compatibilism

[Iwannaplato]

Question of the Month
What Grounds or Justifies Morality?
Stylianos Smyrnaios



Then Marx and Engels came along and suggested that human motivation revolves as well around the nature of political economy...as it too evolves over the centuries sustaining one or another means of production.

In other words, as though the means of communication and solidarity have little or nothing to do with either political or economic power.

Now back up into the clouds...

The above that I highlighted is already in the clouds. The clouds were never abandoned.

Well, sure, if some insist that Marx and Engels assessment of capitalism is far, far, far too abstract -- abstruse? -- to have any relevancy regarding human interactions, well, I won't attempt to dissuade them.

I was talking about the text you created. Marx and Engels both used a lot of concrete examples in their texts, especially Engels, but there was nothing to quote from them in that post.

Since we accept that we must maintain a moral attitude to life, we must consider the following principles. Any moral judgment has a practical character. In essence, it guides us on how we should act in our lives.

Cue the pragmatists?

Meaning?

Well -- click -- given my own rooted existentially in dasein personal opinion, this does revolve around democracy and the rule of law. Around moderation, negotiation and compromise.

Stll not sure what 'Cue the pragmatics' means. What were we to understand from that phrase?

Moral judgments are universal by nature. The same principles apply in similar circumstances, and to people with similar characteristics. In making and acting on moral judgments we must consider the rights and interests of other people, as our behavior always affects them too. We must understand certain values as essential components of justice; for example, the common good, impartiality, equal treatment, and respect for basic individual rights and freedoms. Finally, we must cultivate the virtues which will allow us to act correctly in situations of moral dilemmas.

See what I mean? All up and down the moral and political and spiritual and philosophical spectrum there are those who will embrace this frame of mind. Only to tack on a proviso:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s ... philosophy

Chances are your own frame of mind is among them.

Is it different from suggesting that compromise, negotiation and moderation were the values that seemed best to you.

What choice do I have here: Huh?

I'm not sure how that's an answer to 'is that different?'

The difference can hardly be greater in that in regard to meaning and morality and metaphysics, I'm not here arguing "my way or the highway". On the contrary, given all of the many different assessments of compatibilism I have encountered over the years, I'm really not any less fractured and fragmented at all.

Was the guy you quoted saying 'my way or the highway'?

Yeah, sure you admitted this came from dasein, your own. But you pressed for these values for years while judging other values. There are many objectivists who consider their positions potentially fallible.

Yet again...

The chances that my own understanding of compatibilism "here and now" is correct going back to [you tell me] almost certainly remains just a more or less wild ass guess.

Then you could explain what you think compatibilism is, in some detail, and then why you think it is impossible. As it is now you express incredulity, which implies you think - though, yes, are unsure - it is impossible, without ever explaining why you think this.

Not unlike your own, right?

The only difference I can see is that you avoid explaining, in this thread for example, why you draw the conclusions you do. Yes, you claim it is a guess, but we don't find out why it is your guess. You assert your positions, but don't explain what they are based on. You dismiss the writing of others, but don't explain why?

You didn't really address whether a common morals might lead to societal cohesion, might not be so different from suggesting for example that we be moderate, compromising and negotiate, at least for many people. Do you think he was wrong in his assertion that morals can lead to societal cohesion?

Yet the gist of this thread revolves instead around my attempt to understand how someone who does argue for or against moderation, negotiation and compromise, can be held responsible for doing so in a world where they were never, ever able to argue otherwise.

You can't see how you hold people who have different values and a different meta-ethical position responsible for their positions despite the possibility, even liklihood, that determinism is the case? You don't notice that you do hold people responsible? Do you miss when you level moral judgments at other people, both groups and individuals? Do you not notice this?

Perhaps if you look at how you manaage that, you'll have at least partial understanding of how other people do?

[Iwannaplato]

Did I discuss this example with him? To be honest, I think I did, but maybe not. Please note the gist of his argument.

