Does the "Free Will" point of view affect morals and character?

[Iwannaplato]

Absolute Free Will allows you to be blamed.

First let's deal with my main point.

You've said....

The concept of Free Will is for sitting in judgement and allocating punishments.

I hope you understand absolute Free Will. Absolute Free Will is about social control not reason.

The concept is FOR....

The irony here is that you are judging those who believe in absolute free will as believing in it because it lets them sit in judgment. This is judging them and also allocating them control over their beliefs much as someone believing in Absolute Free will could. The choose the believe because they want to judgge others and punish.

I think this is ridiculous
1) well, you managed to judge them without believing in absolute free will.
2) it is conflated a possible consequence for the reason why they believe. It seems pretty obvious to me that absolute free will is our default belief. Children think this way. They think they could have chosen the bike or the computer game and when they mulled over each present it sure seemed to them like it might go either way. So, I think psychoanalyzing the reason why people believe something in the way you did is a) not founded and b) judgmental.

And it seems implicit that a determinists and those who believe in relative free will don't blame? A determinist can obviously blame and sit in judgment and if they need to they can say reason compells them or their feeling compells them or that it is natural. Just because SOME people who believe in Absolute Free Will sit in judgment does not mean that is why they do. Nor are they precluded from judging others less than a determinist.
They certainly don't have to judge, and many who believe in free will, still see deemly on the justice system and punishment vs. other approaches.
Determinists need not give up judging and punishing and they don't seem to. Even the Calvinists didn't.

When people talk about "free will" they sometimes refer to the feeling of empowerment to chose, and don't philosophise about their feeling. The power to chose is augmented by knowledge and critical judgement.

But there is not the slightest bit of extra freedom. And those who get educated were compelled to get educated, were thrown into families that priortized this, or were compelled by their genes and environments to do this, and never could have done something else.

On the other hand relative free will is obtainable , an individual's power of choice is augmented by several means, the most civilised of which is knowledge and reasoned judgement.

On the other hand people can gain knowledge and learn reasoned judgment. This happens. It is caused by what went before like everything else.

And the power of choice is not augmented. The variety of actions (including thoughts and speech and doing things) will likely be more varied.

But one does not gain the slightest extra POWER in choosing. Things happen. You will unfold like everything else.

[Belinda]

Absolute Free Will allows you to be blamed.

First let's deal with my main point.

You've said....

The concept of Free Will is for sitting in judgement and allocating punishments.

I hope you understand absolute Free Will. Absolute Free Will is about social control not reason.

The concept is FOR....

The irony here is that you are judging those who believe in absolute free will as believing in it because it lets them sit in judgment. This is judging them and also allocating them control over their beliefs much as someone believing in Absolute Free will could. The choose the believe because they want to judgge others and punish.

I think this is ridiculous
1) well, you managed to judge them without believing in absolute free will.
2) it is conflated a possible consequence for the reason why they believe. It seems pretty obvious to me that absolute free will is our default belief. Children think this way. They think they could have chosen the bike or the computer game and when they mulled over each present it sure seemed to them like it might go either way. So, I think psychoanalyzing the reason why people believe something in the way you did is a) not founded and b) judgmental.

And it seems implicit that a determinists and those who believe in relative free will don't blame? A determinist can obviously blame and sit in judgment and if they need to they can say reason compells them or their feeling compells them or that it is natural. Just because SOME people who believe in Absolute Free Will sit in judgment does not mean that is why they do. Nor are they precluded from judging others less than a determinist.
They certainly don't have to judge, and many who believe in free will, still see deemly on the justice system and punishment vs. other approaches.
Determinists need not give up judging and punishing and they don't seem to. Even the Calvinists didn't.

When people talk about "free will" they sometimes refer to the feeling of empowerment to chose, and don't philosophise about their feeling. The power to chose is augmented by knowledge and critical judgement.

But there is not the slightest bit of extra freedom. And those who get educated were compelled to get educated, were thrown into families that priortized this, or were compelled by their genes and environments to do this, and never could have done something else.

On the other hand relative free will is obtainable , an individual's power of choice is augmented by several means, the most civilised of which is knowledge and reasoned judgement.

On the other hand people can gain knowledge and learn reasoned judgment. This happens. It is caused by what went before like everything else.

