tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post965777771603175537..comments2024-03-22T06:22:08.010+00:00Comments on Stephen Law: Freewill determinism resource (for A Level etc.)Stephen Lawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02167317543994731177noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-30925060530483227272014-01-17T11:50:47.002+00:002014-01-17T11:50:47.002+00:00On "the freedom of the soul"...
If two ...On "the freedom of the soul"...<br /><br />If two bodies have the same physical influences but their souls make different decisions, then there must be a difference between the souls, so you're back to determinism again. If God (or some natural but random soul making process) creates one good soul and one bad soul then we can't blame the bad soul for making bad decisions.<br /><br />If both souls start out neutral, but one resists temptation and makes good decisions and the other fails and makes bad decisions then one soul must have started out stronger so we can't blame the weak soul for making bad decisions.<br /><br />Even if we get to choose if we are good or bad, or strong or weak, and even if we can change if we work hard at it, we have to start out somewhere. If people end up making different choices it can only be for 3 reasons: 1 it's random, 2 they had different experiences, or 3 they started out differently.<br /><br />I understand "determined" and I understand "random" but libertarians want a third thing which I don't understand. Just saying determinism is false because we are free doesn't answer anything.Jonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06374100724445495797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-20940109415022682752014-01-16T21:39:25.272+00:002014-01-16T21:39:25.272+00:00Why should I be charged with attempted murder if i...Why should I be charged with attempted murder if it was literally impossible for me to have killed Professor Law?<br /><br />I can now be charged with attempting the impossible?<br /><br />But you are, of course, right.<br /><br />The fact that something is impossible does not remove our moral responsibility for it.<br /><br />So the claim that determinism makes certain things 'impossible' does not remove the fact that you should be charged with attempted murder, even if philosophers say it was impossible for you to have murdered somebody.<br /><br /><br />And our pineapple juice drinker friend did have a choice.<br /><br />He could have drunk the pineapple juice quickly or slowly.<br /><br />These are certainly alternative actions - drinking quickly is a different action to drinking slowly.<br /><br />Which is all this is needed for a philosopher to declare that somebody has freewill - that he can choose between 2 or more actions.<br /><br />Perhaps we should be told exactly what an 'action' is. By 'action', do philosophers mean a set of similar actions? Is 'action' a collective noun, like 'sugar' or 'bread'?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09267356610062260128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-55639033720690986092014-01-16T16:16:01.938+00:002014-01-16T16:16:01.938+00:00In my last, the first sentence should say "Th...In my last, the first sentence should say "The crime you are accused of is <i>attempted</i> murder"Hooligan Hobohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08327218802706977678noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-71758032582114546152014-01-16T16:12:51.115+00:002014-01-16T16:12:51.115+00:00As to Attempted murder.
The crime you are accuse...As to Attempted murder. <br /><br />The crime you are accused of is murder. You were attempting to murder. You did not know ahead of time that the bullet would miss. You are being accused of the attempt, not the murder. Your intent is what is being decided.<br /><br />It is for the same reason that if person A is killed by person B, person B might not be charged with murder if the circumstances were considered accidental.Hooligan Hobohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08327218802706977678noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-61700852708047860322014-01-16T16:08:31.803+00:002014-01-16T16:08:31.803+00:00"So if you are only obeying orders, you are f..."So if you are only obeying orders, you are free of moral responsibility.<br /><br />Didn't they try to use that defense at Nuremburg?"<br /><br />This is not a fair analogy. The Soldier can accept the consequences and choose to disobey anyway. <br /><br />Our applejuice swilling friend cannot. There is no choice even presented. There is only one possible course of action that has been decided by someone else. <br /><br /><br />If I programmed a robot and to kill a load of people and then objected when I was accused of murder that the robot should be blamed instead. I might even indignantly ask if my accusers are willing to allow the robot to get away with the Nuremburg defence!<br /><br />The robot scenario is what the hypnotist scenario is trying to evoke. If you have been meddled with beyond the <i>ability</i> to choose, are you really culpable? Hooligan Hobohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08327218802706977678noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-78140995868085565132014-01-10T19:08:49.519+00:002014-01-10T19:08:49.519+00:00
