Primal

But the argument is deductive at a certain level. It is not pure inference, within it is are the

premise 1: If I can ask "Is that good?" it has to be meaningful no matter what goodness is equated to.

Premise 2: If person X cannot answer me in such a way as I cannot ask this question, my refutation stands that goodness cannot equal anything natural.

Conclusion(after asking questions and getting no satisfactory answer): Hence goodness cannot be equated to anything natural or fundamental.

The whole argument relies upon premise 1 which I reject.


For the question about squares having four sides; the analogy is misleading and presupposses that if the claims are not equally meaningless at face value, they are not meaningless at all. The whole proposition about the square is in fact meaningless because we have already defined a square a certain way, likewise with morals. In which case the open-ended argument, if applicable, applies to both squares and goodness. The argument then is employing yet another premise; if the question is not meaningless at face value it is not meaningless at all. I reject this premise. Due to the fact that certain statements "evolutionary theory is a religion" may seem meaningful at face value but become meaningless when examined.

Yes, my point exactlty. This is what we do when we declare any question or statement to be meaningless.


I doubt it, because they likely adhere to a different moral theory. This however does not invalidate my own.


I'd say both, the utilitarian means the former but that is a substansive argument.

I think in this case it's one in the same. The utilitarian is making a definition but at the same time arguing for that definition by pointing to how the utilitarian definition is less superfluous and more naturalistic then others.


I'd say "should" means something different then right or wrong, again by definition.


I think the word rape is ordinarily used to indicate emotional reactions. And language is not just used to communicate but also to think. Language is also not set in stone but evolves as the culture using the language evolves. This means for some words there may be no "official" definition.

The term morals is a loosely defined one, especially if not defined in a moral theory, in which case it is appropriate to ask "is rape moral?"

But is that actually the case?

For example I can ask "Is a machine alive?" One could not say if the answer was "yes" or "no" according to "ordinary use" because that has not been decided yet. Likewise with morality.

Not necessarily because the genotype does not fully determine the phenotype, this alone serves to allow variation between morals of the past and present, as well as whether we now have developed to see act X as moral or not. Rape may have been seen as immoral but tolerable in hunter-gatherer days, or moral, but through culturally evolution, that would promote certain aspects of our nature while extinguishing or hampering others; this may have changed. Rape may have thus been an exegentic trait, with its basis in the gene that makes us want to have sex and latter encouraged via societal conditioning to develope into an urge to rape when possible. Such conditioning if absent may reverse the process, as may absence of external cues, such as the conquest of another tribe. Likewise, the phenotype may have given opposing drives, one against within tribal rape, (rape is immoral drive) one making creatures want to rape. Under some conditions one drive may win out over another, likely because it was more useful under these conditions. Again in turn these drives could be nurtured or hampered and hence rape could die out as a stronger drive then morality under the right conditions.

Likewise enviroment changes what is adbantageous from what is not, and we would have adapted to such changes. Rape in the past might have been advantagous and seen as moral/helpful for that reason, but not anymore due to how it could harm soceity or ourselves. This would lead to different conditioning, which would affect character later on.

All this proves that just because drive X is seen as immoral now but could have had evolutionary advantage in the past, it does not follow that drive X stems from an evolutionary history. Because evolution takes turns as the enviroment does and phenotype is not equaivalent to genotype.

Also I am saying the basis for morality may be genetic/biological/evolved. Not that it is wholly, culture obviously plays a part and may cause us to see biologically traits as "immoral" due to a number of factories such as superstition. Such superstition can cause one to see the given act as immoral and through cultural conditioning allow one to see what could have evolved to be moral biologically as immoral culturally.

I admit moral reasoning can take place, and data acquisition (hence reasoning) play a part in morals. I am arguing that at the fundamental level though, that morality is an emotional reaction.

Yes, exactly what I mean, and I see such "instrinsic" judgements as emotional reactions. Stemming from our own instrinsic traits.

Again that is why I am saying "emotional at the fundamental level" and am including the idea of data in there. Obviously reasoning differently yields different data and hence different emotional reactions.

Yes, but I see both evaluations as being, at some level: emotional. The person who disaproves of rape for the overall harm it does is doing so because he is emotionally committed to the well-being of his/her society, or may dislike unnecessary harm.


