penalty, and you've given him one less reason not to commit the crime.Exactly. What is being done is, in effect, removing the idea of who is responsible? and replacing it with what should we do about it? The word responsibility might still be a handy shorthand but it loses its undeserved "objective" status.

[the PC apeman]

This is funny; I published an article several years ago arguing that a community that abandoned the notion of free will would end up indistinguishable from one that didn't, because they would be forced (for consequentialist reasons) to adopt a whole set of practices entirely analogous to blaming, punishing, holding responsible, absolving from responsibility, etc. I'd link to the paper, but that would be tantamount to announcing my identity to the internet, so I guess I won't.I'd like to read that if you ever get the chance to anonymize it or copy portions here.

[Sophistry and Illusion]

It is in this sense that I asked “Is punishing a person really all that different from leveeing a river that floods?”
In many respects, it is identical. Leveeing a river presupposes causation: it presupposes you can introduce some causal factor that will alter the behavior of the river. And so punishing a person presupposes causal determinism, that you can introduce some factor that will alter the behavior of the person in a predictable way. The philosopher Walter Stace makes the same point about punishment in his book Religion and the Modern Mind.
Suppose that your child develops a habit of telling lies. You give him a mild beating [ed.--this passage dates the piece a bit]. Why?...You assume that his actions are determined by causes, but that the usual causes of truth-telling do not in him produce their usual effects. You therefore supply him with an artificially injected motive, pain and fear, which you think will in the future cause him to speak truthfully.

We act on the same principle with non-human, and even with inanimate, things, if they do not behave the way we think they ought to behave. The rose bushes in the garden produce only small and poor blooms, whereas we want large and rich ones. We supply a cause which will produce large blooms, namely, fertilizer. Our automobile does not go properly. We supply a cause which will make it go better, namely oil in the works. The punishment for the man, the fertilizer for the plant, and the oil for the car, are all justified by the same principle and in the same way.

[begbert2]

And that's the answer. If there is a difference at all between fw-zombies and those with fw, it would be that we should punish the fw-zombies even more, because they don't really count any more than we would put down an aggressive dog.This scares me, that you consider fw-zombies something to kill with impunity, since very likely the only difference between a FW-zombie and you and I is that he's more aware of his mental workings. The reason we don't defend ourselves with similar arguments to the fw-zombie's is merely that we're ignorant of our own determinism, not that we don't have it. The way I see it, is if he doesn't 'count', neither do I.

You put a dog down because it can't be taught. The zombie is as smart as we are.

I'm not completely sure how consistent this world is, but I'd have to say that he deserves the punishment. FOA, in my opinion, the purpose of punishment isn't as a deterent (though it may or may not have a deterent effect), instead, it is as a sort of moral, human-enforced concept of karma; that is, it is not justice unless and unjust act has been rectified.And this scares me because it makes justice into vengeance.

[Anomalous Reading]

While I don't agree with punishing a fw-zombie any more than anyone else... I do agree that they should be punished.

The future imagined deterrence adds to the calculation and the fw-zombie will arrive at a sometimes different decision as their calculation of pros and cons (odds) will shift.

As stated in one of these threads... a tree can't learn. A zombie can.

[Revenant Threshold]

Actually, just to make this thought experiment a little easier, let’s say that fw-zombies do have an extra degree of awareness. They can, if asked, tell you exactly the factors that went into their decision, what weights each factor was given and what the final score was for each option they considered.

I would argue actually that a person with this ability must be a FW zombie.

If a tree fell on your car and I asked you if the tree should be punished, you’d look at me like I was crazy. We don’t punish the tree because trees have no free will. It didn’t choose to damage the car. The tree couldn’t have done otherwise and neither could Fred. I agree with you that the idea of punishment is certainly just as silly for Fred as it would be for the tree, absent the deterrence factor. A FW zombie can't act any other way, and they know it, so it would be cruel and unusual punishment on top of that.

It is in this sense that I asked “Is punishing a person really all that different from leveeing a river that floods?" Yes. Because deterrence remains.

Imagine that Fred lives in a world that has no punishment for crimes. When he goes to make that decision to kill, that's one less factor on the con side. That he might be caught and punished (if he cares about that) might be the one point that stops him. Obviously we want that factor to exist for him, and thus it makes sense to create it. Thus we have justification for punishing people other than Fred, and Fred himself when we need to deter others or in the future.

