Philosophy Now Forum

phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 1:50 pm

Fine, let him explain all that to Jane. Let him explain how Mom was never able not to give birth to her, but here she is.

Now, a libertarian might suggest instead that, "you are with us now, Jane, because your mother did have free will and a friend of hers persuaded her not to abort you".

Different possibilities are likely in both a determined and in a free will world. But only in the free will universe are they attributable to men and women who were able to opt among conflicting possibilities.

"Jane, you're here because your mother didn't abort you"

Happy now?

After all, why on Earth do any number of free will advocates come back again and again to insisting that human autonomy is crucial in order to hold people morally responsible for their behaviors?

phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 1:50 pmMost people behave as compatibilists. They punish those who break the rules ... they hold them responsible for their actions.
I posted a study about this either at ILP or here. I suppose it's pointless to look for it and repost it.

phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 1:50 pmThese anonymous "free will advocates" are arguing 'moral responsibility' from their comfy couches. If some serial rapist was stalking their neighborhood, they would lock him up whether he had autonomy or not. Right?

It happened because John's argument did not persuade her. But that's not to say that another argument from another person would also have been rejected. What's crucial from the perspective of the truly hardcore determinists is that any arguments from anyone at all were futile because Mary's brain compelled her to abort Jane. John and myself and others involved were but more dominoes toppling over on cue.

phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 1:50 pmMaybe she would reject every argument.

phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 1:50 pmMaybe she doesn't want a child under any circumstances.

phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 1:50 pmA child is what you and John want.

phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 1:50 pmYou seem to have no respect for what Mary wants. You don't seem to consider that what Mary does, is fulfilling Mary's real desires in the situation.

phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 1:50 pmThe idea that "Mary's brain compelled her to abort", denies the possibility that Mary's brain represents her will.

Click.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if you were convinced not only that this is really, really clever, but that it also encompasses a really, really profound insight as well.

But the bottom line [mine "here and now"] is that had Mary been compelled by a brain wholly in sync with the laws of matter to abort Jane, you wouldn't be telling her much at all. Except perhaps in a metal institution?

phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 11:18 pm
So what the fuck are you saying?

phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 11:18 pm

Click.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if you were convinced not only that this is really, really clever, but that it also encompasses a really, really profound insight as well.

But the bottom line [mine "here and now"] is that had Mary been compelled by a brain wholly in sync with the laws of matter to abort Jane, you wouldn't be telling her much at all. Except perhaps in a metal institution?

I don't know why the fuck you want people to talk to "Jane"? Over and over.

phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 11:18 pm What's the discussion about? What is she asking? What does she want to know? Why is she talking to me or Sam Harris or someone on this site?

phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 11:18 pm Your "bottom line" implies that if Mary had free-will then "Jane" would be alive but she in not because of determinism.

When posters point out that implication, you deny that's what you are saying.

So what the fuck are you saying?

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 11:38 pm

phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 11:18 pm
So what the fuck are you saying?

It's in the name. "Iambiguous". Saved my self a lot of annoyance when I realized that his name tells the whole story.

What I want is for the compatibilists among us to explain how they reconcile Mary never being able not to abort her unborn baby with Mary still being morally responsible for doing so.

phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 6:18 pm
Your "bottom line" implies that if Mary had free-will then "Jane" would be alive but she in not because of determinism.

When posters point out that implication, you deny that's what you are saying.

No free will and she's shredded.

phyllo wrote: ↑Sun Dec 03, 2023 12:27 am Now, your nuance is ... In a deterministic world, Mary always gets an abortion, but in a free-will world she might or might not get an abortion.

But if we are talking to "Jane" then Mary definitely did not get an abortion. So the way you have presented the situation only gives two possibilities ... determinism = abortion, free-will = talking to "Jane", no abortion.

It’s good to know that if Harris found himself doing something out of character he would excuse himself from responsibility for his actions. But I would wager that most people, if they heard that Sam Harris got caught stealing anchovies, would hold him responsible even if he doesn’t have a history of theft.

But that’s not the real problem. The deeper issue is that everything in Harris’s scenario ­— the thoughts, intentions, beliefs and desires — are the product of deterministic processes.

On Harris’s view, there’s no more real agency here than in a rain cloud. That is, thoughts, intentions and so on are part of the causal story of why someone behaved as they did, and help establish causal responsibility for their actions, but the same goes for clouds: the conditions in them are causally responsible for the rain they produce. In neither case, however, does causal responsibility establish or entail moral responsibility.

Again, compatibilist philosophers attempt to provide a way of thinking about thoughts, intentions, beliefs and desires that could support a worthwhile concept of moral agency and responsibility — but Harris wants nothing to do with this.

As so if clouds aren’t responsible for the typhoons they visit upon people in a morally relevant sense, then why and how are people ever morally responsible for the behaviour they direct towards other people?

phyllo wrote: ↑Sun Dec 03, 2023 12:27 am

What I want is for the compatibilists among us to explain how they reconcile Mary never being able not to abort her unborn baby with Mary still being morally responsible for doing so.

I have done it, FJ has done it and IWP must have done it at least a half dozen times.

phyllo wrote:
Your "bottom line" implies that if Mary had free-will then "Jane" would be alive but she in not because of determinism.

When posters point out that implication, you deny that's what you are saying.

phyllo wrote: You wrote it again:

No free will and she's shredded.

phyllo wrote: ↑Sun Dec 03, 2023 12:27 amNow, your nuance is ... In a deterministic world, Mary always gets an abortion, but in a free-will world she might or might not get an abortion.

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.

Then those here who actually believe that what they believe about all of this reflects, what, the ontological truth about the human condition itself?

Then those who are compelled in turn to insist on a teleological component as well. Usually in the form of one or another God.