No I do not proof read, because this is after all a post/exchange not a professional paper and I can correct myself as things continue. What I meant to write was "hastily proven by question begging."

It seems inconsistent because you are saying moral dispositions could have evolved, then later saying because they aren't "real morals" moral dispositions could not have evolved. To me that seemed like an inconsistency that you tried to qualify through question begging.

If you make summaries you should inform me of doing so, especially if the content is different or contains new lines of argument inside the summaries. If a new argument is presented in a summary I will treat it no differently then any other argument. If however it is just a summary I will likely not respond to it. However like I said, you should make note of it if you expect me to not treat the summary like a real argument as I am not good at distinguishing the two.


quote:


I agree with this but questions about slavery are in fact what the issue is all about. The answer will be determined by the nature of morality, which is what we are examining. Hence it is not safe to assume in this case that slavery can be said to be "immoral" without giving a reason why. I can say I believe slavery is immoral, but that follows from my moral theory. If my theory is to be rejected one must come up with one's own grounds for the condemnation of slavery.

None, but I may be an evolutionary fluke, culture may have evolved changing phenotype and/or many humans could be conditioned differently to have either more mixed emotions on the issue then myself or to take opposite stances.

Again though the nature of morality is under question, according to my viewpoint I can say "these things are immoral to me". Perhaps I could even say "these things are immoral to others at face value and for underlying reasons."

However if my viewpoint is to be rejected and yet these things are to be considered immoral another theory must replace mine.

I believe you have failed to show this by 1) Ignoring variations among individuals, and genotype vs phenotype. and 2) not examining the fact that different people may react to the same event differently depending on how much data they have and 3) that emotional values/reactions may conflict, be at odds with eachother etc. For example many people feel that tolerance and civility are good, they may at the same time feel that the superiority of their race is good. This would be a case of conflicting emotions/values.


I have not been shown why my definition is wrong or misguided. Likewise, this is a far cry from declaring that true/false claims do not apply to moral issues. Equating the two statements was presumptuous.


But the open question argument does presuppose some things as the argument is not purely inductive. It presuposses that morals cannot be equated to anything natural and hence elminates all candidates 'a priori'. This has to be for if morals can be equated to anything natural, the whole argument falls apart before it begins.

Kip

Bd:

We rapidly approach the finish. I am almost saddened, however, because I feel as if we have only scratched the surface of moral philosophy and that you have much to teach me. Our last few posts have had a deceptively hostile feel, because, although we agree upon the ideas entirely, the bulk of our messages are disputes about semantics. Of course I am not bothered by such quarrels over words at all and I am happy that we agree about the ideas themselves.

When I first submitted that we are only arguing semantics, you hesitated to agree and said, “no, I have no idea what concept of moral responsibility” to which I am referring. Very well, you do agree, however, that whatever this concept I am alluding to is, one of its attributes is the requirement for LFW, which we both agree is not compatible with determinism and thus cannot ever exist. If you do not pretend to know exactly what this idea of moral responsibility is, neither do I. I do know, however, that the requirement for LFW can never be satisfied. We further agree that your idea of determinism and moral responsibility (as you define them) are perfectly compatible. I would be content to know that we agree upon this much.

The semantics problem is also involved with the words moral and amoral. In particular, the word moral has at least two definitions, and we seem to be using different ones. For example, the word “moral” can mean something “about” or “pertaining” to a moral relationship. Thus if someone says “suicide is immoral” he or she is making a moral claim. The claim is moral whether or not the person is right, simply because the claim is about morals. This is the definition I suspect you are using.

There is a stronger definition, however, that implies that not only has a person made a moral claim, but also that this claim is right or correct. For example, if that person offers the moral claim that “suicide is immoral”, but I believe that this claim is objectively false, I could also say that the claim was not moral. Thus, when I say that Hume and I would abolish all pretense of morality, I do not mean that we would abandon the word in the weaker sense, which is useful for describing moral claims, but only in the sense that we can never know what is truly moral (according to the latter definition). I suspect that you would agree with as much, considering that you feel this “transcendental” morality requires theism (which is not true at all), and we are both atheists (Hume may better be described as a deist?).

This stronger definition of “moral”, which I have also called “metaought”, is mentioned at dictionary.com:

I hope that this clarifies much of the confusion and that you now agree that we are quarrelling over words and not ideas.