It's worth keeping in mind that though Fred knows the factors, he only knows them from his perspective. And the mind is pretty damn good at keeping us from remembering bad things exactly - we can't remember pain to the true extent that it occurred, and for good reason. Though Fred has all the ideas of punishment in his mind, they probably don't match up to reality in their unpleasantness. We need punishment as an active deterrence because without reinforcement Fred (and non-FW-zombies) will think "Well, you know, prison wouldn't be so bad".

[the PC apeman]

Yes. Because deterrence remains.We have two pairings of action and result. One is the establishment of a penalty for murder/fewer murders. The other is the establishment of levees/fewer floods. I think you're too caught up on the mechanisms in the middle being different. Regardless, free will is clearly irrelevant in both cases. The river for obvious reasons, and murderers as demonstrated by Fred.

It's worth keeping in mind that though Fred knows the factors, he only knows them from his perspective. And the mind is pretty damn good at keeping us from remembering bad things exactly - we can't remember pain to the true extent that it occurred, and for good reason. Though Fred has all the ideas of punishment in his mind, they probably don't match up to reality in their unpleasantness. We need punishment as an active deterrence because without reinforcement Fred (and non-FW-zombies) will think "Well, you know, prison wouldn't be so bad".I should point out that Fred, and his ilk, do not process more factors than you or I would. Neither do they weigh them significantly differently than we do. I only meant that they are conscious of all the factors that they have where some of ours may be subconscious. Fw-zombies do not have perfect knowledge of the Universe and their perception and memory are subject to the same quirks as ours. They are simply us minus the experience of feeling we could have done otherwise. The reporting plus probably isn't necessary for my main point so maybe it can be omitted for the time being.

[Revenant Threshold]

Fair dos, PC.
We have two pairings of action and result. One is the establishment of a penalty for murder/fewer murders. The other is the establishment of levees/fewer floods. I think you're too caught up on the mechanisms in the middle being different. Regardless, free will is clearly irrelevant in both cases. The river for obvious reasons, and murderers as demonstrated by Fred. Well, I would say the difference lies in that the leveeing is a pretty good analogy for lifetime imprisonment; it doesn't deter things from occurring again, it just halts their ability to do it again. Curbing opportunity rather than want to do it. But other rivers can't look on and think "Oh, shit, better not flood or i'll get levee'd". And being leveed isn't a "bad" thing for rivers; should the waters drain and the levee get removed, it'll just flood the next year. Once Fred is released, though, he knows what will happen in the future and the thought of the deterrent is enough that we curb his wanting to kill, rather than needing to curb his ability to.

[the PC apeman]

Fair dos, PC.
Well, I would say the difference lies in that the leveeing is a pretty good analogy for lifetime imprisonment; it doesn't deter things from occurring again, it just halts their ability to do it again. Curbing opportunity rather than want to do it. But other rivers can't look on and think "Oh, shit, better not flood or i'll get levee'd". And being leveed isn't a "bad" thing for rivers; should the waters drain and the levee get removed, it'll just flood the next year. Once Fred is released, though, he knows what will happen in the future and the thought of the deterrent is enough that we curb his wanting to kill, rather than needing to curb his ability to.I don't see the levee as analogous to lifetime imprisonment at all. When a river isn't flooding the levee has no effect on the river's usual behavior. A long-lived levee is more analogous to the penalty for murder remaining long-lived on the books. (And like penalties, levees are not absolute barriers. They are merely factors that can be overcome by larger, opposing factors.) With every potential of the undesired behaviors, the penalty and levee are there to alter that behavior. A potential murderer foreseeing the punishment is different from a physical waterproof barrier but they're both just middle mechanisms in the concept of controlling behavior.

I think S&I may have expressed the larger idea more clearly in post #14 than I have in my attempts.

[Revenant Threshold]

Ah, I think I understand what you mean. I think then that the difference between the river and the person is that we have to restrict the river physically, whereas with a person we can threaten to restrict them. In terms of curbing behaviour, we make the river not able to do it and the person not want to, with the advantage that we might not have to actually restrict their freedom. I suppose that the person has a mind is just another complexity in the general terms of "stopping them doing it", but I think it's a large enough difference that we can't really reduce it enough to say they're just middle mechanisms. That we don't actually have to levee the river (effectively) is to me a big enough difference that I would consider them not to be the same.

