The Great Contradiction

[T.G.G. Moogly]

You are merely, and I think this may be a key point, possibly THE key point in all of this, omitting the word fully in the first part.

A particular causally determined factor would be a constraint, yes?

Therefore, if we are fully causally determined (which it seems we are, temporarily setting aside the possibility of randomness) then that does seem to mean we are fully constrained. How could it not follow?



Indeed it does. A constraint is a limitation or restriction. Fully causally determined would be fully restricted. How are you, like everything else in the universe, not that?

When I say I'm writing this free of any constraints, I'm not suggesting that there are no causes, but rather that there is no coercion or compulsion.

You only mean, as Hume did, no obvious and/or external coercion or compulsion. Again I think you are omitting a crucial 'fully'.

Once you include all the internal and non-obvious ones, as you surely should, because they are operating on your system, you are in fact, it seems (absent any alternative explanation) fully constrained, and as such you can never freely will to do otherwise than what you do. There is no wiggle room at all. It just doesn't feel like that to you. It's an illusion. You have no free will at all, it would seem. How could it actually be otherwise?

As the saying goes, if the moon could think to itself, it might tell itself that it was steering itself around the earth, because it would not be aware that it wasn't doing that.

But, I hear you say, the hypothetically thinking moon is fully constrained. It just doesn't realise it.

But so are you!

Or please tell me how you could even possibly not be.

This thread is heading off into presuppositionalism where existence is claimed to exist!

I can't envision a test for free will that isn't itself constrained. Any ideas?

 

[ruby sparks]

This thread is heading off into presuppositionalism where existence is claimed to exist!

I can't envision a test for free will that isn't itself constrained. Any ideas?

I can't think of any such test.

Not sure why that involves presuppositionalism though. Or whether presuppositionalism involves claiming existence exists. Or if it does what's wrong with that, or why it's relevant here. Will we be doing brains in vats in a minute?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

This thread is heading off into presuppositionalism where existence is claimed to exist!

I can't envision a test for free will that isn't itself constrained. Any ideas?

I can't think of any such test.

Not sure why that involves presuppositionalism though. Or whether presuppositionalism involves claiming existence exists. Or if it does what's wrong with that, or why it's relevant here. Will we be doing brains in vats in a minute?

My discussions with presuppositionalists in the past have basically been to try to get them to understand that their arguments are semantic blather. They're keen on taking a word and objectifying it, an example being the word "existence." They suppose that we can have a discussion and use the word "existence" only because existence already exists! Voila! They don't connect the sounds and squiggles we make with anything except more sounds and more squiggles. Language and communication has become an end unto itself.

When a person says they have free will they are making a religious/philosophical statement. I don't think I'm being too much of a logical positivist by saying that arguments for free will are as circular as arguments for magical beings. The gods are never there because they're just concepts, ideas, and cannot be tested for.

 

[ruby sparks]

My discussions with presuppositionalists in the past have basically been to try to get them to understand that their arguments are semantic blather. They're keen on taking a word and objectifying it, an example being the word "existence." They suppose that we can have a discussion and use the word "existence" only because existence already exists! Voila! They don't connect the sounds and squiggles we make with anything except more sounds and more squiggles. Language and communication has become an end unto itself.

When a person says they have free will they are making a religious/philosophical statement. I don't think I'm being too much of a logical positivist by saying that arguments for free will are as circular as arguments for magical beings. The gods are never there because they're just concepts, ideas, and cannot be tested for.

Ah. I thought you meant that my post was getting us into presuppositionalism, whereas you meant (I think) that belief in free will was doing that.

Assuming I'm correct in saying that (tell me if I'm not) then those are interesting thoughts of yours. I generally agree that there are at least some parallels between belief in god (or just the supernatural) and belief in free will, yes.

 

[The AntiChris]

It seems to me if we are going to make someone suffer we'd better have a pretty good reason to do so and the mere satisfaction of a desire to see wrongdoers suffer doesn't qualify even if we label it 'justice'.

Well then, what is a pretty good reason to make someone suffer?

I suspect you have good idea of the kind of response you're going to get, so we could save time if you explain where you're going with this line of enquiry.

 

[The AntiChris]

Your misunderstanding of my post is not on me.

Ok. We'll have to agree to disagree.

Note: I'm not going to attempt to respond to every point you raise because I'd like to keep these exchanges to a manageable size (there's a danger that important points get subsumed in the detailed back and forth in lengthy posts). I'm therefore going to focus on what I see as the heart of our disagreement.

It seems to me if we are going to make someone suffer we'd better have a pretty good reason to do so and the mere satisfaction of a desire to see wrongdoers suffer doesn't qualify even if we label it 'justice'.

