Yeah, so saying it makes January 6th look like “child’s play” is simply pointing out a double standard. — Mikie

January 6 wax obviously different in that it involved crimes against people and property and the intentions were to upset the results of a fair election, but the likelihood of success was minimal and there was no actual success. It was at the end of the day violent and malicious theater.

The Democrats' removal of a name from the ballot is real and will impact an election.

One is a street level blue collar crime and the other an organized white collar crime. The results are typical. With the former, a bunch of people get hurt and things get destroyed. The other is more precise.

It's ot good, but putting a conservative spin on it like this is NOS territory. It’s also worth noting that Fox sources always add their slant. — Mikie

Just pointing out a double standard. There's nothing conservative about it. If the Republicans tried to block the Libertarians from the ballot because they knew it would consume much needed Republican votes I'd say the same thing.

The right trying to make it hard for Democrats to vote is anti-democratic. If more people want Biden, then Biden should be President.

This is a direct attack on democracy, making the removal of ballot bins and the storming of the Capitol look like child's play. They are literally and openly blocking a viable candidate's name from the ballot.

https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/georgia-democrats-kennedy-jill-stein-presidential-ballot-election

And so it's unethical to tithe at 10% because 99% is expected?

But why stop there? I think you're morally compelled to work around the clock, earning every penny you can so you can save another soul. Surely that's what you'd do for your own child, so you need to do it for everyone around the globe.

Since the cure to poverty is wealth, you ought to get an education and career that maximizes your wealth so you can give it away and save even more people. If you're not on Wall Street, you offer too little.

I condemn the rich who don't equalize themselves to the poor and I condemn the poor who fail to produce enough to give to others. The only ones I truly celebrate are the victims, the ones who through no fault of their own need the fruits of the wealthy.

Such is the consequence of placing virtue on failure, but it does seem to be the ethic du jour.

Note to self: get wasted after work, not before.

At the Home Run Derby, leaving us all like Trump. Ears bleeding.

Water cooler talk at the White House.

"So what happened to your ear?"

"Oh. I took an AR-15 round while I was talking about immigration the other day. "

Trump was just elected today.” Such an original thought. Repeated probably 500 million times in less than 24 hours.

Actually, no he wasn’t. There’s four months to Election Day, and this will be a blip everywhere by then, except conservative talk radio and Fox News. And maybe Twitter — but they’re irrelevant now anyway. — Mikie

Agree in part, disagree in part. There is wisdom to the statement that the match isn't over until the final whistle, but the current score and situation on the field matters.

Biden took a major hit with the debate and Trump scored a major victory with the ear bullet. Trump's side is energized awaiting his VP pick and Biden's is in a scramble trying to convince him to throw in the towel.

So yes, anything can happen, but acting like the assassination attempt was just another Friday without far reaching consequences is just head burying.

It was yesterday — frank

I know, right? It so feels that way to me too. I can like remember every detail so clearly.

Since we're speculating, I'm guessing it had little to do with a disenchantment of all he knew and loved, like a child realizing Santa wasn't real, but more a troubled kid, difficulty in school, home, friends, and life, and whatever delusions of grandeur he felt materialized in his suicide mission.

You know how some people can say they remember in vivid detail where they were and what they were doing when they heard JFK got shot?

I totally get it. I can remember when Trump got shot like it was yesterday.

Biden's campaign theme is that the right is composed of radical insurrectionists who want to destroy democracy and insert their dictator.

The counter to that now after this assassination attempt is "nuh uh, you are. "

We here at TPF might dissect it otherwise, but that is a knee jerk reaction that might hold water for some. How it might temper Biden going forward in presenting the right as radicalized remains to be seen. He's now in a glass house in that regard.

But overall, yesterday was a good day for Trump all the while Biden can't seem to shake off the age related attacks.

Imagine that you install an app on your phone that can tell you minute by minute what you will be doing at any point in the future along with all possible details?

The existence of this app would prove that you are just an automaton, i.e. a robot. In that case, it would be ridiculous to claim that you have free will. — Tarskian

If I predict you will go to the store and you do, that would not be sufficient for me say you didn't have free when you went to the store.

At what point do you declare my predictive powers eliminate your free will? How many trials must there be and would a single variance re-establish my free will?

If I accurately predict the outcome of 50 coin tosses, does that necessarilymake the coin toss outcomes not random?

As a general matter doing the right thing pays off, which might be why it's the right thing, but there are just too many variables in life to assume that doing the same things will always lead to the same result.