[the PC apeman]

Mmmm, I think we were quite close for a moment - up until this point...That we don't actually have to levee the river (effectively) is to me a big enough difference that I would consider them not to be the same.The existence of the levee is analogous to the existence of the penalty on the books. To suppose what would happen if the levees weren't there is to suppose what would happen if the penalty wasn't on the books. And vice-versa.

But that may be just a nit and the larger point I've been pressing may seem too facile to be of any use. Without going too much further afield, I'd just like say that this idea is an important foundation. That it seems simple and/or obvious to you and others is quite encouraging. To those who think of responsibility as being something akin to objective facts in the Universe, it can be difficult to achieve even this simple common ground.

[Crocodiles And Boulevards]

Preface

Should we Punish Fred?
If a tree fell on your car and I asked you if the tree should be punished, you’d look at me like I was crazy. We don’t punish the tree because trees have no free will. It didn’t choose to damage the car. The tree couldn’t have done otherwise and neither could Fred.

Since we’ve already eliminated libertarian free will, no murderer could actually have done otherwise and certainly not Fred. Is Fred’s total lack of an “I could have done otherwise” experience reason enough to not punish him? I claim it is not. Fred should be punished.

A punishment that is not enforced is not a deterrent. Punishments that are enforced are not always a sufficient deterrent but they’re much better than nothing (for both fw-zombie and non-zombie alike). The feeling of being able to have done otherwise is not relevant. We can create conditions that tend to produce the outcomes we desire. It does not matter that our compatibilist version of free will, though a real experience, is just an illusion of libertarian free will.

It is in this sense that I asked “Is punishing a person really all that different from leveeing a river that floods?”

Would punishing a tree help deter other trees from falling on things? It's not analogous. It may be true that criminal punishment of murder isn't a spectacular deterrent, but it may be much more reasonable to speculate that a society devoid of punishment for murder might lead to FW-zombies more easily calculating that murder is the answer. After all, if it's a question of pros and cons, if there's no punishment or consequence then the murder in question becomes an easy sell.

[the PC apeman]

Would punishing a tree help deter other trees from falling on things? It's not analogous.Right. It was a poorly thought out and misleading tangent.

It may be true that criminal punishment of murder isn't a spectacular deterrent, but it may be much more reasonable to speculate that a society devoid of punishment for murder might lead to FW-zombies more easily calculating that murder is the answer. After all, if it's a question of pros and cons, if there's no punishment or consequence then the murder in question becomes an easy sell.Exactly. This is the main point. Free will is not a really a consideration in why we punish. A deterministic world using levee-like punishment is indistinguishable from a world with a sense that some kind of free will exists and responsibility is a kind of objective fact. This would be an important concession from most supporters of free will.

[Der Trihs]

This is funny; I published an article several years ago arguing that a community that abandoned the notion of free will would end up indistinguishable from one that didn't, because they would be forced (for consequentialist reasons) to adopt a whole set of practices entirely analogous to blaming, punishing, holding responsible, absolving from responsibility, etc. I'd link to the paper, but that would be tantamount to announcing my identity to the internet, so I guess I won't.

But one point is significant to the more general debate over punishment and free will: what reason would we have for not punishing the fw zombie? If you are a determinist, then you admit that incentives/disincentives will alter the behavior of people, and so punishing and rewarding them can alter behavior. So there are consequentialist reasons for punishing and rewarding. I agree. We should punish them for the same reason we punish each other. It's a necessary part of making society run.

And that's the answer. If there is a difference at all between fw-zombies and those with fw, it would be that we should punish the fw-zombies even more, because they don't really count any more than we would put down an aggressive dog. Why ? If anything, they would be on a higher plane of value than us, being more aware. They would be justified in pointing out that WE, not they, are the zombies. We are the ones that walk around unaware of most of why we do things or think about them, or even how we do so.

[marshmallow]

This paper (http://www.csbmb.princeton.edu/~jdgreene/NewGreene-WebPage_files/GreeneCohenPhilTrans-04.pdf) (warning: PDF) discusses many of the points raised in this thread in great detail. Hopefully others will find it as interesting as I did.