Of course, given that you think they do not deserve retribution for what they did, it is to be expected that you think that the "mere satisfaction" of a desire to see wrongdoers suffer does not qualify as a good reason. But again, that does not explain why you think they do not deserve retribution for what they did.

Without a "desire to see wrongdoers suffer" the concept of deserved retribution would not exist. In other words deserved retribution is based on (it would not exist without) the desire to see wrongdoers suffer for no practical reason (not for any reasons of a pragmatic greater good).

I reject purely retributive punishment for a couple of main reasons:

1) We don't normally hurt people just to see them suffer. Retribution is hurting people for no good reason.

2) There's a risk that the desire for (purely) retributive punishment takes the focus away from other consequentialist responses/punishments aimed at making a safer society.

Ordinarily, humans reckon that wrongdoers do deserve retribution for their wrongful. actions (take a look at how people behave). So, why is the human moral sense so wrong on this?

It's no surprise that we've got an evolutionarily evolved natural desire for revenge. It's what's kept us safer in our evolutionary past. The desire for revenge is a natural and, virtually, automatic response. It's rationalised as justified retribution.

It's not okay to inflict punishment beyond what the wrongdoer deserves, even if the victim or someone else might desire so. So, in a sense, the mere desire does not qualify.

But how is the correct level of retributive punishment calculated and who should be the arbiter?

 

[Bomb#20]

It seems to me if we are going to make someone suffer we'd better have a pretty good reason to do so and the mere satisfaction of a desire to see wrongdoers suffer doesn't qualify even if we label it 'justice'.

Well then, what is a pretty good reason to make someone suffer?

I suspect you have good idea of the kind of response you're going to get, so we could save time if you explain where you're going with this line of enquiry.

Okay, have it your way. I suspect you'll offer physically preventing the person from breaking a rule in the future, and modifying the person's mind to make him less likely to break a rule in the future, and making an example of him as a means to frighten third parties out of breaking a rule in the future, as "pretty good reasons" to make him suffer. Is that about the size of it?

Where I'm going with this line of enquiry, of course, is to point out that not a one of those so-called "pretty good reasons" depends on the person I suspect you propose we make suffer actually having broken the rule in the past. When you "reject the retributive notion of moral desert", as you put it, you are not merely rejecting the notion of hurting the guilty because they deserve it. That coin has two sides. To reject the retributive notion of moral desert is simultaneously to reject the notion of not hurting the innocent because they don't deserve it.

If moral desert isn't at least a component of what it takes to qualify as a "pretty good reason", then that implies it's okay to arrest innocent people for pre-crime who are judged likely to become criminals, to preventively isolate them and/or to prehabilitate them: to hurt them in advance to scare them out of becoming criminals. And it implies it's okay to harm innocent people -- either people generally believed to be guilty by the public, or else the loved ones of criminals -- as a deterrent to third parties. Do you in fact think those are pretty good reasons to make someone suffer?

If you do, this should suffice to demonstrate to the rest of our readers that your position on the retributive notion of moral desert is pure evil. If you don't, what's stopping you? Compartmentalization? Cognitive dissonance between your philosophical commitment to an abstract theory and the practical guidance you're getting from your evolved moral sense? Or do you have an actual logical explanation for why it isn't okay to hurt the innocent -- an explanation that doesn't rely on taking into account the fact that they don't deserve it?

 

[fromderinside]

I observe innocents being hurt intentionally every day. If it's morally wrong wrong to do so and morals are universal - a position somewhat extreme, but suits my argument here - then having morals aren't very useful for controlling bad behavior.

just sayin'

 

[Lion IRC]

The theologians have three stances they take on this issue.

1. God is incomprehensible and mere mortals cannot 'explain' God.
2. That everything that exists must be explained only counts for things that began to exist while God did not begin to exist but has always existed.
3. That everything that exists needs explaining only applies to material things and not transcendent things, like God.

These are the same three used in atheology.
1. There's some things we will never know. Science is great because it admits it's own ignorance and corrects its own mistakes. We don't have (and probably never will have) the tools/technology needed to investigate many unknowns. It's OK not to know. Yadda yadda yadda.
2. The universe has always existed. "Began to exist..." is special pleading. There's no such thing as ex nihilo.
3. Materialism. If you can't touch it, measure it, weigh it, it's irrelevant to science.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I observe innocents being hurt intentionally every day. If it's morally wrong wrong to do so and morals are universal - a position somewhat extreme, but suits my argument here - then having morals aren't very useful for controlling bad behavior.

just sayin'

Good point. Religious folk will invent devils and other evil spirits to account for the behavior, more fantasy. Religionists will also blame people for not being religious enough, but then turn around and say how good everything is because the global population is 80% religious.

