Philosophy Now Forum

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Nov 06, 2024 11:39 pm

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Nov 06, 2024 11:39 pm Click, of course. Though that may or may not do any good.

Now that this thread has basically become the "get iambiguous" exchange, I can't help but be all that much more convinced as to what this is really all about.

It's about my own philosophy really beginning to sink in. In other words, what if human existence really is essentially meaningless and purposeless? What if human morality really is rooted existentially in dasein? What if being fractured and fragmented is entirely reasonable in a No God universe? What if death really does result in oblivion?

Well, unless, of course, I'm wrong.

And here I am attempting to encounter arguments able to perhaps convince me that I am indeed wrong about these things. But over and again, instead, I get these whine, whine, whine declamations.

How about this...

Those above who make this all about me, how about if they make it all about compatibilism instead. They start a new thread and discuss it amongst themselves with absolutely no "groots" from me.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Nov 06, 2024 11:39 pm Those above who make this all about me, how about if they make it all about compatibilism instead. They start a new thread and discuss it amongst themselves with absolutely no "groots" from me.

The assumption here in that article is that the compatabilist assigns morality based on freedom. They don’t. They are not arguing that the person pushed is determined and the person who decides to jump in the pool is not determined. And it’s odd that the author, not Iambiguous, chose a non-moral situation to focus on. So, let’s move it to a situation often viewed as raising moral issues. We have a guy at the pool who is tripped by a friend and stumbles into a child who falls in the pool and gets really scared. We wouldn’t hold him - the one who got tripped - morally responsible for his action. He was tripped. Then we contrast him with someone who doesn’t like kids, and from this atittude goes and pushes a kid into the pool and the kid gets scared. The compatibilist would say that both people who impacted with the child are utterly determined. In the first case, the guy who was tripped, he is not someone who pushes kids into the pool. He does not have the attitude, nor does he have the tendency to violence or the pattern of violence. We have no reason to worry about him based on what happened. He’s not someone, for example, that we would want to ban from the pool. He’s not someone, for example, we would want to send to court-enforced anger-management training or prison. The first man’s impact with the kid was determined by the trip and the trajectories of his stumbling’. The second man who pushed the kid was driven deterministically by his anger and attitudes towards children and noise and other humans in general, we do want to hold responsible. He is dangerous. This particular act was highly determined by internal causes that indicate things about his future activities. This does not make him an exception to determinism, however it does show he is of a violent nature and is aligned with doing violence. So, a compatibilist holds him responsible for his action and not the other person for two reasons: 1) The compatibilist wants to prevent future actions of that type 2) the person is a person who wants to do violence to children. His brain cells are as determined as anyone else’s. He is not an exception to determinsm. But he is a specific guy with a specific threat to children. So, we hold him responsible. The guy who was tripped his friend. No. However his friend!!! He could be held responsible because he shows a lack of care. As far as we know that friend did not intend the child or even his friend any harm. But still he shows a lack of care and he might be held responsible and banned from the pool, for example. We wouldn’t ban the guy on the pool chair next to him who didn’t trip or push anyone. We hold the tripper and the guy who wanted to push the child responsible. Because their actions are connected to who they are, not because they are exceptions to determinism. We wouldn’t ban someone with the same name as the person who intentionally pushed the kid. We hold the person who wanted to push the child like that, even if his wants are determined. But he is someone who wants to do this, we don’t like this, we hold him and not others responsible. The action is determined in all cases. But we hold certain people responsible for both practical and moral reasons.

I’d be surprised both the author and Iambiguous wouldn’t hold people responsible for their acts, even if determinism is the case. I would guess they would dislike the guy who got up to push the child and not feel animosity towards the one who got tripped, and that both the author of the article and Iambiguous would support taking steps to remove the pool priviledges from the one who got up to push the kid, even if his attitude and action are determined. But I could be wrong. Perhaps if someone shot one of their family members because of an argument in a shopping aisle they would argue, on the grounds of determinism, that the guy should not be held responsible. They would go so far to demand the prosecutor and the judge drop the case based on determinism. But I think that’s rare. I think most reasonable people, even if it could be demonstrated to them so they had no doubt we were in a deterministic universe, would still want to keep people who like to push children out of the pools where children are. They would take steps to hold those people responsible for the pushing and either punish them or restrict their priviledges for practical reasons. And most reasonable people would probably dislike the pushers. The complete certainty that determinism is the case might lead to greater empathy for people that we neverthess hold responsible for their actions.

