We also know that Earth revolves the sun. But isn’t it great that we have kept teaching our children the sun revolves around Earth? It doesn’t make a difference either way, except that the myth is so much more comforting than the truth.
It doesn’t matter that holding on to such an infantile belief has held us back. Who needs telecommunication satellites? Who cares about possible Moon and Mars colonies? Deluding ourselves is much more interesting than human progress, dontchaknow.
I’m not out for pure retribution, so that’s irrelevant; I’m not even sure why you’d mention it. But am I understanding you correctly? You can’t name a difference between children/the mentally impaired/et cetera and the general population?
Really?
Really?
Are you sure you don’t want to state that a bit differently?
You frame my decision – to cause such harm to folks who can’t act otherwise – as a moral problem, while adding that I have no choice other than to cause that harm? Whatever quality you’re trying to appeal to in me, that’s the one you should maybe note is missing from children/the mentally impaired/et cetera: you think I can be reasoned with, the way kids and the impaired can’t; I implore you to explore that.
Children, Mentally disordered and the ordinary population are have their behaviour caused by a non-free-will causative agent- the brain. None have Free Will in anything other than an allegorical sense.
Of course every person is open to persuasion by environmental effects - that is what brains are for. That does not give them Free Will, but part of the calculus of decision making is an internal (non-libertarian) moral structure.
God, this is like arguing with creationists.
How is it more comforting than the truth? To both you and Fatalis, I’d like to emphasize that (a) I’m the rose-by-any-other-name guy, and that (b) both of you helpfully granted that the decisions reached via a hypothetical free will are identical to the ones people would reach without it.
I don’t care what name you call it; as far as I can tell, the capacity that children and the deranged and small animals lack – the one folks like us have – is one that’s functionally identical to “free will”, in that we try to reason with folks who have it as if they could vary their choices accordingly; it’s why we’re having this chat now.
That’s fine; I wish you’d answered sooner, and wish it weren’t so clunky, but it’ll do: you’re capable of being persuaded by a decision-making calculus within your internal moral structure, the way small children and the deranged aren’t.
I will therefore treat you accordingly if you commit a crime: the way I wouldn’t treat a small child or a deranged individual – who lacks the ability to be persuaded by appeal to a calculus of decision-making within an internal moral structure – but the way I would treat anyone who can be persuaded, calculus, moral, internal, et cetera. It just so happens to be the same way I’d treat someone with free will.
No. They aren’t identical. They may say identical things, but they will not be identical. The differences between them are discoverable with the appropriate technology and clever testing procedures.
I don’t have qualms executing the mass shooter with free will. Because he was fully aware and in control of all his desires, impulsions, compulsions, and actions.
But I have lots of qualms with executing the mass shooter with no free will, even if he insists he killed all the people on his own volition. Because I know mass-shooter-with-no-free-will was not responsible for his poor upbringing, paranoid tendencies, or explosive rage disorder, like mass-shooter-with-free-will was. Maybe brain stimulation would be enough to help him make better choices, so that he could go onto the invent the cure for cancer and HIV and whatever. But we’ll never know.
Why do you think children lack free will? If I tell little Suzy that she can have either milk or juice, and she picks the juice, didn’t she just exert her “free will”? How is this choice she made any “less free” than the OP’s Cheerios versus Raisin Brain choice? On what basis can you downplay the role of the child’s will while holding adults to a higher standard?
When does free will develop? When a child is no longer a minor? (how convenient) When their frontal lobe matures, around 25? Is the frontal lobe the seat of free will, then? If we find small lesions on the frontal lobes of 99% of people who make choices that land them in jail, then doesn’t this indicate these people need to be treated more gently than those who have perfectly intact frontal lobes. I mean, if we’re going to be fair about things? We don’t punish delinquent children the same way we do hardened criminals, after all. Presumably because we acknowledge that children don’t have as much free will (e.g., their frontal lobes aren’t “intact”).
Wait, what? Would you still have no qualms about executing the free-will guy if we postulate that brain stimulation could spark those same improvements?
I rather like Pjen’s phrase du jour: it comes down to whether one can be persuaded via a decision-making calculus within an internal moral structure. That’s a passable way of putting it: I hold folks to a higher standard if they can, less so if they can’t.
Again, “free will” doesn’t need to be in that sentence; as per Pjen, I’m just as happy to say the delinquent is deficient compared to a grown man when it comes to being persuaded by a decision-making calculus within an internal moral structure.
