compatibilism

[phyllo]

The first issue I was trying to deal with was the idea that if there is a brain and it does things, what would be the need for the brain if the choices are made somewhere else. Perhaps the brains is 'played' by something elsewhere or inwhere. IOW there are a couple of issues here 1) would this other substance, other than the brain, in the dualism eradicate the need for the brain. I am using the analogy to suggest that this need not be the case. 2) the determinism issue.

One can argue that the brain receives transmissions from a soul.

One can argue that the brain merely stores information and that decisions are processed by a non-physical soul.

Or some other other split of functions.

But the point of introducing dualism, into the argument, is to liberate the will from physical cause and effect. Which it fails to do.

Do animals also have a non-physical soul which makes decisions? Does a lion think ... "I'm too far away to get that antelope. I need to get closer" ... in the brain or in the soul?

BTW, the radio transmission analogy solves a number of problems with reincarnation and life after death.

Maybe, maybe not. I can't rule out that there are other was to have/store/be/include knowledge.

That line of thinking leads to either omniscience or some limitation based on experience or some unclear other factor.

We're not seeing too much omniscience.

[Iwannaplato]

One can argue that the brain receives transmissions from a soul.

One can argue that the brain merely stores information and that decisions are processed by a non-physical soul.

Or some other other split of functions.

But the point of introducing dualism, into the argument, is to liberate the will from physical cause and effect. Which it fails to do.

I'd say it doesn't demonstrate it. I haven't seen a convincing argument for dualism. Or better put, an argument that means monism must be wrong. And then I haven't seen one that demonstrates that dualism clearly leads to free will or explains free will. If you accept that all physical processes are determined and there is a monism, well the door is closed. If there is a dualism I think the door is open. Personally I don't think physicalism is a meaningfull position and that is today's dominant monism, but that's another can of worms.

Do animals also have a non-physical soul which makes decisions? Does a lion think ... "I'm too far away to get that antelope. I need to get closer" ... in the brain or in the soul?

My position isn't dualist. Many dualists see humans as a special case - certainly many Abrahamists. Other dualists do not see humans as an exception, and spirits of animals are present in many belief systems. Bodies and spirits and sometimes other 'parts' of animals, plants and humans.

Personally I am not convinced we can rule out free will. That doesn't mean I believe in it.

BTW, the radio transmission analogy solves a number of problems with reincarnation and life after death.

Yes, I think it can be used for those also. It's not my analogy, which I'm sure you know.

That line of thinking leads to either omniscience or some limitation based on experience or some unclear other factor.

There are some people who think of the soul as sort of getting bogged down in bodies and forgetting all it knows and that there are ways to hook up with the all knowing facet of oneself or the all or....I see no reason why souls might not have their own limitations and wisdom, however. And it certainly seems that way: all the stories of ghosts and channelers and spirts coming through mediums seem to me have been entities with some limits on their knowledge (and also biases and cultural lenses and so on).

[promethean75]

"If you accept that all physical processes are determined and there is a monism, well the door is closed. If there is a dualism I think the door is open."

Is it tho? One argument goes that even if Cartesian dualism is true, the second substance (the soul, etc) would not 'act upon' the body as a freewill that causally determines what the body will do becuz that would be inconceivable; how would two ontologically distinct substances interact causally?

Moreover, would the Cartesian soul be free to be other than it was? Did it choose to exist, to have the personality it has? Or like anything else that exists, is its condition a product of cause and effect?

There's also this problem. A thought experiment. You're a cartesian soul hanging out at the coffee shop and u decide to stand up from your chair. But it's weird philosophically becuz in order to exhibit your own freewill, u have to believe that you aren't just that cartesian soul body that's determined to stand up, but something more, something inside, like a soul. A cartesian-cartesian soul.

Suppose then that this were also true, and you're actually a cartesian-cartesian soul hanging out at a coffee shop deciding to stand up from its chair and...

Boom. An infinite regress.

That's an original thought experiment btw and i have copy rights on it so don't use it without citing me please thank u.

[Iwannaplato]

"If you accept that all physical processes are determined and there is a monism, well the door is closed. If there is a dualism I think the door is open."