Generally speaking, we can assume that if I work hard, I'll do better than those who don't, but there's always the possibility I'll get hit by a train and all that hard work will amount to a crushed leg, thigh, torso, head, and eyeglasses.

Pity refers to what we feel when someone gets unjustly injured. Indignation refers to what we feel when someone gets unjustly rewarded.

The answer to the problem of evil is not to deny it and suggest that bad things can't happen to good people. Sometimes there are unjust results.

Beliefs in karma lead to caste based systems where we try to convince the oppressed that their lot in life is the fair result of past lives unjustly lived.

Sometimes life is unfair.

Still, when the potential rapist comes to you asking for advice, tell him that a man who commits rape has no love for himself. — frank

Do you think that though? I don't think slave holders in the 1700s or even Nazis had no love for themselves. I just think they had no empathy, which was rooted in their belief that their victims were not fully human. I don't know they could have been convinced otherwise, and I'm not convinced something was broken within them. They were persuaded by the societies that created them. I'm not suggesting they were therefore morally excused, but I don't think you can just write them off as being self-hating or broken.

I suppose it was society that was broken, but I'm pretty sure that's still the case. The part I like about all these philosophical discussions is that they ultimately don't matter. You can just go back to whatever and not have to worry about the implications.

Is there some principle you follow even though it's contrary to what you feel in your heart? I certainly hope not. — frank

The problem is that "heart" is not really defined by you. It sounds like just gut instinct. I would think my moral decisions are based upon instinct, reason, experience, bias and probably some other things. But we've all faced moral quandaries in our lives and we've had to sort through them, asking ourselves (and maybe others) what the best course is. Telling someone to just listen to their heart isn't enough. Sometimes you have an inkling your heart is telling you you're going the wrong direction and you want to be sure.

In my estimation the vice of pusillanimity is at the heart of many of these autonomy-based ideas. — Leontiskos

It's also the fear that the individual is fragile in some way, that you'll break them if you criticize them. Steel is forged by hammering it which strengthens it. It's an analogy of course, and I realize the same hammer that forges steel can fracture glass. And some people have glass souls I guess, but most don't, and they're deprived if they're never hammered.

Not sure how far the analogy goes, but it sounds cool.

In other words, if I am causing the source of harm for you (negative ethic), in order to make you go through a positive ethic (character building) this is wrong. — schopenhauer1

For sure it would not be moral of me to neglect my children so that they suffer terribly but that then causes them to be self-sufficient and highly successful. The end would not justify the means. But I do think there is merit to not spoiling the child, to making them endure their struggles. There is real difference between adults who had upbringings where they were provided their every need and those that earned their way.

It's the person who has learned his lessons through experience that is most steadfast, and I'd argue most virtuous. The person who never faltered and never considered veering the course is a special breed, but his behavior might be best explained as obedient and compliant, doing as he does because he never contemplated otherwise. But the guy who refuses to be diverted from the virtuous path because he knows too well where it leads, whose behaviors are the result of a life not perfectly lived, is the person who has a more heroic way about him.

I understand his distinction between higher order and lower order objections, but it still remains an arbitrary distinction until you just declare some foundational axiom.

That is, it would be wrong for me to tell you not to murder (which, by the way is a completely stupid ethic, but be that as it may), but it would not be wrong for me to tell you that it would be wrong to be critical of others because we've asserted (for whatever reason) that being critical of others is of the highest order of wrongness. It is what we hinge this ethical system upon that we've identified in this thread.

But, upon further analysis, we learn quickly that is not the case that the highest order of goodness is being uncritical of others because there's this other undercurrent within this conversation about autonomy that states the highest order of morality is to protect autonomy and (for some reason) being critical of others attacks directly the concept of autonomy. Criticism therefore is subservient to autonomy, and (I would assume) that if certain sorts of criticism could be shown to promote autonomy, then those sorts of criticism ought be promoted. Such would be the case if lack of criticism is a lower order order good then is the protection of autonomy.

But then we might want to go more meta on this and ask why autonomy is such a high order objective, and perhaps we would say that the free will is what really is worth protecting and it's not so much that I protect you as a decision maker but I protect your decision making component and I therefore cannot do anything that directly impedes your decision making. That might result in an agreement that we ought not criticize, but it might not. It would seem that since we're on the 8th page of this thread arguing back and forth, criticizing as we do, we actually think that critical feedback is a useful means to promote free will, which in turn protects our autonomy, which then defeats the suggestion we shouldn't be critical. Those sorts of things are likely to happen when we admit that the highest good isn't not being critical, but that not being critical is just a rule of thumb that often (but not always) works to promote those higher order goods.

