Philosophy Now Forum

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Mar 02, 2023 10:31 pm

BigMike wrote: ↑Thu Mar 02, 2023 12:23 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Mar 02, 2023 11:48 am

I did understand that we are discussing compatibilism.
Absolute Free Will is incompatible with determinism because if men could originate choices then men would be supernatural, which we are not. Nature is an orderly system.
There is a problem about administration of justice. Personal responsibility is never perfect because no person is perfect. Personal responsibility relates to the difficulty of the task compared with the circumstances surrounding the person who assumes the responsibility .The administration of justice in a world devoid of Free Will is therefore the balance of personal power against that person's circumstances.

It follows that when comparatively powerful persons increase the power of others that is merciful and just action.

Mercy therefore should be given to the wrongdoer which is most people, and praise should be given to all who overcome difficult circumstances which is most people.

It makes no sense to blame or praise people for what they do.

So, those of us who know this try not to blame when someone does something wrong. We pretty much shut up, shrug our shoulders, and use every excuse in the book to say that the person who did wrong had no choice. Case closed. And we try to get away with that.

But I think this is a response from someone who knows intellectually that blaming doesn't make sense, but who is still stuck in the blame game that results from the premise of free will because they have been misled their whole life.

We just don't know what to do when we can't blame or praise someone. We try to blame it on the guy's upbringing, his external influences and the situation he found himself in. We didn't have anything to do with any of that, right? Ha, ha.

Or did we. Ever heard about the six degrees of separation? Have we ever considered the fact that all the rest of us make up the wrongdoers "upbringing, his external influences and the situation he found himself in"? How about that?

We can't say that it's all those external influences' fault, except the influences that stem from ourselves. Or from our friends, or neighbors. Or from our society. We can't just say that the wind or the stars made him do it. Please.

Most adults are patient with their kids because we know it will take them some time to understand the difference between right and wrong.
But what if adults continue to act badly long after reaching adulthood because they still haven't learned their lesson?

This raises some intriguing and difficult problems. The obvious first query is why society did not intervene earlier in his life. Did we just let the child wander aimlessly through the streets? Did we imprison his parents and hand him off to his grotesquely elderly grandparents? Did we merely lock our doors and turn a blind eye?

Whatever the cause, now that the man is an adult, we might need to use a more forceful strategy to help him change.

The next thing that comes to mind is how society as a whole can change if we are all affected by outside forces and have no more free will to change than the person who did wrong.

Our brains work well, which is a good thing. We follow the rules of right and wrong that our parents taught us. So, even though we don't have free will, we can live by agreements as long as they're in our best interests. Because our brains are set up for survival of the fittest, it makes sense to give up a little to gain a lot.

One such agreement is the social contract. In exchange for the society's promise to safeguard their rights, meet their basic needs, and advance their well-being, individuals agree to abide by the laws and rules of the society in which they reside.

Some may claim that we already do this. Yes, our armies guard us against hostile foreign nations, and the police protect us against domestic violence and property theft.

The phrase "meet their basic needs, and advance their well-being" is interesting, though. What does society do in response to that? Is society upholding that end of the bargain?

Sorry, but not really. Because the ruling class, which decides how tax money is spent, rarely includes those without property. And they most definitely do not want their taxes to fund the education and proper upbringing of other people's children. Neither to provide losers with a respectable life.

So what are those losers supposed to do? With no job, nowhere to live, and no dignity? It's not rocket science, you know. So, of course, they turn to crime. From their perspective, that's the only sensible thing to do.

As determinists, we must accept that no one has free will, that moral responsibility is a myth, and that we must be guided by reason, like a social contract, and not by the nonsense of free will. And we must make sure that society does its part by meeting “their basic needs, and advance their well-being”.

BigMike wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 10:41 am

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Mar 02, 2023 10:31 pm

BigMike wrote: ↑Thu Mar 02, 2023 12:23 pm

I did understand that we are discussing compatibilism.
Absolute Free Will is incompatible with determinism because if men could originate choices then men would be supernatural, which we are not. Nature is an orderly system.
There is a problem about administration of justice. Personal responsibility is never perfect because no person is perfect. Personal responsibility relates to the difficulty of the task compared with the circumstances surrounding the person who assumes the responsibility .The administration of justice in a world devoid of Free Will is therefore the balance of personal power against that person's circumstances.

It follows that when comparatively powerful persons increase the power of others that is merciful and just action.

Mercy therefore should be given to the wrongdoer which is most people, and praise should be given to all who overcome difficult circumstances which is most people.

It makes no sense to blame or praise people for what they do.

So, those of us who know this try not to blame when someone does something wrong. We pretty much shut up, shrug our shoulders, and use every excuse in the book to say that the person who did wrong had no choice. Case closed. And we try to get away with that.