[Apollyon]

I'm fascinated, but a little confused, and while not wishing to hijack would like to ask what the PC apeman sees as the essential differences between Fred the fw-zombie's decisions as to what weights to assign different factors in his actions algorithm -- decisions he may later doubt -- and the decision making process of a Free Willed individual.

If Fred can doubt his weightings, or worry that he may have missed a factor, can he not also realize that he weighted wrong or missed a crucial factor, and so realize that his course of action was not optimal? True, if asked whether he'd repeat the same action, at the exact same time (in the past) and given the same information the honest answer is "yes", but given that his weighting and data can change if he had considered his action for any extra time the answer might have been different.

What I don't understand is how this is different from the decision making process of a supposedly free-willed individual (rather than a fw-zombie)... with the exception that Fred can tell you exactly how he came to the decision.

It seems to me that if you give any individual the ability to "tell you exactly the factors that went into their decision, what weights each factor was given and what the final score was for each option they considered", then the decision making process of that individual will not be distinguishable from a fw-zombie.

[the PC apeman]

Hello, Apollyon
Don't feel even a little confused. You're dead on. In every free will debate, if it goes on long enough, the topic of "responsibility" tends to come up. Usually it's offered tentatively, looking for clarification. Sometimes it comes in the form of an argument from consequences: If there wasn't free will, we couldn't hold people responsible.

What I've only hinted at here is my claim that we too often reify things like right, wrong, responsibility, justice, punishment, morality, etc. and forget that these are just useful ideas we have developed. They have no other, ultimate/universal/objective/whatever justification.

If Fred can doubt his weightings, or worry that he may have missed a factor, can he not also realize that he weighted wrong or missed a crucial factor, and so realize that his course of action was not optimal?Yes. I tried to make Fred as human as possible. In fact, I do think of Fred as a human (perhaps after some fantastic neurosurgery).

It seems to me that if you give any individual the ability to "tell you exactly the factors that went into their decision, what weights each factor was given and what the final score was for each option they considered", then the decision making process of that individual will not be distinguishable from a fw-zombie.Absolutely. The conclusion is free will is not a necessary ingredient for the (somewhat) ordered society we now have.

Of course this conclusion was based on the premise that libertarian free will doesn't exist. For some people, getting them to imagine a world without libertarian free will AND that the illusion of free will is unnecessary is, I think, a triumph in itself. So now I've exposed the limb upon which I've placed myself. I think maybe I can change Fred the fw-zombie's story to one of Liz the lfw-zombie. In this version, we do have libertarian free will but Liz does not. Do you think we'll come to the same conclusions?

[BlinkingDuck]

And that's the answer. If there is a difference at all between fw-zombies and those with fw, it would be that we should punish the fw-zombies even more, because they don't really count any more than we would put down an aggressive dog.


I've never understood the argument that 'he couldn't control himself/temporary insanity type pleas...or he couldn't help doing the murder because of reason x beyond his control...type arguments for a lesser sentence.

I mean...if you can't control yourself, then you need to be locked away until you die or be executed! You have no control!

If you did have control, maybe you can be reformed.

[Apollyon]

I think maybe I can change Fred the fw-zombie's story to one of Liz the lfw-zombie. In this version, we do have libertarian free will but Liz does not. Do you think we'll come to the same conclusions?Would it depend on the flavour of lfw that we possess, and which Liz does not?

If we all have some form of non-physical mind or soul to explain our lfw (and the existence of souls is a given for rationale decision making, such as in a court of law) and Liz is soul-less would this be different from an lfw explanation of ordinary randomness for "elbow room", a random-ness to which Liz is not subject?

I can actually see an argument that if Liz is an entirely rationale agent, but not subject to accidents of randomness in her decision making (and is in this indistinguishable from Fred as far as I can see), then if anyone is deserving of diminished responsibility it is us, rather than Liz. In our case whether the gun was fired or not could be ascribed to chance (or at least that knowing heavy punishment awaited us may or may not have changed the outcome), whereas in Liz's case the chance of punishment and the severity of that punishment would have been a direct and rationale weighting in her decision to kill.