And I'm not leaving things at saying that free will is the highest good because I think there's something higher than that, which is humanity, which is our unique ability as creatures to have the ability to act freely as we do. That is, we are people, and people are important per se and we cannot do anything that damages a person's right to be as he is. To state that an attack on a person's intellectual or moral decision detonates his individuality is a questionable claim, as it would seem that special element within the person is indestructible given the proper spirit. If that's the case, then it would follow we ought instill virtue into individuals so as to not make their spirit subject to dissolution at the simplest of criticisms. Character, through instilling virtue, then becomes the highest good, and all else then becomes subservient to that. Any claim though that virtue cannot be forged through criticism is contrary to facts. People do become better when challenged, like it or not.

In fact it is criticism and challenge that leads to greater resolve and character. I, for example, have been provided all sorts of benefits in my life, many beyond what others have, but I also was provided enough criticism and challange (and suffering actually) to have emerged with a much more valuable character.

That is to say, sometimes it is important to hear that one's thoughts and actions are stupid when they in fact are. Otherwise, you are just allowed to be born stupid, to live stupid, and then to die stupid. How that can be described as a life respected and cultivated is stupid of the highest order.

Because the only moral rule is, "Don't tell others what to do." — Leontiskos

Can you tell me not to tell others what to do? That seems immoral.

The intrinsic nature of a human is to be a social animal — unenlightened

We are naturally social and rape violates the nature of humans to be social? And I suspect that each human is equal under this scenario, meaning we can't treat women or minorities as lesser, so this imposes the rule of egalitarianism.

This sounds like a vague notion of morality that we just sort of twist around until it meets modern liberal progressive morality.

But, should we tinker with this some more, I think we end up with the golden rule.

Sarcasm?

I'm just trying to understand how to pragmatucally apply the Taoist morality presented in the OP.

So help me out here. Bob wants to rape and feels it very much a part of his intrinsic nature and he doesn't want to be judged for it. He asks me why it is immoral to rape. What do I tell him?

Am I immoral when I condemn him? Why?

When you yourself say, "I don't think that a democracy always gets it right," you are already subordinating democratic decision-making to some higher good: in this case "rightness." You are saying that the purpose of democracy is, at least in part, to try to get it right. — Leontiskos

I'm not suggesting there isn't a correct answer for how one is to get from point A to point B. I'm only saying there isn't a single correct destination to desire.

If there were but one right preference, then every nation would have the same buildings, roads, military, houses, healthcare, etc. Not every prohibition is a malum in se, but plenty are instead malum prohibitum. That is, we can create objectives for our society that have no moral value but are just expressions of our preferences caused by our particular histories, happenstance situations we find ourselves in, mythologies and whatever else. We then arrive at ways to achieve those objectives, and that decision can either be right or wrong.

This isn't to say we can't form immoral objectives, but it is to say there are a variety of flavors of moral choices we can choose from.

It's not strikingly obvious to me that a society that wishes to promote gender as a matter of personal choice is an immoral one. I also don't think it's immoral to wish to promote the opposite. Others do, which I think is the cause of polarization, arising from moralizing everything.

If someone believes the proper objective for society is to free its citizens of male/female assignment based upon biological sex, that's neither a moral or immoral objective. If that is achieved through a weakened military, then that's a rational way to achieve that goal. This has nothing to do with morality. It has to do with personal choices and the effective way to achieve them.

You cannot consistently claim both that democracy might "get it right" and that there is nothing to be gotten right. — Leontiskos

There are moral choices and immoral ones. That holds true for single individuals and legislative bodies. When you walk down the street, there are thousands of immoral, moral, and morally neutral things you can do. Democracies can select their objectives from the buckets marked "moral" or "morally neutral," but not "immoral."
That would be wrong.

Obviously a minority viewpoint does not hold sway within a democracy. — Leontiskos

Except all democracies I am aware of offer protections for minority rights.

I agree, but the question here is whether you think that you are right. Whether you think your answer is the right answer, and that if the democratic process arrives at the opposite answer then it has arrived at the wrong answer. Of course one could claim that the democratic process arrived at the wrong decision while at the same time abiding by the decision, but there is a difference between democratic relativism and democratic objectivism. — Leontiskos

I think certain laws are preferable because they advance my interests and ideologies, but I don't believe every opinion I hold aligns with God's will or that God cares which side of the street I drive my car.

