Freethought & Rationalism Archive

excreationist · 06-20-2002, 05:28 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by BurgDE:
...If determinism is true, then how can we hold anyone accountable. It is not they who chose but some set of initial conditions beyound their control that determined the evil course of events...

Their desires would have been a key factor. This can be adjusted in those people through punishment so that they don't do the same thing in the future. Punishing the Nazi's is also a deterant for those who might want to do similar things. Even if they aren't punished using prisons, they could go to mental wards for their inevitable "illness" to try and be rehabilitated or at least get them to manage their behaviour.

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Why should we punish the Nazies who threw babies into furnaces? The Nazies had no choice; it was their destiny to murder millions of innocent civilians.

Punishment would basically a deterant for other Nazi wannabes and to discourage those involved from misbehaving again. Punishment can modify their future behaviours. If there is no punishment, their future behaviour would probably be the same. e.g. say there was a serial killer... for him to be jailed or put in a mental ward, that would be a kind of punishment. If there was no punishment at all (i.e. he was free do to as he wished) he would probably continue killing people. And societies can't function properly if their citizens are being killed too much. Especially if the killers start killing all the people in government. And if the serial killer could get away with it, many youths would probably take it up as a hobby too. They might enjoy killing people in games like "Grand Theft Auto 3" and secretly wish to do that in real life - though there are laws at the moment. If there were no punishments to enforce the laws, the laws would be meaningless. And a lawless society where you can kill or steal, etc, without being punished wouldn't run as smoothly as what we have now.

Taffy Lewis · 06-20-2002, 06:15 PM

BurgeDE:

I take it you have in mind something like van Inwagen's Consequence Argument.

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If determinism is true, then our acts are the consequences of the laws of nature and events in the remote past. But it is not up to us what went on before we were born, and neither is it up to us what the laws of nature are. Therefore the consequences of these things (including our present acts) are not up to us.

The argument is related to the notion that responsibility is incompatible with determinism. In his Metaphysics, William Hasker claims that "according to compatibilism, a human action is free if it exhibits the following characteristics...( 1) It is not caused by compulsion or by states of affairs external to the agent. (2) Instead, the immediate cause of the action is a psychological state of affairs internal to the agent-a wish, desire, intention or something of the sort. (3) The situation is one in which it was in the agent's power to have acted differently, if he had wanted to. (Some compatibilists prefer to say "if he had willed to' or 'chosen to'". But these variations make no essential difference to the argument.)" (p.34)

The idea is that one be capable of doing what one wants to do and that your actions are caused by your character and personality. This is consistent with one's choices being determined.

Hasker then goes on to give the following example and argument:

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Max, a seventeen-year-old high-school dropout, has been caught stealing a set of hubcaps from an auto supply store. All the conditions given above for a free and responsible action are satisfied. Nothing forced Max to take those hubcaps; he took them because he wanted them, because his old hubcaps were scratched and rusty. Now according to determinism there is, immediately prior to Max's taking the hubcaps, a set of events and circumstances which together constitute a sufficient condition of his taking them-such that, given those events and circumstances, it is impossible that he should not steal the hubcaps. We will call this set of events and circumstances the proximate cause of Max's stealing the hubcaps. Max's desire to have new hubcaps, and his belief that he could not get them any other way, will be an important part of the proximate cause; this is what, according to the compatibilist, makes the action a free and responsible one.....Now this desire and belief , as well as the other elements in the proximate cause, are themselves the result of previous causes; these will include events in Max's life-things he has said and done, and which other people have said and done to him, as well as other things which have affected him. But since every event, according to determinism, has prior sufficient causes, we can go on tracing the chain of causes backward until we have arrived at a set of events and circumstances which together constitute a sufficient condition for the occurrence of the proximate cause, and all of which occurred before Max was conceived and born. Call this set of events and circumstances the prior cause. The prior cause is, as we have said, a sufficient condition for the occurrence of the proximate cause, and since the latter is a sufficient condition for Max's act of stealing the hubcaps, it follows that the prior cause is also a sufficient condition for Max's theft......Now let us ask a few questions about Max's responsibility. Is Max responsible for the occurrence of the prior cause? How could he be, when all of the events and circumstances in the prior cause occurred when he did not yet exist? Is Max responsible for the fact that if the prior cause occurs, Max's theft of the hubcaps must also occur? Again, clearly not. That this is so is a result of those immutable laws of nature which, according to determinism , govern everything which takes place and which Max had no part in establishing and no power to overrule. Finally, is Max responsible for stealing the hubcaps? How could he be responsible? The act of stealing is causally necessitated by the events and circumstances of the prior cause, to which Max contributed nothing at all. And given that the prior cause did occur, Max could no more prevent its inevitable outcome---his stealing the hubcaps---than he could stay the planets in their courses or stop the crustal plates of the earth in their relentless march across the ocean floor. So determinism and moral responsibility just are incompatible, and that is that.