And the power of choice is not augmented. The variety of actions (including thoughts and speech and doing things) will likely be more varied.

But one does not gain the slightest extra POWER in choosing. Things happen. You will unfold like everything else.

Yes, having a lot of choices is determined by affluence, health, nationality, social class and so forth. However once the individual has the selection of choices under her belt she is more powerful.

I invite you to take the moral-political corollary of education as deliberate empowerment of women, and other 'minorities'.

[henry quirk]

I just looked it up and see that it merely means one can have made different choices.

More specifically, absolute or libertarian free will means one can have made different choices and that those choices aren't necessarily rooted in the past. More formally, it -- libertarian free will/agent causation -- means an individual is a cause, not an effect. No version of free will ever meant one could do anything.

I don't see why belief in this would mean one wants to control others.

It doesn't and never did. It just means the individual is free to choose, for his own reasons, to try to control others and that -- yeah -- he's responsible for his choice, the consequences of his choice, and his actions extending out of that choice.

given that Belinda is someone who does not believe in absolute free will, she seems to be managing to sit in judgment over those who do.

Her disbelief in her own free will (that she is a free will) is as irrelevant as if she disbelieved fire is hot. Fire is hot; B is a absolute free will and she's absolutely responsible for her choices, the consequences of her choices, and her actions extending out of those choices.

The only other option: she's a meat machine just goin' thru the motions; just a domino in a line of dominos, perpetually pushed forward and -- as a result -- perpetually pushing forward; just another link in a causal chain; just an effect.

There is no, cannot be, a middle ground: compatibilism is for crap.

[henry quirk]

Absolute Free Will allows you to be blamed.

Poor phrasing, B, but yeah.

Anecdote: Last night I came down pretty hard on my kid for sumthin' he did that was annoying but certainly didn't warrant him gettin' yelled at. I could blame stress (I have my stressors same as anyone) or the cold I'm afflicted with, or a dozen other woes. Truth is: I made a bad choice. My reaction is wholly on me. I was the bad guy, full stop.

[henry quirk]

And it seems implicit that a determinist and those who believe in relative free will don't blame?

Sure they do. They just give themselves an out: it couldn't have happened any other way, if they're determinists; the factors were out of my control, if they're compatibilists.

[Flannel Jesus]

And it seems implicit that a determinist and those who believe in relative free will don't blame?

Sure they do. They just give themselves an out: it couldn't have happened any other way, if they're determinists; the factors were out of my control, if they're compatibilists.

Some of them treat it as an "out", sure. Others treat it as an opportunity for self improvement.

Here's an analogy:

consider a gigantic clock with loads of gears. One of the gears, through no fault of its own (because it's just inert, made of metal) becomes misshapen and causes a jam in the clock. We don't blame the gear because of course it couldn't have done anything differently. You'd just be telling at a hunk of metal.

But instead consider a gear that has self awareness, consciousness, and the ability to correct itself. It got jammed, saw why it got jammed, and is now endeavouring to notice future scenarios where it is misshapen and might cause a jam, and fix itself before the jam in the future.

And further, suppose that all the gears had consciousness and awareness, and had the ability not only to introspect but to inspect the mental states of other gears. The society of gears, as a whole, all want to not get jammed, they have some sort of innate desire to keep spinning. If a particular gear gets jammed, that stops all the gears, so they have an incentive to make sure the other gears are doing what they can to keep spinning.

So one gear gets jammed, the other gears are interested in making sure that gear figures out what went wrong this time and fixes itself in the future. And if that same gear keeps getting jammed, they start wondering if this gear WANTS to keep spinning like the rest of them. Maybe it doesn't, maybe it wants to get jammed, maybe it hates the other gears and wants to piss them off. In any case, all the other gears now have a motivation to get the gear that keeps getting jammed replaced with a gear that wants to keep spinning.

This is what moral responsibility might look like in a deterministic system. It's not necessarily that gears fault that he was born with a heart that just wants to be jammed all the time. It doesn't matter if it's his fault though, he needs to be replaced.

Deterministic morality is about that sort of thing. How can we make the systems we're a part of work better for us? How can we make sure that the other gears we share the system with also want to make it work better? What should we do with the gears that keep getting jammed? Determinism doesn't negate the value of these questions.