I mean, Jusus, Now Phyllo is your secretary.
In recent times I have presented arguments here - two posts in a row.....
viewtopic.php?p=732442#p732442
and at ILP here
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/thoug ... =greenfuse
Here's where you chose not to respond to my issue and exactly as I predicted shifted the issue from determinism and responsibility to conflicting goods.
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/thoug ... =greenfuse

Here was my response to your refusal to interact with my post
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/thoug ... =greenfuse

Here you did not interact with my example of holding someone responsible in a determistic universe, yet again
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/thoug ... =greenfuse

Here, I pointed this out
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/thoug ... =greenfuse

And here, amazingly, your response is that you don't remember what I brought up, but you make a couple of assertions as if they apply, without even bother to find the example and argument I gave
THAT WAS IN RESPONSE TO YOUR REQUEST.
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/thoug ... =greenfuse

Here, I react to that vague, I haven't really read you post counterargument or perhaps assertoin
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/thoug ... =greenfuse

And then I gave up trying to get you to respond to my example and argument in that forum.

And here I find you asking PHyllo to give the gist of my argument, like you'e a CEO or Baron, who can't really be bothered to read something he asked someone to write.

Posting in three different philosophy forums now, there's no way I'm going to wade through all that. At least not until my brain compels me to.

So, let's cut to the chase. This guy with the hammer...?

Two forums. Why not wade through either of the first posts (in this forum two in a row) or the first that you refused to respond to in ILP? The rest are just me pointing out how you evaded and then asked me and others to repeat what you never responded to. And how precisely confirming my concern shifted the topic from responsbility and determinism to conflicting goods.

So, instead of actually reading and responding, you now want me to repeat my arguments with examples.

What the fuck is wrong with you?

Why not just say that you come here to show what texts and people's post trigger you to say? That your not very interested in what other people have to say unless they are young and attractive women who you can manage to actually read with some care and not throw just the same Iamb cliches at. That you really don't care what people are actually saying since you are sure it can't change your mind about anything.

I mean, seriously, this is what you say after my trying to get you to respond to a post over at ILP in post after post....

Maybe I missed that post, that example, but from my frame of mind “here and now”, any example you provide about any human interactions is no less but one more inherent component of the only reality there could ever possibly have been.

You complain when people are up in the clouds and say no one has responded to your request. A number of people respond to your request and you continue going on about people being up in the clouds and how you want them to do something as if they haven't done it.

Someone chases you down to get you to respond to what you have requested and you produce this:

Maybe I missed that post, that example, but from my frame of mind “here and now”, any example you provide about any human interactions is no less but one more inherent component of the only reality there could ever possibly have been.

Yes, worth posting twice.
You can't even be bothered to read it and actually respond to it.

You simply lack the ability or interest to interact with posts that are direct responses to requests on your part.
Oh, I can't wade through all of that.

And you don't have the courage to admit you've been acting like a dick. Judging and criticizing without even bothering to read. Making implicit and explicit moral judgements for years, despite the liklihood of determinism.

You're very good at saying or implying that the other person is some kind of objectivist who thinks they are right, while it's obvious you think you are right, yet you never, unlike many posters here explain why you are so sure of your arguments or even managing to interact with their posts.

If someone points any of this out, they are a Stooge, which is a moral judgment, and one made by someone who does not notice how he constantly makes other people's psychology the issue in his threads, and not in reaction, but preemptively.

It's really rather amazing. But you've been doing it for 20 years, so I suppose practice make perfect.

But, fine. I get it. You're not going to interact with my posts. Maybe you could consider not asking for things you're not interested in. You win. I no longer expect, even in the childlike, fanstasy-prone portions of my id, that you will even make on-point responses to what people write, even when one of them goes to the trouble of finding links to the times he did this, so Phyllo doesn't have to act as intermediary and also be ignored. Enjoy the victory!

[Atla]

Click.

Yes, I do get that a lot. And, sure, it may well be because the points others raise about me here are largely true. No way in hell I would ever deny that even if I was bursting at the seams with autonomy.