Is it tho? One argument goes that even if Cartesian dualism is true, the second substance (the soul, etc) would not 'act upon' the body as a freewill that causally determines what the body will do becuz that would be inconceivable; how would two ontologically distinct substances interact causally?

Yes, there's that argument. And I don't think we can evaluate whether that argument closes the door or not. But I do think that if someone considers matter utterly determined and they are a monist, then the door is closed. If there is dualism then we get into these deductive arguments that I don't think, on either side, settle the issue.

There's also this problem. A thought experiment. You're a cartesian soul hanging out at the coffee shop and u decide to stand up from your chair. But it's weird philosophically becuz in order to exhibit your own freewill, u have to believe that you aren't just that cartesian soul body that's determined to stand up, but something more, something inside, like a soul. A cartesian-cartesian soul.

Or there is some way for the two substances to align. I dunno.

Or causal in one direction. Or causal in different ways in two directions. Matter can be set in motion by spirit/mind/soul but what happens in the material world comes merely as information in the other direction.

[iambiguous]

Locke asked us to imagine a man in a locked room who wakes up, unaware it is locked, and ‘chooses’ to stay in the room. He felt like he made a choice, when actually reality was such that no choice was in fact available to him. Locke argues this could be the case for every human action. We simply are unable to directly perceive all the causes and effects that determined our action, which leaves us with the illusion that we were not determined, when really we were.

That makes no sense whatsoever.

The decision to stay inside is independent of the locked/unlocked state of the door.

The locked door is not forcing him or compelling him or determining him to stay inside since he does not know that it is locked.

It can't be a cause in this case.

But if he decided to leave and found the door locked, then it would be a cause for his subsequent actions.

Actually, that was pretty much my own thinking as well.

Anyone here able to untangle it for us?

Oops, almost forgot: click.

[henry quirk]

Hylomorphism.

'nuff said.

[Iwannaplato]

Hylomorphism.

'nuff said.

What I like about hylomorphism is it, to me, raises the issue of the potential problems with deduction. People often rule out or 'prove' things with deduction, with deducations that juggle abstract concepts. The deductions can often look neat and obvious, until you see someone (Aristotle or Aquinus, say) divvy up the universe in a different way. Instead of a facet of matter it's another substance, for example. It's not that deduction at these levels is pointless per se - that'd be another deduction around abstractions. It's more like...let's have a little humility with our deductions.

[phyllo]

Hylomorphism.

'nuff said.

It explains what about free-will and determinism?

[henry quirk]

Hylomorphism.

'nuff said.

It explains what about free-will and determinism?

Nuthin' (not directly). I posted that in response to IWP's musings about substance dualism.

[Iwannaplato]

Hylomorphism.

'nuff said.

It explains what about free-will and determinism?

Nuthin' (not directly). I posted that in response to IWP's musings about substance dualism.

Yes, and the indirect way it relates is it highlights, I think, some assumptions about substance. When we wax metaphysical, things that look like they can be dismissed, hey maybe not.

[iambiguous]

Free will & Moral responsibility
AQA Ethics

Quantum mechanics tells us that some things happen without a cause. Therefore determinism seems false.

Actually, there is what science thinks it knows about QM "here and now" and all that there is to know about it...ontologically? And until [if ever] science does get closer and closer to fully grasping it -- objectively? -- who among us [in the interim] can say for sure how cause and effect are intertwined "for all practical purposes" in the subatomic world? Let alone how it is all intertwined [along with the human condition itself] in...the multiverse?

However, if our actions happen because of random quantum mechanics, that hardly seems a better basis for free will than determinism.

The word "random" here has always been rather problematic to me. It's like completely out of the blue something "just happens". Like "random mutations" in the evolution of biological life on Earth. As though the laws of matter have no say here. A genetic mutation itself "just happens".

Thus, "in the interim" we are often confronted with speculation of this sort...

Honderich responds to this criticism by arguing that the structures of the brain might be large enough that the laws of quantum mechanics (which only applies to the very small atomic level) might not actually apply to them nor their function. If this is the case, while determinism might not be true at the Quantum level, it could still be true at the macro level.

What might be and what is? You tell me.

