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I never understood hard determinists who also claim they're not fatalists and spend their lives discussing morality (eg Sam Harris). I guess they have no choice

by dalmo3 3y ago

I never understood hard determinists who also claim they're not fatalists and spend their lives discussing morality (eg Sam Harris). I guess they have no choice whether they do...

sanitycheck 3y ago
Even if everything is deterministic, human society can only function successfully with the illusion of free will. If we admit nobody can be blamed for their actions, we can't punish them and thus the incentives not to do bad things disappear and the whole shebang collapses. Just cause and effect. That we exist as we do is a result of evolution selecting for perception of free will. That's my theory, anyway. (Make of my username what you will.)
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  The question should not be whether or not people have "free will" over their actions, since free will is impossible to emperically measure. Rather, the question should be whether deterrence and/or rehabilitation have measurable impacts on how people behave. Does Policy X reduce Crime Y? If yes, then it doesn't matter if people have free will or not, Policy X is effective. If no, then it doesn't matter if people have free will or not, Policy X is not effective. Either way the cookie crumbles, free will doesn't matter. So the question of free will is quite literally irrelevant.
- danbruc 3y ago
  If we admit nobody can be blamed for their actions, we can't punish them and thus the incentives not to do bad things disappear and the whole shebang collapses. That's not true. You can put people behind bars, say for example murderers, without blaming them for what did but in order to protect others. Even today we will, for example, lock people with dangerous mental illnesses up in order to protect others from them, even if we know that what they did, they did because of some condition outside of their control.
  - naasking 3y ago
    This still implicitly asserts that the murderers are to blame for something. "Protecting others" carries an implicit assertion that failing to abide by this principle means you are broken, rather than that the principle itself is mistaken, as would be true if you really believed blame didn't exist. And then you still have to account for whether the transgressor was coerced rather than was acting from their beliefs and desires (aka made a free choice). You can't really escape free will.
    - simiones 3y ago
      > "Protecting others" carries an implicit assertion that failing to abide by this principle means you are broken, rather than that the principle itself is mistaken, as would be true if you really believed blame didn't exist. Not at all. People seek to stop fires in order to protect others, but few believe fire carries blame for burning people. Of course, you need to believe that there is determinism (the fire is causing the burns, so stopping the fire will stop the burns), but that's it. > And then you still have to account for whether the transgressor was coerced rather than was acting from their beliefs and desires (aka made a free choice). This is still just a question about causality. The problem you are trying to solve is that people are getting hurt. You need to determine the ultimate cause for that in order to effectively solve it. So, if A is killing people that you want to live, you will want to first stop A from doing so. Next, you will have to determine what was causing A to kill people - if A was doing so because B paid for it, then you probably need to stop B as well: otherwise B may pay C to kill people even if A is in jail. If this has been determined, A may or may not need to be jailed at all, based on beliefs about whether A may still continue to kill people even if B has been stopped. None of this requires some metaphysical notion of blame, it only requires a belief in determinism and a model of causality of behavior. A computer could be built that would take such decisions in a purely deterministic way, and using only information about purely physical facts (A performed act x, B performed act y, other people that share characteristics d, e, f with A performed act x, etc).
      - naasking 3y ago
        > but few believe fire carries blame for burning people Because fire doesn't have intentions, beliefs and mental states that respond to feedback about right/wrong, and that govern its future behaviour. > he problem you are trying to solve is that people are getting hurt. You need to determine the ultimate cause for that in order to effectively solve it. So, if A is killing people that you want to live, you will want to first stop A from doing so. Next, you will have to determine what was causing A to kill people - if A was doing so because B paid for it, then you probably need to stop B as well: otherwise B may pay C to kill people even if A is in jail. If this has been determined, A may or may not need to be jailed at all, based on beliefs about whether A may still continue to kill people even if B has been stopped. None of this requires some metaphysical notion of blame It's frankly amazing that you can perform an in depth analysis of how to ascertain who is to blame, and yet conclude that blame is not required. You're performing this elaborate dance trying to avoid the word "blame" despite the fact that this analysis is exactly what everybody means by "blame". There's nothing metaphysical about it.
- simiones 3y ago
  In a deterministic mindset, your choice is still specific to you, even though it is determined by the state of the universe at the time it was made. So, your choice to commit a certain act is very much still determined by the existence of laws that would punish you were you to do that act (among many other things, of course). A simplistic model is training a reinforcement learning (RL) agent: you design a reward/punishment system to determine the behavior of the agent. Typically people don't consider that the agent is morally evil if it commits certain acts, but they still punish the agent if it does them, so that it learns not to. And of course, we know by construction that a RL agent is living in a fully deterministic world and has no free will.
  - sanitycheck 3y ago
    The difference is that humans are not RL agents, they're living breathing beings with feelings. We can't (under our moral frameworks which are inescapable) just delete people who are sub-par, we need to be convinced that they bear moral responsibility for their actions first. To kill or imprison someone who had no choice about their actions would be unjust.
    - simiones 3y ago