The moral of the text is clear: We should all be ...<br />The moral of the text is clear: We should all be thankful the Evolution that philosophers typically lack the ability or desire to become pilots and control an aircraft. :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-47649289307332766912014-01-10T06:42:46.472+00:002014-01-10T06:42:46.472+00:00'The problem is that while it’s true that Guy ...'The problem is that while it’s true that Guy would do otherwise if he chose to, he can’t choose otherwise. True, he chose to keep on drinking pineapple juice. But he was forced to make that choice by the hypnotist.'<br /><br />I see.<br /><br />So if you are only obeying orders, you are free of moral responsibility.<br /><br />Didn't they try to use that defense at Nuremburg?<br /><br />If an SS officer would be shot for disobeying orders, was he acting freely when he machine-gunned a group of Jews in WW2?<br /><br />(Bear in mind that he was a raving anti-Semite who thought all Jews should be liquadated.)<br /><br />But because he had no choice but to obey orders, or else he and his family would have been shot, somehow he is not responsible for his crimes.<br /><br />Philosophy's a funny old game, isn't it?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09267356610062260128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-14266562743005941672014-01-10T06:36:04.779+00:002014-01-10T06:36:04.779+00:00' It’s impossible for anything to happen other...' It’s impossible for anything to happen other than what actually happens'<br /><br />So if determinism is true, it is impossible for anything to happen other than what actually happens?<br /><br />Where did that come from?<br /><br />How on earth does that follow?<br /><br />Suppose I take a gun , point it at Stephen Law, press the trigger and the bullet misses him by one inch.<br /><br />I then end up in court, and I tell the judge I should be found innocent, because Stephen Law himself has declared that it would have been impossible for the bullet to have hit him.<br /><br />So why should I be convicted of attempted murder, when it was literally impossible for me to have killed Professor Law?<br /><br />I would be laughed out of court before I could say 'But a philosopher told me....'Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09267356610062260128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-33237937710208287692014-01-09T10:12:44.513+00:002014-01-09T10:12:44.513+00:00Well said Mike.
Stephen's argument is sound (...Well said Mike.<br /> Stephen's argument is sound (though a bit simple) maybe his explanation of choice would have benefited from a mention of genetics, upbringing, peer groups, illness, etc as some of the influences on our every day choices.<br /> And some people still dont get it!The Cynical Naturalisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10924744053564027673noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-54572886835604003162014-01-09T08:40:42.643+00:002014-01-09T08:40:42.643+00:00"Yet this is absurd, isn’t it? Of course we c..."Yet this is absurd, isn’t it? Of course we can act freely."<br /><br />If something is absurd, then you need to prove the absurdity. All you mean is that it conflicts with our sense that we are free. That's not absurd.<br /><br />"Even if Murderous Mick doesn’t deserve punishment ... First, punishment may have a deterrent effect...<br />Second, by sending a criminal to prison we may be able to help them. ... Third, by locking murders like Mick up, we can prevent them from murdering again."<br /><br />0. I don't believe in "deserve". That's not a real thing. <br /><br />1,2,3. If we have given rights to people, and we require evidence to infringe on or remove rights from people, then "maybe" is not really a convincing argument for doing so. I would need to know that this particular imprisonment would deter or prevent at least one murder. (I don't need to know which murder, but that would help)<br /><br />Still, why don't we just admit that we are evolved to feel joy from harming people, but we don't like being harmed ourselves, so we create classes of people we're allowed to harm, and permissible ways of harming them? <br /><br />Another thing... is the world deterministic? At the quantum level it is not. Larger and larger quantities of particles (together) exhibit quantum behavior. I have not seen an explanation of how that seeming randomness becomes deterministic just because enough particles get together to make a human. I think it merely resembles determinism, but remains random. Regardless, that's not free will either. Randynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-46535597235816901042014-01-08T20:24:38.966+00:002014-01-08T20:24:38.966+00:00The philosophical "free will" argument h...The philosophical "free will" argument has always had an unstated religious component, which is that in order to be "free", one must be free of natural forces and natural laws.