(IANAL, but I suspect that an lfw murder defense may not solicit much sympathy: "I was intending to indeterministically either shoot or not shoot yer honour... I wasn't my fault that his probability waveform collapsed that way!"). :)

On the other hand, if we argue that Liz is soul-less (and that souls are the source of free-will) would we not also have to argue that Liz is not a rational agent?

[Mr2001]

I've never understood the argument that 'he couldn't control himself/temporary insanity type pleas...or he couldn't help doing the murder because of reason x beyond his control...type arguments for a lesser sentence.

I mean...if you can't control yourself, then you need to be locked away until you die or be executed! You have no control!
That's why it's called temporary insanity. If you're permanently insane, then yes, you have no control, but if some fleeting circumstances caused you to lose control for a moment, then that doesn't apply.

If we consider the sentence a deterrent, then it makes sense to reduce the sentence in cases where there is no deterrent effect. That is, if cosmic rays strike your brain and cause you to momentarily lose the capacity for rational thought (which leads you to commit a crime), you're not thinking about the possible jail time you might do, and neither will anyone else in your situation.

Sending you to jail won't prevent anyone else from committing the same crime if they get struck by cosmic rays, and since your affliction was only temporary, there's no other reason to lock you up either. All it would do is increase the amount of suffering in the world, for no benefit.

[the PC apeman]

Would it depend on the flavour of lfw that we possess, and which Liz does not?Yes, I think this is a good point. LFW would have to be something that is, at least conceptually, a separable feature. It must be possible for Liz to have all the characteristics of being human except for LFW. If it is separable though, I don't think it matters if it is, or comes from, a different metaphysical substance.

Since I don't have an idea of how LFW can exist, I fear it may be hard for me to paint an adequate picture. But here's a quick sketch...

We've already imagined the Compatibilists world where we have the experience of feeling we could have done otherwise but Fred does not. What if our experience is not an illusion. What if this feeling of being able to have done otherwise arises because we actually could have done other wise. But in this sequel, Liz could not have. She, like Fred, not only lacks the experience of free will, she lacks actual, libertarian free will.

Just like Fred, Liz knows murder is wrong and feels it is immoral. Actually, there is no substantative difference between Liz and Fred. Like Fred, she too values her life and not being restrained from acting on her desires. (I've avoided the word freedom here for obvious reasons.) She knows there is a death penalty for murder (in her jurisdiction) and that is a significant factor in her calculations. If Liz murders Vicky, Liz should still be punished - even in this Libertarian World. The punishment must be in place and carried out in order to keep the negative weighting for murder high in the calculations of other lfw-zombies.

Now if I've been convincing with the Fred and Liz stories, I've demonstrated that neither libertarian nor compatibilist free will are necessary ingredients in diminishing an undesirable behavior. Penalties combined with deterministic processes can do, or may actually be doing, all the work. In considering a deterministic versus a libertarian free will scenario, the former strikes me as the more parsimonious but maybe not the more obvious.

[Revenant Threshold]

Mmmm, I think we were quite close for a moment - up until this point...The existence of the levee is analogous to the existence of the penalty on the books. To suppose what would happen if the levees weren't there is to suppose what would happen if the penalty wasn't on the books. And vice-versa. I've given it a good think and all the arguments I thought up against this I ended up disagreeing with. So I think i'm with you on that - though I still think the difference in physical/mental deterrent is a significant enough difference. But thanks for giving me something to think about! I've been puzzling it for a good while today. :)

[the PC apeman]

I've given it a good think and all the arguments I thought up against this I ended up disagreeing with. So I think i'm with you on that - though I still think the difference in physical/mental deterrent is a significant enough difference. But thanks for giving me something to think about! I've been puzzling it for a good while today. :)Wow. Thank you for saying so. Right or wrong, I'm flattered you considered it worth considering.

[PBear42]

I'm not sure whether this hasn't become a zombie thread (pun intended) within the meaning of the SDMB's rules, but I got here from the free will thread linked in the OP, which is still active, so I'm going to post. If everyone has moved on to other things, so be it.

IMHO, the determinists (and compatibibilists) who have responded so far are answering the wrong question. If the contention were made (which I've not seen done) that there's no point in punishing criminal behavior, since the behavior is already determined, it would of course be valid to argue that deterrence has value. This, however, isn't the issue. The question is whether it's fair and whether it's just.