Obviously, the majority of that harm is being inflicted by folks who wear their piety on their sleeve but don't see the contradiction, the conflict and the inconsistency.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

You are merely, and I think this may be a key point, possibly THE key point in all of this, omitting the word fully in the first part.

It is not a key point. If I am causally determined (rather than parts of me being causally determined, and parts of me not being so), then I am fully causally determined. But this is not an issue. If there is any lack of clarify, let me amend it:

First, that we are fully causally determined does not assume we are fully constrained. The word 'constrain' has a meaning. When I say I'm writing this free of any constraints, I'm not suggesting that there are no causes that fully determine my actions, but rather that there is no coercion or compulsion.

A particular causally determined factor would be a constraint, yes?

Some would, yes. If someone were pointing a gun at me and credibly telling me to write or else he shoots me, I would not be writing this of my own accord. My actions would be constrained.

Therefore, if we are fully causally determined (which it seems we are, temporarily setting aside the possibility of randomness) then that does seem to mean we are fully constrained. How could it not follow?

I do not see how that could possibly follow. Suppose no one is pointing any weapon at me or making any other threats. Suppose, further, that I am free of internal compulsion (again, paradigmatic example of kleptomania). Well, I do not see any of the sort of causes that constrain my choices acting on me. As I said before, for you to have a valid argument, you must have implicit premises. If you post a valid argument - making your implicit premises explicit - I offer to identify which ones of them are contentious.

Indeed it does. A constraint is a limitation or restriction. Fully causally determined would be fully restricted. How are you, like everything else in the universe, not that?

I disagree. That is not the meaning of 'constraint' that is relevant in this context. Take a look at a dictionary definition (e.g., https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/constraint), or better, observe how people use the word in the wild.

You only mean, as Hume did, no obvious and/or external coercion or compulsion. Again I think you are omitting a crucial 'fully'.

No, I mean what people generally mean by that. I suggest you take a look at the contexts in which the word is used.
Sure, there is a broad sense of "constrain" that might say we are all constrained by our own limitation, e.g., we cannot fly like Superman. Sure, but even in that sense of constrained, we are only partially constrained, and this is not because of causes, or full causes; rather, it is because of our limited powers.

Once you include all the internal and non-obvious ones, as you surely should, because they are operating on your system, you are in fact, it seems (absent any alternative explanation) fully constrained, and as such you can never freely will to do otherwise than what you do. There is no wiggle room at all. It just doesn't feel like that to you. It's an illusion. You have no free will at all, it would seem. How could it actually be otherwise?

That is not a proper question, as the burden is not on me. Again, the burden is not on me.

I might similarly say:

Once you include all the internal and non-obvious ones, as you surely should, because they are operating on your system, you are in fact, it seems (absent any alternative explanation) you have no power to type on your keyboard.​

But that would not follow.
Well, again, I would say that your "it seems (absent any alternative explanation) fully constrained, and as such you can never freely will to do otherwise than what you do. There is no wiggle room at all." does not follow. I have asked you before to please provide a valid argument in which you make your implicit premises explicit. In absence of that, I would say that your conclusion does not follow.

Now, it is an ordinary experience that I do things of my own accord, like writing this. Further, I am not constrained in the sense of 'constrained' relevant here. In a broad sense of 'constrained', as I am not omnipotent, I am constrained to doing what I have the power to, like writing this, etc. But that would not preclude my doing things of my own accord, and again even then, it would be only a partial constraint, and crucially not due to full causation, but due my lack of power to do stuff like flying like Superman.

As the saying goes, if the moon could think to itself, it might tell itself that it was steering itself around the earth, because it would not be aware that it wasn't doing that.

The saying is mistaken. If the Moon could think and had senses and could see the Earth, etc., and had a sort of human-like mind, it would realize that even if it tries to move in one direction or another, it is forced against its will to keep spinning around the Earth. The Moon, if rational, could easily try to go into a different direction, and see it cannot.

What if the Moon wanted to go around the Earth? Even then, if it had a human-like mind and were rational, it would realize it's not doing so of its own accord, but rather, it is being pushed. For example, suppose an astronaut has been detached from his spaceship, and is just wandering in space. She wants to go back of course, but does not have the ability to do so. But now suppose a robot from another country just grabs a cable she is attached to, and then just takes her back to her ship. She would realize that she's not moving towards her ship because she chose to of her own accord, but rather, she is just being towed, regardless of what she wants. The same for the Moon.

But, I hear you say, the hypothetically thinking moon is fully constrained. It just doesn't realise it.