You should ask the OP this. He seems to take great comfort in human beings not being deterministic robots.
Personally, I find more comfort in the truth than the myth, though I can see why believing in free will is easier to wrap one’s head around It is far more easier to be compassionate when the world isn’t made up of “good guys” and “bad guys”, but rather “guys with good brains” and “guys with bad brains” I’m comforted knowing that society can mitigate the harmful effects of genes by fostering a nurturing environment so that people can have ideal life outcomes. We don’t have to rely on the sheer will of individuals to make the “right” choices.
As I said, like arguing with a creationist.
There is no evidence for Free Swill. It is an unsupported myth and has no place in the real world. It makes people better to believe in it, but it is not a real force in the universe.
The Incapacity argument is a side issue brought in only to show how Free Will is misused to assign blame where it cannot be rationally applied in the manner of the myth.
It is just like creationism with the continual reintroduction of faith based objects.
A human person no more has Free Will in any way other than a comforting allegory than does a computer. All outputs are determined by inputs. The experiences if any within the corpus is not part of the decision making process. There is no such thing as choice in the empirical world, only in the faith based world.
::shrugs:: I take great comfort in people who can be persuaded via a decision-making calculus within an internal moral structure. I take exactly as much comfort from that as I would from seeing them as free-willed individuals, since in either case I’m going to reason with them as if they could be reasoned with; functionally identical, y’know?
Personally, I find equal comfort in either, as I’d react to either in the same way.
We don’t have to do that in either case.
As I said, like arguing with a creationist.
There is no evidence for Free Swill. It is an unsupported myth and has no place in the real world. It makes people better to believe in it, but it is not a real force in the universe.
The Incapacity argument is a side issue brought in only to show how Free Will is misused to assign blame where it cannot be rationally applied in the manner of the myth.
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Re-read what you copy-and-pasted: I’m not bringing Free Will in to assign blame. I’m assigning blame based on whether you can be persuaded via a decision-making calculus involving an internal moral structure. Tooootally different thing, so I’m told.
Not saying he does. I’m saying he can be reasoned with and persuaded by a decision-making calculus within an internal moral structure. See that? Not a word about free will; Not. One. Word. Whole 'nother thing instead.
If the guy with free will makes better choices when his brain has been stimulated, then he wasn’t free to begin with. He was shackled by an inferior brain.
But 99.9% our decisions are completely moral-neutral. The choice to eat Cheerios over Raisin Bran requires no “internal moral structure”. The same with passing the red Jeep in front of you, or slowing down. Or crossing at this intersection versus that other one. Or wearing the black shoes versus the red shoes.
And the decisions that are framed in terms of morality the most just happen to be the decisions that are most connected to our biological drives. A person with an overactive sex drive is much less “free” to be monogamous than the person who is asexual. The person with kleptomaniac tendencies is much less “free” to refrain from shoplifting than the person who abhors consumer goods. So you better hope the asexual frugalist isn’t the one writing the moral code for everyone else.
If you see someone stealing and they blush when you catch them, is their shame evidence they possess free will? If they are unapologetic and commence to stealing while you stand there watching them, do you assume they are unpersuadable, and thus lacking in free will? Based on what you’re telling me, I’m guessing your answer would be yes to both questions? But IMHO, neither would be supportive of free will. Both responses would be indicative of someone with mental problems. Shame indicates someone doing something they don’t really want to do, but feel compelled to do anyway. Unabashedness suggests an anti-social nature. So lack of free will would be more parsimonious explanation, given what we know about human behavior.
So? I don’t care whether you eat Cheerios or Raisin Bran. I’ll treat you the same whether you have free will or not: I won’t care.
Oh, no. It’s that I don’t give a crap whether either has free will; as little as I care which cereal they pick, that’s how much I care about (a) whether they steal, and (b) how they can be stopped. Put four thieves before me: one blushes and has free will, one blushes and lacks it; one is unrepentant and has free will, one is unrepentant and lacks it. Do I treat them differently according to whether they have free will? Nope.
I literally could not care less. Tell me how to stop these thieves, regardless of whether they have free will; I’ll then treat them the same, regardless of whether they have free will. What difference would it make to me if they have free will?
And so ignores 3000 years of moral philosophy on responsibility.
Nothing like refusing to stand on the shoulders of Giants. Always best to create your own set of beliefs rather than learning from and developing ideas that have been honed over the generations. Let us have none of this expert tosh- what springs into my mind today is obviously better than 100 generations of philosophy.
