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> If you seriously believe that fundamental forces leave no space for free will, then it’s impossible for us to genuinely make choices as moral beings. > The u

> If you seriously believe that fundamental forces leave no space for free will, then it’s impossible for us to genuinely make choices as moral beings. > The underlying physics would in reality be governing our behaviour, and responsibility wouldn’t enter into the picture. First, this is one of the few useful things said here. Responsibility, poof. I agree. And I think that radically changes how we should approach so many things. As a hard determinist who is writing arguments, ethics, and moral frameworks around said determinism, I think there is a big issue with a lot of discussions about free will - definition. When most humans say "free will", they don't mean randomness, not even close. While philosophers in this argument have spent a good deal of time on randomness, I think that focus misses the point entirely. Even if there is molecular randomness, how does that give any more meaning to humans? At the end of the day, the human idea of control gains nothing from it. When humans say "free will", they are referring IMO in actuality to a real thing - a combination of many things, but basically agency + lack of prediction powers. At the end of the day, those are not going away anytime soon, if ever. This is where ethical, moral, and social questions are based, not in free will formally. The lack of formal free will is crucial for underpinning all of this, but it in no way makes ethics and the like impossible. We still exist and experience the world, and it is in all of our best interests to go towards a "better" one. Whether we were always going to do that or not doesn't change that, nor does it change the human experience. I will say this - determinism must be approached carefully precisely because of articles like this - it is easy for the worst effect of determinism on humans to actually be the idea itself and how it makes people defeatist about morality. I hope to spend my time making a good case for how to approach it safely and in a way that makes the world better, and I wish more people were looking at that instead of arguing about quantum randomness.