Here's the rub. The person we're punishing has wronged notwithstanding the prospect of penalty. By hypothesis, Fred could not have acted otherwise. How, then, can punishing him be justified? (In fact, society relies on free will conceptions, but whether these are valid is the point of the thought experiment.)

If the argument is "that it works," consider this alternative. Suppose that we say, "If your break the law, we will punish not only you but someone close to you (e.g., a parent, a spouse, a sibling or your child)." It seems to me this would be a very effective deterrent. Much more effective, in fact, than punishing only the "perp." But, would it be fair and would it be just?

Common sense tells us that, whether or not it works, such a system would be neither fair nor just. How, then, is punishing only the "perp" different? Unless we assume Fred could have acted differently (the very thing excluded by the OP), punishing him is indistinguishable from punishing his parent, etc. If neither he nor they caused the behavior complained of, mere utility cannot justify punishment.

[the PC apeman]

IMHO, the determinists (and compatibibilists) who have responded so far are answering the wrong question. If the contention were made (which I've not seen done) that there's no point in punishing criminal behavior, since the behavior is already determined, it would of course be valid to argue that deterrence has value. This, however, isn't the issue. The question is whether it's fair and whether it's just.Actually, the reason for this thread was to deflect the inevitable "free will is necessary for responsibility" from the Free Will - Does it exist? (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=458297) thread. But you are correct in that the position being advanced here is not that there's no point in punishing behavior. (I omitted the word criminal there. Hopefully it will become clear why.) The contention is that punishment is not a result of transgressing universal/ultimate/objective standards of what is fair and just. Establishing that there are such standards is, to put it mildly, problematic. Punishment is more simply explained as a means of achieving subjective desires.

Here's the rub. The person we're punishing has wronged notwithstanding the prospect of penalty. By hypothesis, Fred could not have acted otherwise. How, then, can punishing him be justified? (In fact, society relies on free will conceptions, but whether these are valid is the point of the thought experiment.)What does it mean that a person has wronged notwithstanding the prospect of penalty? If you mean wrong vs. a standard we've created I would agree. But why did we create those standards? If you mean those ultimate standards, you have your work cut out for you proving they exist.

If the argument is "that it works," consider this alternative. Suppose that we say, "If your break the law, we will punish not only you but someone close to you (e.g., a parent, a spouse, a sibling or your child)." It seems to me this would be a very effective deterrent. Much more effective, in fact, than punishing only the "perp." But, would it be fair and would it be just?It would be an effective deterrent. And it would affront our sense of fairness and justice. Again, are those based in objective standards? It seems more likely to me that our current balance between punishment and pursuing our desires is one that has evolved with us as social animals. It didn't have to turn out this way.

Common sense tells us that, whether or not it works, such a system would be neither fair nor just. How, then, is punishing only the "perp" different? Unless we assume Fred could have acted differently (the very thing excluded by the OP), punishing him is indistinguishable from punishing his parent, etc. If neither he nor they caused the behavior complained of, mere utility cannot justify punishment.If punishing the parent, etc., was as effective (and had similar or fewer side effects) we very well may have developed that system. And it would then feel like common sense to punish the others.

Here's the bottom line. If someone (or a group of someones) wants less murder, can* he (they) do something to cause there to be less murder? Is having punishment more likely a result of those subjective desires or are there objective standards along with the objective responsibility that we must* enforce them? If the former, then consider such a system so unconsciously evolved and held for so long that things like right, wrong, justice, responsibility, punishment, criminal, etc. start to seem like the latter. It's not that these things don't exist. It's that they aren't what we may think they are.



*Which view is more like the kind of free will we'd like to have?

[PBear42]

I'm sorry, I've read that through several times - and reread the whole thread - but I can't figure out your point. So, I'm going to make a few comments, partly to note points of agreement and partly to expound a little on my views. Then, I would ask you to restate your position. It would help if you stated it in narrative form, rather than as point-by-point refutation.

Let's start with where we agree. Of course there are no such things as objective standards. Not sure I've ever seen anyone argue there are in this context. Laws are things crafted by people, to further ends they want furthered. Second, I agree that laws (and customs) have evolved over time, largely because people found them to work, or at least to work better than other systems. Which is not to say, however, that they always work well, nor that they are necessarily the best systems. That's why we have debates about these issues.