But I think this is a response from someone who knows intellectually that blaming doesn't make sense, but who is still stuck in the blame game that results from the premise of free will because they have been misled their whole life.

We just don't know what to do when we can't blame or praise someone. We try to blame it on the guy's upbringing, his external influences and the situation he found himself in. We didn't have anything to do with any of that, right? Ha, ha.

Or did we. Ever heard about the six degrees of separation? Have we ever considered the fact that all the rest of us make up the wrongdoers "upbringing, his external influences and the situation he found himself in"? How about that?

We can't say that it's all those external influences' fault, except the influences that stem from ourselves. Or from our friends, or neighbors. Or from our society. We can't just say that the wind or the stars made him do it. Please.

Most adults are patient with their kids because we know it will take them some time to understand the difference between right and wrong.
But what if adults continue to act badly long after reaching adulthood because they still haven't learned their lesson?

This raises some intriguing and difficult problems. The obvious first query is why society did not intervene earlier in his life. Did we just let the child wander aimlessly through the streets? Did we imprison his parents and hand him off to his grotesquely elderly grandparents? Did we merely lock our doors and turn a blind eye?

Whatever the cause, now that the man is an adult, we might need to use a more forceful strategy to help him change.

The next thing that comes to mind is how society as a whole can change if we are all affected by outside forces and have no more free will to change than the person who did wrong.

Our brains work well, which is a good thing. We follow the rules of right and wrong that our parents taught us. So, even though we don't have free will, we can live by agreements as long as they're in our best interests. Because our brains are set up for survival of the fittest, it makes sense to give up a little to gain a lot.

One such agreement is the social contract. In exchange for the society's promise to safeguard their rights, meet their basic needs, and advance their well-being, individuals agree to abide by the laws and rules of the society in which they reside.

Some may claim that we already do this. Yes, our armies guard us against hostile foreign nations, and the police protect us against domestic violence and property theft.

The phrase "meet their basic needs, and advance their well-being" is interesting, though. What does society do in response to that? Is society upholding that end of the bargain?

Sorry, but not really. Because the ruling class, which decides how tax money is spent, rarely includes those without property. And they most definitely do not want their taxes to fund the education and proper upbringing of other people's children. Neither to provide losers with a respectable life.

So what are those losers supposed to do? With no job, nowhere to live, and no dignity? It's not rocket science, you know. So, of course, they turn to crime. From their perspective, that's the only sensible thing to do.

As determinists, we must accept that no one has free will, that moral responsibility is a myth, and that we must be guided by reason, like a social contract, and not by the nonsense of free will. And we must theists worship a fantasised universal version of themselves.

It makes practical sense to praise right action. I even praise my dog when he is a good boy. He has no moral responsibility and is entirely instinctive which is a large part of why we love our animal companions.
I have moral responsibility which I shoulder because I must. People who don't get saddled with moral responsibility when they have some circumstantial ability to do so are inauthentic men.
Those losers to greedy or otherwise inauthentic men have to either rebel , violently or not according to how desperate the situation is, or else stoically accept that God or Fate have made them losers.
I am as you say "still stuck in the blame game"; I don't claim to be Jesus Christ.
But I hope to be led by my reason when I go to vote for that political party that actively fights against the basic flaw (exactly as your describe) of all societies.

Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 11:44 am

BigMike wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 10:41 am

It makes practical sense to praise right action. I even praise my dog when he is a good boy. He has no moral responsibility and is entirely instinctive which is a large part of why we love our animal companions.
I have moral responsibility which I shoulder because I must. People who don't get saddled with moral responsibility when they have some circumstantial ability to do so are inauthentic men.
Those losers to greedy or otherwise inauthentic men have to either rebel , violently or not according to how desperate the situation is, or else stoically accept that God or Fate have made them losers.
I am as you say "still stuck in the blame game"; I don't claim to be Jesus Christ.
But I hope to be led by my reason when I go to vote for that political party that actively fights against the basic flaw (exactly as your describe) of all societies.