And, as if said, sometimes God (so to speak) does care. That my objective might be to corner the agricultural market doesn't mean I get to have slaves. That choice is wrong regardless of pragmatic merit. The cereal aisle has plenty of healthy and unhealthy choices to choose from. I can only properly choose from the healthy ones.

The question of inalienable rights is an interesting one, which I believe will become more pressing as secularization continues. In my opinion inalienable rights have very little to do with democracy, and are in important ways anti-democratic. — Leontiskos

The right and left both hold rights near and dear to their hearts. They just argue over what they are, but not whether they exist. The left says abortion is a right, the right says guns are. Neither denies ights exist though.

This is precisely where I take you to be mistaken, here and in previous posts. The democratic vote does not determine whether gender equality is better than less military deaths. Perhaps simply pointing it out is sufficient for you to see that? If Plato is right then the democratic vote will tell us much the opposite.

In a democracy we determine whether to implement that form of gender equality by a democratic vote or process. Such is the reason for the decision, not the measure of the decision. Presumably you will now want to argue that democratic procedure produces optimal decisions. — Leontiskos

In a democracy we allow the variety of viewpoints to determine which policy we want to implement. I don't think that a democracy always gets it right. We have plenty of examples of the creation of bad policy. You seem to be suggesting some sort of moralitocracy (a word I just made up), that is akin to a theocracy in that it posits that the ultimate goal of a society is to be as moral as possible.

What would then follow is that since morality is objective and absolute, we should be bound to maximize military survival over gender equality because the life of a solider is more important than whatever societal harmony results from gender equality. The use of the democracy I guess in this system is to figure out what the dictates of morality are and then to enforce that as law.

I apologize if I've over-extrapolated your position from what you've said, but this analysis follows from the suggestion that the democracy must set it's objectives due to some some higher good that stands above the democracy dictating what is good. That is, why can't Society A decide gender equality is its highest good and then set policy from there without having to contend with objections from a small minority who believe that military might is the highest good? The measure of Society A's policy would not be whether it effectively promoted military might (as that is not it's goal), but whether it effectively promoted gender equality.

To erase the ideosycratic desires of a society in exchange for some type of objective ideal that must be obtained seems problematic to me. . It would suggest that if the democratic belief were 99% in favor of allowing its citizens to choose their gender and then to compete athletically with members of their chosen gender it couldn't do that because the minorities' viewpoint, even though microscopic in terms of acceptance, is correct, so, as a matter of inalienable right, the minority viewpoint would need to be imposed upon society.

And this isn't to suggest there aren't rights and that minorities don't receive protection from majority rule, but it also doesn't take the polar opposite extreme to suggest everything is a matter of right.

My view is that female identifying XYs shouldn't compete athletically with XXs because I don't believe that equality is a virtue worth pursuing. I don't think society is better off if we think men and women the same. I do think XXs should be provided their own bathrooms and their own playing fields, free from the athletically superior XYs. I see no value in blurring the male and female distinctions.

I also don't think I have the right to be king of Hanoveria and dictate that my vote prevails because it's right. I'm just one guy with one vote with all sorts of reasons I hold dear, and so I cast my ballot and watch things unfold. But, again, that's not to say that there are no rights at all. They just don't extend all the way down the line to where an XX has the god given right to compete only against XXs. Let the nuts in San Fran do as they will and let the right thinking folks in my neck of the woods do as they do.

What about the women who are going to be harassed, or worse, because they're ugly or tall or have a hormone condition that means they have a little bit of beard? — flannel jesus

Since we're talking pragmatics here, hypotheticals have to be subject to this same pragmatic analysis. That is, has there really been a case where an ugly woman was thrown out of a women's restroom because someone thought them to be a man? Is this really happening?

Actual sexual ambiguity is very limited and it's not something that has caused a problem in determining which restroom would be appropriate in the past that I am aware of. That is, in the decades that preceded transsexual protections, we didn't have issues where sexually ambiguous people were being denied access to their rightful bathrooms. But, should that occur, I guess those people could offer additional evidence to substantiate their sexuality, first relying perhaps on government documents, but eventually if there really were profound confusion, they could conduct a test. I suspect that would occur close to never, which is about as good as any rule is ever going to be.