The funny thing is that this last concession is the only reason you have a horse in the race. If we stipulate there are no objective standards and look to those which have evolved within society as the best answer we're likely to get, it follows that LFW is more-or-less true and your compatibilist hand-wringing is out on its ear. To my knowledge, no society has ever established a legal system based on those premises. In the West, philosophers have been railing at us since at least Hume that free will is incoherent and the court of public opinion (e.g., as reflected in the laws it has passed and how criminal trials are conducted) has done nothing but yawn.

Let me pause to explain briefly my point of view. I'm a materialist, an atheist and a believer in volition (though not LFW). I'm also a believer in soft (or psychological) determinism, meaning I think people have less control over their behavior than the current (American) legal system assumes. For example, the Mr. Puppet and Boys From Brazil problems discussed in the paper linked above by marshmallow resonate with me. The first time I read Helter Skelter, my main reaction was that, given his upbringing, no wonder Charles Manson was so messed up. In the real world, I spend little time arguing with determinists and compatibilists. In fact, I hardly ever run into them. Rather, I spend most of my time arguing with libertarians and hard-ass conservatives, who I think have an overly simplistic view of human behavior.

That said, I do, as mentioned, believe in volition. And believe further that the current system could not be justified without it. As discussed in the paper mentioned above, desert is bedrock in criminal law. As in, the perp deserves punishment. Or, stated a little differently, deserves or is legitimately used as an object of deterrence. Given my soft determinism leanings, I would change the system in several ways - for example, making it more rehabilitive than punitive - but I don't dispute the fundamental premise.

Since you do dispute the fundamental premise, it seems to me that you should be disputing the whole system. How you come to a different conclusion eludes me. Perhaps you can explain.

[the PC apeman]

PBear42,
Thank you for the sketch of your point of view. It was quite helpful. We seem very much similar in our beliefs. So I’ve gone back and reread your previous post in that light. I’d like to back up and examine where we aren’t communicating.

When you said “The person we're punishing has wronged notwithstanding the prospect of penalty” it struck me as odd. It sounded like an assumption of objective right and wrong. When I read it now in the light of your disbelief in objective standards what am I to conclude? That our laws that could have evolved meaningfully without accompanying penalties? Surely not. They would have had no effect. My position is that having wronged is an ultimately meaningless concept. It’s only our label for those actions we want fewer of and are moved to reduce. Inherent in all this is my position that penalties necessarily accompany laws. (“Laws” being a broader metaphor for any prohibitions, not just human codified law. “Penalties” means, most generally, imposed negative consequences.)

You also proposed that the wrong question was being asked - the question should be “whether it's fair and whether it's just”. This too struck me as an objectivist position. My apologies if I misread it. How do you define fair and just? I see them as merely our measures of how satisfied we are with the effectiveness of our laws and their accompanying punishments. They are evaluations of desirable results as well as undesirable side-effects. They are advanced, later parts of the evolutionary process of selecting and refining the means of achieving what we want.

It is probably best if I refrain from my habit of overloading posts with too many ideas. If you wish, tell me how your understanding of these ideas differs and we’ll go from there.

PC

[PBear42]

Moving one or two steps at a time works for me.

What did I mean by “The person we're punishing has wronged notwithstanding the prospect of penalty”? Two things. First, that Fred has broken the law. No implication of objective standards intended. Second, that deterrence has in this case failed, and that punishing Fred won't change that. You are defending punishing him on utilitarian or consequentialist grounds. I have problems with that, for the reasons mentioned, if we accept your premises. As further mentioned, I think the solution is to reject the premises, which the status quo indeed does not accept.

As for how we figure out what is fair and just without objective standards, the answer is that we have to muddle through somehow. The problem doesn't go away because we don't have them. Generally, we proceed (as you have) by positing hypotheticals and testing whether the results of applying one rule or another seem fair and just. It's all pretty ad hoc, but there's no other way to go about it. You'll note that the Greene and Cohen essay linked above by marshmallow proceeds the same way.

Here, I have challenged whether utilitarianism alone can justify punishment and have posed a counter-hypothetical, i.e., punishing someone close to the actor. You seem to agree this would be effective, but unacceptable. If I misunderstand, please explain. You could argue this isn't analogous to punishing Fred, but haven't yet. All I will add at this point is that I sincerely think it is, if we accept your premises. IOW, I'm not just playing word games. Whether I'm right is, of course, an altogether different question.

