1. No one has power over the facts of the past and the laws of nature.
2. No one has power over the fact that the facts of the past and the laws of nature entail every fact of the future (i.e., determinism is true).
3. Therefore, no one has power over the facts of the future. — ToothyMaw

That argument is unsound. Premise 1 is false. If we exist with aseity then we did have power over facts of the past, for there was never a time when we did not exist.

Those who think determinism is incompatible with free will typically appeal to a more basic principle, namely that if you are in no way morally responsible for A, and in no way morally responsible for B, and A and B are wholly causally responsible for C, then you are in no way morally responsible for C. That is, one's non-responsibility for A and B transfers to C.

I take it you agree with this, for you appealed to the fact that we are not the ultimate sources of our actions if determinism is true. It is by being an ultimate source - that is, the first link in a causal chain - that one can be morally responsible (and thus have free will of the kind moral responsiblity presupposes). The combination of determinism and the assumption that we have come into existence, entails that the above principle is violated and thus we do not have free will.

However, this does not establish the incompatibility of free will and determinism for the simple fact is you have to assume that we have come into being to establish the incompatibility.

Of course, most will grant you that assumption. But nevertheless, it is false, as the previous argument I made shows.

It seems to be a circular argument - attempting to prove that we do not come into existence by assuming we have free will, only to claim that because we don't come into existence we have free will. — ToothyMaw

I don't see that it is circular. For I am not assuming that we exist with aseity, but concluding that we do.

The first premise says this:

1. If we have free will, we exist with aseity.

What's the basis for that claim? Well, this argument:

A) If we have come into existence, then we have been caused to come into existence by events external to ourselves
B) If we have been caused by external events, then we are not morally responsible for our initial character
C) Therefore, if we have come into existence, we are not morally responsible for our initial character

D) we are not morally responsible for our environment or for the laws of nature
E) if everything we do is a product of matters for which we are not morally responsible, then we are not morally responsible for anything we do
F) If we have come into existence, then everything we do is a product of initial character, environment and laws of nature, none of which we are in any way morally responsible for
G)Therefore, if we have come into existence, we are not morally responsible for anything we do

H) If we have free will, we are morally responsible for some of what we do
I) Therefore, if we have come into existence, we do not have free will.

That's not a circular argument. No premise asserts that we exist with aseity. Yet it establishes the truth of this premise:

1. If we have free will, we exist with aseity.

As for this premise:

2. We have free will

Well, that is self-evident to our reason. That doesn't mean it is certainly true, but it means the burden of proof is squarely on the one who denies premise 2. So, premise 1 and premise 2 are prima facie justified. And together they entail that we exist with aseity. An argument that entails its conclusion is not thereby circular.

Supposing that we might have the status of aseity because aseity is possible for some things is different from demonstrating that people do not come into existence, — ToothyMaw

Yes, but here is the demonstration:

1. If we have free will, we exist with aseity
2. We have free will
3. Therefore we exist with aseity

My case for 1 is this:

1. Unless we exist with aseity everything we do will trace to external causes (a premise I take it you are sympathetic to)
2.If everything we do traces to external causes, we do not have free will
3. Therefore, if we have free will, we exist with aseity

Furthermore, even if people did exist with aseity, external factors would still affect their decisions if determinism is true; — ToothyMaw

Yes, but they will still be the originators of their decisions. Imagine that Tim says something to me that makes me want to hit him, and I hit him. Am I responsible? Of course. Now, I had no control over Tim. So the event of Tim saying whatever he said is not one that I had control over. Nevertheless, I am responsible because 'I' reacted to what he said.

If you hold that to be free and morally responsible you require not to be caused to make your decisions by anything external, then your view is patently implausible.

What is plausible is the claim that if your decisions are 'wholly' the product of external causes, then one is not responsible.

But if we exist with aseity then we are not wholly the product of external causes, because nothing caused us to be as we are.

It isn't plausible; it is how free will is defined according to an indeterminist view. And I say later in the OP that I am referring to free will in the indeterminist sense with PAP. — ToothyMaw

That's question begging. There is a vast literature on how best to understand 'could have done otherwise'. There are conditional and unconditional interpretations. The conditional interpretation is compatible with determinism, the unconditional is not. If you just stipulate that you are assuming the truth of the unconditional reading, then you are just stipulating that compatibilism is false, which is question begging.

I’ll begin with the typical incompatibilist argument regarding free will:

1. A person acts of her own free will only if she is its ultimate source.
2. If determinism is true, no one is the ultimate source of her actions.
3.Therefore, if determinism is true, no one acts of her own free will. — ToothyMaw

I am a believer in free will and moral responsibility. I am not confident about whether compatibilism or incompatibilism is the correct view about the matter. But in a way, I do not think it matters, apart from being of intellectual interest. For surely it is more self-evident to reason that we have free will and are morally responsible than that, say, incompatibilism is true? And thus if one were to find evidence that determinism is true, it would be more reasonable upon this discovery to conclude that incompatibilism is false than it would to conclude that we lack free will.
So it seems to me to be rational to believe we have free will and are morally responsible even if we are not sure whether it is, or is not, compatible with determinism.