And this cuts the other way also for acts we like. Someone who, for example, protected out kid from a rabid pit bull, we would be grateful to and perhaps even try to reward, even if their actions were utterly determined. I can’t imagine any determinist even the hard ones simply ignoring saying anything to them like ‘thank you so much’.

Why didn’t you thank that guy, honey?
I’m a hard determinist. I don’t consider him responsible for his actions.
But, honey, he’s the guy who put himself at risk for our child. He is that person and that was his action. I got him a 100 buck gift certificate for the mall.

Further it’s important to ask why free will adds responsbility. This may seem obvious, but actually it’s not.

If someone has free will in the libertarian sense - they can do anything physically possible and neither internal nor external causes stop them from doing anything nor do they lead to their actions - why would we punish anyone or hold anyone responsible. This would mean, the guy who shot your relative did not do it because of their desires, intentions, goals, attitudes. They just randomly chose based on NOTHING in their nature. The action is not caused by their personality, tendencies, attitudes NOTHING. This would mean that everyone is as likely to shoot random people as anyone else. We are not in the least guided in our actions by our nature or nurture. There’s certainly no practical reason to put anyone in prison. We’d all be equally likely to do anything. Further the action would have nothing to do with us.

But no one seems to look at this aspect of libertarian free will. They just assume things about what it entails. Most people who believe in free will are actually compatiblists: they just don’t realize it.

In any case, I’d like to see an argument based on determinism that says it is wrong or confused to hold people responsible for their actions in the ways we do. What is wrong with holding the person who pushes kids around responsible for his actions and what do you recommend we do, given your philosophy?

Not mere incredulity and questions, but an actual attempt to demonstrate why holding people responsible would be wrong or confused, with concrete examples, so not just up in the clouds as you would say. What’s wrong with holding people responsible in the concrete and attitudinal ways I mentioned about the kid pusher? And would you not hold him responsible in a determinist universe? What would that entail in concrete terms, not in up in the clouds terms?

As I've said earlier I think responsibility is compatible - and to me clearly in the practical sense - with determinism. I see no reason to not react to, including taking measures, iindividuals doing things we consider dangerous to others, for example. Sometimes in this and other of his threads he hsa made the distinction between intellectual contraptions and, in my words, down to earth, practical applications of ideas. Well, I see it as perfectly reasonable to isolate a rapist from society. I don't hold a table responsible for his raping. I don't hold non-rapists responsibile. I might hold, for example, his parents or someone who sexually abused him parly responsible and take measures in relation to them also. There might also be societal causes: systemic sexism, for example - and these I might also want to hold responsible and take measures in relation to. The up in the clouds idea that his actions could not have been otherwise going back to the Big Bang might lead to greater sympathy for the rapist on my part. But I would still consider him a person who may rape again and it is more likely he will than someone who has not raped and we need to do something about that.

I am not comparing a person to bacteria, but in terms of causation, I would also potentially take antibiotics because I think a specific bacteria in my body is responsible for my fever and sepsis. I will take measures in relation to that. I hold the bacteria responsible - and perhaps my idiotically not clearning a wound that got infected and take steps to remedy my own responsibility for creating this problem.

The person we punish is not empty of traits, even in determinism. He, in this case, is someone who has the desire to rape and lived it out. While the causes go back to the Big Bang and perhaps beyond, and even though they are inevitable, this does not mean that his nature has nothing to do with his acts. He is the one who rapes. He has qualities that lead to rape.

If causation had nothing to do with essence, it would be different. I'm not sure how. But if anyone regardless of attitudes toward women, tendencies to aggressive acts and all that had NOTHING to do with rape, that might be a different situation.

For exmaple, let's say that humans who come within five feet of ladybugs try to rape a woman shortly after.. A causation that has nothing at all to do with the essence/traits/tendencies of a paticular person was the cause of rape. That's different. I suppose my focus would be entirely on measures that keep ladybugs from the proximity of men and vice versa.

But here we have a person with traits that lead to rape. I can feel bad, certainly, if he had a childhood that was violent and abusive, for example, and he was trained to hate women or see rape as justified. But I am still dealing with a person with these tendencies.

EDIT: See below for an addition

Further it seems very up in the clouds to not consider the person responsible. Iambiguous has talked about compatibilists changing the meaning of the word. Some may, but to me that is a focus on intellectural contraptions.

In a deterministic universe...
Is anger in reaction to a rape justified?
Is taking measures in relation to a rapist justified?
Is thinking of that person as presenting a problem justified?

I think the answers are yes to all of those.