A couple of things:

1. I agree that giving praise is good, and here is why:
   • Everything we do is because we have needs that must be met. Without needs, we would do nothing. We wouldn't even bother to breathe if we didn't need oxygen.
   • Natural selection, which led to our evolution, has made it so that we always want to do things in the best way possible, in some meaning of the word "best". The name of the game is "survival of the fittest".
   • Praise can satisfy a lot of needs, like the need to belong and be accepted, as well as esteem needs. Thus, praise can make someone more likely to repeat the same behavior. Criticism can have the opposite effect, making someone less likely to do something again to better meet their social and self-esteem needs, so it is just as constructive.
2. I disagree that you are morally responsible, and here is why:
   • Without free will, you are not in control of your actions and, therefore, not responsible for them.
   • If you do something ethical and of high moral value, it is because doing so meets one or several of your basic needs. Therefore, there is no distinction between moral behavior and other behavior, like breathing. In either case, you have no free choice; it is what you think serves you the best.
   • You might do something wrong if your brain thinks you can get away with it and that it will help you. And your brain may be right when it says morally wrong behavior is "best" if society doesn't punish it hard enough or make the consequences bad enough.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 10:12 pm

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 6:22 pm I commented on this above. If Jane's life is a good life then she owes it all to the fact that her mother's friend of her own free will discussed the pregnancy with her mother. And while Mary of her own free will had opted to abort Jane, now she opts to give birth as a result of this exchange between two autonomous minds. Whereas in a wholly determined world where Mary aborts her, she was never able to opt not to. I merely interject here with my own assessment of the role that dasein and the Benjamin Button Syndrome play here.

But if Jane's life has become a miserable hellhole, she might curse her mother for freely choosing to bring her into this stinking world. So, of her own free will, she might choose to commit suicide.

Sure or Sally who might have had a happy life doesn't get to live in a free will world. Or Sally in the determinist world who commits suicide.

Yes, this is the part that [to me] is the most mind-boggling. I think back on all of the extraordinary experiences I have had and my emotional reactions to them. Then, sure, I think, "is it really possible that all of that unfolded in a determined universe such that I had nothing to do with actually creating this reality other than in behaving autonomically [like a beating heart] given chemical and neurological cues in my brain?"

Yeah, that seems preposterous. But then I think back on all of the extraordinary dream "realities" I have "experienced". In the dream it was like I was not dreaming it at all. It was real. Only, of course, it wasn't.

Then the part where I conclude that the brain is just more matter. Unless "somehow" re either God or a No God Nature I did acquire autonomy. But: how to know this for sure?

Again, from my frame of mind, what difference does it make in a determined world that Mary was a Catholic and was afraid of her father's opinion? All of that is no less an inherent manifestation of the only possible world.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 10:12 pm Just me explaining the causes that led to the abortion. That's all. Those in the determined world.
The ponit being, again, that a free will world allows both things that will be appreciated and things that are hated to happen. Just as in a determined world. That's all.

All I can suggest is that you bring this up with Jane. Her mother was persuaded by a friend to appreciate more than hate the reality of giving birth. There was real choice involved.

So, sure, in free will world, the number of abortions may rise and fall due to any number of social, political and economic factors.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 10:12 pm It's odd that you say in a free will world....
and you list causes
that determine an outcome.
In a free will world it could be mere caprice. A free will world is precisely one where causes do not determine outcomes.

No, not in my view. Pure caprice would revolve around Mary just flipping a coin or rolling the dice to decide whether to give birth. And if Jane were to ask her mom about her birth, Mary might tell her, "well, you are here because a friend of mine convinced me to give birth to you." Then there are the existential, rooted in dasein causes behind her friend choosing to do this.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 10:12 pmWell, if you think you know what a free will world would be like. Me, I don't know.

Right. Me with the "fractured and fragmented" mind in regard to both the morality of abortion and regarding the extent to which free will is factor at all here thinks I know what a free will world would be like.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 10:12 pm Well, you made a clear statement without qualification.

If you say X is true. Or it must be X.

What "clear statement"? Whether in regard to morality or determinism here what am I saying re "If you say X is true. Or it must be X."

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 10:12 pm And I comment that I don't know how you know this referring me to other things you've said that contradict your expressed certainty isn't really a response. Sure, when I read you say some things you seem uncertain. But then you make statements that are unqualified and you express things simply as being X.

You lose me here. And please scrap the X. What in particular relating to abortion do you construe as being applicable to me?

Look, in the OP of this thread -- https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382 -- I examine my own take on dasein pertaining to my own views on the morality of abortion. Given a free will world.

How then is your own opinion regarding the morality of abortion, predicated on your own experiences, different?

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 10:12 pm That's a different topic than what we were just talking about.

It's the whole point from my end! Given a free will world how is moral responsibility pertaining to abortion not profoundly rooted in dasein and in the Benjamin Button Syndrome? This is precisely where the moral objectivists among us refuse to go in my opinion. Even in assuming human autonomy they want to believe that in using the tools of philosophy or one or another political ideology or their own take on nature [re Satyr], rational men and women can "deduce" the wisest, most virtuous and deontologically sound behaviors. Or, for others, one or another God.

I definitely don't know. At least pertaining to my own capacity to actually demonstrate what "I" think "I" know "here and now" is in fact true. I'm not an objectivist here myself. Quite the contrary.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 10:12 pmWell, great, but you expressed things as if you were sure it was a certain way in a free will world.