Hasker then goes on to give an argument that freedom and determinism are not compatible.

This sort of reasoning is probably the most influential among those who affirm metaphysical freedom.

[ June 20, 2002: Message edited by: Taffy Lewis ]

Taffy Lewis · 06-20-2002, 06:22 PM

Here is an interesting quote from van Inwagen's <a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/dfwvanInwagen1.htm" target="_blank">Mystery of Metaphysical Freedom</a> :

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The concept of metaphysical freedom seems, then, to be contradictory. One way to react to the seeming contradiction in this concept would be to conclude that it was real: metaphysical freedom seems contradictory because it is contradictory. (This was the conclusion reached by C. D. Broad.)

But none of us really believes this. A philosopher may argue that consciousness does not exist or that knowledge is impossible or that there is no right or wrong. But no one really believes that he himself is not conscious or that no one knows whether there is such a city as Warsaw; and only interested parties believe that there is nothing morally objectionable about child brothels or slavery or the employment of poison gas against civilians. And everyone really believes in metaphysical freedom, whether or not he would call it by that name. Dr Johnson famously said, "Sir, we know our will�s free, and there�s an end on�t." Perhaps he was wrong, but he was saying something we all believe. Whether or not we are all, as the existentialists said, condemned to freedom, we are certainly all condemned to believe in freedom�and, in fact, condemned to believe that we know that we are free. (I am not disputing the sincerity of those philosophers who, like Holbach, have denied in their writings the reality of metaphysical freedom. I am saying rather that their beliefs are contradictory. Perhaps, as they say, they believe that there is no freedom�but, being human beings, they also believe that there is. In my book on freedom, I compared them to the Japanese astronomer who was said to have believed, in the 1930s, that the sun was an astronomically distant ball of hot gas vastly larger than the earth, and also to have believed that the sun was the ancestress of the Japanese imperial dynasty.)

I would ask you to try a simple experiment. Consider some important choice that confronts you. You must, perhaps, decide whether to marry a certain person, or whether to undergo a dangerous but promising course of medical treatment, or whether to report to a superior a colleague you suspect of embezzling money. (Tailor the example to your own life.) Consider the two courses of action that confront you; since I don�t know what you have chosen, I�ll call them simply A and B. Do you really not believe that you are able to do A and able to do B? If you do not, then how can it be that you are trying to decide which of them to do? It seems clear to me that when I am trying to decide which of two things to do, I commit myself, by the very act of attempting to decide between the two, to the thesis that I am able to do each of them. If I am trying to decide whether to report my colleague, then, by the very act of trying to reach a decision about this matter, I commit myself both to the thesis that I am able to report him and to the thesis that I am able to refrain from reporting him: although I obviously cannot do both these things, I can (I believe) do either. In sum: whether we are free or not, we believe that we are�and I think we believe, too, that we know this. We believe that we know this even if, like Holbach, we also believe that we are not free, and, therefore, that we do not know that we are free.

