dmb quoted the Stanford encyclopedia:
Compatibilism offers a solution to the free will problem. This philosophical
problem concerns a disputed incompatibility between free will and determinism.
Compatibilism is the thesis that free will is compatible with determinism.
Because free will is typically taken to be a NECESSARY CONDITION OF MORAL
RESPONSIBILITY, compatibilism is sometimes expressed in terms of a
compatibility between moral responsibility and determinism.
Steve replied:
I have always granted that free will is _typically_ taken to be linked to free
will. What I have asserted is that that link is not a logical necessity.
dmb says:
Lots of entries mention the fact that there are exceptions but I've only run
across one source that actually says what those exceptions are; the Oxford
Companion to Philosophy. It says there are two exceptions, one being a position
that no philosopher has ever held and the other one is predicted on the
conflation of two different concepts of the will. So they only exceptions are
either wrong or non-existent.
But I was really hoping you would simply think about the logical relation ON
YOUR OWN. You've done everything except that and it's pretty clear to me that
your position is incoherent and you don't appreciate how morally disastrous
that position is. One of the main things that Pirsig're reformulation is to
avoid the view that morals aren't really real.
Steve said:
You keep highlighting the term "agent" presumably to make some point. An agent
is simply an entity that makes choices.
dmb says:
Yes, there is a point to repeatedly stressing the relation between freedom and
morality. It sure would be nice if you got that point.
Steve continued:
...I've always said that we make choices and have intentions, moods, desires,
preferences, etc.. What I question is whether we are free to have different
intentions than we now have through an act of will. That doesn't seem to be the
case in my subjective experience (I can't will myself to want what I don't
want) and such a capacity of "freely" willing isn't supported by science. I
also don't see how the capacity to follow DQ cashes out to such a power.
dmb says:
Are we free to will our intentions? What? That is redundant, recursive
nonsense. It's like asking if we are free to have liberty to be free, if we
have a choice about our choices we choose.
And if it's not simply weirdly put redundant nonsense, then you are apparently
asking about two different concepts of will at the same, then you are
conflating the concrete practical reality with a metaphysical will as the cause
behind the concretely lived experience. And that would be nonsense as well.
If you are willing to admit we make choices, then that's all we need to say we
make choices. If you saying we had no choice but to make that "choice", then
you are simply defying the meaning of the word "choice". And that's nonsense
too.
This is more specifically what I mean when I say I can't make any sense of what
you're saying.
Steve said:
What remains to be sussed out with regard to the MOQ is how DQ cashes out to
the free control of an agent. I don't see how. But as for moral responsibility
and the MOQ, what makes us and rocks and trees and atoms moral beings in the
MOQ is not the assertion of free will but the assertion that reality itself is
a moral order. Yet it still makes little sense to talk about responsibility
until we get to beings that have social patterns because only such beings have
behavior which is modifiable through praise and blame. It's just not worth
punishing a rock since there is no hope that its behavior could change as a
benefit of punishment (rocks don't participate in social patterns), but a
scolded child may behave better next time.
dmb says:
Man, you are so not getting the point. It seems like you really don't
understand what moral responsibility is. I mean, the idea that praise and blame
are just a means of modifying behavior is not about moral responsibility. Quite
the opposite. If we comply simply to avoid punishment, that is not morality at
all. It's merely fear-driven obedience, coerced compliance. This is how most
psychopaths stay out of jail. They will avoid murder because it puts them at
risk of going to jail. It's not because THEY think it's morally wrong, but
because they know that other people think it's wrong. One philosopher who
looked into this says the immoral psychopath knows what's moral in the same way
that an atheist can have knowledge of theology without actually believing any
of it himself.
Anyway, those Stanford quotes were supposed to help you see the intimate
connection between agency and morality, between freedom and responsibility.
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