If you're going to make the argument that an XX/XY rule is hopelessly uneforceable, you're going to have to offer empirical evidence that truly is going to occur in a meaningful way. If a handful of people are denied proper bathroom access over many decades (and we don't even have data suggesting that would happen), then we have a pretty solid rule. Enforcement at 99%+ is a higher level of enforcement than we have for most of our rules.

unless you have genetic testing kits at every bathroom, saying some bathrooms are for xx instead of women is completely unactionable. Are you trying to make a meaningful suggestion or are you doing something else with this xx idea? — flannel jesus

Your objection is that of enforcement, not that the OPs suggestion is incorrect. That is, you're not objecting to the suggestion that XY gender identifying women should be denied access to XX bathrooms. You're just saying that without a genetic testing kit, we won't be able to enforce the rule that XXs and XYs not enter one another's bathrooms.

This objection at best is a pragmatic one, but it's really not one that creates a meaningful enforcement problem. In over 99% of the cases it's abundantly clear whether the person is XX or XY by a variety of markers that don't require additional genetic testing. Those markers don't need to itemized because we all know exactly what identifies for us who is male and who is female.

But, to the extent there will be some wedding crashers (so to speak) that go entirely undetected, that isn't a basis for allowing those without proper invitation to attend. If you're not supposed to go in the bathroom, you shouldn't go, but, sure, someone is going to get away with it from time to time.

now just making up an example, suppose I am in a combat situation in the military, and our liberal-democratic dogmas have prescribed that women must be admitted to the military on equal footing with men. I am paired with a woman in combat; I go down; she is not strong enough to carry me out; I die. Why did I die? Because the liberal-egalitarian legislation irrationally created a suboptimal situation on the basis of the falsehood that women are equal to men in strength. Irrational failure to discriminate can have real consequences. — Leontiskos

If the objective in your example is to equalize the treatment of men and women at the cost of additional death, then the egalitarian dictate makes sense. What you're simply pointing out is that decisions are made without thinking through the consequences and not properly prioritizing objectives.

If we both prioritize creating the most capable military, then it is irrational to do things that don't do that. The proof of the best decision can be empirically shown. If not having women in combat roles wins more wars, then they shouldn't be there if you see the military's entire role as winning wars as opposed to also creating a more equal society.

If, at the end of the day, the left's military results in some military losses and greater deaths but greater domestic equality among the sexes, then the final question as to whether that result is better than more military wins and less gender equality, that can be answered by the democratic vote. I'm voting for the more military wins, but I don't know that makes me more rational. It just makes me someone who prioritizes safety over domestic equality. Obviously if the left's military is so weakened by their desire to create gender equality that it cannot protect itself from foreign invaders, then it would be irrational, but as long as the plan is to give more people the opportunity for military advancement without overly weakening the military, then it could be rational. From my perspective, sacrificing people for an objective of equality is a stupid idea because I do not consider equality a social virtue.

But it is reasonable. If group X has Y percentage chance of committing action Z, then—all things being equal—someone belonging to group X has Y percentage chance of committing action Z on average. Progressives have a difficult time recognizing the simple fact that there are rationally sound inferences which move from group data to individual data. — Leontiskos

That there are reasons to do something doesn't mean it ought be done. The "ought" question is a judgment call that is based upon which objectives you wish to promote.

If I increase auto insurance premiums based upon age, I fulfill my objective of assuring profitability while still insuring the less safe driver pool. I also don't offend social sensibilities because we accept that young people should bear a higher cost due to their inexperience.

However, if I find that Native Americans pose higher risks due to perhaps their reduced driving experience as well, I don't increase their rates using their genetic heritage as the basis even if that acts as a good risk marker.

I don't do that because it offends other social objectives of not discriminating for racial reasons. What everyone has to understand is that economic reasons are not the only reasons for decision making, but the reasons chosen are a matter of democratic consensus.

That it might increase profits to be racist doesn't force a conclusion that one should be racist.

It's completely unreasonable to charge a business that happens to be own by a Black man but located in a neighborhood with average vandalism, a high premium. — LuckyR

It's completely illegal to charge a black owned business a higher premium based upon race, but whether it's statistically unreasonable is a matter of math. That is, correlations between risk and race, religion, hair color, shoe preference or whatever might or might not exist such that insurance premiums might be reliably set by it to be profitable.

Insurance is a highly regulated industry though, with elected insurance commissioners in most if not all states, meaning premiums and underwriting standards are not set by the free market.

The point of this is just to say that public policy isn't set by just a few fundamental principles of logic or even fairness. It's set by the millions of interests of the public in a democratic way.