      > To kill or imprison someone who had no choice about their actions would be unjust. That is not the problem under discussion. The question actually sits in the definition of "choice". You seem to believe that something constitutes a (moral) choice only if the agent could do it or not without regard to its entire life of experiences up until that point. The more common notion of (moral) choice is that it constitutes any act which an agent takes without being coerced completely into it by some other agent. If my whole life up to this moment caused me to shoot you, that was a moral choice I made. If a dog bites my hand and pushes my finger into the trigger causing me to shoot you, then I didn't make a moral choice to shoot you (however, if someone is holding a knife to my throat and telling me they will kill me unless I shoot you, I'm still making a moral choice if I do so). I should also note that laws don't typically make any mention about whether you had a choice in your actions. A related but extremely different criterion, used in insanity defenses, is whether you understood the nature of your actions at the time of committing the act. This is obviously fully compatible with a deterministic universe: I can understand the consequences of my actions even if I am fully compelled by circumstance to do them. Conversely, a person who is suffering from severe hallucinations, even in a world with strong free will, might shoot you while believing, say, that they are choosing to shoot a water gun at a painting. They made an explicit choice by any definition, but it's not a morally evil act since they didn't understand what they were actually doing.
- thwarted 3y ago
  I never understood why "nobody could be blamed for their actions" is some kind of argument against determinism. Neither the perpetrator of the act nor the punisher can choose. Why does the punisher exist outside the deterministic system but the perpetrator does not? The perpetrator's logic is the same: if I do this, the punisher has no choice but to punish me. Everyone is along for the ride. The very desire to control the actions of others within some "moral" framework also exists within the system. As danbruc said elsewhere in this thread: Even in a deterministic universe you still have to deal with criminals in one way or another, and you have to make the rules and implement them A moral framework that this happens (deterministically) under doesn't exist to undermine the deterministic nature of the criminals, but in direct deterministic consequence of the existence of criminals. The state machine of the universe has led to my desire for a moral framework to punish criminals, the existence of criminals, the criminal acts, and the application of a moral framework to recognize and punish criminals. Under determinism, these are all intertwined. I see it as free will exists (if it does by some definition) at the time a decision is made based on the inputs (the state of the universe) at that point. "Doing something different in the same situation" (having choice) is impossible because "the same situation" is impossible because the universe continues to run. Given the same input (the universe), why would you "choose differently"? You have no reason to. If output is not based on input, the output is arbitrary and random, which also undermines the existence of free will.
  - sanitycheck 3y ago
    I'm not just talking about criminals, I'm talking about normal human interaction. Game theory. How would societies form if not for cooperation? How is cooperation ensured without feedback mechanisms to enforce it? This can all emerge from deterministic processes, same as many other things in nature. In your final paragraph you seem to be saying (meaningful) free will doesn't exist? If so, I agree. The thing I really wonder about is why it seems that it does.
    - thwarted 3y ago
      Oh, sorry, I'm not trying to contradict what you said, rather support and offer a (perhaps different) angle or detail. Dealing with criminals is just an example. The same applies for the desire to form or not form a society. As for "why it it seems that [free will exists]", I want to say that a combination of the Incompleteness Theorem, the fact that we don't know enough to grok the entire state of the universe, that we don't know what the future holds, and that we have the ability to reflect upon the past that gives the "illusion" of choice. But even asking that question seems to assume that we are discussing the illusion of free will from a perspective _outside of the universe_. Just like we must assume the universe exists, we must also assume that free will _seems_ like it exists.
a13o 3y ago
Dig into compatibilism to learn how these two concepts can coexist. What you'll find is what's at the heart of most philosophical disagreement - a lack of rigorous definitions. In this case, you probably don't have a standalone definition of free will. If your definition is effectively a derivative of determinism, such as "free will = not determinism," then this is what binds you. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  Disagree. I think compatibilism's definition of "free will" is something considerably less than what I consider to be free will. I think compatibilism weakens the definition of free will in order to make it compatible, but it's not really arguing what it sounds like it is.
danbruc 3y ago
There are many angles to this. The first one would of course be what you said, there would be no choice otherwise. I think in general a deterministic universe would not be too different from one with true free will, at least from the perspective of our current knowledge and capabilities. People would still make decisions - do one thing and not another - have ideas, talk about them, be influenced by others, just the ultimate root why things go one way and not another would be different. Even in a deterministic universe you still have to deal with criminals in one way or another, and you have to make the rules and implement them, and for making the rules you have to think about the nature of the universe and what that means for morality. The real mystery for me would here be, why would a deterministic universe bring about a system of morality that takes the determinism of the universe into account? Or more generally, why can you do anything useful in a deterministic universe? Why are your perception, your thoughts, and your words connected in a meaningful way? Why is it not the case that the universe is in state A, you perceive B, think C, and say D? There is one apple, you see two, think of three oranges, and say half a fork. Back to the initial question, you could also consider that you are wrong, determinism might be false and you have free will after all. It would then be a bit of a waste to not use your capacity and instead throw your hands up because you - incorrectly - think that everything is set in stone anyway.