<br /><br />This argument, whether its author acknowledges it or not, seems to have a religious basis. If we are part of Nature, then it would be absurd to say that we are only free to act if we are free of Nature. It would be like saying that you can only be free if you are free from <b>yourself</b>.<br /><br />If we are truly comfortable with being mere components of nature, then "free will" only means that we are free to do such things as we are compelled to do by our nature: a much less profound and scientifically incomprehensible notion than the popular philosophical notion of being freed from nature's laws.<br /><br />The conflict between determinism and "free will" may have confounded philosophers for hundreds of years, but I think the author misspeaks when he says that scientists have been similarly befuddled. There is no scientific theory of free will.Mike Wonghttp://www.stardestroyer.net/Mikenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-72523331299059416202014-01-08T18:55:46.628+00:002014-01-08T18:55:46.628+00:00I also never understood the definition of free wil...I also never understood the definition of free will.<br /><br />Apparently, if at time ,t, you can choose between alternatives, then you have free will.<br /><br />Really?<br /><br />I have it on good authority (ie my imagination) that Professor Law will lecture on free will between 10:30 am and 11:30 am tomorrow.<br /><br />I also know that Professor Law has already made a free-will decision not to urinate or defecate in that time period.<br /><br />This is partly to avoid wasting teaching time and partly to save the cleaners some work.<br /><br />Now that we have established that Professor Law has free will to decide at time 't', if he will visit the bathroom or not, we can ask what happens if using the toilet is made a criminal offense.<br /><br />Incontinent people will escape moral responsibility for their crimes but the rest of us will not be able to avoid prosecution before the day is out.<br /><br />Because we have free will about urinating and defecating, unlike those unfortunates who have a medical condition.<br /><br />So I really don't get the definition of free will expressed in such statements as<br /><br />'The most I can say is that Mary will probably go to the fridge. There’s no law compelling her to go to the fridge. She’s free to do either.'<br /><br />If Professor Law is free to go to the bathroom or not in the next 10 minutes, then he has free will about urinating and defecating.<br /><br />But he doesn't.<br /><br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09267356610062260128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-57452326618504929712014-01-08T16:54:35.923+00:002014-01-08T16:54:35.923+00:00If I give somebody a drug which induces the parano...If I give somebody a drug which induces the paranoid fantasy in somebody that his mother and his wife are about to kill him, and he shoots his wife and strangles his mother under the delusion produced by this psychedelic drug , then a philosopher would say that he is morally responsible for those murders.<br /><br />He shot his wife and strangled his mother after being given this mind-altering drug.<br /><br />Could he have done something else?<br /><br />Of course he could!<br /><br />He could have strangled his wife and shot his mother.<br /><br />As that is certainly not the same action as strangling his mother and shooting his wife, he fell into the category of people who could choose alternative courses of action.<br /><br />This is all that is need to make a philosopher say he had free will.<br /><br />He could choose between two courses of action.<br /><br />So he is morally responsible for his actions.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09267356610062260128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-14884163413958449572014-01-08T16:50:06.893+00:002014-01-08T16:50:06.893+00:00I get it.
Because of determinism, an auto-pilot w...I get it.<br /><br />Because of determinism, an auto-pilot which is flying the plane no more controls where the plane goes and what speed it flies at than a passenger sitting in Row G does.<br /><br />The auto-pilot can't do anything other than fly the plane at 33,000 feet at a speed of 520 miles per hour.<br /><br />So nobody can say that it is controlling the plane.<br /><br />The plane is literally out of control as soon as the auto-pilot is switched on.<br /><br />People who think the plane is controlled by the auto-pilot are using 'common sense' , not philosophy.<br /><br />Philosophers don't get in planes.<br /><br />They know the plane is out of control.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09267356610062260128noreply@blogger.com