But so are you!

No, the Moon would realize it easily, as the astronaut would, if the Moon had a human-like mind. As I would if I were being forced.

Or please tell me how you could even possibly not be.

That is the wrong question to ask, because when you make an extraordinary claim that much of our ordinary experiences are an illusion, obvious beliefs are false, and so on, the burden is upon you.

Now, if by 'possible' you ask about logical possibility, well, I have not seen any contradiction, and it seems extremely improbable that there is one I have not seen, as I have read many arguments on the subject and frankly I am good at logic.

OTOH, if by 'possible' you mean to ask for an explanation of the mechanism, then I do not know, but that is not my burden. For example, I know I'm conscious. But I do not know how that is possible, as I have not resolved the problem of consciousness. However, if someone claims that consciousness is an illusion (obviously false) the burden would be on them, and my lack of an explantion of how it is that I can be conscious is not even relevant.

For that matter, take a look at my example in this post. The fact that Jack has no explanation as to how he has the power to move small objects does not change the fact that he has excellent reasons (conclusive even) to believe that he does have that power.

Similarly, I can tell - it's obvious - that I am writing this on my own accord. I can go further and test it - it is easy. I have done so, as explained for example in this post.

In short, you have the burden backwards. If you claim that it is not possible that I am writing this of my own accord, your claim - without any argument to back it up - provides a little but almost negligible evidence in support of the hypothesis that I am not writing this of my own accord. It is still beyond a reasonable doubt that I am in fact writing of my own accord. If you want to provide an argument for the impossibility, then that is up to you. So far, you have not provided a logicaly valid argument deriving a contradiction from the hypothesis that I am writing this of my own free will + the hypothesis that the universe is causally deterministic (fully so, if you do not interpret 'causally determined' as usual). Now, maybe the argument you have in your head is valid, but it has further, implicit premises. If so, fair enough: I will just ask you to make the implicit premises explicit. In other words, I am asking you to derive a contradiction from the following explicit premises:

P1: I am writing this of my own free will.

P2. The universe is causally deterministic (fully so, if you do not interpret 'causally determined' as usual).

P3. Whatever other premises you might be using.

On the other hand, if your argument is not for a logical impossibility, but rather, you are saying it is improbable on the basis of the available information, then I would ask to to please say so (i.e., say clearly that you are not suggesting it is logically impossible for the universe to be causally deterministic and for me to write of my own accord), and then give your probabilistic argument.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

I observe innocents being hurt intentionally every day. If it's morally wrong wrong to do so and morals are universal - a position somewhat extreme, but suits my argument here - then having morals aren't very useful for controlling bad behavior.

just sayin'

What do you mean by 'morals' here?

What is universal is a moral sense, which allows humans to make intuitive assessments of right and wrong. In nearly all cases, there is agreement, so no one notices. In some cases, there is disagreement, and that is salient. The moral sense is not perfect.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Without a "desire to see wrongdoers suffer" the concept of deserved retribution would not exist. In other words deserved retribution is based on (it would not exist without) the desire to see wrongdoers suffer for no practical reason (not for any reasons of a pragmatic greater good).

Even if as a matter of psychology that is true and a species with no such desire would not have a language with that concept, the two concepts are nevertheless separated. For example, Jack can assess that he deserves to be executed, while having no desire whatsoever to be executed. Now, it might be that he needs to have a desire to punish other wrongdoers in order to grasp the concept. But it might not be so. It's a matter for research in moral psychology, it seems to me.

In any case, your previous answer "It seems to me if we are going to make someone suffer we'd better have a pretty good reason to do so and the mere satisfaction of a desire to see wrongdoers suffer doesn't qualify even if we label it 'justice'." does not explain why you think they do not deserve it.

To be precise, I also do believe that a desire to see wrongdoers suffer is not enough to give us a good reason to make someone suffer. We need other reasons. In particular, we need to have a justified belief that the person we intend to punish actually behaved immorally to the extent needed to make the intended retribution deserved.

So, even granting that, as a matter of psychology, a species without a desire to see wrongdoers suffer would not have the concept of deserved retribution, and even granting that the mere desire to see wrongdoers suffer is not enough to give us a good reason, I reckon wrongdoers deserve to be punished, and generally - all other things equal - it is okay to punish them as deserved.

I reject purely retributive punishment for a couple of main reasons:

1) We don't normally hurt people just to see them suffer. Retribution is hurting people for no good reason.

2) There's a risk that the desire for (purely) retributive punishment takes the focus away from other consequentialist responses/punishments aimed at making a safer society.