Finally, allow me to address some of the other points raised:

So you admit that the PAP is not incoherent? You have repeatedly said that the PAP is incoherent and therefore false but now you claim that the concept is coherent but tautologically false. Your argument is that “any concept that can reasonably be given the name ‘moral responsibility’ must have actual referents”. I would say that the only concept that the words “moral responsibility” must have is the one for which the words are ordinarily used, and furthermore, that this idea may, upon inspection, include internally inconsistent attributes (as we both agree humans are often inconsistent about their beliefs). For example, if the ordinary use of “morally responsible” is to refer to some hypothetical object with attributes including choice AND lack of desire, no such object can ever exist. Yet, surely that does not excuse the words from referring to those attributes, and furthermore, does not grant you license to redefine them. So the question is “what is the ordinary use of these words” but arguing over words (and not ideas) is a waste of time.

Your strong resistance to the idea that morals are founded upon emotions is quite telling. Upon what else would morals be founded? You mention “common sense and reason” but remember that Hume also wrote that “reason is the slave of the passions” and that common sense is often quite deceiving. The very introduction to Hume’s ICTPM (which I reread for this thread) begins with a discussion of this very dispute between reason and sentiment and concludes with Hume’s admission that:

So your original argument was misleading. You do not claim that “you could have done otherwise means you would have done otherwise if you had chosen to do otherwise”. Rather, you claim “you could have done otherwise means that some different, but similar, person, in another world, would do otherwise”. The obvious problem is why what this similar person does in another world is relevant to the question of what you can do in this world.

I think this is a deceptively incoherent method of simply saying that “you could have done otherwise if your will was unopposed”. But, surely you can understand, that this is no demonstration of what a person could have done in the least, only a statement about what he or she does do, opposed or unopposed.

So, if we agree that human sentiment, belonging to all humans or one, can never help one decide what is truly moral (in the transcendental sense you reject), my original is justified. Moreover, your claim actions can be moral, in the sense that they agree with the human standard, is obviously true. Our dispute is only about labels and not ideas.

I am not the one trying to discard the words’ definitions, you are! I am claiming that we should stop using these words because they mean something that cannot happen. You are the one who wishes to discard the words’ definitions and supply a more “useful” definition, without the “baggage”. Of course, the question is “what are the words’ true definition”, and arguing about labels is pointless.

We both accuse each other of redefining words. Your statement that “we cannot get along without morality” is also telling. Is your entire defense an argument from adverse consequences? “We cannot get along without morality, therefore morality exists” is not a very convincing argument. But what do we mean by “morality”?

Is the ordinary meaning that “your behavior is wrong because most humans feel that way” or that “what you are doing is wrong, regardless of how everyone feels”? I think that the answer to this question is obviously the latter, but I think (correct me if I am wrong) that you maintain the former. That definition is a useless “shell” of words.

Please forgive me for wasting your time.

[ October 04, 2002: Message edited by: Kip ]</p>

bd-from-kg

Kip:

OK, one more post to explain why I have not been inconsistent or misleading, and most of all to explain why I see no point in continuing.

1. Is the PAP logically incoherent?

The statement “A person can only be morally responsible for an act if he could have done otherwise (in the LFW sense)” is logically coherent as a statement. It is logically incoherent as a principle of morality because it entails that there is no such thing as morality, which leaves it nothing to be a principle of.

2. On “could”, counterfactual conditionals, and possible worlds

No, my original argument was not misleading. You’re the one who’s being misleading. In the first place, I never said that “you could have done otherwise” means “you would have done otherwise if you had chosen to do otherwise”. If you want to understand someone, it’s helpful to refer to what they actually say. You often seem to think that everyone who disagrees with you thinks the same way, so if one of them says something, the others must all agree.

Now as to my agreeing that “could have done otherwise” means “some different, but similar person in another world did (or will do) [not ‘would do’] otherwise”, this was in the context of discussing your own comments (the first serious ones on this subject, I think, in the entire thread):

Now in this kind of context (i.e., an analysis of the meaning of counterfactual conditionals) it’s natural and appropriate to point out that the hypothetical (“if he had done Y”) refers to a different world and therefore, strictly speaking, to a different person than the actual person who actually did X. This is in the natureof counterfactual conditionals, or hypotheticals. It is simply not possible to use such constructions without referring implicitly to other possible worlds.

