If I thought it was beyond discussion, I wouldn't be discussing it. What are you even talking about?

Are you free to breathe? — darthbarracuda

No; breathing is demanded by your physiological makeup. You literally breathe on pain of death.

Same with eating, blinking, shitting, and sleeping. All of these are clearly coercive as much as being robbed; the cost of not doing the is literally dying painfully.

Are you free to think? — darthbarracuda

Thinking is a little trickier, but generally when compatibilists talk about freedom they have in mind things more substantial and consequential than mere (disembodied?) thinking. Insofar as thinking implies action, you are obviously not free to think very much at all.

Lots of liberties are restricted in jail. That's why it's meant as a punishment, or better yet as a way of removing harmful people from society so that their free expression of radical freedom does not impede others' free expression. — darthbarracuda

That's exactly what I just said. I didn't think claiming that jailed people aren't free would be so controversial.

I don't have two sets of beliefs, one for common sense truisms and one for philosophical theses. I just try to say what's true.

I don't think you can be said to do anything freely if you're in jail.

In the sense of "free" that is at issue in most debates about free will, determinism and responsibility, coercion doesn't negate freedom. — Pierre-Normand

As I mention in the OP, I'm specifically responding to a compatibilist claim that does think that coercion negates freedom, and defines the weak notion of freedom that may nonetheless be metaphysically determined as that which is uncoerced.

The serious point: we can't know whether a behavior is determined or freely chosen. No matter what I claimed, or you claimed, the claim would be open to challenge. — Bitter Crank

Yes we can. A coerced act is not freely chosen.

In many cases, if not all, acts of free will our performed under the influence of coercion. — TheWillowOfDarkness

A free act cannot be performed under coercion.

Why it is not possible for a piece of secondary literature to express what its author meant as, in part, explanation/appropriation of the text commented upon and, in part, criticism and elaboration on it? — Pierre-Normand

Good question but I feel it should be directed at all the bad writers of secondary literature.

No doubt the first words out of your mouth after you emerged from your mother's vagina, all covered with blood and gore, was "How could you do this to me?" — Bitter Crank

Being familiar with the various drive and coercive practices that themselves govern the practice of giving birth, I know fairly well how parents could do this to their children. That does not justify it. It is not a random avoidable atrocity but a deeply ingrained system of cruelty.

Sure, gun pointed at your head, "Your money or your life", we can pause to decide. Is this determinism or free will? Damned if I know -- but you don't know either. The discussion is a waste of time. — Bitter Crank

You do not give up your money freely when someone points a gun to your head and demands it. To claim that one can 'never know' whether this is so is ludicrous.

You have an heterodox view of coercion according to which it threatens the possibility for action to be free. — Pierre-Normand

There is nothing heterodox about holding that coercion limits freedom or makes it impossible In fact if you denied this I would ask if you were joking, or assume you didn't know the meaning of the words.

Is this so because acts are "coerced", in your view, that we aren't "ultimately responsible" for, as hard incompatibilists such as G. Strawson argue -- such that we never have more than one genuinely open "option" before us at any given time -- or because the unchosen antecedent circumstances of our lives merely narrow the range of our options? — Pierre-Normand

I think that it is not a free action in a perfectly ordinary untheoretical way that any person understands, that has nothing to do with metaphysical determination: that is, it is clearly not free even if we grant the compatibilist (or the libertarian) everything they want about their metaphysical position. A coerced action isn't made freely, but forced.

In what sense is it coerced? — Pierre-Normand

In the sense that the prisoner is constrained against their will.

And if you wish to appeal to ordinary use to characterize the agent's choice to remain in jail rather than being shot as being coerced, then that still leaves much room for freedom in ordinary life where most choices are uncoerced like that. — Pierre-Normand

It does not, once you make the move, as I am doing, to considering birth, which on the ordinary use coerces individuals in much the same way (perhaps even more drastically) as imprisonment.