by dalmo3 3y ago

I never understood hard determinists who also claim they're not fatalists and spend their lives discussing morality (eg Sam Harris). I guess they have no choice whether they do...

sanitycheck 3y ago

Even if everything is deterministic, human society can only function successfully with the illusion of free will. If we admit nobody can be blamed for their actions, we can't punish them and thus the incentives not to do bad things disappear and the whole shebang collapses. Just cause and effect. That we exist as we do is a result of evolution selecting for perception of free will. That's my theory, anyway. (Make of my username what you will.)

mcpackieh 3y ago
The question should not be whether or not people have "free will" over their actions, since free will is impossible to emperically measure. Rather, the question should be whether deterrence and/or rehabilitation have measurable impacts on how people behave. Does Policy X reduce Crime Y? If yes, then it doesn't matter if people have free will or not, Policy X is effective. If no, then it doesn't matter if people have free will or not, Policy X is not effective. Either way the cookie crumbles, free will doesn't matter. So the question of free will is quite literally irrelevant.
danbruc 3y ago
If we admit nobody can be blamed for their actions, we can't punish them and thus the incentives not to do bad things disappear and the whole shebang collapses. That's not true. You can put people behind bars, say for example murderers, without blaming them for what did but in order to protect others. Even today we will, for example, lock people with dangerous mental illnesses up in order to protect others from them, even if we know that what they did, they did because of some condition outside of their control.
- naasking 3y ago
  This still implicitly asserts that the murderers are to blame for something. "Protecting others" carries an implicit assertion that failing to abide by this principle means you are broken, rather than that the principle itself is mistaken, as would be true if you really believed blame didn't exist. And then you still have to account for whether the transgressor was coerced rather than was acting from their beliefs and desires (aka made a free choice). You can't really escape free will.
  - simiones 3y ago
    > "Protecting others" carries an implicit assertion that failing to abide by this principle means you are broken, rather than that the principle itself is mistaken, as would be true if you really believed blame didn't exist. Not at all. People seek to stop fires in order to protect others, but few believe fire carries blame for burning people. Of course, you need to believe that there is determinism (the fire is causing the burns, so stopping the fire will stop the burns), but that's it. > And then you still have to account for whether the transgressor was coerced rather than was acting from their beliefs and desires (aka made a free choice). This is still just a question about causality. The problem you are trying to solve is that people are getting hurt. You need to determine the ultimate cause for that in order to effectively solve it. So, if A is killing people that you want to live, you will want to first stop A from doing so. Next, you will have to determine what was causing A to kill people - if A was doing so because B paid for it, then you probably need to stop B as well: otherwise B may pay C to kill people even if A is in jail. If this has been determined, A may or may not need to be jailed at all, based on beliefs about whether A may still continue to kill people even if B has been stopped. None of this requires some metaphysical notion of blame, it only requires a belief in determinism and a model of causality of behavior. A computer could be built that would take such decisions in a purely deterministic way, and using only information about purely physical facts (A performed act x, B performed act y, other people that share characteristics d, e, f with A performed act x, etc).
    - naasking 3y ago
      > but few believe fire carries blame for burning people Because fire doesn't have intentions, beliefs and mental states that respond to feedback about right/wrong, and that govern its future behaviour. > he problem you are trying to solve is that people are getting hurt. You need to determine the ultimate cause for that in order to effectively solve it. So, if A is killing people that you want to live, you will want to first stop A from doing so. Next, you will have to determine what was causing A to kill people - if A was doing so because B paid for it, then you probably need to stop B as well: otherwise B may pay C to kill people even if A is in jail. If this has been determined, A may or may not need to be jailed at all, based on beliefs about whether A may still continue to kill people even if B has been stopped. None of this requires some metaphysical notion of blame It's frankly amazing that you can perform an in depth analysis of how to ascertain who is to blame, and yet conclude that blame is not required. You're performing this elaborate dance trying to avoid the word "blame" despite the fact that this analysis is exactly what everybody means by "blame". There's nothing metaphysical about it.
simiones 3y ago