But the PAP itself (which is what we’re talking about here, isn’t it?) is itself a counterfactual conditional. To say “Smith could have done otherwise” is to say that there is another world similar to this one (the question “similar in exactly what respects?” is equivalent to the question of what exactly “could” means here) in which the person corresponding to Smith did do otherwise.

So you’re quite right: strictly speaking, a counterfactual conditional is either referring to another possible world (and therefore a different person) or it is meaningless. But to say that it is misleading to refer to this other person as “Smith” or “he” (seemingly implying that it’s the same person who actually did X) is ridiculous. In normal contexts we speak this way all the time. Thus:

“If Montana had thrown the ball to Jerry Smith instead of trying to run it in, the Forty-Niners would have had a touchdown and won the game.”

“If only my ankle weren’t badly sprained, I’d carry this thing up to the attic myself.”

“If I don’t refuel soon I’ll run out of gas.”

The examples are endless. We ordinarily think of the person who did (or will do) X as the very same person who we imagine doing Y, and this is reflected in the way we talk about such things. But when we come to analyze such statements carefully, as you pointed out, we find that they are not, strictly speaking, the very same person.

So your charge that I was being “misleading” comes down to the fact that I (quite properly) used language in the ordinary way in ordinary contexts, but (also quite properly) was more precise in the context of analyzing counterfactual conditionals. You might just as well charge that I am being misleading when I speak of the sun rising in the east when I know perfectly well that the sun doesn’t really “rise”.

Similarly, your claim that what some other person in another world did is irrelevant to the question of whether Smith could have done otherwise is completely wrong; the question of whether Smith could have done otherwise is the question of whether another Smith in another possible world (suitably related to this one) did otherwise.

3. On your conception (or lack thereof) of morality

This illustrates the reasons for my frustration with this dialogue as well as anything. How can you possibly know, or even have an opinion about, whether moral responsibility requires LFW unless you have a reasonably good idea of what you mean by moral responsibility? And frankly I don’t think you have any idea at all of what you mean by moral responsibility. I think that what’s in your mind when you use this phrase is some incoherent remnants of a theistic conception of moral responsibility, and that having abandoned (or rejected) theism you haven’t yet thought seriously about the implications for this concept. So far the only thing that you’ve been able to say about moral responsibility is that it requires LFW, and more generally that it requires “ultimate responsibility”. When I pointed out that LFW and UR are logically incoherent concepts, your response was, in effect, “So what? If moral responsibility requires logically incoherent things, why then it does, and that’s that.” When I asked why moral responsibility requires these things, you essentially said “It’s just obvious, that’s all”. When I tried to outline a concept of moral responsibility that does not require these things, your response was essentially “What you’re calling moral responsibility can’t possibly be the ‘real thing’ because it doesn’t require LFW and UR”. At this point it became impossible to proceed. I have no idea why you think moral responsibility requires these things, and it’s impossible to make progress on this question if you refuse to give any hint as to what you mean by moral responsibility beyond the supposed fact that it does. As I say, I think the basic reason that you refuse to explain your concept of moral responsibility and how it relates to LFW and UR is that you don’t really have one.

4. On understanding common usage

There is no such thing as a word’s “true” definition; there is only common usage. What you’re really saying is that we should stop using moral language because common usage is not perfectly consistent. But this is absurd. What you do when common usage is not completely consistent (or when it seems to be based on false factual premises) is to try to understand what people are really trying to get at. For example, one could argue: “People talk about the sun rising in the morning, but we know that the sun doesn’t really rise, so clearly people who say this are just talking nonsense. So the best policy is to ignore anyone who says anything like this and avoid talking this way ourselves.” But a reasonable person says: “People who talk about the sun rising in the morning are clearly on to something. They are referring to something that really does happen in the morning – something that it is apparently natural to refer to as the “rising” of the sun. So let’s try to figure out what that “something” is and interpret such statements in terms of the real phenomenon that they’re talking about.” Or consider quantum mechanics. No human really understands the phenomena dealt with by quantum mechanics, and it may well be that a species that really does understand them would immediately recognize our physicists’ talk of “probability waves”, the “collapse of the wave function”, etc., as meaningless taken literally. It might even be self-contradictory. But that doesn’t mean that everything the particle physicists say is meaningless. Their equations and predictions refer to real phenomena (albeit phenomena that they don’t fully understand), and the QM formalism clearly captures some substantial part of this reality. Thus if Smith were to explain to an alien from Arcturus that the device he was holding was a laser gun and explain how it worked, the alien would be well advised to interpret what Smith “really” meant rather than dismissing it as so much nonsense.