1. To the first sentence, I would reply that actually, humans normally do that. More precisely, no, not just to see them suffer, but rather, to make them suffer as they deserve in just retribution for their actions. Also, it's not to see them suffer. Whether we witness the suffering or not is not the issue, but whether they actually suffer it.

To the second sentence, my reply is that I disagree. There is a good reason: they deserve to suffer as retribution for their actions (i.e., on the basis of the available information, it is so probable that it's beyond a reasonable doubt that they deserve it, etc.). Granted, here I'm just saying that that is a good reason. But that is the default human position so to speak. It's a moral assessment that nearly all humans make intuitively. I do as well. You deny that that is a good reason, but I would like to ask why you think that human moral assessments on the matter are generally wrong.

2. If there is a non-negligible risk, one ought to consider it of course. As I said earlier, it's not always okay to punish people as they deserve, since there are further considerations (e.g., chances of civil war, danger to third parties, etc.). That is not a matter of consequentialist goals in particular. It's a matter of making moral assessments as usual, considering many factors. While I think punishing someone as they deserve and because they deserve it is appropriate all other things equal, of course other things need to be factored in.

So, 2. is actually not a the main point of contention I think.

It's no surprise that we've got an evolutionarily evolved natural desire for revenge. It's what's kept us safer in our evolutionary past. The desire for revenge is a natural and, virtually, automatic response. It's rationalised as justified retribution.

Yes, and it is part of our evolutionary evolved natural moral sense and moral motivation. The former allows us to make assessments as to who behaves in a morally impermissible, permissible, or praiseworthy manner, who deserves to be punished or rewarded and to what extent, etc.; latter motivates us to avoid wrongful behavior, and to punish those who engage in it, and so on. The making of moral judgments and our moral motivation are natural and virtually automatic response. But it would be a mistake to dismiss it as 'rationalized as moral' response, etc. Rather, that is what human morality is. Just retribution, and our motivation to bring it about, is a significant part of human morality. You are rejecting a significant part of human morality, but not the whole. Yet, I do not see why you reject that big part (see above).

But how is the correct level of retributive punishment calculated and who should be the arbiter?

To the first question, my answer would be that we make that calculation in the same as in all moral assessments. We use our intuitive moral sense to assess whether a person behaved immorally, and if so, how immorally. Similarly, we also use it to assess what punishment would be appropriate (and I think it's not just a single punishment, but there are in general at least several different punishments each of which would be fitting for a specific wrongdoing). Well, at least that is the way we humans normally do it, and it is generally the proper way of doing so (some people put the Bible-Quran,etc./cart before the moral sense/horses, but they're doing it wrong).

Now, you do not seem to have a problem with using one's moral sense to make an assessment as to whether some behavior is morally wrong, to what extent, etc. (but if I got this wrong, please let me know how you make moral assessments and ascertain whether a certain behavior is unethical). On the other hand, you seem to reject the use of our moral sense to ascertain what punishment they deserve. But I don't know why you reject this one, but not the other.

I would like to ask, also, how do you propose to calculate the correct consequentialist goals, the level of non-retributive punishment that it is ethically acceptable to impose in order to attain them, and so on.

As to the second question, that seems unclear to me (as is often the case with passive-voice moral questions). As a matter of fact, each of us is the arbiter in the sense that we make moral assessments. Some of those assessments are about whether a behavior is unethical and how much, some others are about what punishment is deserved in retribution for wrongdoings, and so on. I think it is normal and proper that each of us makes those assessments.
If you're asking about who would decide when to impose retribution in just system, I would say there are plenty of variants, but generally, individuals would be allowed to impose retribution in many daily-life cases (retribution can take the form of telling people they behaved immorally, not talking to them, etc.), and then, some other cases would be handled by some legal system.

Perhaps, I can get a better grasp of the question if you tell me the sort of answers you're after. For example, if I asked you who should be the arbiter of the consequentialist goals and of the amount of non-retributive consequentialist instances of incarceration (or the measures you support, in general), what would you have in mind?

 

[ruby sparks]

If someone were pointing a gun at me and credibly telling me to write or else he shoots me, I would not be writing this of my own accord.

In the final analysis, full determinism would effectively be holding the equivalent of a gun to your head at every given instant, you just wouldn't notice it.

My actions would be constrained.

Your actions are already fully constrained, it would seem. It just doesn't feel like it.

Sure, there is a broad sense of "constrain" that might say we are all constrained by our own limitation, e.g., we cannot fly like Superman. Sure, but even in that sense of constrained, we are only partially constrained, and this is not because of causes, or full causes; rather, it is because of our limited powers.

A daffodil can't fly, but it has the capacity, we might even say the freedom (in terms of the daffodil system having degrees of freedom) to bend in the wind.