Cite particular examples of this. I'm not sure what you mean.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Feb 28, 2023 9:58 pm2) You seem to know somehow that in a free will world dasein still, to some degree controls people. Please don't explain why you believe dasein does this. I understand the arguments. I just have no idea why this need apply in a free willl world. I don't even know what a free will world functions like. How do you know that in a free will world there are limits on freedom?

Controls people? As though dasein turns them into robots or cyborgs? That's your take on my take.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 10:12 pmReally. I said robots or cyborgs. I missed that. In any case, great. You don't think that dasein necessarily controls us in a free will world. You don't know. Clear.

I never said you said that. I was trying to determine what you did mean by control...and those two examples popped into my head. And dasein doesn't control us so much as predispose us existentially to embody differing moral and political prejudices.

That's why I noted this:

If you were born and raised in a Chinese village in 500 BC, or in a 10th century Viking community or in a 19th century Yanomami village or in a 20th century city in the Soviet Union or in a 21st century American city, how might your value judgments be different? But that's not to say that these very different components of very different lives compels every behavior someone makes.

And if you really understood my arguments you wouldn't sound [to me] like you really don't at all.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 10:12 pmWell, that's a truism. But I think you contradict yourself, sometimes through patterns of examples. Sometimes through seeming to express knowing when I don't know how you know.

Cite specific examples of this. You might actually be right here but in regard to what particular contradictions. There are few things relating to either morality or determinism that I truly do feel confident in stating. There are the objective facts applicable to all of us, of course, but beyond that...?

As for how a free will world functions, well, assuming that we do live in a free will world, just look around you. It functions like that.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 10:12 pm.If you had framed it like this:

Let's assume for a moment the world we live in is a free will world. If that is the case, I see dasein having very strong effects on people's beliefs, the choices they make and the choices they notice/consider.

Then I understand your assertions more clearly.

IOW it's clear that you are looking at our world now and considering that as a base for conclusions about what a free will world is like.

Yes, in regard to the is/ought world...moral and political and spiritual value judgments...dasein seems to play a crucial role for me. And in regard to the Big Questions I come back again and again to "the gap" and "Rummy's Rules".

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 10:12 pm.Since you have said you don't know what this world is, it seemed like you were simply saying, if there is a free will world, it would function like X. Given that this world may not be one, I had no idea how you could draw that conclusion.

Okay but X in the either/or world is one thing -- Mary did abort Jane, Mary does believe she chose to do so of her own volition -- but X in the is/ought world or all the way out at end of the metaphysical limb is far more problematic: is the abortion moral? did she have free will?

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Thu Mar 02, 2023 8:44 am

iambiguous wrote: ↑Thu Mar 02, 2023 3:52 am

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 8:05 pm I'm like 75% sure that's what you mean when you keep on bringing up "objectivists" even though, as far as I know, nobody you've been talking to considers themselves objectivists ...

Again, being a moral objectivist as I understand it revolves around someone who is convinced that they are in sync with their "true self" -- their soul -- in sync further with the "right thing to do".

And few things in this world are more dangerous, in my view, than those like this who acquire any significant political power in a community. Almost any community.

"My way or the highway". "One of us or one of them", And, for some, that means the gulags and the death camps.

On the other hand, neck and neck with them are the moral nihilists...those who own and operate the global economy and the sociopaths.

Well, click, of course.

Who are you talking about though? Who are these objectivists you bring up so frequently? Phyllo? Iwannaplato? Me?

Again:

...being a moral objectivist as I understand it revolves around someone who is convinced that they are in sync with their "true self" -- their soul -- in sync further with the "right thing to do".

Or the right way to understand something.

Does that describe you or anyone else here in regard to either their moral, political and spiritual value judgments or in grappling with the Big Questions?

Yes?

Then, in my own "rooted existentially in dasein" subjective opinion, you are an objectivist.

On the other hand, in regard to the either/or world, I am myself an objectivist.

That's not how anyone else uses the term. Just someone thinking they're correct isn't enough to qualify someone as an "objectivist", and criticizing them for being an "objectivist" just because they think they are correct about something is inherently hypocritical, because in the act of criticizing you show that you yourself think YOU are correct about something - that you are correct to disprove of them thinking they are correct, and they are incorrect in being an "objectivist".

So, I mean, if that's what you want the word "objectivist" to mean, you can't criticise someone for being an objectivist without yourself becoming an objectivist.