On the other hand, it might instead be this: that the arguments I make in regard to meaning and morality and metaphysics...that human existence is essentially meaningless, that human morality is rooted existentially in dasein, that death is "the end" period, that free will is a psychological illusion...disturbs those here who [to me] seem hell bent on routing philosophy in the general direction of their very own One True Path.

Though, sure, if I had access to Anton Chigurh, I'd bring him here with a fist full of quarters.

Or it might be that you can't or don't want to read people, so even though there are plenty of people including me, who have similar takes to yours (that human existence is essentially meaningless, that human morality is rooted existentially in dasein, that death is "the end" period, that free will is a psychological illusion...), to you everyone is an unhinged objectivist.

That's often my point as well. Human logic exists because we exist. We invented language in order to connect particular words to particular worlds...in order to sustain what might be deemed "the least dysfunctional" communities. Some things are said to be logical but different people have different renditions of where to draw the line here between being logical and being rational and being moral.

I don't draw a line, to me everything is logical so far on the ultimate level and I can show it. But a genuine beginning wouldn't be.

What difference does it make what any of us claim to believe "in our heads" about these things? If, in other words, we can't back the claims up with truly substantive and substantial and sustained evidence. My own main focus revolves more around those who [to me] discuss meaning, morality and metaphysics as though they were discussing things that [to them] clearly do seem to be applicalbe to all of us in the either/or world.

Then why are you talking to me, my point here was that compatibilism is by definition incoherent, and I think my argument is substantial enough.

Hey if you don't care what people believe in their heads, then why are you on a witch hunt against objectivism?

Welcome to Flatland 2.0? Or will someone here insist that, 4 dimensions or 5 dimensions or 10 dimensions, it's all the same. In other words, stuff like that has little or nothing to do with the fact that "here and now" they embody their very own definition of free will.

Unless, of course, they were never able not to define it that way.

Apparent free will in 5 dimensions could make a world of difference.

"In philosophy, Occam's razor...is the problem-solving principle that recommends searching for explanations constructed with the smallest possible set of elements. It is also known as the principle of parsimony or the law of parsimony (Latin: lex parsimoniae). Attributed to William of Ockham, a 14th-century English philosopher and theologian, it is frequently cited as Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, which translates as "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity", although Occam never used these exact words. Popularly, the principle is sometimes paraphrased as "The simplest explanation is usually the best one." wiki

Again -- click -- this is one of those expressions posters here will sometimes use in order to encompass what they deem to be the next best thing to objectivism. Or, perhaps, the next best thing to God?

In other words, what do you know, their own understanding of determinism and compatibilism reflect the simplest explanation!

On the other hand, if we start with the assumption that the human brain itself is just more matter, and that all matter obeys particular "immutable laws", why not conclude that the simplest explanation is determinism.

If you have a better tool for philosophy than Occam's razor then present it. If you have no tool then philosophy is pointless because you have infinitely many explanations/takes for anything, and they are all equally wrong.

Okay, but are you hard enough a determinist?

Do you or do you not believe that everything you think, feel, say and do [in your day to day interactions with others] is a reflection of the only possible reality?

What?? That's not a question of determinism, but of 4D/5D philosophy or multiverse theory etc.

Okay, in regard to the above, were you able to post anything here other than what your brain compelled you to post?

In which sense ffs

4D philosophy, absolute metaphysical FREE WILL sense - NO
4D philosophy, everyday psychological choices sense - YES

You can't deviate from the universal determinism, but whatever everyday choices you make, is also part of the universal determinism.

[phyllo]

Too right.

Wrong, actually. You need to do some reading.

Wrong actually. You need to do some reading.

Nobody needs to read anything. Internal factors are a common basis for decisions and actions.

If you understand French, then you will respond differently to someone speaking French than if you don't understand French.

If you are lost in the woods, then you will act differently if you know how to start a fire than if you don't know.