This is to say if we wish to treat cis males just like transsexual males, we may or we may not as a matter of policy, with no specific single reason controlling, but all interests more or less being considered in the typical democratic way.

To the extent though anyone actually argues that cis and trans folks can't be meaningfully distinguished, that is stupid. I don't think people really do that, but the definition games often get played in a way that it pretends there is some confusion there.

Thank you. Great example. — T Clark

Tnx!

I think humans evolved to be acting, problem solving creatures. I guess all living organisms have. — T Clark

Consider though, a tree.

An interesting question is why humans evolved in a way that enabled alterations of consciousness through chemical substances. That is, what did our earliest ancestors gain by getting drunk that resulted in their increased survival?

The correlation between alcohol and sexual behavior is obvious. We limit its use to adults and create specific areas for its consumption, where we gyrate to rhythmic beats around scantily dressed members of the opposite sex.

Sex, drugs, and rock and roll as they say.

If a substance lowers one's inhibitions and that results in reproduction, those best affected by it will do better to spread their genes.

We are the descendants of drunk fuckers. Literally.

If free will were reducible to such events then not only would things make sense without it; but everything could be fully explained without it. — Leontiskos

Nothing could be explained if determinism were the case other than to say that you've arrived at an explanation that you were determined to arrive at. There would be no reason to beleive that your conclusions were rational or reasonable, but only that they were the result of pre-existing causes.

But what are the implications of determinism for the courtroom? — Joshs

As @Leontiskos has correctly pointed out the implications are significant, and it's beyond what you've suggested. If the engineer cannot but choose one particular plan to build a building due to his lack of freedom, the judge and jury have no choice, meaning their decisions are not the result of their decisions, but are the result of the various pool balls bouncing around in their heads. They might tell you they convicted because of facts A, B and C, and they may beleive that, but the reason they convicted and the reason they believe facts A, B and C mattered are just because of other causes in their head. That is, free will is necessary for meaningful decision making, and if it doesn't exist, then all decisions are either pre-determined or random.

Er, the implication was that you were defending someone who pulled the trigger. That's why I wrote, "When you are defending someone accused of murder..." It's like you're not even reading my posts. — Leontiskos

I am reading your emails. My prior comment was sarcasm, as if I'd make arguments in court related to philosophical debates and not the reason I was there.

Yes, but my point is that everyone agrees that if someone has no freedom over their action then they cannot be punished for that action, and you are leaning strongly in the direction which says that no one has any freedom over their actions. — Leontiskos

It depends upon the purpose of punishment. If the purpose of the punishment is corrective or rehabilitative, punishment could be argued as appropriate. If we're all cogs in a machine, doing that which will cause the cog to achieve the societal goal could be justified.

I am glad the dogmatism is becoming more brazen and visible. So it seems that you are committed to the very strange idea that engineers do not have it within their power to build bridges differently than they did in fact build them. — Leontiskos

Nor do computers have any way to process data other than the way they do in fact process them. The sun rises and sets in a predictable pattern in a way that results in trees growing and insects flourishing. The fact that an intricate system can work and can result in complex ways doesn't implicate freedom. The honeybee can't make honey a different way.

I asked above what you meant by "deep analysis" quite a few times but you always neglected to give any answer. I don't think you know what you mean, and therefore I don't think yours is a substantial critique. — Leontiskos

Deep analysis is what we're doing. We're asking ourselves what freedom is and determinism is. When a guy walking down the street is asked if he has the freedom to go home, he doesn't sort through the implications of a deterministic world. He just superfically says that he does have such freedom. Maybe he'd change his mind after he thought about.

It decrees that there are other choices, even though you are adamant that "there are no other choices"? If there are no other choices then your theism is wrong, and to subscribe to it is to contradict yourself. — Leontiskos

Maybe my theistic beliefs are wrong if I subjected them to strict logic. I'm not defending my faith. It might be stupid, but it is what it is.

Is it more irrational for me to say that the engineer could have built the bridge differently, or is it more irrational for you to say that the engineer was determined to build the bridge according to blueprint 87? — Leontiskos

I suppose either determinism or indeterminism could be true, but neither allow a basis for placing responsibility on the agent.

Law in itself presupposes that humans are responsible actors. It is odd for a lawyer to engage in a practice that presupposes personal responsibility if they do not believe in personal responsibility. — Leontiskos

The ad hom that I'm odd is irrelevant even if likely true.