Will these reactions be experienced by the rapist as holding him responsible - and not some guy in the apartment next door to him, for example - for the rape?
Does it leave room to look at other causes and factors if I hold this person responsible and take measures that he does not want?

I think the answers to those questions are yes.

We can try to make some intellectual contraption happy and use some other word than responsible, but it won't change anything at all about my general reaction to the situation. He did it. We need to deal with him first. We can deal with other causes and prevention strategies after, despite holding him responsible.

If I considered abortion immoral, sure I could hold someone responsible for having done that. And in a practical sense, I would hold someone responsible for doing that, even without moral judgment. If she or they came to my clinic, asked for an abortion, I performed it and she started saying she was not going to pay for my services because the Big Bang was responsible for her getting the abortion, I would not suddenly buckly in my claim for payment.

That word, responsible, is how we frame reacting to actions we like and abhor. It is part of the process of deciding on what measures we take: giving someone a reward, expressing gratitude, calling someone a Stooge, putting them in prison, firing them, giving them a bonus.

People take idiotic measures, yes. People have all sorts of moral postions, including obviously contradictory ones and ones I abhor, but should it turn out to be the case that we are determined utterly and this is finally laid to rest and proven, I see no reason to change the basic process here involved in holding indviduals responsible for acts.

There can certainly be an incredible amount of needed discussion about the measures taken and what other now existent things, people and processes might or might not also be responsible. And this doesn't eliminate issues like 'is there an objective morality' for me.

And any rapist arguing that they should nto be held responsible because it was inevitable that they would rape due to determinism would be using an intellectual contraption that has very little to do with life on the ground, here in day to day life. That would be an up in the clouds response and assessment and not one he would use in relation to infections, someone stealing his car, someone hitting him with a hammer in the street, someone who did him a favor and so on. In those instances he would hold people and things responsible. He'd be being a hypocrite. And of course his argument would mean he has nothing to complain about in relation to the people considering him responsible and taking measures, given that they would not be responsible for their reactions in his schema.

I’m not sure what a soft determinist is (or a hard one). I’d like to move away from the complicated, highly charged abortion issue to a simpler one, where people generally agree on the morality involved. I don’t think abortion is a good issue in relation to responsibility and determinism because there are so many issues that will get brought up in practice around it.

The issue I will present is someoner runs up to me on the street and hits me with a hammer. This is someone I do not know and I haven’t done anything to this person. Would I hold them responsible if I believed in any form of determinism, soft or hard? Yes.

The circumstances of their life might shift the degree of my emotional reactions to them, but I would still hold them responsible. What does this mean? I would call the police, knowing full well, that this person might end up in prison or potentially some kind of forced psychiatric care. Yes, that was an inevitable act on his part, but he did it. He is the person who does this kind of thing. If someone had his wife at gunpoint and said hit that guy with a hammer, then he isn’t really a guy who runs up to strangers and hits them with a hammer. It took a very specific chain of causes to lead him to this act, ones that society can consider very unlikely to occur again, and in any case any measures taken to prevent such repeated situations are better aimed at other people and not this guy.

He is, it seems, a person who can do this. I will feel those feelings I feel when I hold someone responsible for someone and I see no reason to try to stop having those feelings if I am convinced completely it is a fully determined universe. Heck, my feelings are also caused. I also see no reason to not treat him as responsible for the act. I could hold the universe responsible, but that gives me no practical reaction. Holding this man responsible leads to measures being taken that hopefully will prevent or minimize the changes of it happening again AND will also be cause possibly preventing other hammar wielders.

Oh, they put people in prison for attackinig people with hammers, I am going to try not to do that, even though I feel a strong urge. Holding the individual responsible sets in motion consequences that in turn become causes that may prevent other people from doing that or something similar.

The specific measures taken due to my holding someone responsible are certainly up for debate: psychiatric care, me yelling at them until they (possibly) feel shame, prison, probation, counseling, attending AA or NA (if addiction was a factor) and so on. But I want some kind of measures taken and I want those measures first of all aimed at that man.

Of course other factors are at play and if determinism is the case, I think I might focus even more on societal causes. For example, if he was bullied in school horrendously for a decade and no one did much about this, I would also hold the school system, either part of it or the system itself, responsible. So, responsibility gets spread around, perhaps to some degree more if one is a determinist. But one does not need to choose between. And, of course, the school system had to be the way it was, in terms of determined outcomes. I could try to hold the Big Bang responsible and try to hit it with a hammer, but this 1) I can’t do 2) doesn’t in any way help prevent future violence and 3) need not rule out holding this guy responsible.