But anyway, to address your argument above: I think premise 2 is false. Premise 2 would only be true if, in addition to determinism being true, everyone comes into being. For then that person's coming into being would be determined by prior events and circumstances outside of herself. And thus there is no pure origination - she is not any action's ultimate source, as the chain of cause and effect traces in its entirety to causes outside of herself.

But imagine that we have not come into being but exist with aseity. We know already that some things that exist must have this status, else we will find ourselves having to posit an infinity of prior causes. So, that some things exist with aseity is certain. There is no incoherence, then, in supposing that we ourselves might have that status.

If we exist with aseity, then even if determinism turns out to be true, we would still be ultimate sources of all we do, for the causal chain would never trace in its entirety to external causes.

re PAP: it's surely open to both compatibilist and incompatibilist readings. So, although it is highly plausible that free will does involve having alternative possibilities, this leaves open whether the alternatives need to be unconditional or conditional. So I do not think one can get to the incompatibilist conclusion in a non-question begging way by means of PAP.

Yes, that's how things appear to you and others, such as Dummo, Haventaclue, and Sourdunce. But that's the Dunning and Kruger effect. You have no expertise in philosophy and so you confuse arguments you find interesting with philosophically interesting arguments.

If the only way you can find to challenge my argument is to challenge the idea that anyone has any moral rights at all, then all you've done is acknowledge that my argument is incredibly strong. For my conclusion is now as well grounded as the idea that we have moral rights.
A competent arguer would not question the idea that we have rights, but would instead focus their attention on whether my controversial conclusion really follows.

Same applies. Parents - procreators - create the society in which the rest of us have to live. So they should pay for it all for everyone. It's only fair. All parents have played their part, and so all should pay.

You're well named. First, I have made a case for the justice of taxing parents. You are not addressing that case. Second, you are arguing that rights are some kind of human construction, which is patent nonsense.

Here's how most of you here seem to argue: I make an argument that, say, Xing is immoral. You respond "morality is a human construction". It's just tedious. It's like saying "how do we know anything?" in response to any argument for an interesting proposition.

Now, do you have anything interesting to say about the interesting argument that I made?

The hermit has rights. It is wrong to kill him, yes? He is entitled to defend himself against your deadly attack. So he has a right to life. Yet there is no society - no one 'granting' him that right.

1. If rights are granted by humans, then the hermit has no rights
2. the hermit has rights
3. Therefore rights are not granted by humans.

Furthermore, you are not addressing the main argument of this thread, which is that taxing parents does not violate their rights, whereas taxing the rest of us does, other things being equal. But well done for focussing on the less interesting claim!

That's false. Isn't there a YouTube video you can post your inane comments underneath?

aw, look at him trying to do a bit of philosophy. No, because it is clearly unjust of me to take his vegetables and shack.

not one for abstract thought are you?
This thread is about the justice or otherwise of a policy. It is not my attempt to describe what you are currently allowed to do.
Presumably you often confuse theories and diaries.

no, I just choose not to. You are doing me a service.

Argue something, you tedious troll.

You talk of rights, but you do not explain where rights come from. — Bitter Crank

They come from Ipswich. By train.

What, exactly, are you asking? We have rights. We recognise them using our reason. It's that faculty that few here know how to use effectively.

I asked you earlier if you had an imagination. You did not answer, so I will assume you do. Use it: imagine an island on which there lives a hermit. So an island on which there is no society. This hermit has built himself a little shack and grown himself some vegetables.

Now, does that hermit have any rights? For instance, if I just rock up on the island, may I kill him? Or will killing him be unjust? It will be unjust, yes? Because he has a right to life. See? No society. Yet he has a right to life. Again: there is no society on the island. No laws. No nothing. Just a hermit, a shack and so on. And yet it is blindly obvious to all those of moral sensitivity and intelligence that others are not morally permitted to treat the hermit in just any old way. He has a right to life, a right to that shack, to his vegetables and so on.

Don't ask 'why?' - we can give all kinds of backstories about that, but it won't make any difference to my case, which requires not that we can explain why we have rights, but only that we have them. So again, the important point is that he does have such rights, and that there are no human institutions on the island. And thus those who can reason clearly can recognise that rights are not constructs of human societies. Far from it, the legitimacy of a human society's institutions derives from whether and how well such institutions are respecting the rights we have.