My laptop can't fly, but similarly, it has the capacity, under instruction, to produce the words you are now reading on your screen.

All the various causal determinants operating on your system are effectively like (internal and external, biological, chemical or otherwise) 'winds' or 'instructions' (ie forces operating under natural laws) so that in the end, you do not, it seems, have the power to do otherwise than what you do and are fully constrained to do it.

Not being able to fly would therefore merely be something that you realise is beyond you. Not being able to do other than what you do would merely be something you don't realise is beyond you. You would not be able to do either.

It appears that your consciousness may be fooling you into thinking it is otherwise.

You are, it seems, a conscious object doing the equivalent of falling down a bumpy hill, thinking that you are choosing to go left or right along the way.

.. an extraordinary claim that much of our ordinary experiences are an illusion, obvious beliefs are false, and so on, the burden is upon you.

You need to read up a LOT more on neuropsychological illusions. And also consciousness, self, and several other related phenomena. If you did you would find much that is counter-intuitive and which undermines everything you are saying.


Thank you for your explanation of your folk-psychology understanding of what you colloquially call free will, and for your explanation of compatibilism where not all determinants are fully taken account of, which is why it's a fudge.

 

[The AntiChris]

To reject the retributive notion of moral desert is simultaneously to reject the notion of not hurting the innocent because they don't deserve it.

You've made a case for 'desert' not for retributive desert.

I said this earlier:

I accept that wrongdoers 'deserve' to be punished appropriately but I don't accept retribution as appropriate in any circumstances.

 

[ruby sparks]

.... I know I'm conscious. But I do not know how that is possible, as I have not resolved the problem of consciousness.

It's true that lack of an explanation does not mean something can't be the case. An explanation would still be useful however, and support a claim that there is free will.

Also, it would not be quite true that no one has offered explanations for consciousness. Dennett's multiple drafts model is quite sophisticated and thorough. I'm not saying it's a full or conclusive explanation. It isn't.

To be fair, Dennett has also offered an explanation of how free will works, so I may have over-egged things if I ever said no explanation has ever been offered. I should have said no explanation that passes muster or isn't a fudge, imo, or perhaps no explanation here in this thread.

... if someone claims that consciousness is an illusion (obviously false).....

Illusions are not things that aren't there, they are things that are there (and/or are experienced) but are incorrectly described, explained or understood. See: optical illusions for example. As such it is not obviously false that consciousness is an illusion. Ditto free will. Ditto self.

 

[The AntiChris]

In any case, your previous answer "It seems to me if we are going to make someone suffer we'd better have a pretty good reason to do so and the mere satisfaction of a desire to see wrongdoers suffer doesn't qualify even if we label it 'justice'." does not explain why you think they do not deserve it.

Well I've given what I believe are good reasons to reject retributive punishment.

To be precise, I also do believe that a desire to see wrongdoers suffer is not enough to give us a good reason to make someone suffer. We need other reasons. In particular, we need to have a justified belief that the person we intend to punish actually behaved immorally to the extent needed to make the intended retribution deserved.

You seem to be saying that making someone suffer is justified if we have the justified belief that they should suffer (we justifiably believe they deserve to be punished retributively). I struggle to see why desiring to see wrongdoers suffer does not justify retributive punishment but believing that wrongdoers deserve to suffer does justify retributive punishment.

It's no surprise that we've got an evolutionarily evolved natural desire for revenge. It's what's kept us safer in our evolutionary past. The desire for revenge is a natural and, virtually, automatic response. It's rationalised as justified retribution.

Yes, and it is part of our evolutionary evolved natural moral sense and moral motivation. The former allows us to make assessments as to who behaves in a morally impermissible, permissible, or praiseworthy manner, who deserves to be punished or rewarded and to what extent, etc.; latter motivates us to avoid wrongful behavior, and to punish those who engage in it, and so on. The making of moral judgments and our moral motivation are natural and virtually automatic response. But it would be a mistake to dismiss it as 'rationalized as moral' response, etc. Rather, that is what human morality is. Just retribution, and our motivation to bring it about, is a significant part of human morality. You are rejecting a significant part of human morality, but not the whole. Yet, I do not see why you reject that big part (see above).

All this can be achieved without a belief in pure retribution. All that's required is a belief that offenders deserve to be punished appropriately (i.e. the minimum necessary to improve societal safety and/or achieve restitution).

But how is the correct level of retributive punishment calculated and who should be the arbiter?

To the first question, my answer would be that we make that calculation in the same as in all moral assessments.

I asked because you implied that there was correct upper limit ("It's not okay to inflict punishment beyond what the wrongdoer deserves"). It seems to me there's no consensus among retributionists as to what offenders deserve.