And what is "the case" insofar as morality itself goes? Even if the human brain "somehow" reconciles the micro and the macro world [God or No God] and we do have a measure of autonomy, that doesn't make my own arguments go away. The human brain functions in the either/or world such that something at least in the vicinity of the objective truth seems to prevail. But where/what is the equivalent of that in regard to value judgments?

There may well be an equivalent. But I can only note that in philosophy forums [so far] I have myself never come upon an argument that establishes it.

[iambiguous]

Free will & Moral responsibility
AQA Ethics

Compatibilism – also called soft determinism

This is the view that free will and determinism are compatible (can both be true). Hume distinguishes between internal causes (causes that are internal to a person – their beliefs, desires, motivations, intentions) and external causes (causes that are external to a person – someone forcing them to do something). Hume noticed that we only hold people responsible for actions that result from our internal causes. So Hume defined free will as being determined by your internal causes not external causes. Even though our internal causes are just as determined as our external causes, Hume thinks this definition of free will nonetheless gives us the conception of moral responsibility we want.

Back to being totally stumped again. If our "internal causes are just as determined as our external cause" then how are they not in turn responsible for how Hume defined free will?

The "conception of moral responsibility"? Same thing. Some philosophers may want it to include "free will" but if what they want is only what they could never not want...what then?

So, of course...

This is not the definition of free will people want. They want to actually be the uncaused cause of their actions, and to have the ability to have done otherwise. Kant called Hume’s compatibilism ‘wretched subterfuge’ which suggests humans are just like ‘clockwork’.

Again, the part where I get stuck. The part where others focus in on those utterly crucial definitions. If only others would define compatibilism as they do, everything would be resolved. In other words, defining compatibilism despite the inherent gap embedded in this:

All of this going back to how the matter we call the human brain was "somehow" able to acquire autonomy when non-living matter "somehow" became living matter "somehow" became conscious matter "somehow" became self-conscious matter.

Brain scientists don't grasp this profound mystery yet, let alone philosophers encompassing it all in their worlds of words.

Besides, how does one pin down whether or not, in defining it, one was able to freely opt to define it otherwise?

Here, see what I mean...

Compatibilists argue that free will does not exist, however, yet they claim to have found a definition of free will that allows for ethics.

Argue, argue, argue. Claim, claim, claim.

The distinction between internal and external causes is incoherent. Don’t internal causes ultimately trace back, if we go far enough, to before we were born, and therefore to external causes?

How about this: all the way back to how the human condition itself fits into the definitive understanding of and explanation for the existence of existence itself.

I mean, if it's not God.

[iambiguous]

Free will & Moral responsibility
AQA Ethics

Libertarianism on moral responsibility and punishment

For libertarianism, the conditions of moral responsibility are Libertarian free will, that the person had the ability to avoid doing the action. Intention: the person intended to do the action.

Here, however, libertarians are no less in the same boat as all the rest of us. They claim to have free will, but they are unable to actually demonstrate this much beyond one or another...argument? Then when confronted with this, well, what else is there but to insist that just like all the rest of us, they "just know" deep down inside them that they do.

And then -- click -- libertarians like henry quirk who simply shrug off the points I raise in regard to dasein and value judgments. In other words, given free will, they insist further that their own value judgments are derived from logic anchored "somehow" to intuition intertwined "somehow" with God.

The importance of intention for moral responsibility can be seen in the different levels of punishment given for unlawful killing. A premeditated murder will be punished more severely than manslaughter.

Which, again, is why the libertarians among us insists that in regard to intentions, we do have free will. Why? Because intention itself is said to be an "internal" component of our psychological Self. Whereas many determinists argue that, on the contrary, human psychology itself is just another inherent manifestation of the illusion of free will...of a brain wholly derived from the laws of matter.

Thus, distinctions like this...

If you kill someone by hitting them with their car, yet they were so drunk that they just jumped in front of the car and there was nothing you could do, you might even be let off for that. However, if in the same situation you were speeding at the time, and you could possibly have stopped before killing them had you not been speeding, then you could be considered responsible.

...are irrelevant. In either set of circumstances, what unfolds could never have possibly not unfolded. Whether in regard to what did happen or in regard to how we react to what did happen.

