5 ms·

Ok, let's imagine we all agree that free will doesn't exist. Now what?

haswell 4y ago
If we all actually accepted this today, incarceration and policing reforms become an immediate moral imperative, as would changing attitudes about the behaviors of those around us. The resulting societal changes would arguably change the world for the better. The notion that individuals should be punished for circumstances outside of their control is as problematic as jailing someone for getting the flu. This isn’t to claim that criminal behavior is acceptable or that nothing should be done about it, but the change in understanding of the behavior itself would immediately demand a shift towards rehabilitation instead of punishment/vengeance. Some people are still gonna have to be locked up, just like critically ill patients require ongoing care. But headlines like “scientists make breakthrough discovery in correcting brain chemistry that leads to sociopathy” will be as exciting as headlines about cancer cures.
- HideousKojima 4y ago
  >If we all actually accepted this today, incarceration and policing reforms become an immediate moral imperative. Nope, I have no free will with which to choose to stop imprisoning people in horrible conditions.
  - bena 4y ago
    Yeah, it's hilarious because it's a useless question and a useless answer. Because what they're asking is "What if we could fundamentally change existence?" That's what it would take to perform these reforms without the existence of free will. Because people wouldn't have the choice to do whatever. So while we would have to accept that not only are criminals incapable of doing anything different, but also the police are incapable of doing anything different, and the people hiring them, etc. Turtles all the way down. Nothing changes.
    - haswell 4y ago
      > So while we would have to accept that not only are criminals incapable of doing anything different, but also the police are incapable of doing anything different, and the people hiring them, etc. Turtles all the way down. This is an oversimplification/misreading of the philosophical ideas behind the notion that free will might not exist. Proponents of the 'no free will' camp generally understand this to mean that we are not the conscious authors of our thoughts, and that thoughts are the product of one's lifetime of experiences and the result of those experience on one's specific biology. In such a model of the world, the police would absolutely be capable of change, since knowledge is a potent change agent. We already society is capable of this kind of change by looking at the history of slavery. A growing understanding of the value of each human life made the abolition of slavery a moral imperative for similar reasons. Such a cultural shift didn't happen overnight, though.
      - bena 4y ago
        But only if they are the kind of people to change based on that information, etc. And if free will absolutely does not exist and we're just the results of the sum of our experiences, then it's also inevitable that the abolition of slavery was going to happen because that's the sum of the total. Free will is binary. You can't have just a little of it. And if the argument is that a lot of what we do is unconscious, then that's not arguing against free will. That's arguing against something else.
- jeremyjh 4y ago
  It would change nothing. We incarcerate to deter crime, and deterrents are a factor in decisions regardless of if you believe free will is a meaningful concept.
  - chickenimprint 4y ago
    Are you claiming that the perception of retributive justice being served is not a factor at all in current justice systems? This is as preventative, restorative and rehabilitative as it could ever be?
  - haswell 4y ago
    That is why I said: > Some people are still gonna have to be locked up The point is not that people do not need to be deterred, but that the nature of that deterrence and the policies related to locking people up must change with such a revelation. Such a revelation would also explain rates of recidivism, and shine a light on how counterproductive our current policies most likely are. As we learn more about the brain, some form of this is already playing out. Accused criminals have been exhonerated on account of tumors growing on their brains, the removal of which returned the individual to “normal”. Tumors are obvious, but as we learn more, I suspect we’ll find that many forms of criminality may be treatable.
luckylion 4y ago
Political persuasion is now a protected class.

If we all actually accepted this today, incarceration and policing reforms become an immediate moral imperative, as would changing attitudes about the behaviors of those around us. The resulting societal changes would arguably change the world for the better. The notion that individuals should be punished for circumstances outside of their control is as problematic as jailing someone for getting the flu. This isn’t to claim that criminal behavior is acceptable or that nothing should be done about it, but the change in understanding of the behavior itself would immediately demand a shift towards rehabilitation instead of punishment/vengeance. Some people are still gonna have to be locked up, just like critically ill patients require ongoing care. But headlines like “scientists make breakthrough discovery in correcting brain chemistry that leads to sociopathy” will be as exciting as headlines about cancer cures.

HideousKojima 4y ago
>If we all actually accepted this today, incarceration and policing reforms become an immediate moral imperative. Nope, I have no free will with which to choose to stop imprisoning people in horrible conditions.
- bena 4y ago
  Yeah, it's hilarious because it's a useless question and a useless answer. Because what they're asking is "What if we could fundamentally change existence?" That's what it would take to perform these reforms without the existence of free will. Because people wouldn't have the choice to do whatever. So while we would have to accept that not only are criminals incapable of doing anything different, but also the police are incapable of doing anything different, and the people hiring them, etc. Turtles all the way down. Nothing changes.
  - haswell 4y ago
    > So while we would have to accept that not only are criminals incapable of doing anything different, but also the police are incapable of doing anything different, and the people hiring them, etc. Turtles all the way down. This is an oversimplification/misreading of the philosophical ideas behind the notion that free will might not exist. Proponents of the 'no free will' camp generally understand this to mean that we are not the conscious authors of our thoughts, and that thoughts are the product of one's lifetime of experiences and the result of those experience on one's specific biology. In such a model of the world, the police would absolutely be capable of change, since knowledge is a potent change agent. We already society is capable of this kind of change by looking at the history of slavery. A growing understanding of the value of each human life made the abolition of slavery a moral imperative for similar reasons. Such a cultural shift didn't happen overnight, though.
    - bena 4y ago
      But only if they are the kind of people to change based on that information, etc. And if free will absolutely does not exist and we're just the results of the sum of our experiences, then it's also inevitable that the abolition of slavery was going to happen because that's the sum of the total. Free will is binary. You can't have just a little of it. And if the argument is that a lot of what we do is unconscious, then that's not arguing against free will. That's arguing against something else.
jeremyjh 4y ago
It would change nothing. We incarcerate to deter crime, and deterrents are a factor in decisions regardless of if you believe free will is a meaningful concept.
- chickenimprint 4y ago
  Are you claiming that the perception of retributive justice being served is not a factor at all in current justice systems? This is as preventative, restorative and rehabilitative as it could ever be?
- haswell 4y ago
  That is why I said: > Some people are still gonna have to be locked up The point is not that people do not need to be deterred, but that the nature of that deterrence and the policies related to locking people up must change with such a revelation. Such a revelation would also explain rates of recidivism, and shine a light on how counterproductive our current policies most likely are. As we learn more about the brain, some form of this is already playing out. Accused criminals have been exhonerated on account of tumors growing on their brains, the removal of which returned the individual to “normal”. Tumors are obvious, but as we learn more, I suspect we’ll find that many forms of criminality may be treatable.

luckylion 4y ago

Political persuasion is now a protected class.