On the other hand, you seem to reject the use of our moral sense to ascertain what punishment they deserve.

What gave you that idea! I use my moral sense to reject retributivist notions of justice and to promote the value of punishments whose purpose is to make our society safer.

Perhaps, I can get a better grasp of the question if you tell me the sort of answers you're after. For example, if I asked you who should be the arbiter of the consequentialist goals and of the amount of non-retributive consequentialist instances of incarceration (or the measures you support, in general), what would you have in mind?

Elected governments must be the arbiters. However punishment policy should be driven by the objective of making society safer and not by appeasing retributive pressures.



Edited to Add:

Angra - I'm aware that I'm repeating myself a lot. This suggests that we've reached an impasse (we're just not going to agree). I'm happy to let you have the last word unless there's anything you feel really needs a response.

 

[Bomb#20]

To reject the retributive notion of moral desert is simultaneously to reject the notion of not hurting the innocent because they don't deserve it.

You've made a case for 'desert' not for retributive desert.

I said this earlier:

I accept that wrongdoers 'deserve' to be punished appropriately but I don't accept retribution as appropriate in any circumstances.

I think the distinctions you're drawing between desert and retributive desert and between retribution and deserved appropriate punishment would become quite a bit clearer if you were to answer the questions I asked you instead of merely asserting without argument what it is you think I made a case for. But I take it you aren't going to answer them. Such is life.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

In the final analysis, full determinism would effectively be holding the equivalent of a gun to your head at every given instant, you just wouldn't notice it.

Why? That seems obviously false. Again, this is a claim against ordinary occurrences, but you have not backed it up with a good argument. You say 'In the final analysis'. What is that 'final analysis'?

Your actions are already fully constrained, it would seem. It just doesn't feel like it.

No, it's conclusive that they are not, since I'm writing of my own free will (see analysis before). But since you claim so, I would ask why?
Why would you believe so?

A daffodil can't fly, but it has the capacity, we might even say the freedom (in terms of the daffodil system having degrees of freedom) to bend in the wind.

No, we might not say that in the ordinary sense of 'free' that is relevant in this context. The fact that it can be bent does not mean it is free. In fact, it does not even have a mind, so it cannot be either free or not free in the relevant sense.

My laptop can't fly, but similarly, it has the capacity, under instruction, to produce the words you are now reading on your screen.

Sort of. It can produce the words on your screen. Other things are needed to bring them to my screen. But in any case, it is beside the point.

All the various causal determinants operating on your system are effectively like (internal and external, biological, chemical or otherwise) 'winds' or 'instructions' (ie forces operating under natural laws) so that in the end, you do not, it seems, have the power to do otherwise than what you do and are fully constrained to do it.

No, they are not. Rather, they are similar in the trivial and in this context irrelevant sense that they are all causes, and that they together fully determine the outcome. But there are plenty of differences between them. Some of the causes of my typing this are the relevant ones: I thought about it and decided to do so, without coercion or compulsion. That is a relevant difference. Saying this is not so that because all causes are forces operating under natural law is like saying that all of the causes of something being green and all of the causes of something being red are the same because they're all forces operating under natural law, so red and green are the same. But no, they are not. One is red, one is green. And coerced behavior is not the same as free behavior: one is coerced, the other one is free.

Not being able to fly would therefore merely be something that you realise is beyond you. Not being able to do other than what you do would merely be something you don't realise is beyond you. You would not be able to do either.

Yes, of course I have the ability to not type this. I decided to do that, but also I would not have done it if I had chosen otherwise. It was my choice.

It appears that your consciousness may be fooling you into thinking it is otherwise.

No, I'm not being fooled. I realize I could have acted differently if I had chosen to do so, and no one and nothing coerced me or compelled my choice.

You are, it seems, a conscious object doing the equivalent of falling down a bumpy hill, thinking that you are choosing to go left or right along the way.

Not at all. I am choosing.

You need to read up a LOT more on neuropsychological illusions. And also consciousness, self, and several other related phenomena. If you did you would find much that is counter-intuitive and which undermines everything you are saying.

No, not at all. The fact that a tiny fraction of the times we have illusions (which I already know) is no reason to doubt our faculties in general - not that one possibly could, as there are no other faculties to appeal to.

Thank you for your explanation of your folk-psychology understanding of what you colloquially call free will, and for your explanation of compatibilism where not all determinants are fully taken account of, which is why it's a fudge.

Please do not thank me for what is a false characterization of what I did. I did not do that. I showed that I type of my own free will, and you have not provided a significant counter argument, evidence, etc.