That's all John Locke above. It's standard stuff. The 'problem' it generates - and it is not a problem, just the logical upshot - is that taxation is not justified. For I rock up on the island and I decide to protect the hermit's rights. That's something I'm entitled to do. I am not violating his rights in deciding to do this. But then, having decided to dedicate my life to protecting his rights, I insist he pays me - that he gives me space in his shack and a portion of his vegetables. And I threaten him with violence if he does not give me these things.

Well, that's clearly not something I am entitled to do. It would be quite different if the hermit freely recruited me to protect his rights. But he didn't - I just decided to protect them. And because of the lack of a freely negotiated agreement, I do not have any right to a portion of his possessions, and no right to use violence against him.

Yet that's what the state does to us. It taxes us - which is to extract money with menaces - in order to pay for itself. That's not something I am entitled to do to another in the state's absence, and so it is not something the state is entitled to do either, for we can only delegate to others that which we ourselves have a right to do.

But parents have violated our rights and have exposed us to risks that we did not consent to, and thus they can legitimately be made to pay to protect us from those risks. Hence what would be unjust if done to us - namely taxing us to pay for the protection of our rights without our consent to do so - is not unjust if done to parents.

He wants his mum to pay for everything. Not a highpoint in the intellectual life of the forums. — Banno

And you're qualified to judge that?

An interesting point of view, though why would the state in this case be justified in dictating in what way parents shall provide for their children? — Tzeentch

It is because force can legitimately be used against those who are violating another's rights and also to make sure people pay restitution. For instance, if someone damages some of your property, then I - any anyone else for that matter - is justified in making them give you restitution. And thus as state institutions are really nothing more than bodies of people, those institutions would be justified in extracting money from parents with menaces. So, whereas there is no justification for taxing those who have not violating anyone's rights or who do not owe anyone restitution - and thus taxing regular folk is unjust - it is not unjust for us to tax parents. For it is their fault we have to live a life here and their fault our rights are liable to be violated and thus need protecting.

As I see it, what these various thought experiments do is motivate the idea that lockdowns violate our rights. I actually think they do this regardless of how dangerous the virus may be. This virus is, as you say, as nothing compared to ebola or the bubonic plague - it's just a particularly nasty flu and if there had been no news coverage of it I think the vast bulk of us wouldn't have noticed it. But my view would be the same if we were dealing with much, much more dangerous viruses.

The point of the 'turning down medical treatment' thought experiment is to demonstrate that it is more important to respect an individual's autonomy, than it is to save their life.

We can then recognize that if two people wish to meet, knowing full well that by doing so they will both die, then it is more important to respect their autonomy than it is to ensure they do not die.
And then from there we can recognize that it is an outrage - graver than intervening in the above cases - to prevent people from freely deciding to meet when they know that there's a virus out and about that they may catch and may kill some of them.

On and off, the world over. There is a virus in some places, and most governments have, in response, prevented their citizenry from meeting or placed severe restrictions on how many people you can meet and where. The virus is called 'Covid 19'. Perhaps none of this made the news where you are.

Once more: if I have an illness that can be cured, but I do not wish to take the medicine that will cure me, am I entitled not to take it? Would you be doing me wrong if you ignored my wishes and forced me to take it?

The answers are obvious: yes, I am entitled not to take it, and yes, you'd be doing wrong - violating my rights - if you forced me to take it.

So, it is more important to respect my autonomy - my right to make my own decisions about how things go with my life - than it is to preserve my life.

Well, by the same token, if I know that by visiting Jane I will die, but I wish to visit her anyway, then you're not entitled to stop me.

So, if I want to go and see someone who may have a virus, I am entitled to do so, and they're entitled to see me. No one is entitled to stop us meeting.

If you don't want to meet me, you're entitled to stop me meeting you by staying indoors. I am not entitled to force my company on you.

But by the same token, you are not allowed to force me to stay indoors.

In a futile attempt to bring this back to the argument in the OP rather than the psychology of Australians, here is the important point:

Seems to me quite clear, then: our parents have violated our rights and have voluntarily exposed us to the risks of living. As such our parents owe us a living and owe us protection for our rights. That is, our parents owe us the state institutions: they owe it to us to provide us with an education; owe it to us to provide us with a police force and justice system designed to protect our rights; and owe it to us to provide us with a welfare system that guarantees us a decent standard of living without us having to work or beg for it. And we are entitled to extract payment for these things from them with force if necessary; that is, it is justified to tax parents to pay for the state institutions.

Your parents have forced you to live a life. Well, we're all entitled to make them pay to insure us against the various risks we will face while living it. Yes?

I'll make it easier: who should pay for prisons? The innocent? Or criminals? Criminals, right? (Don't tell me who does pay for them - I am not describing the world, I am talking about what is just).

Same idea. It's not your fault you're living here. Not your fault you need to work for a living. Not your fault that you live in a world full of people who threaten to violate your rights. None of it is your fault. It's the fault of your parents. And so they should pay. They should pay to protect your rights - pay for the police etc - and they should provide you with what you need to live a decent life etc.

