sweep

dear Demosthenes,

have you thought about what it means to be free. To be free, in my opinion, means to have no constraints. That is an impossibility, yet we are able to solve problems, to learn, and to build, which has an inevitable effect upon our predecessors.

In this sense freedom means to overcome constraints since, without constraints, what is left? We do have a will, which encompasses ability, including problem solving and creativity. Therefore isn't it logical to conclude that free will does exist if FRAMED in a certain way. And if free will is FRAMED does that mean that free will is determined?
<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

Kent Stevens

People can change their minds due to new information. I am not arguing for human implasticity. We are "free" as long as someone is not forcing us through threats for example, to do things.

The ability to think does not necessarily mean that we have free will. If free will simply meant the ability to think then we could use the term sentience in place of the term free will.

Bill

You ought not discard <a href="http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/c5.htm#cptb" target="_blank">compatibilism</a> so quickly! Compatibilism does not in any way "water down" or denegrate determinism. In fact, what you are expressing, above, is actually a compatibilist position! The compatibilist asserts: Compatibilism is a forced choice for dedicated determinists (myself being one) who still perceive the need for enforcing some sort of social order through a system of rewards and punishments. Compatibilists look upon such a system as the deterministic causes of improved (increasingly moral) behavior.

I might also quote the idea of <a href="http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/f9.htm#free" target="_blank">freedom</a> in this context: This is, of course, more or less the debate we are having within this thread.

In our society at large, moral responsibility is relieved only in cases of either direct compulsion (the use of immediate force or some sort of believable threat to compel a morally reprehensible act) or insanity (where the person lacks the normal ability to make moral decisions).

In a deterministic universe, people are presumed to have been raised to be able to discern the distinction between moral good and moral evil. Upon that presumption, and that presumption alone, rests the idea of moral responsibility for our actions. So, even conceding that our actions are determined by some combination of our physical and mental states, morally reprehensible conduct is not excused, absent one of the legally recognized excuses (direct external compulsion or insanity being the two examples I've given, above).

This is exactly and precisely a compatibilist moral position. I am both a determinist and a compatibilist.

== Bill

sweep

so, basically we are not responsible if we, say for instance, inflict harm on another person, if by threat of death. er. response/able = motors yielding to cortical structures, including the cerebellum

I 'can' save my life and 'I will', by doing something i know is wrong- yet, i would rather die, than have one of my own suffer at my hand.


Crikey! that's nine bills all in all. i wanted to add that the implication in this thread are that hsssh! dead peple are speaking through of all us. who is bill? surely he's not dead too- no offence bill, if you don't catch my drift

[ August 18, 2002: Message edited by: sweet as a nut ]</p>

Bill

The legal standards of when you are (or are not) "legally responsible" for the consequences of your action are extremely complex. They do not readily reduce to any set formula, as Patty Hearst can clearly demonstrate (if you recall, Patty was kidnapped, but eventually found to be criminally responsible for her actions as "Tanya").

What your own personal standards of morality might be is no business of mine. I only assert that, whatever they are, they are a product of the combination of your genes and memes and how you've lived your life to date.

== Bill

sweep

oh yeah, who are you, who am i. Indoctrination could be a powerful tool, in that instance- i feel scared now!

Toad Master

The idea is that if someone threatens to kill you unless you do something that is evil, if the evil you do is *lesser* then the evil of letting yourself be killed, you could claim to have not acted of your own free-will (or did not act freely, or were compelled) and that may be excusable.

If, however, you kill an innocent person to save your own skin, then you are committing as great an evil as would occur if you refused to kill the innocent. That would probably not be excusable.

-Toad Master

sweep

could do- depends on whether someone would want to make it their business, or not.

owleye

Toad Master...

"For the determinists I would add: not in "the sense of doing other than we did if the state of the universe were exactly the same," but in the sense of "if we had known better." That is, in a contrafactual sense."

Counterfactuals, if they have merit at all, have merit in the context of free thought of possibly variant universes. It is assumed that once we have achieved a certain status we know the difference between right and wrong. If actions are preceded by thought (or thoughtful deliberation) the outcome of such thought ought to work as an imperative to action. (I.e., we ought to do the right thing.) If we don't, it is presumably because some part of us wasn't able to be brought under control. We weren't able to help but give in to temptation, or whatever. Just because we couldn't control our behavior, however, doesn't relieve us from being responsible for it. Indeed, even for those times in which we are under a coercion to commit something wrong, we believe we should be able to resist it with some strength of moral fibre in us.

"Moral sanctions are meant to influence future behavior. They are not meant to change how we would behave if the universe time-looped back to some prior state."

This sounds very much like a behaviorist's view of punishment and reward. There is no right or wrong, per se, only favorable or unfavorable behavior which is subject to being influenced or, if thought to be unfavorable, we can put an end to it through severe sanctions -- e.g., death or torture.

owleye

owleye

Kent...

"What I am arguing for in this thread is for strong determinism."

I'll try to look for an argument, rather than merely a statement of belief.

"I think the determinist position has been unfairly represented. As a determinist seemingly I am supposed to believe that we are like a tennis balls that are just hit back and forth by external forces. Seemingly as a determinist when I am convicted of an offence I can say "but X made me do it", where X is my parents, society, poverty, alchol, drugs, genes, nature, my friends, or any petty excuse. As a determinist I am supposed to be incapable of changing myself since the day that I was born. As a determinist maybe I have some overall master theory that predicts and explains what you will do in every minute detail. Well I disagree with these and other unfair characterisations of determinism and determinists."

Interesting. Even though you argue for a strong brand of determinism, you apparently think determinism is compatible with the ability to change ourself.

"I believe that we have a degree of influence over what happens in my life."

This very much suggests that our lives are not determined by prior events. Somehow I can exert a degree of influence over my life. This certainly doesn't sound like you hold a deterministic view of things.

"I am responsible for my actions and if I do an offence it is I that completed it and not anyone or anything else that did this offence."

Ordinarily we tend to believe this implies free will, but I'm interested in how you think otherwise.

"Determinism does not rule out the possibility of punishment. It is precisely because people can be influenced by the possibility of being punished, that a moral society would want to use punishment to prevent crime."

I agree that determinism does not rule out the possibility of punishment at least in the sense of it being a sanction imposed on individuals. But a determinist is prone to saying that such punishment is equally determined. A society cannot be moral because all its actions are causally determined by prior events and things couldn't have been other than they were. Are you allowing a society to be free, but not the individuals in it?

"A little bit of observation should convince you that people can change especially when young. When a person is born they can learn any possible language so they are not completely fixed by nature."

I certainly agree with this, but we would ordinarliy tend to say this implies they have some free will.

owleye