But really, the label is entirely pointless. It doesn't provide any value to the conversation, it's a confusion and a red herring. If you think I'm incorrect about something, don't waste time calling me an objectivist, tell me what I'm incorrect about and why. I'm a philosopher, I'm used to being wrong. Skip the (entirely misused) label and tell me why I'm wrong

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Thu Mar 02, 2023 8:46 am

iambiguous wrote: ↑Thu Mar 02, 2023 4:22 am

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 1:34 pm That actually kind of ties into this funny thought process I regularly have, which illustrates a possible mental strategy for compatibilists:

There was a time when I was very lonely. As a pure determinist at the time, I thought "maybe I'm determined to be lonely."

And then the thought occurred to me, I don't *want* to be determined to be lonely.

And then I did something about it, and now I'm not lonely.

I "chose" what I was determined to be.

I didn't do that as some sort of exception to the laws of physics though, I did it as part of the physical system we're all in.

You can accept determinism, and make choices about what sort of determined future you would prefer to have.

Sort of

Right. This definitely proves that "somehow" when exploding stars created all the elements needed to create rocky planets needed to create biological matter needed to create conscious matter needed to create self-conscious, it all becomes perfectly clear that Flannel Jesus nailed it above.

You can "choose" to become a free will determinist. As long as this reconciliation is confined solely to what you believe "in your head" it simply isn't necessary to provide others with any actual, say, hard evidence.

There isn't a part of what I said that's even asking for hard evidence. It's abstract reasoning based on considering possible states of the world.

Then our respective interest in philosophy is different. Because -- click -- in regard to things revolving around human interactions that come into conflict, this is the question I am most preoccupied with...

"How ought one to live morally in a world awash in both conflicting goods and in contingency chance and change?"

Only this thread pertains to whether or not the answer we give to that questions is even one that we opted of our own free will to provide.

Though sure of you wish to convey to a woman agonizing over her unwanted pregnancy that your own "abstract reasoning based on considering possible states of the world" is as far as you are interested in going, fine. Get back to us with her reaction to that.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Thu Mar 02, 2023 8:46 amIf you don't like doing that, if you need perfect certain scientific truths in order to continue thinking about this problem, they're not coming any time soon. So once again, you have permission to stop thinking. Us other folks, we don't need that.

That's my point. Revolving around this:

I argue that while philosophers may go in search of wisdom, this wisdom is always truncated by the gap between what philosophers think they know [about anything] and all that there is to be known in order to grasp the human condition in the context of existence itself. That bothers some. When it really begins to sink in that this quest is ultimately futile, some abandon philosophy altogether. Instead, they stick to the part where they concentrate fully on living their lives "for all practical purposes" from day to day.

Though, sure, pursue your exchange of intellectual contraption deductions -- words defining and defending other words -- and let that be enough. Take pride in being one of Will Durant's "epistemologists".

Let's simply move on to others more in sync with our own interests here. Those who think about thinking itself more the way we do.

Besides, we never know what's coming next from the "hard guys and gals". New experiments bringing new conclusions. I always check in from time to time regarding that.

You're not saying anything. You're not even trying to make progress, in any direction. You're not trying to learn something, you're not trying to convince me of something, you're not getting to be convinced of something, you're just saying silliness.

For pages and pages, you have had absolutely no direction in any of your interactions on this thread. You're just marking time saying nothing.

Where do you want to go in this conversation? Figure that out, and start going there.

BigMike wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 3:29 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 11:44 am

BigMike wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 10:41 am

It makes practical sense to praise right action. I even praise my dog when he is a good boy. He has no moral responsibility and is entirely instinctive which is a large part of why we love our animal companions.
I have moral responsibility which I shoulder because I must. People who don't get saddled with moral responsibility when they have some circumstantial ability to do so are inauthentic men.
Those losers to greedy or otherwise inauthentic men have to either rebel , violently or not according to how desperate the situation is, or else stoically accept that God or Fate have made them losers.
I am as you say "still stuck in the blame game"; I don't claim to be Jesus Christ.
But I hope to be led by my reason when I go to vote for that political party that actively fights against the basic flaw (exactly as your describe) of all societies.

A couple of things:

1. I agree that giving praise is good, and here is why:
   • Everything we do is because we have needs that must be met. Without needs, we would do nothing. We wouldn't even bother to breathe if we didn't need oxygen.
   • Natural selection, which led to our evolution, has made it so that we always want to do things in the best way possible, in some meaning of the word "best". The name of the game is "survival of the fittest".
   • Praise can satisfy a lot of needs, like the need to belong and be accepted, as well as esteem needs. Thus, praise can make someone more likely to repeat the same behavior. Criticism can have the opposite effect, making someone less likely to do something again to better meet their social and self-esteem needs, so it is just as constructive.
2. I disagree that you are morally responsible, and here is why:
   • Without free will, you are not in control of your actions and, therefore, not responsible for them.
   • If you do something ethical and of high moral value, it is because doing so meets one or several of your basic needs. Therefore, there is no distinction between moral behavior and other behavior, like breathing. In either case, you have no free choice; it is what you think serves you the best.
   • You might do something wrong if your brain thinks you can get away with it and that it will help you. And your brain may be right when it says morally wrong behavior is "best" if society doesn't punish it hard enough or make the consequences bad enough.