I do believe in personal responsibility. I told you that. I also believe that our souls depart our bodies upon our death and that we all meet in heaven, which means we have a non-corporeal aspect of ourselves. Physical objects don't do what I just said and "non-physical" is pretty much undefined and meaningless the way I've presented things, but that's what I believe.

What I'm rejecting is that there are logical and scientific anchors for much of what we take for granted, including such things as free will, moral truths, or purpose generally. That doesn't mean I don't believe in such things. And I'm not trying to prove my faith either or suggesting that faith is necessary for reasons beyond pragmatic. That is, if you want to accept free will isn't a meaningful concept and buy into the implications of determinism, you may do that if your ultimate goal is to allow logic and empirical data to take you where ever it does.

Is that what you do in court? When you are defending someone accused of murder do you say to the judge, "His choice to pull the trigger was either caused or uncaused. If it was uncaused then it's not his fault. If it was caused then it was the result of spontaneity or pool balls in his brain, and therefore also not his fault. Therefore in no case could the pulling of the trigger be his fault"? You are a lawyer, right? — Leontiskos

Sure, that's what I argue because my concern in court centers around exposing the philosophical implications of determinism upon free will as opposed to protecting my client's interests. It's always good to talk about what you feel like talking about as opposed to focusing on the task at hand.

If your point is that academic philosophy has little impact in real life, I think that's obvious.

Anyway, to the extent this slippery slope actually does occur in court, a typical gap between the left and the right on personal responsibility does center around how much freedom, if any, someone has over their actions. Arguments related to upbringing, general environment, intelligence, prior exposures with violence, etc are often better received by those on the left that believe that behavior is better informed by external circumstances than the right, who hold firmly to responsibility coming entirely from within.

These differences in ideology are just that, usually based upon political leanings and the like, but not upon any real analysis of what the implications of determinism are.

Reason is an indeterminate cause which is neither determined, random, nor spontaneous. It is free, irreducible to these other options. — Leontiskos

And I'm saying you have no meaningful definition of freedom. It's something that happens that you are responsible for but it had no cause and its not spontaneous.

If you think it was just the result of "pool balls slamming together in his brain," how do you propose he could have chosen anything else? Do you even believe in choice? — Leontiskos

You couldn't have chosen anything other than you did if determinism is true. You could have done otherwise if determinism isn't true, but you wouldn't be responsible for a random or spontaneous event. And there are no other choices, despite you saying there are. That is, if determinism is true or if determinism is false, you are not responsible for what you do.

I do believe in choice. It's pragmatism. I don't think the world is decipherable without maintaining a superficial acceptance of freedom. It's superficial because upon analysis it fails. I also subscribe to a certain theism that just decrees it. But I don't think any of the explanations provided show how it could possibly exist.

and if you claim he had no cause, then when he does something, he did it for no reason.
— Hanover

...and how does that follow!? :yikes: — Leontiskos

As I stated, your fallacy is special pleading. You have for no reason for saying that "reasons" are not causes other than so that you can treat them differently, but a reason is a cause. If I pull the trigger beCAUSE I hate the man, the reason is the cause. So, substitute the word "cause" in for "reason" in my above sentence and you'll understand how it's logically entailed.

That is, " if you claim he had no cause, then when he does something, he did it for no cause."

He pulled it because he reasoned that by killing the witness his crime would go unpunished, and he is on trial because reason is not deterministic (i.e. he could have reasoned differently and chosen a different course of action, both in committing the initial crime as well as in committing the murder coverup). Are you in the right profession? — Leontiskos

The law reflects the beliefs of those who passed it, which means those who passed the laws likely believed in free will. That doesn't make free will the case. I can imagine there are countries that pass laws based upon all sorts of myths and religious beliefs I don't agree with, but I don't know what that adds to truth.

To deny that free agents have any causal effect on the world is just to deny free will. It is farcical to claim that freedom exists and exercises no influence on the world whatsoever. — Leontiskos

I'm saying that free will is not provable and that it's incoherent under analysis. It shares much in common with God and things beyond description. The farce is in thinking that you've solved the ancient puzzle of free will on TPF in 2024. These problems are fundamental to philosophy and they have no good answers.

If you're looking for answers, don't look to philosophy. Philosophy is where the unanswerable questions are stored.

No, this conclusion is based on the false dichotomy that if an event isn't deterministic then it must be random/spontaneous. That is the false dilemma I addressed in my first post to you. — Leontiskos

Random and spontaneous are not the same thing. We can say that quantum movement is random to the extent we can't predict it, but we don't go so far as to say it is uncaused. With spontaneity, you're talking about something just blipping into reality from nothingness.