What is unclear though is whether you mean (1) to be making an argument from ultimate responsibility, or (2) rather wish to insist that the "weak" compatibilist freedom falls short from some stronger version that would be the only one, on your view, worth having or worthy of being called freedom at all. — Pierre-Normand

The point is that not even the weak version holds, so it does not matter what argument the compatibilist makes so long as the point is to defend some sort of freedom.

On the second construal, you would seem to be arguing for a conception of freedom according to which an act is freely chosen not just if the agent is free and responsible to chose among the options open to her (that is, the options that only are directly constrained by her own choice) but also if her range of options is unconstrained by anything. — Pierre-Normand

No, it doesn't have to be unconstrained by anything, but the circumstances of birth determine our possibilities so completely that there is no real difference between the 'freedom' of acting once born and the 'freedom' (by analogy) of giving someone your wallet 'freely' when they point a gun at you. Systematically coercive circumstances remove the possibility of free action; birth is such a circumstance.

the prisoner may freely chose to remain in her cell because she values life more than "freedom". — Pierre-Normand

That is not a free action, it is obviously coerced.

Alright, so you have two options here: determinism where everything is coerced or libertarianism where there are uncaused causes. The former is consistent with our understanding of the world, and the latter is incoherent. It simply makes no sense for something to spontaneously occur, and it makes even less sense why we should think we are responsible fpr those decisions we make that are uncaused. — Hanover

Neither determinism nor libertarianism makes more sense than the other. But the point here is not a metaphysical one, but baser: even in the weaker sense of 'free will' as lack of coercion, nothing we do is free (i.e. uncoerced).

The reason you think hard determinism is the truth is no different from why you think anything and that is because you are coerced into thinking it. All judgments rendered by you cannot be said to be the result of careful deliberation and consideration, but you must acknowledge that your statements are just barks and screeches with no particular meaning or purpose, but are just the things you are forced to do. — Hanover

This does not follow. Whether an idea is right or not can be judged by its own internal coherence and explanatory merit. Whether it was coerced or determined or not makes no difference to the quality of an argument, nor does it make it 'meaningless.'

I am not responding because I think you dislike me or what I am posting and are uninterested in the issues regarding coercion, compatibilism and birth that I have been trying to discuss. Most of your responses raise no points, and only shoot back pointless remarks like 'Why should I?' Answering these so you can come back with another upset retort is not interesting or conducive to a discussion on these issues.

I am not going to respond to a bunch of zebra-posting snide remarks. I would prefer to discuss the ideas and am uninterested in your personal affection towards me or my opinions.

If you would like to restate them after you have calmed down, I will answer.

I do not think there are any questions that you raised to be answered, only voicing of being upset.

You seem to be upset with me and are not engaging the points I am making, so I don't think a response here would be fruitful.

This is coming from the person who has repeatedly made it clear that he rejects the notion of a "traditional" philosophical method... — darthbarracuda

I have rejected no such thing, I believe in the traditional Socratic method, and that has nothing to do with these posts anyway.

Of course, but have they happened to you? That's why birth is a risk imposition, you are risking someone else's life. And that's not just the things parents can do their children... — darthbarracuda

Large amounts of suffering are guaranteed in every life, though for some people more than others.

Agreed. I almost got into an accident the other day. A vehicle is a weapon. — darthbarracuda

Then you should probably retract the car analogy.

What you fail to realize is that people have this weird idea that their lives are typically better than what you suppose they are. Strange, huh? Not everyone is acutely aware of their existential dilemma, and if they are, most seem to distract themselves. It's not like birth is the most rational action. Nobody in their right mind has a child if they know how much they will suffer and care about this fact. — darthbarracuda

I am aware that people not thinking about or understanding how bad their actions are plays a role in why they commit them. This is why the abolition of ignorance is important.

So instead of characterizing parents as culprits, perhaps you ought to characterize them as being misled by their hormones and emotions. — darthbarracuda

So are all culprits, though.