In a deterministic mindset, your choice is still specific to you, even though it is determined by the state of the universe at the time it was made. So, your choice to commit a certain act is very much still determined by the existence of laws that would punish you were you to do that act (among many other things, of course). A simplistic model is training a reinforcement learning (RL) agent: you design a reward/punishment system to determine the behavior of the agent. Typically people don't consider that the agent is morally evil if it commits certain acts, but they still punish the agent if it does them, so that it learns not to. And of course, we know by construction that a RL agent is living in a fully deterministic world and has no free will.
- sanitycheck 3y ago
  The difference is that humans are not RL agents, they're living breathing beings with feelings. We can't (under our moral frameworks which are inescapable) just delete people who are sub-par, we need to be convinced that they bear moral responsibility for their actions first. To kill or imprison someone who had no choice about their actions would be unjust.
  - simiones 3y ago
    > To kill or imprison someone who had no choice about their actions would be unjust. That is not the problem under discussion. The question actually sits in the definition of "choice". You seem to believe that something constitutes a (moral) choice only if the agent could do it or not without regard to its entire life of experiences up until that point. The more common notion of (moral) choice is that it constitutes any act which an agent takes without being coerced completely into it by some other agent. If my whole life up to this moment caused me to shoot you, that was a moral choice I made. If a dog bites my hand and pushes my finger into the trigger causing me to shoot you, then I didn't make a moral choice to shoot you (however, if someone is holding a knife to my throat and telling me they will kill me unless I shoot you, I'm still making a moral choice if I do so). I should also note that laws don't typically make any mention about whether you had a choice in your actions. A related but extremely different criterion, used in insanity defenses, is whether you understood the nature of your actions at the time of committing the act. This is obviously fully compatible with a deterministic universe: I can understand the consequences of my actions even if I am fully compelled by circumstance to do them. Conversely, a person who is suffering from severe hallucinations, even in a world with strong free will, might shoot you while believing, say, that they are choosing to shoot a water gun at a painting. They made an explicit choice by any definition, but it's not a morally evil act since they didn't understand what they were actually doing.
thwarted 3y ago
I never understood why "nobody could be blamed for their actions" is some kind of argument against determinism. Neither the perpetrator of the act nor the punisher can choose. Why does the punisher exist outside the deterministic system but the perpetrator does not? The perpetrator's logic is the same: if I do this, the punisher has no choice but to punish me. Everyone is along for the ride. The very desire to control the actions of others within some "moral" framework also exists within the system. As danbruc said elsewhere in this thread: Even in a deterministic universe you still have to deal with criminals in one way or another, and you have to make the rules and implement them A moral framework that this happens (deterministically) under doesn't exist to undermine the deterministic nature of the criminals, but in direct deterministic consequence of the existence of criminals. The state machine of the universe has led to my desire for a moral framework to punish criminals, the existence of criminals, the criminal acts, and the application of a moral framework to recognize and punish criminals. Under determinism, these are all intertwined. I see it as free will exists (if it does by some definition) at the time a decision is made based on the inputs (the state of the universe) at that point. "Doing something different in the same situation" (having choice) is impossible because "the same situation" is impossible because the universe continues to run. Given the same input (the universe), why would you "choose differently"? You have no reason to. If output is not based on input, the output is arbitrary and random, which also undermines the existence of free will.
- sanitycheck 3y ago
  I'm not just talking about criminals, I'm talking about normal human interaction. Game theory. How would societies form if not for cooperation? How is cooperation ensured without feedback mechanisms to enforce it? This can all emerge from deterministic processes, same as many other things in nature. In your final paragraph you seem to be saying (meaningful) free will doesn't exist? If so, I agree. The thing I really wonder about is why it seems that it does.
  - thwarted 3y ago
    Oh, sorry, I'm not trying to contradict what you said, rather support and offer a (perhaps different) angle or detail. Dealing with criminals is just an example. The same applies for the desire to form or not form a society. As for "why it it seems that [free will exists]", I want to say that a combination of the Incompleteness Theorem, the fact that we don't know enough to grok the entire state of the universe, that we don't know what the future holds, and that we have the ability to reflect upon the past that gives the "illusion" of choice. But even asking that question seems to assume that we are discussing the illusion of free will from a perspective _outside of the universe_. Just like we must assume the universe exists, we must also assume that free will _seems_ like it exists.