If it turns out he is psychotic, my reactions will be affected, and if meds or therapy can eliminate the problem, then in a sense I would no longer hold him responsible, once that first holding him responsible led to him getting the care he needed. I’m certainly not going to suggest anti-psychotic meds get put in our water supply. No I will be viewing him as the problem until he is not.

Do you hold people responsible for their actions? How would this change if you were sure determinism was the case or you were sure free will was the case? Would you, for example, hold objectivists less responsible if things are completely determined, and how would this play out? In other words, not just the thoughts in your head, but how would your thoughts affect things on a practical level?

You could also use the hammer incident example? There’s free will and you know it OR there’s determinism and you know it. What practical differences would you want there to be in relation to the hammer wielder? Would you hold him responsible in one universe where you know it is determined and another where you know there is free will? And if the answer is different - for example, you would hold him resonsible in the free will world but not in the other, what actual differences would this thought lead to?

phyllo wrote: ↑Wed Nov 06, 2024 2:22 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Wed Nov 06, 2024 1:26 pm How free are you? Will Americans be more free or less free next week?

Freedom is not the same as free-will.

As early as the 1960s, studies found that when people perform a simple, spontaneous movement, their brain exhibits a buildup in neural activity—what neuroscientists call a “readiness potential”—before they move.

In the 1980s, neuroscientist Benjamin Libet reported this readiness potential even preceded a person’s reported intention to move, not just their movement. In 2008 a group of researchers found that some information about an upcoming decision is present in the brain up to 10 seconds in advance, long before people reported making the decision of when or how to act.

These studies have sparked questions and debates. To many observers, these findings debunked the intuitive concept of free will. After all, if neuroscientists can infer the timing or choice of your movements long before you are consciously aware of your decision, perhaps people are merely puppets, pushed around by neural processes unfolding below the threshold of consciousness.

But as researchers who study volition from both a neuroscientific and philosophical perspective, we believe that there’s still much more to this story. We work with a collaboration of philosophers and scientists to provide more nuanced interpretations—including a better understanding of the readiness potential—and a more fruitful theoretical framework in which to place them.

"The conclusions suggest “free will” remains a useful concept, although people may need to reexamine how they define it."

Let’s start from a commonsense observation: much of what people do each day is arbitrary. We put one foot in front of the other when we start walking. Most of the time, we do not actively deliberate about which leg to put forward first. It doesn’t matter. The same is true for many other actions and choices. They are largely meaningless and irreflective.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Fri Nov 08, 2024 12:36 am

As early as the 1960s, studies found that when people perform a simple, spontaneous movement, their brain exhibits a buildup in neural activity—what neuroscientists call a “readiness potential”—before they move.

Okay, this is either true objectively or it's not. But if it's true only because it was never able to be false...? Someone moves as they do because they were determined to move that way. But this determination itself may well be but another inherent manifestation of the only possible reality.

These studies have sparked questions and debates. To many observers, these findings debunked the intuitive concept of free will. After all, if neuroscientists can infer the timing or choice of your movements long before you are consciously aware of your decision, perhaps people are merely puppets, pushed around by neural processes unfolding below the threshold of consciousness.

On the other hand, what's the "for all practical purposes" difference between being one of nature's puppets and one of nature's dominoes?

Back to all the technical distinctions made between determinism and fatalism,

between external forces and internal components, between compatibilism and moral responsibility.

As early as the 1960s, studies found that when people perform a simple, spontaneous movement, their brain exhibits a buildup in neural activity—what neuroscientists call a “readiness potential”—before they move.

In the 1980s, neuroscientist Benjamin Libet reported this readiness potential even preceded a person’s reported intention to move, not just their movement. In 2008 a group of researchers found that some information about an upcoming decision is present in the brain up to 10 seconds in advance, long before people reported making the decision of when or how to act.

These studies have sparked questions and debates. To many observers, these findings debunked the intuitive concept of free will. After all, if neuroscientists can infer the timing or choice of your movements long before you are consciously aware of your decision, perhaps people are merely puppets, pushed around by neural processes unfolding below the threshold of consciousness.

Back to all the technical distinctions made between determinism and fatalism,

How so?

phyllo wrote: ↑Sun Nov 10, 2024 5:00 pm

Back to all the technical distinctions made between determinism and fatalism,

How so?

I see no attempt by Iambiguous to tackle the "technical distinctions made between determinism and fatalism".

So, in what way is anyone going back to it?

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sun Nov 10, 2024 1:35 am What does it mean for "free will" to remain a useful concept if concepts themselves are no excception to the immutable matter rule?