What's done is done. If you don't like it, there are ways out. Get on with your life. — darthbarracuda

There are actually no ways to get out; suicide is a temporary solution to a permanent problem. Offering apologetics for atrocities will not stop them -- you must face up to them.

So it's now about you instead of every child? This thread is quite personal it seems. — darthbarracuda

No, it is typical in philosophical discourse to use pronouns like "I" and "you" to serve as examples for general cases to make general points.

Regardless, there are worse things your parents could have done to you than to merely give birth to you. From the looks of it, it seems like you basically hate life since you're willing to go to the extreme of saying your parents are culprits that are guilty of a heinous crime. — darthbarracuda

Yes, but all bad things a parent can do to a child are predicated on them giving birth to them.

When you drive your car (assuming you have one that is), you usually don't spend the time worrying about all the consequences of driving your car. You could hit a child and paralyze them. — darthbarracuda

Actually, I do worry about this: once I crashed into a tree on a sidewalk, and the car was out of my control, so had things gone differently, there is a very real chance I could have killed someone. I think automobiles are very dangerous and should not be treated lightly.

So if this actually happens to a person on accident, are they responsible for paralysis or even the death of the child? No, we call it manslaughter. There was no motive. — darthbarracuda

That depends: they could have been driving irresponsibly, and been doing so even knowing that this would increase their chances of killing someone. In the case of giving birth, we all know that being alive entails large amounts of suffering (it is not avoidable), yet people give birth anyway knowing full well how the world is.

So then why are you complaining about your parents "wishing" life upon you as if they did so in a highly reprehensible fashion of neglect? — darthbarracuda

Because giving birth to children is a terrible thing to do, and it would be better if people came to understand this so that they would stop doing it.

NO. You are insane if you think that every parent knowingly and willingly wished pain and burdensome worries upon their child. — darthbarracuda

But they did. They knew full well that life entailed these things and wished life on me.

Everyone was once a child themselves and was placed into this world by their parents, who were also children themselves at one point. We can see this as somewhat tragic/ironic, but we can't say that parents are evil, wicked, mwahaha let me bring more children into the world to torture!!! Grow up. — darthbarracuda

I never said they were evil or wicked. They did something terrible, but I don't think they, any more than anyone else, are responsible for their choices, since they likewise were coerced into living. Responsibility isn't a useful ethical notion; what is important is stopping the act.

To have a child is, in the words of Rivka Weinberg, a risk imposition. Life is not inherently a gift. We have to continue to move, eat, shit, sleep, etc. just to stay alive. If you wanted more, too damn fucking bad. Either be more resilient and rebel like Camus advocated or get on with the logical conclusion of your apparent disgust with the way things are. — darthbarracuda

I am getting on with the logical conclusion, which is that people should not give birth.

You already are in such a situation by virtue of being born. The one who birthed you knew what the world was like and how it would restrict you, and how it would be inevitable that some terrible things would be forced upon you, but they decided to go through with birthing you anyway. So you were effectively put in a cage, purposely, by a person -- a cage that doesn't allow you to fly, no, but there are more pressing things (like that you are held with the threat of pain and death for not perpetually working and moving in certain ways to avoid it). All this was wished on you by an actual person.

The only thing restricting you is an impersonal biological factor, not an actual agent — darthbarracuda

An actual agent placed you in the position by choosing to birth you.

Anyway, one might be able to defend a notion of degrees of freedom. Total freedom is, arguably, only possible after death, as to exist is to be constrained and differentiated in some way, and perhaps non-existence is just total lack of constraint. So no existing person can be free. But one person can be more free than another. While no one is free from the need to eat, for example, some people are free from the need to eat nothing but millet every day. Consider also that relative to a particular decision, some people are free while others are not. Someone who doesn't give a shit about politics, for example, is therefore free with regard to what party to vote for, whereas the person who gives a shit is constrained to vote for the party that is conducive to his shit giving. — bert1

I think that within the confines e.g. of being a slave, these degrees are trivial: you're still a slave. And they do not allow the compatibilist's weaker assertions to go through. That is, the coercion involved in being born is so complete, and what 'choices' you might be offered once it is finished so trivial, that it doesn't matter.