So now it's a false trilemma I suppose.

What cannot be a false dilemma is the statement "Something is either caused or it is not caused." That statement encompasses every logical possibility.

So, when I choose to pull the trigger, that choice was either (a) caused or (b) not caused. If it was not caused, then I cannot be responsible for it because it occurred from nothing. If I'm walking about and then I pull a trigger with no preceeding cause initiating it, what did I do other than suddenly finding myself pulling a trigger.

So the formal cause of a deliberate choice is rationality and rational motives. Why does an engineer build a bridge one way and not another? Because he (freely) reasons that this is the best way to build a bridge in such-and-such a circumstance. — Leontiskos

This is just special pleading. You're trying to deny reasons are causes and then trying to claim that an event can occur without a cause because it was a reason, not a cause that brought it about.

A reason is a type of cause. If I pull the trigger because I have a reason to do it, then the reason is the cause. If the reason sprung from other reasons, then those other reasons are just preceeding causes.

So, same analysis: Either a reason springs from nowhere (it has no cause) or it arose as the result of other causes (it was determined (i..e it had a cause). In either event, imposing responsiblity upon the actor is non-sensical because the event is just something that happened to the actor beyond his control.

But there are a thousand different ways to build a bridge, and he might have built it differently. He is doubtless aware of all sorts of different ways that he could have built it. — Leontiskos

The person could have chosen 100 ways to build a bridge, but he chose Choice 87 and the reason he chose Choice 87 was because the various pool balls slamming together in his brain led him to Choice 87. How do you propose he chose Choice 87?

Assuming State of the Universe A, which includes every fact of the universe, will on some occasions in State A the actor choose Choice 87 and sometimes he choose Choice 88? If so, what varied that resulted in Choice 88? Was it an indeterminate force that offers a degree of randomness to the universe from time to time? If so, is that your Free Will Generator? If it is, how does that impose responsibility on the actor?

If we say that everything is determined then the free will debate is already over. — Leontiskos

Exactly. Everything is caused by something. That's what determinism is. If something is not caused by something, it's caused by nothing. If it's caused by nothing, we're not responsible for it. That's what I'm saying. The only way out is to accept a pragmatism or just say there is free will and it's all magic. I'm good with either actually.

I disagree. As a lawyer I find it odd that you would say that agents cannot be self-moving. — Leontiskos

This just shows that my occupation isn't causative of my beliefs in this instance, but you're right to look for the cause of my belief, because every belief, like every other type of event, has a cause.

Agents are not events. — Leontiskos

All causes are events and all events are causes. An event is just the word we use to describe the cause that immediately followed a prior cause. If you claim an agent is not an event, you are claiming he had no cause, and if you claim he had no cause, then when he does something, he did it for no reason.

Why did the Agent pull the trigger? Your answer would have to be He pulled it beCAUSE of nothing. I'm not following why I should hold the Agent responsible for something from nothing.

Needless to say, an agent is not an event. — Leontiskos

What causes him to create an event? You seem to be talking about spontaneous events now. Why am I responsible for things that just happen without causes?

And if your answer is that the agent caused it, you can't just end there. You have to explain what caused the agent to cause it.

The proximate question here is whether everything must be either random or determined. Other questions come later, such as how morality works, or whether an infinite regress of event-causes makes any sense. — Leontiskos

If everything is determined, then the question of what determines each prior event is the central question in the free will debate.

What does it mean to say that there is no solution? What is "the problem" to which there is no solution? — Leontiskos

The problem is how we define free will in a way that allows for us to be considered responsible for our actions. If our actions are caused by prior events and those events are pre-determined, probabilistically determined, randomly determined, or are spontaneously determined, none of those actions were within our control. Self-determined is a meaningless concept.

This is like asking what caused the Big Bang to suddenly bang and then asking what came before it to make it bang. Except in the free will discussion, you seem to be positing a sudden Big Bang every time a decision is made and then attributing that bang to the banger and still being unable to answer the question of what came before the Bang.

This just strikes me as a God question which is obviously unanswerable, as in where did God come from, and what was there before he was there, and how did he make something out of nothing?

But, like I said, I accept there is free will, but I take it as a given, without which nothing makes sense, not even the ability to reason and decide what to believe. I'm just willing to admit that the concept of free will in logically incoherent upon deep analysis.