4 ms·

> If so, what leads you to conclude that thinking is anything other than an on-going electro-chemical reaction that we’re just observing the outputs of and conc

> If so, what leads you to conclude that thinking is anything other than an on-going electro-chemical reaction that we’re just observing the outputs of and concluding that we’re controlling it somehow? These are not mutually inconsistent options, that's your mistake. Thoughts are some kind of (likely deterministic) information process, and thoughts counterfactually determines downstream actions and thoughts, ie. earlier thoughts determine later thoughts. If I choose to lift my arm, I only lifted my arm because I chose to do so. The fact that I was determined to choose to lift my arm doesn't seem relevant to whether the thought caused my arm to lift.

vidarh 4y ago
> The fact that I was determined to choose to lift my arm doesn't seem relevant to whether the thought caused my arm to lift. It is relevant to the moral implications, however. If you agree that the process that led to an action was deterministic, then it's entirely unreasonable to use punishments as vengeance, for example. It may still be morally tolerable to use them for rehabilitative or preventative means, but if you accept that they had no agency in the decisions, then applying more restrictions than the minimum needed to protect society seems to create another victim.
- naasking 4y ago
  > If you agree that the process that led to an action was deterministic, then it's entirely unreasonable to use punishments as vengeance, for example. I disagree, punishment could still be justified if it were effective at deterring or altering future behavior, particularly if it were more effective than any other alternative. You can make a straightforward utilitarian calculation for this, for example. In any case, the matter of justice is separate from the question of free will. Once you have free will, you still require further assumptions to argue for punitive or restorative justice.
  - vidarh 4y ago
    You say you disagree, but what you describe is not what I meant. My point is exactly to argue that if people could not have acted differently, punishing people for the sake of causing them suffering in retribution rather than for another purpose such as rehabilitation or deterrence is no morally different than enacting the same on someone who had not carried out a crime. > In any case, the matter of justice is separate from the question of free will. Once you have free will, you still require further assumptions to argue for punitive or restorative justice. It is partially separate. I agree that if free will (in the non-compatibilist sense) was possible, it does not automatically justify vengeance. But it's linked in that if free will does not exist, then it is meaningless to assign responsibility in any less abstract sense than we might talk of a piece of code being "responsible" for a crash. Someone might be "responsible" in the sense of being the most proximate cause, but given they could not have chosen differently, inflicting harm on them for the choices they could not have made differently is no morally different than inflicting harm on any other random person who only did the only things they could. To me, then, given I find free will nothing more than an illusion, the near total lack of focus on rehabilitation and minimising harm to prisoners makes our "justice" systems some of the largest organised brutal and immoral criminal enterprises. Most judges have done vastly more immoral harm than anyone they've ever convicted, for example. Of course they could not have chosen differently either, so I don't think punishing them for it would be any better. But changing the system would be (and yes, I do believe that this too is not a free choice, nothing more than cause and effect playing out, giving us an illusion of making decisions we can not make differently)
    - naasking 4y ago
      > You say you disagree, but what you describe is not what I meant. My point is exactly to argue that if people could not have acted differently, punishing people for the sake of causing them suffering in retribution rather than for another purpose such as rehabilitation or deterrence is no morally different than enacting the same on someone who had not carried out a crime. If it wasn't clear, I was disagreeing that "punishment as vengeance" is the primary motive for punitive justice, while pointing out some grounds typically used to justify it (deterrence mainly). I think reducing punitive justice to vengeance is largely a strawman. Furthermore, I'll just note that Fankfurt refuted the principle of alternate possibilities decades ago, so I don't find this particular quality you ascribe to free will meaningful.

vidarh 4y ago

> The fact that I was determined to choose to lift my arm doesn't seem relevant to whether the thought caused my arm to lift. It is relevant to the moral implications, however. If you agree that the process that led to an action was deterministic, then it's entirely unreasonable to use punishments as vengeance, for example. It may still be morally tolerable to use them for rehabilitative or preventative means, but if you accept that they had no agency in the decisions, then applying more restrictions than the minimum needed to protect society seems to create another victim.

naasking 4y ago
> If you agree that the process that led to an action was deterministic, then it's entirely unreasonable to use punishments as vengeance, for example. I disagree, punishment could still be justified if it were effective at deterring or altering future behavior, particularly if it were more effective than any other alternative. You can make a straightforward utilitarian calculation for this, for example. In any case, the matter of justice is separate from the question of free will. Once you have free will, you still require further assumptions to argue for punitive or restorative justice.
- vidarh 4y ago
  You say you disagree, but what you describe is not what I meant. My point is exactly to argue that if people could not have acted differently, punishing people for the sake of causing them suffering in retribution rather than for another purpose such as rehabilitation or deterrence is no morally different than enacting the same on someone who had not carried out a crime. > In any case, the matter of justice is separate from the question of free will. Once you have free will, you still require further assumptions to argue for punitive or restorative justice. It is partially separate. I agree that if free will (in the non-compatibilist sense) was possible, it does not automatically justify vengeance. But it's linked in that if free will does not exist, then it is meaningless to assign responsibility in any less abstract sense than we might talk of a piece of code being "responsible" for a crash. Someone might be "responsible" in the sense of being the most proximate cause, but given they could not have chosen differently, inflicting harm on them for the choices they could not have made differently is no morally different than inflicting harm on any other random person who only did the only things they could. To me, then, given I find free will nothing more than an illusion, the near total lack of focus on rehabilitation and minimising harm to prisoners makes our "justice" systems some of the largest organised brutal and immoral criminal enterprises. Most judges have done vastly more immoral harm than anyone they've ever convicted, for example. Of course they could not have chosen differently either, so I don't think punishing them for it would be any better. But changing the system would be (and yes, I do believe that this too is not a free choice, nothing more than cause and effect playing out, giving us an illusion of making decisions we can not make differently)
  - naasking 4y ago
    > You say you disagree, but what you describe is not what I meant. My point is exactly to argue that if people could not have acted differently, punishing people for the sake of causing them suffering in retribution rather than for another purpose such as rehabilitation or deterrence is no morally different than enacting the same on someone who had not carried out a crime. If it wasn't clear, I was disagreeing that "punishment as vengeance" is the primary motive for punitive justice, while pointing out some grounds typically used to justify it (deterrence mainly). I think reducing punitive justice to vengeance is largely a strawman. Furthermore, I'll just note that Fankfurt refuted the principle of alternate possibilities decades ago, so I don't find this particular quality you ascribe to free will meaningful.