Liquidrage · 06-20-2002, 06:25 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by BurgDE:
Thank you for your replys.

Making a free choice is incompatible with determinism. Please refer to Peter van Invagen's "Metaphysics" and his "An Essay on Free Will". Determinism implies that only one alternative is physically possible (though other alternatives may appear to be open to us.) If determinism is true, then how can we hold anyone accountable. It is not they who chose but some set of initial conditions beyound their control that determined the evil course of events. Why should we punish the Nazies who threw babies into furnaces? The Nazies had no choice; it was their destiny to murder millions of innocent civilians.

Blah!
I've seen this crap one too many times lately.
No offense meant, but it is crap.

Determinism has nothing to do with morality and just because someone has a crisis trying to justify the possibility of determinism with moral enforcement does not have any bearing whatsoever on whether or not the universe is deterministic.

Great, so Hitler didn't have a real choice doing what he did? Don't care. Remove his gene's from the pool.

abe smith · 06-21-2002, 05:20 AM

Of course, *OI* have free will, but of course noone else has it. Heh Heh Heh Abe

tommyc · 06-21-2002, 05:46 AM

If a criminal stood in a court and pleaded that he wasn't guilty because determinism meant he didn't have a choice, the judge could merely say "Well, using your reasoning I don't have a choice either. Off with his head".

madmax2976 · 06-21-2002, 07:45 AM

Quote:

Is Max responsible for the fact that if the prior cause occurs, Max's theft of the hubcaps must also occur? Again, clearly not. That this is so is a result of those immutable laws of nature which, according to determinism , govern everything which takes place and which Max had no part in establishing and no power to overrule. Finally, is Max responsible for stealing the hubcaps? How could he be responsible? The act of stealing is causally necessitated by the events and circumstances of the prior cause, to which Max contributed nothing at all. And given that the prior cause did occur, Max could no more prevent its inevitable outcome---his stealing the hubcaps---than he could stay the planets in their courses or stop the crustal plates of the earth in their relentless march across the ocean floor. So determinism and moral responsibility just are incompatible, and that is that.

Yeah, that is that and that - and in this case "that" is crap.

Implicit in this diatribe is the fallacy of composition. Since the "immutable laws of nature" don't have the property of consciousness apparently humans don't/can't have consciousness either. But its obvious that we do have consciousness - that is self awareness and awareness of others. This allows us to have "control" over our actions, albeit limited control.

Conscious beings by definition are not mindless automatons. Reducing ourselves to the chemicals and neurons in our brains would be akin to reducing airplanes to metal and plastic and complaining that since metal and plastic can't fly, planes shouldn't be able to fly either.

It is also obvious that if the chemicals, neurons and such did not act in a deterministic manner, our brains would not function as they do and thus consciousness would not be possible.

But please tell us how randmonness would allow for the ability to make meaningful choices if you don't think determinism does. In a random realm anything could happen and thus making decisions would quite pointless and arbitrary. So it would be randomness that is incompatible with choice - and that is that.

[ June 21, 2002: Message edited by: madmax2976 ]

Taffy Lewis · 06-23-2002, 06:38 AM

madmax2976:

Thanks for your response.

Quote:

Implicit in this diatribe is the fallacy of composition. Since the "immutable laws of nature" don't have the property of consciousness apparently humans don't/can't have consciousness either. But its obvious that we do have consciousness - that is self awareness and awareness of others. This allows us to have "control" over our actions, albeit limited control.

Hasker specifically refers to conscious states of persons making choices. So I don't know why you think he doesn't take this into consideration. Regarding compatibilism he says:

"An action fitting this description may well be called free. The agent had alternatives and was not forced to take one rather than the other; he did what, in that situation, he most wanted to do, and if he had wanted to do something else he would have done that instead. And for such an action one may well be held responsible, and punished if one has chosen wrongly-for the cause of the action lies in the character and personality of the agent, and this may be correctable through punishment. (If, on the other hand, the cause were external to the agent, it could not be correctted by punishment, which would then be pointless.) And of course none of this implies that a free and responsible action lacks a sufficient cause."