[iambiguous]

Free will & Moral responsibility
AQA Ethics

Libertarianism on punishment.

The traditional view of punishment is called retributive punishment; that it was justified because a criminal ‘deserved’ it. This was the justification for medieval forms of punishment involving torture. Although torture is now generally considered barbaric in the west, it is still typically thought that criminals deserve their punishment of prison.

Unless, of course, men and women "choose" criminal behavior because they were never able not to. And we react to that behavior as we do only because we were never free to opt otherwise. And criminals are arrested, tried, found guilty and punished wholly in sync with the only possible reality.

And, in turn, any discussion we have here in regard to criminality and retributive punishment and justice is no less an inherent manifestation of the only possible world.

Spooky, isn't it?

[Charles] Darrow was a lawyer who used psychological determinism as an argument in the case of two boys, Leopold and Loeb, who had committed murder. Darrow argued the boys were a product of their upbringing, which they did not choose, and therefore should be considered less responsible. Their sentence was reduced from the death penalty to life imprisonment.

See how it works? We all draw the line in different places. Darrow embraces some measure of determinism in regard to the behaviors of Leopold and Loeb...but he stops short of speculating that perhaps his own behavior, his own closing argument at the trial -- http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/f ... 20court%2C -- was also wholly determine by his brain wholly in sync with the laws of matter.

Same with the sentence reduction. That was never not going to be reduced because in a wholly determined universe if it was reduced there was never any possibility of it being otherwise.

Then this part...

Libertarianism seems quite harsh in its ignoring of the consequence of the influence of upbringing on people’s choices, which can be immense.

Here let's presume that the Libertarians are right and "somehow" we acquired free will. But what any number of Libertarians then do is to insist that each of us as individuals is wholly responsible for our behaviors. Class, race, gender, ethnicity etc., are entirely moot. As are dasein and the Benjamin Button Syndrome.

[iambiguous]

Free will & Moral responsibility
AQA Ethics

Determinism on moral responsibility and punishment

Libertarians and determinists typically agree that moral responsibility depends on free will. Without free will, a person could not possibly have acted differently and so we cannot consider them praiseworthy nor blameworthy for their actions. It’s hard to make sense of the idea that a person is responsible for their action if there was no possibly way that they could have avoided it.

Which is why I am still unable to grasp how compatibilists reconcile determinism with moral responsibility. They speak of the need to punish those who behave immorally as though "somehow" the "internal" components of their brain/mind transcend the laws of matter. And all I can then presume -- compelled to in turn or not? -- is that they believe this only because they were never able not to believe it.

Since determinism claims that free will does not exist, it looks like moral responsibility cannot exist either and this brings the justification for punishment into question.

On the other hand, determinists have no way of demonstrating definitively -- scientifically? -- that human beings do not have free will. We're all basically ignorant -- woefully ignorant -- regarding how the "human condition" itself fits into whatever explanation there might be for existence itself.

Not that this will ever stop the libertarians among us from insisting this part is moot. They "just know" they have free will. Not only that, but those like henry quirk will insist as well that only those who embrace his own rooted existentially in dasein political prejudices are, in fact, true libertarians.

We wouldn’t regard a robot as responsible for its actions, because its actions are determined by its programming. Humans do not have programming, but our actions are determined by the state of our brain, which is itself determined by our genetics and environment. So in terms of moral responsibility, it’s hard to see why there would be a difference between us and the robot, on the deterministic view.

And yet in any number of ways, we are different. Unless, of course, in the only way that ultimately counts, we're not. So, many simply take an existential leap of faith to free will. As others do to God. They act as though they have it. And, who knows, maybe they do.

Then back to Charles Whitman?

Sam Harris gives another analogy which drives the point further. He referenced a true story about Charles Whitman, a man who suddenly went on a murderous rampage, killing his wife and several other random people. He left a note saying that he loves his wife and has no idea why he is behaving that way, requesting that his brain be studied for an explanation. It was discovered that he had a brain tumor pressing on his amygdala gland (the gland connected with emotions like anxiety and anger) which could explain his unexpected violent outburst.

On the other hand, was or was not Sam Harris himself wholly determined to reference him?