It's true that lack of an explanation does not mean something can't be the case. An explanation would still be useful however, and support a claim that there is free will.

It's not only that it does not mean that something can't be the case. Rather, lacking an explanation for a mechanism, we it can be beyond a reasonable doubt that it is the case. For nearly all of the history of humanity, nearly every person did not have an explanation as to why they had the power to move small objects. Even today, we only go up to some point with the mechanisms, without having resolved the problem of consciousness.

Moreover, there are 'claims' that do not need to be backed up, given context. If I say that humans are conscious rather than P-zombies, I do not need to back that up with a mechanism. If I point at a green leaf and say the leaf is green, I do not need an explanation as to what color is or how it works. And so on.

Also, it would not be quite true that no one has offered explanations for consciousness. Dennett's multiple drafts model is quite sophisticated and thorough. I'm not saying it's a full or conclusive explanation. It isn't.

Everyone can give an explanation if there is no need for it to be rationally justified. At least for nearly all of the time humans have been around, no one has ever had a rationally justified explanation for consciousness. I would argue that even today, no one has such an explanation. What they have is different hypotheses, but there is no enough information to warrant belief in a single one of them.

Regardless, let us say some philosophers have a rationally justified belief in a specific explanation of consciousness. That would not change the fact that nearly everyone else lacks today and everyone in the past lacked such knowledge, and still knew that they were conscious, that other people were conscious, and so on - and did not need to know of any mechanism to back up their belief.

But it's not only about consciousness. They knew that, say, food and water were necessary to stay alive, even if they had no idea of the mechanisms behind food processing or the role of water in human physiology; they knew the Sun provided light and heat though they did not know the mechanism, and so on. It's all over the place. In fact, the mechanisms behind nearly every ordinary event were not known until very recently by anyone, and aren't known by most, and yet all of those people who have no idea of the mechanism do know that those ordinary events happen.

To be fair, Dennett has also offered an explanation of how free will works, so I may have over-egged things if I ever said no explanation has ever been offered. I should have said no explanation that passes muster or isn't a fudge, imo, or perhaps no explanation here in this thread.

But like with nearly every other ordinary occurrence, there is no need for an explanation in order to know it happens. There might be a need if you intend to know how it works, but not in order to know that we have it.

Illusions are not things that aren't there, they are things that are there (and/or are experienced) but are incorrectly described, explained or understood. See: optical illusions for example. As such it is not obviously false that consciousness is an illusion. Ditto free will. Ditto self.

An illusion is something that is not there. Rather, there is something else than that of which there is an appearence. In any case, my point was to give an example. Obviously - very obviously - I am conscious. Also, obviously - just slightly so - so are you. If someone told me that I am not conscious, of course it would be irrational on my part to entertain doubts about my being conscious (other than for the purposes of philosophical debate for entertainment purposes and things like that) just because they say so. But it's only an example. If we set consciousness aside, again if someone were to claim that I do not have the power or ability to move small objects around me (it has been done in the thread), it would be irrational on my part to entertain doubts about it just because they say so; they would need to make their case.

Similarly, if you claim that I'm not writing this of my own free will, it would not be rational on my part to entertain doubts just because you claim so; you would need to make an argument - which you have, but it does not succeed for the reasons Bomb#20 and I have been explaining. How did you come to assess that you are not writing these posts on your own free will?

 

[fromderinside]

I observe innocents being hurt intentionally every day. If it's morally wrong wrong to do so and morals are universal - a position somewhat extreme, but suits my argument here - then having morals aren't very useful for controlling bad behavior.

just sayin'

What do you mean by 'morals' here?

What is universal is a moral sense, which allows humans to make intuitive assessments of right and wrong. In nearly all cases, there is agreement, so no one notices. In some cases, there is disagreement, and that is salient. The moral sense is not perfect.

I mean by universal morals that some sense of what it takes to operate as a social being requires certain constraints on behavioral execution among community members. If one argues as I do that universal human community is desirable and signalled by the direction humans are trending then there will only be such a community if that morality is constant among humans.

However I understand our social evolution is small group- family- tribe - and it adheres to an evolutionary metric requiring distinction and competition based on differences in capabilities and needs, niche formation.

Yet, anything other than universal morality will result in the breakdown of world society because of the pressure in individuals to make decisions based on differences.

Having these two opposing notions playing at the same time makes it highly unlikely that we'll ever have a consistent morality that applies to more than a few. Which in turn suggests morality is an unlikely glue to keep humans together. In conclusion this last fact means my answer to your assertion of a universal morality is patently false. The sense is not a sense. It is a non-existent fabricated thing which is killed by depending on situations and drives not present in living things.

Geez I'm looking downright Camus-like here.