Being brought into the world by means of coercion does not mean that you are a slave once born. — darthbarracuda

A slave lives only within coercively determined confines.

But there's also no doubt that I don't consider myself a slave because I have a will that can be satisfied at any time. I am not physically restrained. I am free to do what I want to do. And so this romanticized idea of everyone being captive in their bodies and unable to become free is rubbish. — darthbarracuda

You are not free to do what you want to do. If you actually think that, it's possible you are suffering from a psychotic delusion.

Please leave me alone. Thank you.

A compatibilist holds that free will is compatible with determinism, the belief that everything is pre-determined. He's not disagreeing with the notion that every single event in his life (including being born) is beyond his control and subject to pre-existing causes. The compatibilist defines a free will (and there are alternate ways the theory is presented) as one that is acting on one's own motivations, wants, or desires as opposed to one that feels coerced. It points to the facially obvious difference between eating a bowl of ice-cream because one enjoys ice-cream as opposed to eating a bowl of ice-cream in order to avoid being shot in the head. — Hanover

The point is that all things in life are coerced, in that they take place within a coercive institution (birth). While the ice cream does not hold a gun to your head, it does hold a smaller consequence over you -- the pain of desiring, but not getting, ice cream. But it doesn't matter, because the desire for ice cream is itself a product of a coercive institution (birth).

And of course, in being alive you do have a gun held to your head at all times, in a very real sense: you must work perpetually to eat or die (and all the attendant suffering of starvation).

That being said, it's not as if the compatibilist argument has no problems or that it is an ultimately acceptable solution to the free will question. I don't think, though, that the problem with it is that it doesn't accept the consequences of determinism. It tries to distinguish between different types of deterministic forces in distinguishing which it will designate as a free choice or a not free choice. It holds that whether a choice is determined or not has nothing to do with it being free because every choice is ultimately determined. — Hanover

What I am saying is that the compatibilist's weaker notion of freedom as being free from coercion or in accordance with one's own (metaphysically determined) desires is not even right, even if you grant him everything else.

I think you are extending definitions too much. At the very least, there is a massive difference in degree between being coerced into slavery, mining diamonds your whole life (in Sierra Leone perhaps) and being forced into life itself. For in the latter, someone else has authority over your life, while in the latter you are the one that has the authority over at least the decision to continue your life. — darthbarracuda

You do not have authority over decisions made under coercion or duress, and being born is coercive.

There is no question of 'degree' here; and in fact, the coercive institution of birth is a prerequisite to that of slavery.

Also, I would contend that if you dislike society so much, nobody is stopping you from becoming a hermit or killing yourself. This shows that in the romantic existential sense, we are indeed forced into a situation that we did not ask for, but in the day-to-day basis I would think that to find one's life to be enslavement itself would either warrant a trip to the psychologist or a quick death. Otherwise you're grabbing at straws and being disingenuous. — darthbarracuda

There is nothing romantic about it. It is a very real thing, as are its effects (the suffering that ensues under coercion).

Nobody is stopping you from doing anything, but you best be prepared for the consequences of your actions. That's all compatibilism is. It's unfree will, with emphasis on the will. — darthbarracuda

'Nobody is stopping you from keeping your wallet, but you best be prepared for the consequences of your actions' (getting shot by your mugger).

Yet the perosn who gives up his wallet is in no way freely doing so. Same for anything done in life.

This retort makes no sense, even as a joke.

I'm not a secondary source; I give my own opinions.

I don't care if it's 30 years old.