And how would he go about interpreting what Smith “really” meant? Why, he would try to figure out what “real” phenomena Smith was describing (however inaccurately) and interpret Smith as meaning what he would say about them if he had a more accurate understanding of what’s really going on.

This is the key to how to interpret moral language. If you believe, as I do, that people are really “on to” something when they use such language – that they are talking about something meaningful, even if they do not have an accurate understanding of just what it is - then the thing to do is to try to understand just what it is that they are “on to”. In other words, the philosopher’s task is to do his best to fathom what people would say they had “really” meant if they were to attain enough knowledge and understanding, rather than to dismiss moral language altogether on the grounds that most people’s notions of morality are nonsensical, and even self-contradictory, if taken literally.

With this approach, instead of concluding that no one is morally responsible for anything he does because this is logically entailed by things that many people believe, you would ask what most people would say if they had enough knowledge and understanding. For example, do you really think that most of the people who believe that LFW is a necessary condition for moral responsibility would conclude, if they came to understand that LFW is a logically incoherent concept, that therefore no one is morally responsible for anything he does? Or would they conclude that LFW is not, after all, a necessary condition for moral responsibility? Isn’t it obvious that almost everyone who now believes in LFW and therefore interprets the PAP in a way that requires it, would conclude that he had misunderstood the PAP rather than that he had understood it correctly but had not realized that – WOW! – no one is ever responsible for anything he does?

I think that what you’re doing is willfully taking advantage of the confusion and ambiguity in most people’s moral concepts to twist the common understanding of morality out of all recognition. Instead of treating ordinary people with some respect and assuming that they probably have a pretty good general notion of morality but are a bit confused about some of the details, you’re engaging in a “GOTCHA!” game - trying to derive the most ridiculous possible conclusions by manipulating bits and pieces of the mosaic of common moral beliefs until you get a pattern that bears no resemblance whatever to the thing that it purports to describe.

5. Have we just scratched the surface or are we done?

But you see, if we are going to follow the “way of Kip” (and you have been very insistent that we must) we’ve exhausted the subject – what little there is of it. Thus:

1. An agent can only be morally responsible for an act if he is ultimately responsible for it.

2. It is impossible in principle, as a matter of logic, that anyone could ever be ultimately responsible for an act.

3. Therefore no one is ever morally responsible for anything he does.

(So much for moral responsibility, which makes the rest more or less pointless, but

4. All propositions must be either analytic and a priori or synthetic and a posteriori.

5. Moral statements do not express either type of proposition.

6. Therefore all moral statements are meaningless.

Conclusion: Morality is nothing but sophistry and illusion. We should abandon the idea of morality in the same way that we abandon the idea of religion So there is no point in discussing moral questions.

Have I missed anything?

6. On my moral theory

This thread addressed the question of whether moral responsibility is possible in a deterministic world, or more generally whether it’s possible at all in view of the PAP and PUR. Your purpose in starting it was to advance the thesis that it isn’t. This is a positive claim, and as such you have the burden of proof. To defeat your claim all that’s necessary is to show that your arguments aren’t valid, and I think this has been done pretty thoroughly. There’s no need to show that my theory is correct.

But if you want to discuss my ideas about morality further, I’ll be glad to discuss them in the “Moral Foundations” forum.

[ October 09, 2002: Message edited by: bd-from-kg ]</p>

Kip

Bd:

I also agree that there "is no point in continuing". At least, I am not too concerned about words, so much as ideas. I am convinced that we agree about the ideas, although my explanation of "moral responsibility" leaves much to be desired.

That said, I enjoy the dialogue too much to restrain myself from addressing the issues you raise, which will probably cause further digression. I am not nearly as concerned about digressions (or the proper "forum" for them) as you apparently are.

I am glad that you admit the "statement" is coherent but disappointed to find you now qualifying that admission by saying the "principle" is nevertheless coherent. What is the relevant difference between a principle and the "statement" of that principle?