Finally, as regards your assumption that "penalties necessarily accompany laws," I mostly agree (the mostly having to do with the soft determinism issues mentioned previously), but I get there on different assumptions. I assume we own our decisions, i.e., have volition. Fred, by hypothesis, does not. My inability to make sense of such a system is one of the things which causes me to doubt your premises.

[the PC apeman]

PBear42,
I think I may see where we are at cross purposes here. I have the impression that you are thinking along the lines of what the consequences for our transgressions ought to be. This is an interesting and worthy topic on its own but not terribly important to the reason for this thread. I'm using our system of prohibitions and penalties as it is now for a foundation of a different argument.

It is true that Fred has broken a law and deterrence did not work in his case. That is beside the point. Here is the foundational idea: Deterrence may still work for other potential murderers. In order for the deterrence to have any weight in their calculations, the penalty must be invoked on Fred.

What we have done is created "responsibility" and assigned it to Fred. The tricky part (for some) is that the term contains no grand truth value. It's just shorthand for "you're the one who will be punished". "Punishment" encompasses no grand truth value either. It's just an imposed negative consequence designed to reduce unwanted actions (by others).

It is my claim that this (perhaps unorthodox) view describes our system as it has actually come to be. Though not the case with you, words like responsibility and punishment are often unwarrantedly reified as objective truths rather than merely labels for evolved mechanisms. If my description is a workable explanation, it shows why punishing Fred, the free will zombie, has the same effect as punishing someone who does experience a feeling of free will. If successful, this argument deflects from the other thread the inevitable objection that responsibility requires free will.

PC

[the PC apeman]

PS. To address your counter-hypothetical directly, PBear42...

Punishing someone close to a murderer may very well work as a deterrent. That is if a potential murderer desires that that person not suffer the punishment; and if we can efficiently identify who that someone actually is or if they even exist. It seems to me that punishing the perpetrator would be generally more effective and efficient than punishing the friend or relative. Whether or not that is the case, there is an additional reason why such a system would be selected against.

We've already conceded that Fred's factors of desire and his calculations can overcome the deterrence factors of potential punishment. If we don't also physically prevent it, his current programming is more likely to lead to more transgressions. So punishing Fred has additional effectiveness that punishing the other completely misses....but all that is an aside to the purpose of this thread. I'm all for preventative measures and rehabilitation of offenders. These things are additional means of achieving our (collective) desires. They're just not relevant to my argument that responsibility does not require even the feeling of free will.

PC

[PBear42]

Oh, I understand the thought experiment. Perhaps I'm not communicating clearly the objection. My point is that you need a justification to punish Fred. The status quo's justification, as you note, is that Fred is responsible for his behavior. But that's based on free will conceptions, which you reject.

Let's go back to where you started. “Is punishing a person really all that different from leveeing a river that floods?” Well, yes, in a fundamental way. The river has no rights that we recognize. We can levee it all we want, for any reason, and no one is going to feel it's being ill-used. About people, however, we feel differently. Broadly speaking, we think people should be allowed to live their lives unfettered. To levee them, if you will, we need a justification.

So, it is legitimate to inquire whether punishing Fred on utilitarian grounds is adequate justification. This is where my counter-hypothetical comes in. It demonstrates, I think, that utilitarianism, standing alone, is not adequate justification. From this, it follows we can't punish Fred just because it will make the world a safer place. We need a justification to punish Fred. The status quo supplies one. Your system does not.

As for your last point, please notice that my counter-hypothetical was that we punish both Fred and someone close to him, so I'm not giving up anything. It sounds like you doubt whether punishing the someone close would be an effective deterrent. I'm certain it would, but this is a thought experiment. Let's assume for purposes of discussion that it would. The question is whether it can be justified. And, if not, how punishing Fred is different.

[the PC apeman]

PBear42,
We have a fundamental disagreement of what the status quo really is. No doubt you feel my view is unsupportable and perhaps even ludicrous. I feel your view is irretrievably invested in a pervasive post hoc explanation. Because of this we continue to talk past each other. I see little hope of progress for what, in the end, is a very small payoff. So thank you for your interest and polite attention but I think I'll just withdraw now.

PC