jbay808 6y ago
I agree. I think this gives ethicists the task of accepting deterministic reality the way it's always been, and developing a moral framework that is in harmony with that reality. Morals can still exist without the principle of free will, just like they can exist without God dictating a list of 10 commandments. Murder can still be wrong without free will, just like it can still be wrong without God saying so.
- adjkant 6y ago
  Completely agreed, and there's a ton of low hanging fruit from simply applying determinism to ethics and really following it. I think it becomes an incredibly powerful tool in moral philosophy that really clears a path of progress that I think the field has been struggling to move on. It kills some ideas dead in the water and makes very strong cases for others, unsticking so many fundamental debates that often came down to "agree to disagree" for so many philosophers that didn't have the formal argumentation tools to properly refute big ideas.
- naasking 6y ago
  > Morals can still exist without the principle of free will Not really, because you've just done away with moral blame. If there can be no moral blame, then the moral classification of actions has no meaning.
  - adjkant 6y ago
    This is only true if you ground morality in objectivism and objective meaning, and require all useful conceptions of morality to fit that. What you have highlighted is that the meta-ethical view of objectivism is not compatible with determinism. Subjectivisms (both individualist and things like cultural relativism) and error theory are perfectly compatible with determinism. I personally ascribe to and argue for error theory which essentially leads to moral psychology actually dictating what ethics are. Based on that, it's quite easy to get to "murder is bad" via human traits like empathy and our social nature.
    - ntsplnkv2 6y ago
      Ethics are already predetermined, though. There is no need for error theory or any moral or ethical theory in a predetermined world - none of it matters. Arguments for determinism always have these "answers" to morality, but the only convincing one is moral nihilism.
      - adjkant 6y ago
root_axis 6y ago
I don't see how a lack of free will changes anything with respect to moral responsibility. Morality does not care about the the initial conditions that would cause a methodical serial killer to enjoy torturing and murdering innocents, knowing that they kill for pleasure is sufficient to judge them as immoral. This isn't to say that such killers deserve "an eye for an eye", but you don't need to invoke a lack of free will to justify humane treatment of criminals.
- adjkant 6y ago
  I suspect we are in agreement, but I would argue that is because the conception of morality you are using happens to be compatible with the resulting morals that I believe arise from determinism here. You skipped the more relevant application in this case though - not the treatment of criminals, but, to get a bit minority report here, the treatment of pre-criminals. Given their lack of responsibility and control of their being, how do you design a society that treats them fairly? What is fair? How much effort does morality dictate we owe to their happiness? The lack of moral responsibility doesn't change the real world effects or causal responsibility, you're right there. However, these questions get very different answers based on if the world has formalized free will or not. Essentially, if you accept determinism, society becomes a configuration optimization game. The questions of what we optimize for are also highly impacted by free will/determinism. > you don't need to invoke a lack of free will to justify humane treatment of criminals. There are absolutely many ways to get here, I'm simply pointing out determinism also leads to it as a data point that determinism can lead to moralities that pass the sanity check. Many, including the author if this piece, write off or get very worried about that issue.
  - nefitty 6y ago
    Your mention of Minority Report evoked an image in my mind. A sort of thought experiment. Imagine you run the government along with law enforcement. Say that one day someone on Hacker News announced that they figured out how to predict a person’s future behavior with a resolution of about one day, simply by running some terminal command along with that person’s social media profiles. As the authority, it becomes imperative for you to use this information. The choice becomes: are people still at fault for their future crimes even if they never commit them? If they are morally bad, then you are justified in executing some people for future crimes, if you believe that they are not responsible for crimes uncommitted, then you might take a more humane approach. A person, P, will commit crime X at place Y at time Z. So you pour resources into changing Y and Z for future crimes, because you realize that outcomes are a product of P, X, Y and Z. In this equation, it makes no sense to speak of “punishing” the environment, of a time on the clock being “bad”. In exactly the same way, it no longer makes sense that a person is “bad”. What makes sense is: change, influence, separate, nudge the variables to get the outcome you want. This is an exaggerated version of what happens to an individual once they accept hard determinism. They realize that people can’t be morally at fault because they are simply a small part of the equation, an equation that includes all moments that preceded it. Personally, to me, this information is liberating. I feel I have more control now because each event is comprised of an equation. Humans are not black boxes, and neither is my mind. There is some semblance of logic to the system, no matter how obscure or opaque it may be, which means there is some possibility for me to influence the world to move toward a more desirable state. I hope this thought makes some sense to you considering your deeper dives into determinism. I would love to read your writing!
GoblinSlayer 6y ago
>When most humans say "free will", they don't mean randomness, not even close. They don't mean anything. Although indeterminism of choice originally had meaning, today it's a meme in itself without meaning and propagates by mere memetic infection and is seen as an axiom, the argument about responsibility is a rationalization of this axiom, not a justification.
- adjkant 6y ago
  I think you're being too harsh on people. It is of course used at a surface level, but most people at least mean something when they say it. Everyone can of course mean something different too, but I think the definition I gave fits a vast majority of uses.
dkn775 6y ago
I have thought similar thoughts for a while to what I think you're getting at. That certain behaviors are harmonious (a net benefit) for all, while others produce negative externalities and are therefore "sinful" for lack of a better term. In terms of religion this would be similar to a concept of man being fallen from the perfect harmony, where they do not always choose the net benefit option. Hence it takes some effort to not "give in to your demons" ie make decisions which are easier but move things away from that harmonious equilibrium

jbay808 6y ago

I agree. I think this gives ethicists the task of accepting deterministic reality the way it's always been, and developing a moral framework that is in harmony with that reality. Morals can still exist without the principle of free will, just like they can exist without God dictating a list of 10 commandments. Murder can still be wrong without free will, just like it can still be wrong without God saying so.

adjkant 6y ago
Completely agreed, and there's a ton of low hanging fruit from simply applying determinism to ethics and really following it. I think it becomes an incredibly powerful tool in moral philosophy that really clears a path of progress that I think the field has been struggling to move on. It kills some ideas dead in the water and makes very strong cases for others, unsticking so many fundamental debates that often came down to "agree to disagree" for so many philosophers that didn't have the formal argumentation tools to properly refute big ideas.
naasking 6y ago
> Morals can still exist without the principle of free will Not really, because you've just done away with moral blame. If there can be no moral blame, then the moral classification of actions has no meaning.
- adjkant 6y ago
  This is only true if you ground morality in objectivism and objective meaning, and require all useful conceptions of morality to fit that. What you have highlighted is that the meta-ethical view of objectivism is not compatible with determinism. Subjectivisms (both individualist and things like cultural relativism) and error theory are perfectly compatible with determinism. I personally ascribe to and argue for error theory which essentially leads to moral psychology actually dictating what ethics are. Based on that, it's quite easy to get to "murder is bad" via human traits like empathy and our social nature.
  - ntsplnkv2 6y ago
    Ethics are already predetermined, though. There is no need for error theory or any moral or ethical theory in a predetermined world - none of it matters. Arguments for determinism always have these "answers" to morality, but the only convincing one is moral nihilism.
    - adjkant 6y ago

