Imagine a bagatelle of extreme complexity.
You have a complex decision to make, and rather than toss a coin you decide to rely on a left right switch. It falls left. A decision has been made but no free will was involved. Prior to the drop of the ball there was no way in which left or right could be predicted, but still, once dropped, a decision was made.
Decision procedures in the brain also do not require free will, and are still decisions unpredictable in any other way.
“Inalienable Humanity” makes a good band name but there is no social requirement to love or hate a “sinner”. It’s not a function of forgiveness nor is forgiveness a function of a sentence.
Pjen, I like you, this is why I warned you awhile back to just let it go. You’re wasting time. The peanut gallery has morphed your OP regarding botched execution of Mr. Lockett as it pertains to state-sanctioned killing into a no-holds barred debate about the constitutional nuances and points of the death penalty. All that’s missing a discussion of Foucault.
You got played, it happens.
Here’s a suggestion for you: restart the thread and narrowly focus the title and thesis down to something you are well-positioned to debate. The bane of peanut gallery are cites. If you write a post with cites, they will ignore them, and instead, focus on non-facts to pick apart your argument (or you as a poster). Just an example, I think I wrote one or two (maybe 3?) posts on this thread. The first one was mostly cites and the other was mostly opinion. Which one do you think got more replies? Hint: The ratio is 1:8.
The peanut gallery does not want to discuss the facts, they want to argue, don’t fall into that trap and don’t let them play you (and, in turn, waste your time). If they run around your cites and you’re confident in the accuracy your cites, keep bringing up over and over again each post. Not unlike the herding of wild animals, the peanut gallery must be given a narrow central thesis, otherwise, you’ll get picked apart about stuff that has nothing to do with what the thread is about. So, in that spirit, restart the thread with a narrower focus and don’t let them discourage you. You’re doing great.
Pjen has done quite well in ignoring cites provided by others. Not sure restarting will have any different outcome.
Which cites were ignored?
FYI, you are a member of the peanut gallery. Lobbing out race baiting jabs does not a standout make. And also, fyi, Pjen is clearly just as interested in arguing whatever comes up as “discussing the facts”.
I don’t think it will “stick in minds” the way you want it to. People instinctively push back against smug superiority. I doubt any substance you wish to have stick in their minds actually will.
No, they are not. Making a decision means that there is more than one possibility. You have already stated that there is no other possibility, because that would mean free will is in operation.
So, either people have free will and thus moral culpability for their choices, or they don’t have free will and cannot be blamed for choosing immorally. Your assertion that there is a moral choice to be made about the death penalty means that you necessarily assert that free will is in operation. If you now want to deny that free will operates, you are contradicting your earlier assertion about moral choice.
Regards,
Shodan
There is a difference between having free will and making a choice
No, there isn’t. If you don’t have free will you aren’t making a choice.
Regards,
Shodan
Stop with the sanctimony. Really, for someone who comes into this thread and accuses anyone who supports the death penalty, or who thinks Lockett got what was coming to him, as being racist, as being content with things because, well, Lockett is black and his victim was white, your holier-than-thou schtick is really off-putting.
By the way, I’m still waiting for the apology you owe me. For calling me racist. The apology you could have given me in post 233 and which I asked for yet again in post 240. Will you now?
It all depends on how one defines ‘free will’ and choice. They are ill defined terms. Most people hold totally contradictory views about human agency. Most educated people will agree that the physical world is pretty deterministic and there is no empirical evidence of any effect of non-physical cause in the world. What people are loath to accept is that this implies that there is no Human Agency in the Universe. Yet we act as if there is.
What I do know is that the vast majority of people paid to think about this subject rationally rather than emotionally all agree that defining ‘free will’ is extremely difficult to the point where it is essentially a chimera, or a fond human belief such as the physical existence of a soul or a God.
I would posit that free will was involved in allowing a switch to determine the outcome.
All the random bits aside, how far up the moral chain does the “no death penalty” decision go? I don’t think it’s a simple matter of for or against.
(A) In an ideal world, if we had a crime deserving the death penalty, and we could guarantee 100% assurance of guilt (impossible) and guarantee a pain free death (we can’t), would I be for it?
Probably, if it brings closure to the families of the victims (who should have the final say in whether an execution goes through- not sure if this is currently the case). This would be the broadest definition of accepting the death penalty- do you accept it in a perfect form. It’s as black and white as the situation is going to get. Someone who feels one way will have a hard time convincing someone who believes another way.
(B) Now we throw something like the Lockett situation into the gears- the humane death wasn’t achieved, but we’re pretty sure he’s guilty of the crimes he’s charged with. All right, not a perfect scenario, but do the ends justify the means? You’re probably going to get some mixed opinions there.
(C) And finally we bring up the worst case scenario- someone who is executed for a crime that they didn’t commit. At face value, I don’t think anyone would find that this is an acceptable situation. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be wrongly put to death- but just as with every other human endeavor, it doesn’t define the death penalty in and of itself.
The problem comes in thinking that situations B and C will persuade someone to believe differently of situation A. We can argue until we’re blue in the face about immigration or voter rights or any number of other things that have nothing to do with whether or not someone believes state sanctioned killings are justified, but it won’t make a difference.