The Consequence Argument refers to several facts it seems obvious we cannot control and then claims that we are thus not responsible for the consequences of those facts. The idea is that if I am not responsible for the state of the world just prior to my existence and I am not responsible for the laws of nature then I cannot be responsible for the consequences of these things (ie. my choices and actions).

On two occassions, you put forward what a proponent of incompatibilist free will would say is a false dichotomy. You say:

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It is also obvious that if the chemicals, neurons and such did not act in a deterministic manner, our brains would not function as they do and thus consciousness would not be possible.

You seem to want to say that if some event is not causally necessitated then it must be totally chaotic. These are not the only possibilities. There could be an element of indeterminism that would still allow the world to be intelligible. Most physicists accept that the laws of quantum mechanics are indeterministic to some degree yet they still allow the world to be intelligible.

Also, you said:

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But please tell us how randmonness would allow for the ability to make meaningful choices if you don't think determinism does. In a random realm anything could happen and thus making decisions would quite pointless and arbitrary. So it would be randomness that is incompatible with choice - and that is that.

The vast majority of proponents of incompatibilist free will would agree that randomness or chance are not compatible with free will. However, they would claim that causal necessitation and chance are not the only ways in which events occur in the world. To them free will is simply the ability to choose between alternative courses of action such that we are responsible for those choices. They claim that this is intelligible and real and yet incompatible with both causal necessitation and randomness.

madmax2976 · 06-23-2002, 08:43 PM

Pressed for time, so I'll just address a few points...

Quote:

The Consequence Argument refers to several facts it seems obvious we cannot control and then claims that we are thus not responsible for the consequences of those facts. The idea is that if I am not responsible for the state of the world just prior to my existence and I am not responsible for the laws of nature then I cannot be responsible for the consequences of these things (ie. my choices and actions).

And thus implying that "my choices and actions" can be reduced to the physical characteristics of individual biochemical reactions or firing neurons. Since we aren't responsible for the state of the world or the laws of nature, then supposedly we aren't responsible for ourselves either. As a matter of fact, there would be no "we" or "I" or "self" at all in such a scenario as it all reduces to brain activity - according to this argument.

Again, I say it is a matter of control. What is in control regarding our choices and actions? Are our actions and choices controlled by biochemical reactions? Or does consciousness, the result of the biochemical reactions, permit us a certain level of self-control?

Quote:

The vast majority of proponents of incompatibilist free will would agree that randomness or chance are not compatible with free will. However, they would claim that causal necessitation and chance are not the only ways in which events occur in the world. To them free will is simply the ability to choose between alternative courses of action such that we are responsible for those choices.

<shrug> Many things can be claimed. I for one believe "free will" is a misnomer. It implies that one can have an "unfree will". But having a will by definition implies to me that we have the ability to decide alternative course of action. (If this is all that's meant by "free") Having an "unfree will" would be an oxymoron. Thus, we either have a will or we don't.

[ June 24, 2002: Message edited by: madmax2976 ]

Taffy Lewis · 06-25-2002, 02:16 PM

madmax2976:

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And thus implying that "my choices and actions" can be reduced to the physical characteristics of individual biochemical reactions or firing neurons.

Why believe the argument presupposes reductionism?

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But having a will by definition implies to me that we have the ability to decide alternative course of action.

Are you saying that causal necessitation with regard to our choices is nonsensical?

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06-21-2002, 05:20 AM	#15
abe smith Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: springfield, MA. USA Posts: 2,482	Of course, OI have free will, but of course noone else has it. Heh Heh Heh Abe

06-21-2002, 05:46 AM	#16
tommyc Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: London, England Posts: 1,206	If a criminal stood in a court and pleaded that he wasn't guilty because determinism meant he didn't have a choice, the judge could merely say "Well, using your reasoning I don't have a choice either. Off with his head".

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