root_axis 6y ago

I don't see how a lack of free will changes anything with respect to moral responsibility. Morality does not care about the the initial conditions that would cause a methodical serial killer to enjoy torturing and murdering innocents, knowing that they kill for pleasure is sufficient to judge them as immoral. This isn't to say that such killers deserve "an eye for an eye", but you don't need to invoke a lack of free will to justify humane treatment of criminals.

adjkant 6y ago
I suspect we are in agreement, but I would argue that is because the conception of morality you are using happens to be compatible with the resulting morals that I believe arise from determinism here. You skipped the more relevant application in this case though - not the treatment of criminals, but, to get a bit minority report here, the treatment of pre-criminals. Given their lack of responsibility and control of their being, how do you design a society that treats them fairly? What is fair? How much effort does morality dictate we owe to their happiness? The lack of moral responsibility doesn't change the real world effects or causal responsibility, you're right there. However, these questions get very different answers based on if the world has formalized free will or not. Essentially, if you accept determinism, society becomes a configuration optimization game. The questions of what we optimize for are also highly impacted by free will/determinism. > you don't need to invoke a lack of free will to justify humane treatment of criminals. There are absolutely many ways to get here, I'm simply pointing out determinism also leads to it as a data point that determinism can lead to moralities that pass the sanity check. Many, including the author if this piece, write off or get very worried about that issue.
- nefitty 6y ago
  Your mention of Minority Report evoked an image in my mind. A sort of thought experiment. Imagine you run the government along with law enforcement. Say that one day someone on Hacker News announced that they figured out how to predict a person’s future behavior with a resolution of about one day, simply by running some terminal command along with that person’s social media profiles. As the authority, it becomes imperative for you to use this information. The choice becomes: are people still at fault for their future crimes even if they never commit them? If they are morally bad, then you are justified in executing some people for future crimes, if you believe that they are not responsible for crimes uncommitted, then you might take a more humane approach. A person, P, will commit crime X at place Y at time Z. So you pour resources into changing Y and Z for future crimes, because you realize that outcomes are a product of P, X, Y and Z. In this equation, it makes no sense to speak of “punishing” the environment, of a time on the clock being “bad”. In exactly the same way, it no longer makes sense that a person is “bad”. What makes sense is: change, influence, separate, nudge the variables to get the outcome you want. This is an exaggerated version of what happens to an individual once they accept hard determinism. They realize that people can’t be morally at fault because they are simply a small part of the equation, an equation that includes all moments that preceded it. Personally, to me, this information is liberating. I feel I have more control now because each event is comprised of an equation. Humans are not black boxes, and neither is my mind. There is some semblance of logic to the system, no matter how obscure or opaque it may be, which means there is some possibility for me to influence the world to move toward a more desirable state. I hope this thought makes some sense to you considering your deeper dives into determinism. I would love to read your writing!

GoblinSlayer 6y ago

>When most humans say "free will", they don't mean randomness, not even close. They don't mean anything. Although indeterminism of choice originally had meaning, today it's a meme in itself without meaning and propagates by mere memetic infection and is seen as an axiom, the argument about responsibility is a rationalization of this axiom, not a justification.

adjkant 6y ago
I think you're being too harsh on people. It is of course used at a surface level, but most people at least mean something when they say it. Everyone can of course mean something different too, but I think the definition I gave fits a vast majority of uses.

dkn775 6y ago

I have thought similar thoughts for a while to what I think you're getting at. That certain behaviors are harmonious (a net benefit) for all, while others produce negative externalities and are therefore "sinful" for lack of a better term. In terms of religion this would be similar to a concept of man being fallen from the perfect harmony, where they do not always choose the net benefit option. Hence it takes some effort to not "give in to your demons" ie make decisions which are easier but move things away from that harmonious equilibrium