There is no distinction between moral behaviour and other behaviour like, for instance, breathing. The more I know I am nothing other than a mode of nature the more I know that moral behaviour * is like breathing.

*When I say "moral behaviour" in this context of free will/determinism, I mean ethical behaviour.

Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 6:11 pm

BigMike wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 3:29 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 11:44 am
It makes practical sense to praise right action. I even praise my dog when he is a good boy. He has no moral responsibility and is entirely instinctive which is a large part of why we love our animal companions.
I have moral responsibility which I shoulder because I must. People who don't get saddled with moral responsibility when they have some circumstantial ability to do so are inauthentic men.
Those losers to greedy or otherwise inauthentic men have to either rebel , violently or not according to how desperate the situation is, or else stoically accept that God or Fate have made them losers.
I am as you say "still stuck in the blame game"; I don't claim to be Jesus Christ.
But I hope to be led by my reason when I go to vote for that political party that actively fights against the basic flaw (exactly as your describe) of all societies.

A couple of things:

1. I agree that giving praise is good, and here is why:
   • Everything we do is because we have needs that must be met. Without needs, we would do nothing. We wouldn't even bother to breathe if we didn't need oxygen.
   • Natural selection, which led to our evolution, has made it so that we always want to do things in the best way possible, in some meaning of the word "best". The name of the game is "survival of the fittest".
   • Praise can satisfy a lot of needs, like the need to belong and be accepted, as well as esteem needs. Thus, praise can make someone more likely to repeat the same behavior. Criticism can have the opposite effect, making someone less likely to do something again to better meet their social and self-esteem needs, so it is just as constructive.
2. I disagree that you are morally responsible, and here is why:
   • Without free will, you are not in control of your actions and, therefore, not responsible for them.
   • If you do something ethical and of high moral value, it is because doing so meets one or several of your basic needs. Therefore, there is no distinction between moral behavior and other behavior, like breathing. In either case, you have no free choice; it is what you think serves you the best.
   • You might do something wrong if your brain thinks you can get away with it and that it will help you. And your brain may be right when it says morally wrong behavior is "best" if society doesn't punish it hard enough or make the consequences bad enough.

There is no distinction between moral behaviour and other behaviour like, for instance, breathing. The more I know I am nothing other than a mode of nature the more I know that moral behaviour * is like breathing.

*When I say "moral behaviour" in this context of free will/determinism, I mean ethical behaviour.

Well, I make a difference between moral behavior (which exists) and moral responsibility (which doesn't exist).

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Mar 02, 2023 10:15 am Can he prove that the people he is disagreeing with are objectivists? Can he prove the attributes he gives to people he labels this way?No.

Again, simply unbelievable.

Well, if I do say so myself.

I tell others what I mean when I use the word objectivism. Just as I do when I use the word dasein. And, over the years, I have cited any number of particular sets of circumstances in which my own understanding of these words is "for all practical purposes" made applicable.

Now, if you know someone convinced that they are wholly in sync with the "real me" and come in here disdainful of those who do not share their own conclusions regarding either moral, political and spiritual value judgments or explanations regarding the Big Questions -- "my way or you're wrong" -- what would you call them?

Me? I'm "fractured and fragmented"/"drawn and quartered" in regard to both.

You're not? Okay, given a particular context like Mary and Jane and abortion above, explain to me why you are not. Note how my assessment of human identity in the is/ought world explored on these threads...

https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=176529
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382

...is not applicable to you given a set of circumstances most here will be familiar with.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Mar 02, 2023 10:15 amBut he's confident enough to speak label them this way and to speak about them insultingly.

As I have noted time and again, anytime someone wants to sustain a civil and intelligent exchange, I won't be the first to make things personal. And, polemics aside, it is often others who speak insultingly of me. The objectivists in particular. They grasp what is a stake for them regarding their own precious Self if my points are reasonable. So they make the exchange all about me.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Mar 02, 2023 10:15 amBut for a fairly abstract ontological issue - determinsm vs. free will - it seems one needs 'proof', even though it is not clear that resolving this issue changes the way people interact with each other.