[Belinda]

Iwannaplato, I claim "The concept of absolute Free Will is FOR----" because human life in societies is a power struggle, and those elites who are in power need to control the others. There is no more efficient way to govern than to make the others feel guilty when they disobey.

[Iwannaplato]

Yes, having a lot of choices

though you're only going to make one, inevitably[/quote]

is determined by affluence, health, nationality, social class and so forth. However once the individual has the selection of choices under her belt she is more powerful.

Now the wording has changed.

I invite you to take the moral-political corollary of education as deliberate empowerment of women, and other 'minorities'.

[The person's power of choice is not changed. But yes, they may have more power in society and in relationships. But their choices are still inevitable. There's no ontological change. But yes, having a good education and the ability to reason are causal of better things, statistically.

[Iwannaplato]

Absolute Free Will allows you to be blamed.

Poor phrasing, B, but yeah.

Existing means one can be blamed. Determinists can and do blame. Free will people can and do blame. Yes, her wording could be better. The belief in free will means that blaming will be considered to make more sense to some of those who have that belief.

[Iwannaplato]

Iwannaplato, I claim "The concept of absolute Free Will is FOR----" because human life in societies is a power struggle, and those elites who are in power need to control the others. There is no more efficient way to govern than to make the others feel guilty when they disobey.

Do you really think determinists don't feel guilty? You are still the person who did X. You are the person who does X.

And you never seem to respond to the what I think is a fact. The default experience is that we have free will. Children don't have to be brainwashed to believe this. Perhaps some people then use this idea, but it's not why we have it in the first place.

Just because an idea helps those with power does not mean that's why they believe it or try to get others to do it.

And an elite could also use the idea of determinism to control people. Many people react to the idea of determinism with a sense of loss of meaning. They resist the idea, not because they are in love with guilt, but because the idea feels bad and hopeless somehow. Note: I am not saying it must lead to those feelings, but in general it does.

If all the idea of free will did was create guilt and give control to the powerful, more people would happily give it up. But they resist it because things seem pointless. And that would also help people with power.

[henry quirk]

Some of them treat it as an "out", sure. Others treat it as an opportunity for self improvement.

How?

The determinist is stuck with it could not have happened any other way. He cannot direct himself, or change, or learn. He has only the illusion of these things.

The compatibilist is stuck with the same supposed woo as the libertarian, but worse. To support his claim he reconciles, without explanation, the irreconcilable. The libertarian, he sez, right up front: determinism (which appears to undergird the whole of the universe, save for man) cannot be reconciled with absolute free will (which it appears men are [have]). He sez if both are real and irreconcilable then something is wrong or undiscovered about one, the other, or both.

consider a gear that has self awareness, consciousness, and the ability to correct itself.

I would say such a thing is a free will (has libertarian free will).

[henry quirk]

Absolute Free Will allows you to be blamed.

Poor phrasing, B, but yeah.

Existing means one can be blamed. Determinists can and do blame. Free will people can and do blame. Yes, her wording could be better. The belief in free will means that blaming will be considered to make more sense to some of those who have that belief.

The difference being: one is just doin' what he must while the other assesses and concludes as a choice.

[popeye1945]

As a word in a sentence, its context defines, so to the conscious subject, taking into consideration not only today's context, but the whole history of the individual and his species. Free will means you are in control, when in fact you are, as in all species, a reactive organism.

[Iwannaplato]

As a word in a sentence, its context defines, so to the conscious subject, taking into consideration not only today's context, but the whole history of the individual and his species. Free will means you are in control, when in fact you are, as in all species, a reactive organism.

Can a purely reactive organism know if it is being rational or not? Wouldn't the feeling of 'being rational', that quale, be determined also and perhaps coupled incorrectly with whatever they just said or wrote?

[popeye1945]

As a word in a sentence, its context defines, so to the conscious subject, taking into consideration not only today's context, but the whole history of the individual and his species. Free will means you are in control, when in fact you are, as in all species, a reactive organism.

Can a purely reactive organism know if it is being rational or not? Wouldn't the feeling of 'being rational', that quale, be determined also and perhaps coupled incorrectly with whatever they just said or wrote?

Yes, to be rational is to be aware of your environment relative to your well-being and others. Statements to that effect would be considered rational.