I also suspect that you continue to beg the question by assuming that a "principle" is incoherent if the principle says that something can never exist. Consider this principle (to borrow a word from you): "grafpinality is the number such that grafpinality multiplied by zero is 3." Now, this number grafpinality cannot ever exist. So, according to you, not only is grafpinality incoherent but the principle itself "grafpinality is the number such that grafpinality multiplied by zero is 3" is incoherent. To me, that statement makes perfect sense. Indeed, mathematicians commonly use us labels and principles for objects that can never exist or exist only in the mind. Consider the square root of -1. There can never that number of anything, ever, (even in principle) and yet that does not prevent mathematicians from referring to i nor would any mathematician deny that the principle (not only "the statement") "that number such that the number squared is -1 we label i" is both coherent and meaningful.

What IS incoherent is i itself. I have no mental image of i (or any number) but I cannot even imagine an i amount of something. I cannot conceive of i pizzas in the same way that I can conceive of 3 pizzas. That is what I suspect you mean, that the idea of an object that is morally responsible is incoherent. I freely admit that and surely cannot imagine anything that satisfied the PAP. But the principle itself is not incoherent. We call people who satisfy the requirements of choice without unchosen desires morally responsible, in the same way that we call the square root of -1 i. Neither ever has any real existence.

Now I am beginning to understand what you meant by "counterfactual" statements (can you tell that I am an amateur philosopher yet?). First, let me say that the last of your three examples is not (to my understanding) counter-factual. The person may very well refuel soon (unless something unmentioned is preventing him from doing so). I agree, however, that the other two are counterfactual. I fail to understand, however, how the claim that these statements are misleading is "ridiculous". You simply mock that claim without any argument towards its ridiculousness. Unless, I suppose, your argument is:

P1. People use this language all the time.
P2. If people use this language, the language is not misleading.
C1. Therefore the language is not misleading.
C2. Therefore Kip's claim to the contrary is ridiculous.

Now, we both admit that people are often inconsistent about their beliefs and that people may often abuse language. I am providing a positive argument that these counterfactual statements ARE misleading. The statements are misleading (although meaningful) to the extent that they imply that the person both throws the ball to another person AND is the exact same Joe Montana. These statements do not refer to a biologically different Joe or to an different arena on a different day of the year. Rather, the counterfactual is about this exact same Joe Montana throwing the ball to someone else right now.

Again, I suspect that these counterfactual claims betray the public's latent fondness for metaphysical ideas. In a determined world there is no "if", Joe Montana could not have thrown the ball to someone else, or else he would not be Joe Montana (again the free will question is the question of personal identity). These statements about what people do or could do are similar to the inconceivable, but impossible, idea of a brick going through a window without the window breaking, EXCEPT that, although people admit that the window must break, they insist that Joe Montana "could" have thrown the ball to someone else.

So, counterfactual statements are not necessarily misleading, but counterfactual statements about what people did or could have done ARE misleading. The real question is, not whether these statements are misleading, but whether these counterfactuals are relevant to the idea of "could have done otherwise". You respond to that question by saying:

This is another controversial assertion for which you provide no argument. I would say that, without arguments to the contrary, other Smiths in other worlds are quite irrelevant to what this Smith can do in this world.

This approach of yours, I think, commits the fallacy (as seen in the Meno) of thinking that because I do not know all of the attributes of something - I therefore know nothing about it. Meno says:

Socrates resorted to saying that the soul is immortal and exists before birth. I will simply say that I do not nothing about moral responsibility, but I know that whatever it is, LFW is required. If you are accusing of not knowing the other attributes - I freely confess that I do not know them. I deny, however, that I know nothing about it. If you are arguing that, because I only defend one attribute, the validity of that one attribute is questionable, I ask how we settle the dispute about words? For surely we are only arguing about what attributes this word has, not whether or not some idea is incompatible with any other idea.

I agree entirely that we should "get to the bottom of things". The question is, upon inspection, is the idea of moral responsibility fundamentally mistaken - or is only the expression/articulation of moral responsibility mistaken, although people intend to refer to a real, coherent idea. If the latter, as you maintain, we should be more sympathetic and not so stingent about definitions if we can provide the more appropriate definition that others fail to provide.