Meanwhile, philosophers and scientists and theologians have been grappling with this profound mystery now for thousands of years.

Well, in that case -- click -- your understanding of having "done it" is very different from mine.

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.

Then those here who actually believe that what they believe about all of this reflects, what, the ontological truth about the human condition itself?

Then those who are compelled in turn to insist on a teleological component as well. Usually in the form of one or another God.

Meanwhile, philosophers and scientists and theologians have been grappling with this profound mystery now for thousands of years.

Again, unless, of course, someone here can link me to a philosophical or scientific or theological argument that resolves all of that. Going back to where the human condition fits into the existence of existence itself.

In neither case, however, does causal responsibility establish or entail moral responsibility.

As so if clouds aren’t responsible for the typhoons they visit upon people in a morally relevant sense, then why and how are people ever morally responsible for the behaviour they direct towards other people?

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sun Dec 03, 2023 5:10 am

phyllo wrote: ↑Sun Dec 03, 2023 12:27 am Now, your nuance is ... In a deterministic world, Mary always gets an abortion, but in a free-will world she might or might not get an abortion.

But if we are talking to "Jane" then Mary definitely did not get an abortion. So the way you have presented the situation only gives two possibilities ... determinism = abortion, free-will = talking to "Jane", no abortion.

Sometimes it seems like he is performing and asking us to perform a very weird moral rubik's cube.

There is a real abortion in his personal past. It happened. I assume he has changed the names.

So, in a determinist world, well that happened and was always going to happen. So, that happened.

But if we mentally go back in time to before that actual real abortion that happened, if it is still a determined world, well, it's going to happen again.

But if we mentally go back in time to before this specific, single example of an abortion and then there was free will, then someone might have changed her mind, or she could have changed her mind herself.

So, in related to that particular instance of abortion then and if we go back in time before it, then determinism means it must happen (again?) but free will means it might have happened.

And then he writes about this extremely odd thought experiment as if is a general rule.

If you point out that he is/seems to be making a very odd, extremely unjustified general rule (and you get lucky and he actually responds to this directly, he will deny having made this general rule. I believe he managed to be that clear with FJ once.

But then he will go back to making what seems like a general rule over and over anyway.

I think that is what is going on, but I'm not sure because it is a pleasant exception when he directly responds to points people make in a way that shows he understands what they are saying. Most responses are rehashes of what he has said hundreds of times before without having made it clear he understood the post he is responding to and sometimes not even clear he has read it.

I also think he has a very hard time seeing other perspectives. He can imagine other philosophical positions, to some degree.

But he can't seem to manage to have the kind if 'in-the-middle-of-a-discussion' insight into the perspective of his readers to be able to come to statements like:

Ah, ok. I see how I could have been clearer about X and this led you to think Y.

He's capable of saying he may be missing something (noticing his own confusion). But he cannot look at his own communication, see what people are responding to, and either finds a new way to communicate it that specifically avoids the confusion he is creating or justifies the claims he seems to be making.

So, he carries ambiguities (note the warning in his name) forward through time, impervious to improving communication.

And sometimes this seems rather convenient, which doesn't mean it's a conscious pattern.

IOW it is possible he is very concerned about the moral judgment of this particular individual Mary (and perhaps himself and what he did or did not do in his real life). So, he has this thought experiment about this specific case, and has this in the manner I explained above. But then he writes about it in ways that imply unjustified conclusions about abortion (and free will and determinism) in general.

When it is pointed out he really doesn't understand what people are talking about, mulling in his head about this specific, real life case.

Now, I'm sure he will see this focus on HIM as Stooge behavior. But there is a real life problem with the way he communicates and it affects the few people who actually spend some energy trying to communicate with him - which is taking him seriously. Getting around the impasse requires focus on him. But given that he doesn't seem able to take feedback to get a sense of the perspectives of people he is discussing these issues with, I respond on occasion to you and FJ, given that I think you both can see the perspectives of others and also can have some alternate perspectives on how you yourselves are communicating.

phyllo wrote: ↑Sun Dec 03, 2023 3:35 pm That sums it up pretty well.

I would just add that he does not seem to recognize that he is in a particular unique situation.

He knows that an abortion took place ... therefore, Mary could never not had an abortion.

But if events had been slightly different, when a chance encounter makes Mary change her mind and Mary gives birth, he would be here making a completely different claim ... Mary could never have had an abortion.

Sure, that didn't happen. But if we are in a free-will world, it didn't happen to free-will Mary either. Why entertain the possibility in a free-will world but not in a determined world?

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sun Dec 03, 2023 3:42 pm

phyllo wrote: ↑Sun Dec 03, 2023 3:35 pm That sums it up pretty well.

I would just add that he does not seem to recognize that he is in a particular unique situation.

He knows that an abortion took place ... therefore, Mary could never not had an abortion.

But if events had been slightly different, when a chance encounter makes Mary change her mind and Mary gives birth, he would be here making a completely different claim ... Mary could never have had an abortion.

Sure, that didn't happen. But if we are in a free-will world, it didn't happen to free-will Mary either. Why entertain the possibility in a free-will world but not in a determined world?

That's a good way of putting it.
It would be great if a similar poster with the opposite experience and the same way of framing the issue arrive.

What he's actually trying to say, I think -- this is the most charitable interpretation, a steelman if you will -- is that, if we have Mary in a determined universe, and we have a very very similar Mary in a "free will" universe - which I will assume to mean Libertarian free will at this point, because he seems to be putting this "free will" universe as being mutually exclusive with determinism - then what Iambiguous is saying is, if both versions of Mary have an abortion, it makes sense to hold the Libertarian Free Will version of Mary "responsible" but not the determinism one, because the libertarian free will version of Mary *could have done otherwise* but the determinism one couldn't.