If you like chocolate ice cream and don't like vanilla ice cream, then you will get and eat more chocolate ice cream than vanilla ice cream.

If you are aroused by women and not men, then you seek out women and not men to get aroused.

If you want a car, then you will make different choices than if you don't want a car.


It's an endless list of examples.

If you're going to say, "well that's free-will", then you are drawing some sort of hard boundary around a person which prevents internal factors from influencing the person in the deterministic world.

[Flannel Jesus]

Wrong, actually. You need to do some reading.

Wrong actually. You need to do some reading.

Nobody needs to read anything. Internal factors are a common basis for decisions and actions.

Wrong actually. You need to do some reading.

Just kidding, of course I agree that internal factors are perfectly fine to be seen as casual factors, and therefore something that could be considered as part of a deterministic world view. I think IC is just arbitrarily deciding that they're not.

[Iwannaplato]

Oh no. This is true. And if anybody doesn't understand determinism, it might be the person who hasn't read the four definitions from significant sources I provided to expound that view.

There are determinism that have focused on external causes alone, but there is nothing in the definition of detemrinism that requires this. And I can tell you that every single determinist in this thread includes internal causes as part of what causes things. And again, why on earth would someone remove internal causes?

Actually, it denies that what you call "internal causes," such as will, choice, desire, and so forth, can authentically exist at all. It interprets them as "epiphenomena" (their word) of physical, chemical and electrical "phenomena," which are then misunderstood by the actor in question as if they were coming from him/her. But, insists Determinism, they are not authetic causes of anything, nor are they even a link in the causal chain.

1) you are specifically describing physicalist determinists and then lumping them into a specific subcategory. 2) you are confusing experiencing/consciousness with internal causes. Some physicalists and determinists may consider the experiencing of hunger as an epiphenomenon, but they sure as shit consider hunger as a driving cause. Ask a determinist biologist if they think these desires in animals are mere epiphomena. 3) Just to be doubly clear one does not have to take the stand that consciousness is an epiphenomenon to be a determinist. You find me quote that says that is a necessary belief to be a determinist. Not some determinist who thinks that, but that that is a necessary condition to be considered a determinist. 4) you are mixing categories all over the place in that list. 5) you're confused if you think that subset of determinists who think consciousness is an epiphenomenon isnt' real. That is not part of the definition of an epiphenomemon. It has to do with the causation of that particular phenomenon. But, again, even here you are conflating phenomena that most people who believe consciousness is an epiphenomomen do not believe are epiphenomena. And then you are assuming that determinism must have this as a belief. You are wrong on so many counts here.

If you read Philosophy of Mind at all,

Do you know how stupid you look right now to the people who have actually studied philosophy of mind. You look arrogant and stupid.
If you simply disagreed, that'd be one thing. You've done some reading, think you know what you're talking about...fine. But now you're condescending to people who actually have studied these things. And that, and only that, makes you look like an idiot. You opened up the ad hom.

Stanford Encyclopedia of PHilosophy

Determinism: Determinism is true of the world if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.

Now for some reason you think that determinists do not consider the conditions inside a human as part of this. Like a biologist who is a determinist, and most are, would think that a lion's hunger does not have causative power. Nor ours. You are even confused about epiphenomenalism. Some, those who hold to epiphenomenalism, might think our experience of hunger, not the hunger itself, is a mere epiphenomenon. But obviously they believe in internal causes having effects, there is nothing in science or philosophy to rule out internal causes.

But, you won't listen to us.

[Immanuel Can]

Oh no. This is true. And if anybody doesn't understand determinism, it might be the person who hasn't read the four definitions from significant sources I provided to expound that view.

There are determinism that have focused on external causes alone, but there is nothing in the definition of detemrinism that requires this.

You should probably read those definitions again.

I can tell you that every single determinist in this thread includes internal causes as part of what causes things.

Then they aren't Determinists, even if that's what they want to try to call themselves. For then, they don't believe behaviour is "determined" by prior forces. They believe in the possibility of free will, instead.