I feel like I’ve been beating my head into a wall!
The solution to thieves or any other “bad guy” hinges on how we view free will. Our current criminal justice system is based on the notion that individuals have free will–that independent of their social and genetic and environment milieus, criminals choose to do bad things. That is why we sentence people to prison. So we can punish them for being “bad”.
But if we discard this old-fashioned nonsense and treated criminals as victims of their circumstances rather than the causes of them, then maybe we’d do much better at preventing future criminals in the first place. Instead of punishment, we could focus on rehabilitation. We could turn past criminals into productive citizens, just by better understanding why people do what they do. Believing in free will blinds us to all the possibilities.
I’ve wasted my time debating with you if you are still unable to appreciate this basic, noncontroversial point.
What beliefs am I creating? What am I ignoring?
You proposed a can-be-persuaded-by-an-appeal-to-a-decision-making-calculus-within-an-internal-moral-structure approach; I considered it, and said, okey-dokey: I’m fine with appealing to a decision-making calculus within an internal moral structure. If someone wants to come along and call that free will, I won’t argue with him; if someone else wants to say it’s not free will, I won’t argue with him either.
I’m indifferent to, and perfectly willing to work with, a veritable multitude of claims. I’m not creating one of my own, or rejecting the one you put forth; I’m taking whatever giant you put before me, and saying, well, gosh; by an astonishing coincidence, that makes absolutely no difference to my conclusions and my actions; upon considering it at length, it seems downright unproblematic.
What’s being promulgated out of thin air? What’s being discarded?
Well, (a) we could do all of that with or without a belief in free will, which still strikes me as a distinction without a difference. But (b) as I’ve said before, my guiding light isn’t punishment or rehabilitation; it’s incapacitation. If rehabilitation will stop them, that’s super. If punishment will stop them, that’s also super. I’m firmly in favor of what works, which seems like a fairly uncontroversial stance.
If you can turn a criminal into a productive citizen, then I don’t care whether he has free will; I care that you can turn him into a productive citizen. If you can’t turn him into a productive citizen, then I don’t care whether he has free will; I just care about how you’re going to stop him otherwise.
Why would I feel differently if free will were in the mix?
It seems that you have driven Monstro and me to distraction with your personal philosophy arguments.
If you are not willing to even try to understand the problem with Free Will, it is not worth either of us trying to assist you.
It is worse than trying to talk to a creationist. It is like trying to explain aeronautics to someone who reduses to first learn the Mathematics behind it.
If you are not willing to address the flaws in your argument or defend what the worlds you are using mean to specialists and generalists, then there is no argument.
I suggest you get a Philosophy Primer and start from there rather than publishing home spun and error ridden philosophical ideas of your own on a discussion board.
You need to accept that there is a major Moral, Ontological and Epidemiological problem with Free Will that stretches from Plato to the present day via Descartes, Kant, Wittgenstein and many others. If you wish to maintain your pretence that it is of no import, then I suggest you avoid philosophical discussion entirely.
What’s to address? What’s to defend? If someone tells me people can be persuaded via a decision-making calculus within his internal moral structure, I’m not the one advancing a claim that needs to be defended; I’m merely nodding and thinking to myself, I sure have no problem persuading folks via a decision-making calculus within their internal moral structure.
If someone says that’s not free will, I nod without caring. If someone says it is free will, I nod without caring. It makes no difference to me. They can put forth whatever defenses they like; I am, to coin a phrase, indifferent.
If I were a doctor, and a man came to me for life-saving surgery, I would proceed sensibly. If he asked me to refrain from mentioning Artemis before beginning the procedure, I’d nod and say “sure”. If the next patient came to me and asked that I refrain from mentioning Odin during the procedure, I’d nod and say “sure”. If the next patient asked to say a prayer to Artemis and Odin beforehand, I’d say “sure”.
It makes no difference to me; they can argue and defend amongst themselves, if they wish; I’d just be there for the medicine, the rest would seem like mere distinctions without a difference – all irrelevant, but compatible with my goal.
What I do remains unchanged in any event.
I’m introducing no philosophical ideas of my own, homespun or error-ridden or otherwise. I’m merely nodding as folks on each side bicker over a distinction which, whether granted or rejected, will make no difference to my goals; either is compatible with 'em, I’ll treat people the same way regardless.