Public Health officials have the authority (and power) required to regulate behavior and impose quarantines or vaccination requirements, if the threat is dire and high enough. For the common cold, no. For ebola, yes. For Covid 19, yes. For polio, yes. For mumps, measles, and chickenpox, yes. — Bitter Crank

We're talking about moral rights. You don't need to describe the law of the land (plus I am not in your land).

So, put down your big book of laws, and engage your reason. Am I entitled - morally entitled - to turn down life saving treatment?

I have a bit of a cough right now (not covid induced, but smoke induced). Can you force me to take some cough medicine? Not 'are you physically able', but are you 'morally entitled' to make me take it for my own good?

No. That's the answer, yes?

Of course you know what an atomized society is -- all individuals without social obligations -- Margaret Thatcher's "there is no such thing as 'society'" ideal. Don't be obtuse. — Bitter Crank

No, I don't know what you use the term 'atomized society' to mean. It is not a term I have ever used in my life.

Now, it seems that you mean by it a collection of individuals who do not have any social obligations.

What do you mean by a social obligation? Do you mean obligations to be social? Or what?

Note, at no point have I suggested that individuals lack moral obligations to one another. We do have moral obligations to one another, including not to make each other do things. So, it seems I do not deny the 'atomized society' at least as you use the term.

I, for instance, have an obligation not to lock you down. Would you agree?

Bartricks denies any legitimacy to the state, which means he needs to move to the US where we lay seige to the Capitol when we feel like it. — frank

No, Frank, try again. I don't deny legitimacy to the state: I showed how it could be legitimate. Read the OP again. I don't believe I mentioned laying siege to anywhere.

As Bertrand Russell said "never trust a stupid man's report of what a clever man has said. He will unconsciously translate it into something he can understand. I would rather be reported by my bitterest of enemies among philosophers, than a friend ignorant of the subject".

Why do Australians accept the authority if the state? — frank

That's a question for Australian psychologists to answer. The philosophical question is whether the state is, in fact, legitimate.

I'm still waiting for you to explain where you talk about organisations in the OP. — Banno

Oh, you need to read the OP then. And when you've understood its content - which has clearly yet to happen - you can try and address something in it. Or you can pretend you know things you do not know, and pretend you've read people you've not read. My prediction: you're going to do the latter.

Philosophy was done in the OP. It stopped when you started.

How about you actually address the argument in the OP, rather than pretending you've read Leviathan.

If you're interested in name dropping, the view I expressed in the opening line is Locke's.

That's why there's an implicit social contract. — frank

What?

No they don't.

In the OP. Read it.

In the OP. Read it.

Er, no, my analysis clearly mentions them.

So, individuals exist and have rights. Good boy!! Now do you have an imagination in there? If you do, try and imagine that there is no society. If you like, imagine an island on which several people have just washed-up. Can you do that?

So, er, just to be clear: do you think individuals do not exist? Or do you think individuals do not have rights? Or - and this is what I suspect is the case - you are having no very clear thoughts about anything, you're just not letting that stop you?

Yep, one who is consumed by themselves would not see the relevance. — Banno

Oh, I see - once more it's my pesky rationalism getting in the way of me seeing what those free from it can perceive so clearly. You sound rather impressed with yourself.

The extreme individualism that underpins such thought sits outside of ethics, not seeing how it depends on the benevolence of others. — Banno

Well that's one for the book of quotes.

This strikes me as teenage whining. — Banno

So? You're whining.

Growing up involves taking responsibility not just for yourself, but for those in your care. — Banno

Erm....relevance? I need to trim the hedge. My toe hurts. Do I really need to clean my teeth?

That's incoherent; entitlement is a social contract; you have no entitlements not granted you by us. — Banno

Okaaay. Good one. Reason is strong with this one.

Yes it can - and demonstrably, it does. You can fight, but you cannot wage war. You can make paper, you cannot print money. You can become a vigilante, but not a police officer. We create new edifices by engaging in social practices. — Banno

You're not providing any kind of argument, you're just begging the question and providing a list of things I would find it difficult to do.

..the rest of us believe that the state ought act so as to protect our shared interests in the face of recalcitrant individuals. — Banno

Most people are also spectacularly stupid and have probably spent a grand total of 10 minutes thinking about this kind of thing, if they've spent any time thinking about it at all. What's your point? Try engaging with the argument.

Well that's certainly true too. But I do not like what you say precisely because it is banal and not worth saying.

It's an original proposal, but of course I have appealed to familiar ideas about the nature of rights. That's what makes it interesting, or at least, interesting to those who are interested in philosophy and what's actually just etc. Here's my suggestion: if you've got nothing interesting to say, try saying nothing.

Yes, more ingenuity. Thank me.