Exchanges regarding determinism and free will are as abstract as we make them. Though, in my view, certain "serious philosophers" are hell bent on keeping the exchanges up in the didactic clouds. Why? Because up there it all revolves around dueling definitions and deductions. Philosophy as a world of words.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 6:24 pm Now, if you know someone convinced that they are wholly in sync with the "real me" and come in here disdainful of those who do not share their own conclusions regarding either moral, political and spiritual value judgments or explanations regarding the Big Questions -- "my way or you're wrong" -- what would you call them?

That's called a belief. People who allow themselves to think things usually come to have beliefs. Beliefs can be discussed, they can be corrected, they can be at different levels of certainty, they can be justifiable rationally or unjustifiable, but you seem disdainful of all belief all together.

Which is paradoxical because that's a belief in itself.

If you allowed yourself to start thinking, instead of saying things like "well I don't know how consciousness evolved so I guess I can stop thinking now", you might come to have some beliefs yourself

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 6:22 pm I commented on this above. If Jane's life is a good life then she owes it all to the fact that her mother's friend of her own free will discussed the pregnancy with her mother. And while Mary of her own free will had opted to abort Jane, now she opts to give birth as a result of this exchange between two autonomous minds. Whereas in a wholly determined world where Mary aborts her, she was never able to opt not to. I merely interject here with my own assessment of the role that dasein and the Benjamin Button Syndrome play here.

But if Jane's life has become a miserable hellhole, she might curse her mother for freely choosing to bring her into this stinking world. So, of her own free will, she might choose to commit suicide.

If there is no free will, as I assert, it would significantly change the meaning of your statement above. In a deterministic world, Mary's decision to abort or give birth to Jane would not be a matter of her free will, but rather a result of prior causes and conditions that led her to make that decision.

Therefore, if there is no free will, Jane's existence and subsequent experience of a good or miserable life would not be a matter of her mother's free choice. It would be the result of a chain of cause and effect that led to her birth and subsequent experiences. In this case, Jane could not blame or praise her mother for her circumstances since both her mother's decision and Jane's experiences were determined by prior causes and conditions.

Moreover, the concepts of dasein and the Benjamin Button Syndrome, which suggest that an individual's experiences and choices shape their life, would not hold in a deterministic world. Instead, an individual's life would be determined by external factors beyond their control.

As you've described it above, your problem or dilemma (I'm not sure which it is) doesn't make any sense to me.

BigMike wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 6:17 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 6:11 pm

BigMike wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 3:29 pm
A couple of things:

1. I agree that giving praise is good, and here is why:
   • Everything we do is because we have needs that must be met. Without needs, we would do nothing. We wouldn't even bother to breathe if we didn't need oxygen.
   • Natural selection, which led to our evolution, has made it so that we always want to do things in the best way possible, in some meaning of the word "best". The name of the game is "survival of the fittest".
   • Praise can satisfy a lot of needs, like the need to belong and be accepted, as well as esteem needs. Thus, praise can make someone more likely to repeat the same behavior. Criticism can have the opposite effect, making someone less likely to do something again to better meet their social and self-esteem needs, so it is just as constructive.
2. I disagree that you are morally responsible, and here is why:
   • Without free will, you are not in control of your actions and, therefore, not responsible for them.
   • If you do something ethical and of high moral value, it is because doing so meets one or several of your basic needs. Therefore, there is no distinction between moral behavior and other behavior, like breathing. In either case, you have no free choice; it is what you think serves you the best.
   • You might do something wrong if your brain thinks you can get away with it and that it will help you. And your brain may be right when it says morally wrong behavior is "best" if society doesn't punish it hard enough or make the consequences bad enough.

There is no distinction between moral behaviour and other behaviour like, for instance, breathing. The more I know I am nothing other than a mode of nature the more I know that moral behaviour * is like breathing.

*When I say "moral behaviour" in this context of free will/determinism, I mean ethical behaviour.

Well, I make a difference between moral behavior (which exists) and moral responsibility (which doesn't exist).

That is an interesting distinction, but I think I disagree.
It's immoral not to take responsibility for a child who is in danger, when you can help him. Same with an adult, if you can help then it's immoral not to help.In order to be able to help someone who needs help we must breathe and otherwise try to keep healthy and safe. So it's impossible to behave morally unless you also take responsibility.
Taking responsibility is actual action actual behaviour.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 6:24 pm

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Mar 02, 2023 10:15 am Can he prove that the people he is disagreeing with are objectivists? Can he prove the attributes he gives to people he labels this way?No.

Again, simply unbelievable.

Well, if I do say so myself.

I tell others what I mean when I use the word objectivism. Just as I do when I use the word dasein. And, over the years, I have cited any number of particular sets of circumstances in which my own understanding of these words is "for all practical purposes" made applicable.

Now, if you know someone convinced that they are wholly in sync with the "real me" and come in here disdainful of those who do not share their own conclusions regarding either moral, political and spiritual value judgments or explanations regarding the Big Questions -- "my way or you're wrong" -- what would you call them?