a13o 3y ago

Dig into compatibilism to learn how these two concepts can coexist. What you'll find is what's at the heart of most philosophical disagreement - a lack of rigorous definitions. In this case, you probably don't have a standalone definition of free will. If your definition is effectively a derivative of determinism, such as "free will = not determinism," then this is what binds you. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism

AnimalMuppet 3y ago
Disagree. I think compatibilism's definition of "free will" is something considerably less than what I consider to be free will. I think compatibilism weakens the definition of free will in order to make it compatible, but it's not really arguing what it sounds like it is.

danbruc 3y ago

There are many angles to this. The first one would of course be what you said, there would be no choice otherwise. I think in general a deterministic universe would not be too different from one with true free will, at least from the perspective of our current knowledge and capabilities. People would still make decisions - do one thing and not another - have ideas, talk about them, be influenced by others, just the ultimate root why things go one way and not another would be different. Even in a deterministic universe you still have to deal with criminals in one way or another, and you have to make the rules and implement them, and for making the rules you have to think about the nature of the universe and what that means for morality. The real mystery for me would here be, why would a deterministic universe bring about a system of morality that takes the determinism of the universe into account? Or more generally, why can you do anything useful in a deterministic universe? Why are your perception, your thoughts, and your words connected in a meaningful way? Why is it not the case that the universe is in state A, you perceive B, think C, and say D? There is one apple, you see two, think of three oranges, and say half a fork. Back to the initial question, you could also consider that you are wrong, determinism might be false and you have free will after all. It would then be a bit of a waste to not use your capacity and instead throw your hands up because you - incorrectly - think that everything is set in stone anyway.