Actually, it denies that what you call "internal causes," such as will, choice, desire, and so forth, can authentically exist at all. It interprets them as "epiphenomena" (their word) of physical, chemical and electrical "phenomena," which are then misunderstood by the actor in question as if they were coming from him/her. But, insists Determinism, they are not authetic causes of anything, nor are they even a link in the causal chain.

1) you are specifically describing physicalist determinists

No, all of them.

Just to be doubly clear one does not have to take the stand that consciousness is an epiphenomenon to be a determinist.

As an alternative, they can call it a "delusion," or a "seeming"...they don't need to use the word "epiphenomenon." But it's the same idea: that no personal or "will" component can account for any behaviour.

If you read Philosophy of Mind at all,

Do you know how stupid...You opened up the ad hom.

I said nothing "ad hom." What told me you haven't read in Philosophy of Mind is your interpretation of Determinism, which shows a lack of knowledge of what Determinism would require.

Stanford Encyclopedia of PHilosophy

Determinism: Determinism is true of the world if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.

Do you read your own quotation? To be Determinism, everything has to be accounted for by some kind of "natural law." It says that, very plainly. And yet, that's what you're disputing? Why quote something that defeats your argument?

[phyllo]

I can't think of any determinist who believes that external of the body is somehow different to internal of the body.

If there are external causes, then there must be internal causes.

[Flannel Jesus]

If there is a such thing as souls or spirits or whatever, they can operate according to their own natural laws that may ostensibly by entirely different from what we think of as physics. I don't believe there IS such a thing, personally, but it's not contrary to determinism in any way.

If there is a separate non physical agent realm, then it seems reasonable to me that Agents evolve into the future, in a way that's bound by time, and either they evolve in a deterministic way, or they evolve in a way that has a bit of inherent genuine randomness.

[Iwannaplato]

If there is a such thing as souls or spirits or whatever, they can operate according to their own natural laws that may ostensibly by entirely different from what we think of as physics. I don't believe there IS such a thing, personally, but it's not contrary to determinism in any way.

Exactly. He is assuming determinists are very specific type of monist (a specific type of physicalist) for reasons of his own. Substance choice or how many substances exist are not criteria for being a determinist. Does state A lead inevitably to state B? State A being the sum total of everything present at Time A. He is clearly a determinist since God knows what will happen. That what will happen must be what God already knows will happen makes his belief a deterministic one.

If there is a separate non physical agent realm, then it seems reasonable to me that Agents evolve into the future, in a way that's bound by time, and either they evolve in a deterministic way, or they evolve in a way that has a bit of inherent genuine randomness.

Yes.

[Iwannaplato]

I can't think of any determinist who believes that external of the body is somehow different to internal of the body.

If there are external causes, then there must be internal causes.

There were once upon a time determinists who thought of things in terms of fate, which was often conceived of as being external. Even that doesn't have to be, but there were determinists somewhat like what he thinks a determinist has to be. But modern determinism considers those single cause fallacies....

Although some of the above forms of determinism concern human behaviors and cognition, others frame themselves as an answer to the debate on nature and nurture. They will suggest that one factor will entirely determine behavior. As scientific understanding has grown, however, the strongest versions of these theories have been widely rejected as a single-cause fallacy.[33] In other words, the modern deterministic theories attempt to explain how the interaction of both nature and nurture is entirely predictable.

...One's deliberations, choices, and actions will often be necessary links in the causal chain that brings something about. In other words, even though our deliberations, choices, and actions are themselves determined like everything else, it is still the case, according to causal determinism, that the occurrence or existence of yet other things depends upon our deliberating, choosing and acting in a certain way.

If he bothered to read the explanations of specific situations and moral responsbility given by myself and others in this thread, he see it is clearly in our descriptions that internal causes are considered part of the causes of future events.

And oddly, in context, there is nothing about his position that has anything to do with Libertarian Free Will. God would not be able to predict/know the actions of someone with Libertarian free will.