Why not simply disagree with their position?
I think it's odd that you assume you have to give them a general pejorative label and one that often has 'fulminating fanatical' or something close to that before it. Also I don't really see how you're not in this category. You're certainly disdainful and futher it seems people gain this label for not being drawn and quartered or not being fractured and fragmented. You certainly seem to consider them wrong to be certain and express this and decide this with enough certainty to label them insultingly. IOW at a meta level of knowledge you think 'my way or you're wrong.' Your way being (supposedly) uncertain. You have an us them attitude. Sure, you're neither determinist nor free willer. But you still manage to have an us/them with the objectivists as the them.

"My way or the highway". "One of us or one of them", And, for some, that means the gulags and the death camps.

My sense is that this is extreme polemics for a term you aim at Flannel Jesus and Phyllo for example. Yes, you don't say that they want to open gulags, but since someone gets called an objectivist for thinking you're wrong about something regarding determinism and free will and not being drawn and quartered, I think this is problematic.

And note: every time you start labeling and bemoaning the objectivists you are encountering negatively you are making posts that are about them. Something that when it happens to you, you consider wrong.

It comes off as you are not aware of what you are doing AND about things that seem very important to you.

Further this...

"my way or you're wrong"

People disagree with each other. That doesn't necessarily put them in some 'my way or....' category. And it doesn't require proof. People come to the forum express their views and yes, may think you are wrong about an issue. That doesn't put them in some category unless that also puts you in one. Your way seems to include that people should be fractured and fragmented or they must prove there is a reason not to be. Your way or they are wrong. If they can't prove that determinism is the case, but they believe in it, then it's not your way. Likewise with free will. I'm openly unsure of which is the case and you are asking me to demonstrate why I am not fractured and fragmented.

That's clearly a way. It's not just holding some kind of philosophical position, but not only that one must have some set of internal experiences about those positions.

Me? I'm "fractured and fragmented"/"drawn and quartered" in regard to both.

You're not? Okay, given a particular context like Mary and Jane and abortion above, explain to me why you are not.

I don't need to justify my not having certain internal states. It's as if the onus is on others to demonstrate that your idea that we all actually should be drawn and quartered, fragmented adn fractured is false. We're talking about compatiblism, free will and determinism. That demand is clearly and obviously trying to make the conversation about us on a kind of intra-psychic psychological and personal level. And it is you talking about yourself on a personal level. Making that a part of the topic of the thread..

I could see asking others what makes them think one or the other is the case. That you can't decide which is the case. Fine.

But since I have made it clear time and again in the thread that I don't know whether determinism of free will is the case, this is a strange question.

As I have noted time and again, anytime someone wants to sustain a civil and intelligent exchange, I won't be the first to make things personal.

OK, great. In recent posts you seemed to be aiming a kind of generalized response to a number of posters, not listed, who were objectivists. It didn't seem to fit some of the people you were disagreeing with, but great if that's your goal.

And, polemics aside, it is often others who speak insultingly of me. The objectivists in particular. They grasp what is a stake for them regarding their own precious Self if my points are reasonable. So they make the exchange all about me.

So, you know about their internal states and motivations. You're drawn and quartered about a number of issues, uncertained, fractured and fragmented about those. But the problem of other minds is not one for you. You know what motivates their actions here. And from what I can you are very confident about this despite it contradicting what they say about their internal states and motivations.

Heck, you might be right, but your epistemology seems to shift quite a bit.

But for a fairly abstract ontological issue - determinsm vs. free will - it seems one needs 'proof', even though it is not clear that resolving this issue changes the way people interact with each other.

Exchanges regarding determinism and free will are as abstract as we make them.

Of course concrete examples are imporant, I think, to making clear what abstract ideas mean/entail/are justified by. But my point here was that you have, it seems to me, a loose say of epistemological criteria for when you decide you know the motivations of other people and can confidently call them names, but when it comes to something like determinism you want 'proof'. And since you seem to think people need to justify not being fractured and fragmented, it means that even if someone says they cannot be sure about their position on determinism and free will, they still should have some kind of proof or they are objectivists. But when it comes to your own action in the world, you don't need this. However for taking a position on these ontological issues, which may or may not lead to specific actions in the world, you do need this.

Though, in my view, certain "serious philosophers" are hell bent on keeping the exchanges up in the didactic clouds. Why? Because up there it all revolves around dueling definitions and deductions. Philosophy as a world of words.

So, here you are with a view about other people's motivations and you do not have proof and you do not seem to be fragmented and fractured about it.

So, here you could have a base for understanding how other people might have a view about determinism, not be fragmented and fractured over it but also not have proof.