On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 3:04 PM, david buchanan <[email protected]> wrote: > > Dan said: > ...What some contributors seem to be saying is that determinism entails a > lack of responsibility for one's actions. That is only so if we insist on > believing our actions cause outcomes in predictable ways. They both do and do > not. > > dmb says: > Well, yes, that's how the issue is framed everywhere I look, from simple > dictionary definitions to Siegfried's scholarly analysis of William James. In > each case, determinism precludes responsibility. Determinism is the claim > that our actions are caused by forces beyond our control. It's a claim about > the causes of our actions, not the predictability of the consequences of our > actions. In the former, our actions are the effects of causes while in the > latter our actions are the causes of effects. See what I mean?
Steve: Pragmatically I think this "effects of causes versus causes of effects" is a meaningless distinction. It reminds me of Dewey's critique on the Kantian notion of ends not justifying means. Effects are always also causes just as means are always also ends. > Steve said: > For what practical reasons do we want to know whether we are responsible or > determined? We would still need to condemn the intention to do harm and > praise the intention to do good whether or not we think of people as subject > to a chain of causality or free of such chains (for the practical reason that > we think that doing so has predictable effects on others). > > dmb says: > On top of practical matters of moral and legal responsibility Steve: How is there a difference in the notion of moral or legal responsibility depending on how someone feels about free will/determinism? We still judge a person by his/her actions either way. We still need to incarcerate people who are likely to do others harm. As Sam Harris noted, even though we know tornados don't have free will, we would still put them in jail if we could. The only difference that I can see is that if we get rid of the notion of free will, we would focus our justice system on rehabilitation and prevention rather than punishment. We would be more compassionate since we would have to look at the less fortunate (including the morally less fortunate) and say, there but by the experiences that I have been lucky enough to have had go I. That person and I are no different beyond our genetics and environment. There is no secret interior that makes that person evil and me good. dmb: ...there are also concrete situations like the one we're in right now. Are we free to adopt a point of view on these issues or are we caused to believe the things we do by forces beyond our control. Is your perspective culturally, psychologically or physically determined? Steve: I would think that the answer to that is obvious. We believe what we believe because we think we have compelling arguments in favor of one position or another. We can't simply will ourselves to believe something we think is false. What arguments we find compelling is a function of the experiences we have had including our culture background and more specific experiences as well. Just what else do you think COULD explain the differences in what two people find convincing? You've already ruled out a metaphysical entity--the private interior that is unaffected by such things. dmb: And if it is so determined, on what basis can I praise or condemn you for seeing it that way? Steve: None at all. Why would you want to praise or condemn someone for their view on free will/determinism? First of all, that would be trying to apply a social level tool of control over someone's intellectual patterns. That's an MOQ no-no. The intellectual concern is whether it is true or false (a question we are putting aside as we discuss any pragmatic consequences of either side of the issue). Do you ever think to ask what a political candidate thinks about the issue of free will/determinism? If not, then that should tell you just how important this issue is. dmb: > How can our "intentions" have any meaning if they are determined by a chain > of causality or anything else? If they are caused by forces outside of our > control, in what sense can we even say that they are OUR intentions? Isn't > that exactly what determinism denies? Steve: We have a subjective feeling of intending some of our actions. That is all that is meant by "our intentions." They are "ours" because we are the ones feeling them. dmb: > And then your parenthetical comment seems to be saying that we ought to > convict those who act with bad intentions in order to deter others from doing > the same, even though the convict did not act freely and neither can those > who are supposedly deterred by that conviction. Steve: We ought to incarcerate those who do bad things first of all because they may be likely to do those things again. Secondly,other people knowing that our policy is to incarcerate such people has the effect that other people are less likely to do bad things. I don't see where we need to imagine freedom from a chain of causality to implement this system. In fact, we do such things because we think we think actions often have predictable effects. Our system depends on a notion of causality. What gets added to this system with the common sense notion of free will is the bad idea of justice as punishment. dmb: I guess this could make sense if you think of deterrence as putting a new cause in place so that others respond to it mechanically and otherwise get determined by it. But this begs the question of moral responsibility precisely because we have no choice in the matter. We can't rightly blame or praise any action unless the actor was free to do otherwise, unless the actor was NOT determined by causal chains or any other determining factors. Steve: Here we are again with social level praise and blame as though there were a practical difference between praising or blaming a person and praising or blaming a person's actions. There is no secret interior of a person who intends and does bad things that is nevertheless good. We are what we intend and do. For example, even though your mother told you that despite all the dickish things you do, you are really a good person somewhere deep down inside, that is a completely nonsensical notion. There is nothing deep down inside that matters worth a darn if it doesn't ever cash out in action. If you act like a dick all the time, you are a dick. If you act like a dick sometimes and not others, then sometimes you are a dick. Freedom from causal chains has nothing to do with it. Pirsig had a quite different notion of freedom in mind... "The hippies had in mind something that they wanted, and were calling it “freedom,” but in the final analysis “freedom” is a purely negative goal. It just says something is bad. Hippies weren’t really offering any alternatives other than colorful short-term ones, and some of these were looking more and more like pure degeneracy. Degeneracy can be fun but it’s hard to keep up as a serious lifetime occupation. This book offers another, more serious alternative to material success. It’s not so much an alternative as an expansion of the meaning of “success” to something larger than just getting a good job and staying out of trouble. And also something larger than mere freedom. It gives a positive goal to work toward that does not confine. That is the main reason for the book’s success, I think." Best, Steve Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