[iambiguous]

Criticising Strawson’s Compatibilism
Nurana Rajabova is wary of an attempt to dismiss determinism to keep free will

In our second scenario we’ll consider a death caused by an animal. Let us take a case in which a child dies as the result of a dog attack. The result being the same – the loss of the child – this will raise a similar degree of pain in the mother. This strong pain again may naturally raise feelings of anger or hatred. The mother may even develop a sense of vengeance toward the dog.

Indeed, and if we had ever been in a situation like that ourselves, it would no doubt seem all the more preposterous that such experiences are all "beyond our control". Instead, the more powerful our emotional reactions become, the more adament most will be in insisting that the dog and the child and the parent are certainly not just so many dominoes toppling over onto each other on cue re Mother Nature.

But again our question is whether the emotion arising as a reaction to this event is enough to hold the dog morally responsible.

Let's just say we can't run this by the dog to get its input. In fact, what seems most intriguing here [to me] is that the dog and the child and the parent all possess conscious minds. But what an extraordinary difference species and age can make.

"Somehow", when biology went in the direction of monkeys and apes and people, it created brains encompassing matter that [we presume] no other matter can touch. Not only did we become self-conscious, but along the way we invented science and philosophy. And then eventually "civilizations" able to go in any number of different directions pertaining to any number of human interactions.

Thank the Lord? Thank whatever may or may not be encompassed in Pantheism?

In this scenario, unlike the first one, there is some agency. A dog is a doer of its own actions. Yet, experience tells us that dogs, perhaps all animals for that matter, cannot be held morally responsible, because they lack sufficient cognitive capacity to understand the moral dimension of their actions.

Then the part where those who study the brain attempt to translate this "world of words" into chemical and neurological...components?

Once again we see that the reactive attitude deriving from the incident does not immediately justify the attribution of moral responsibility. In short, our reactive attitudes do not justify ascribing moral responsibility to beings with insufficient cognitive capacity to see moral distinctions.

On the other hand, what, for all practical purposes, does it then mean given a particular context for someone to not have sufficient cognitive capacity? Either in regard to our actions or our reactions.

Before we move on, I want to briefly mention the practice of putting down violent animals. Some might argue that this is the result of ascribing moral responsibility to animals, but I would say that it rather for the purpose of getting rid of the danger than from a sense of justice.

Over and again, in films and on TV, you come upon situations where an animal is put down for attacking a human being. As though the animal could have weighed in more carefully and chose not to. But: whether we do or do not ascribe moral responsibility here, the hard determinists tell us that it was for all practical purposes never really anything other than...destined?

[phyllo]

Before we move on, I want to briefly mention the practice of putting down violent animals. Some might argue that this is the result of ascribing moral responsibility to animals, but I would say that it rather for the purpose of getting rid of the danger than from a sense of justice.

That's how holding someone/thing responsible works in real life. It's an attempt to control "danger".

People who do horrible things because they are compelled to do it at gunpoint, are not held responsible because they are not likely to do such things again.

A mentally ill arsonist has to be restrained. A murderer has to be restrained. A vicious dog has to be restrained. And killing them is a guarantee that they won't repeat their behavior.

If you don't "hold them responsible" then they could do it again and again.

[Immanuel Can]

I can't think of any determinist who believes that external of the body is somehow different to internal of the body.

They don't. That's the point.

They think that all that's going on externally is physics. All that's going on internally is chemistry or biology. They don't think there's any such thing as a "will," or a "choice" or a "volition," purely because these entities have no physical, chemical or biological signature. Their assumption is that if something has no such signature, it cannot be real.

Ironically, the only way they could know that was the case is if Determinism is false: for if Determinism were true, there would be no "them" to know anything, no "mind" with which to "know" it, and no "will" with which to "decide" to "believe" it.

So you see, they cannot even remain faithful to their own theory.

[Flannel Jesus]

And that, my friends, is why they gotta teach about emergence in philosophy courses.