The definition of morally responsible you would attempt to apply includes all of the traditional attributes (such as knowledge of probably consequences and control over one's actions) as well as a controversially weak idea about what a person "can" do at any given moment. In particular, you claim that, not only should the idea of similar people in other worlds be relevant to the idea of "could", but also that this definition is what people really mean when they say "morally responsible". Thus, when Joe Montana "could have done otherwise", he need only do otherwise if a few particles in his brain altered to a different pattern, or heard an extra word of encouragement from his coach that day.

I would say, however, that when people say Montana "could have done otherwise" they are not referring to what would happen in any materially different situation, and I still feel that you have yet to show why that would be relevant. Rather, when people say "Joe Montana could have thrown the ball to someone else" they mean "at that split second, Joe, with the exact same brain configuration and the exact same surroundings could have thrown the ball to someone else." Perhaps a quantum particle zigged instead of zagged in Joe's brain. Far more likely is the idea that people were ignorant of the determinate causes inside Joe's brain when the idea of moral responsibility was originated and actually fostered a belief that Joe could have done either way according to his "will". In this view, "will" is a metaphysical cause that can actually change the world instead of a sensation caused by the way the world happens to be.

Of course, science soon exposed our ignorance and we now know that Joe can only throw the ball to one person and that his "will" alone does not alter anything about the material world. People, however, would like to have their determinism and eat their morally responsible language too.

Would most people, upon discovering the impossibility of LFW, abandon the idea of moral responsibility or adjust the definition? You seem sure that people would and I am inclined to agree with you. The question, however, is not what people would do, but what people should do. If people do not want to abandon the idea of moral responsible, the reason is people that most people find the idea of determinism, an amoral universe and moral ambiguity quite distasteful if not intolerable. At least, we cannot ignore the probability of such a motive prejudicing people's hypothetical conclusions.

We can, however, perform a thought experiment. According to your view, I think, moral responsibility is function of complexity or consciousness (these are the only relevant distinctions you have provided between robots and humans). So, we need only "turn the dials" of complexity and consciousness to render an entity more or less morally responsible. We could, so to say, turn the dial and watch the robot "grow" more morally responsible. I find this idea ridiculous and I do not think most people would agree with that. Granting a robot complexity or consciousness does not further give the robot moral responsibility and the defense of the robot "I only do what I am programmed to do" is appropriate to all accusations of moral responsibility (but not legality or with reference to deterrents). Blaming the programmer or inventor, rather than the machine, would be much more reasonable in either case. The only reason the notion of moral responsibility remains popular is that the awareness that humans are mechanical remains small and we have no "programmer" to blame.

Those are arguments that I have proposed but I doubt that either is final or that all discussion should end. Surely, there are many philosophers who contest the soundness of these arguments!

How convenient. Perhaps we will dialogue in another forum some day?

[ October 12, 2002: Message edited by: Kip ]

[ October 12, 2002: Message edited by: Kip ]</p>

Kip

The Globe has a new article about free will:

<a href="http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/288/science/A_question_of_willP.shtml" target="_blank">http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/288/science/A_question_of_willP.shtml</a>

A Harvard psych professor named Wegner has authored a book called "The Illusion of Conscious Will" that documents his various conclusions about will. He presented his finding at a conference and apparently Dennett was not too happy about the results. He says:

This implies that will "enters" our consciousness and is therefore not necessarily conscious. That is controversial to say the least. He also admits that:

I am reading Elbow Room (which I find to both fascinating and irritatingly sloppy). One way to frame the dispute is to admit that there is some sort of illusion that has been exposed by science. As Dennett explains, humans are complex machines that amplify inputs. This amplification is deceptive. A small flicker in brain patterns can result in a huge right hand swing. There is also the illusion of practical stillness. A person can be entirely still (except for the air particles trivially bouncing off of him) and yet begin to move. No one "pushed" the person and so the appareance is that the action was indetermined or determined by something metaphysical - the magical "will" or "I". This allowed the belief that people "could" truly do two different actions at any given moment. This notion of will has only been challenged by the Scientific Revolution and Newtonian determinism. Eventually we came to realize that even if the person appears to be still, there are neurons firing and electrons moving at a fast pace within his skull. Vitalism or Platonic souls or metaphysical "will" are vestige of a more ignorant era.

Should our notion of moral responsibility, which has for centuries been associated with Catholic confession booths, "evil", "burning in hell", and capability to avoid the given action - also be abandoned with the illusion that science has exposed?