Does this mean that we shouldn’t even be talking about it? What’s the point of debating if neither side will concede?
To be honest, I didn’t have much of an opinion when I first started reading this thread 3 hours ago. I might have shrugged and figured “he got what he deserved”. But after reading through everything (albeit briefly in some instances) I can say that I have a much fuller appreciation for both sides of the story now.
So, in short, while someone with a preconceived notion might be hard to convince otherwise, not everyone has a preconceived notion.
FWIW, I personally think the media frenzy over this case will sizzle out over time once something more shocking comes up and it won’t change all that much in terms of judicial killings.
FWIW, I’m also not very sure how I feel about the death penalty - it feels too much like “revenge” for my liking - when I do feel that rehabilitation should always be the goal.
What I am sure of however:
IF we are going to do it we are under no obligation to guarantee that it be pain free - we have to do the very best we can with the technology we have to hand, but that is not a guarantee of totally no pain.
I would be fine with guillotine, hanging (as per Singapore), or a lethal injection. If we have decided that someone is evil enough to die, we don’t have to particularly spare their feelings beyond making something unneccessarily painful.
So what?
If the guy who commits a capital crime has “free will” – such that he had “agency” and could have chosen to do otherwise – then we can hold him responsible for his decision. But if, as you say, “free will” is essentially a false belief – such that he had no “agency” then, and still putters along deterministically now – then we can terminate him like a mad dog or a malfunctioning machine.
You say people (a) are loath to accept that there is no human agency in the universe, and that we (b) act as though there is. I therefore reply that, (a) no, I’m perfectly happy to grant for the sake of argument that there is no human agency, at which point (b) I’d act as though there isn’t – which, as it happens, looks exactly the same.
It’s a distinction without a difference.
Many Papers in Philosophy would disagree with your views.
If we are mere machines, then there is no reason to have any morality at all- nothing would be forbidden and we could have a completely amoral society where the strongest and richest always win. Not many people desire that, so it is probably best to avoid basing any moral construct on nature and its state.
The claim to Humanity is that we decide to treat Humans as a special case- we cannot treat them like objects with due cause. This is despite the fact (so far as science can tell) that we lived in a determined world with no space for Agency. It is only by creating (constructing) such a myth that we have rules of human behaviour. If we decide to value Humanity in this way, we need to have rules about how people may be treated as objects in exceptional cases. We should apply principles that have come down to us from our emotional state as rationality developed. Do as you would be done by (as a universal Golden Rule in every religion) and a doctrine of doing the least harm possible.
Applying those within what we know about crime and recidivism, the most humane way for people to treat other people is to avoid killing them unless we have necessity on our side (self defence, just war etc.) With the availability of secure confinement, Judicial Killing should never be a necessity, only a social desire- which is not in accord with our natural moral sense- reat others as well as possible and do not do unnecessary harm.
Well, gee whiz and gosh-golly darn it, pal: if not many people desire that sort of society, then we won’t do that, right? That’s the solution right there. You can’t very well appeal to me on such grounds – or enlightened self-interest, or anything else of the sort – and then ignore that you can appeal to folks on such grounds.
Bang. Done. Whether we’re mere machines or autonomous agents, the Do As thing.
No, we don’t need to have such rules; watch your words. As I just said, it just so happens that I’d treat people the same way whether they have capital-A Agency or whether they’re like unto objects in a determined world.
Imagine a plane is about to bomb Our Fair City, which is why yours truly of course takes to the skies to shoot down that looming threat to All We Hold Dear; it promptly explodes in a terrific fireball, and I land to the cheers of a crowd, and one naysayer steps forward to ask how I feel about what I’ve just done.
“Just fine,” I say. “Why would I mourn an enemy pilot who made that choice?”
“But,” you say, “THERE WAS NO PILOT! Just a drone with a computer program!”
“Oh,” I say. “So it was a mechanism, an object? Huh. Still feeling fine.”
“You’d make the same choice – and have no problem with it – either way?”
“What the hell kind of stupid question is that?”
So you are driving in your suburb one dark morning and you hit something as you are driving at speed. You get home and hear on the news that a ten year old child was hit by a speeding vehicle at about the time and place you were there. How do you feel?
Later the TV station broadcasts the news that it was not a child after all, but a bundle of rags.
How do you feel now?
I feel like I should face the consequences for what I’ve done; “do unto others,” y’know?
Ditto.
And Many Papers In Philosophy Have Been Written On The Appeal To Authority Fallacy. Maybe you ought to check on that one, preferably soon. As a side note, as a former philosophy major I can tell you that for any particular philosophical position you may choose, there is another diametrically opposed position. Philosophy is fun, but it isn’t a science in that there is a true answer to any question.
This goes for your claims on free will as well. Yes, some neuroscience findings on body movements can be interpreted to mean that there is no free will. However, to quote the Wikipedia article on this:
The studies reference on the Wiki page, and the ones I could locate through Google on the subject all are about short term decisions, for example, when to tap a finger. The studies have nothing to do with long term intentions and decisions like shooting a woman then watching as she was buried alive because she threatened to go to the police.
So your argument about free will is your belief, it is not a fact.
Slee