Generalized label - Hellas reborn
Form of government - Competing city-states with unifying culture and free immigration between and intercity events ala ancient Greece
Form of economy - Economics all the way down, civilizations are in competition roughly in the way products are
Abortion - The right to bodily autonomy trumps the right to life of those infringing upon it; so permissible so long as birth requires inhabitation of a body, but not otherwise
Gay marriage - Marriage should not be state-controlled in any way, so not a coherent issue
Death penalty - As the common law permits, no objection in principle (kill 'em)
Euthanasia - A person has the right to die whenever they please
Campaign finance - No campaigns
Surveillance - Population should be extremely hostile to it, to the point that attempting to implement it would be political / economic suicide
Health care - Medical institutions compete for most effective treatments, people go to whichever city has the treatment they will be allowed
Immigration - Completely open with extremely powerful impetus toward cultural assimilation / hostility toward multiculturalism
Education - Vocational, apprentice-based (including for academics)
Environmental policy - Tear it up
Gun policy - A well-armed citizenry is necessary to prevent governmental structures from forming; benefit of the doubt in use of firearms should be given to defenders
Drug policy - Light it up
Foreign policy - Isolationism and non-interventionism, steal foreign citizens by having a high quality society that everyone wants to immigrate to, maybe even pro-active 'invasions' whose only purpose is to take people out of repressive regimes and 'import' them if they are willing; equivalent of Delian Defense League to kill Persian invaders and toss them into the Aegean Sea

What? That's hilarious, quit being a square, nerd.

I know, that's what I just said. Point being, the logical equivalence is not trivial, and is wrong.

But I'm getting tired of this too. I still think you haven't answered the criticism and are fundamentally mistaken, but truth be told I don't really care that much.

No, you misunderstand me. You do not want to claim the material equivalence; if you do, then the claims you made earlier in this thread do not follow. In other words, your stronger claims have been about the two sides of the biconditional meaning the same thing, or causing contradiction if they differ in truth value, which a material equivalence does not guarantee.

For example, the following material equivalence is true:

Russia is the largest country in the world iff my name is Patrick.

So is this material equivalence:

London is in France iff Paris is in England.

But in the way you want to use the biconditional, that is, to claim an equivalence in meaning between the thing on the left and the right, such that there is no situation you can find in which Russia is the largest country in the world, but my name is not Patrick, or vice-versa, this equivalence is clearly false.

I think you are confusing the purpose of the biconditional. Do you mean it as a material equivalence, or something like, 'for any situation, if the thing on the left of the biconditional holds in that situation, then so does the thing on the right?' If you mean it as a material conditional, then only the current situation is relevant, making your claim trivially true, and at odds with the more grandiose claims you made at the beginning of this thread.

If however you mean not a material conditional, but the 'in any situation...' claim, then adding this if-clause as a material condition does not help you. For this situation we're in now is a situation in which the antecedent is met; yet this situation would still be one in which the biconditional in the consequent is false, as I have showed you. So adding this condition does not seem to help you in the way you think it does.

How many times do I have to repeat myself? The sentence mentioned means the same thing as the sentence used. So "there are still dinosaurs" means that there are still dinosaurs. — Michael

But you just said it doesn't always have to mean the same thing in the future. Ex hypothesi we are dealing with a situation in the future in which the sentence has changed meaning. You cannot simply stipulate that such a situation cannot happen; in fact you are committed to it being able to happen.

With respect to the language as we speak it now, I am not saying the sentence means two different things; nor am I switching sentences or even languages. All I am saying is that there is a possible situation in which that sentence is true, and yet it is not the case that there are still dinosaurs. This situation is imaginable, no matter what you say about the sentence being both mentioned and used has to mean the same thing now. And if you mean that the sentence mentioned and used have to mean the same thing always, you contradict what you just said above.

Okay, so how does my counterexample fail, then? If you have a situation where the very same sentence, "there are still dinosaurs," which now means there are still dinosaurs, instead means that there are no more dinosaurs, then if we examine such a situation in which that sentence has that meaning, then it follows that even though that sentence ("there are still dinosaurs") is true in that situation, it is not the case that in that situation, there are still dinosaurs (in fact, the truth of the sentence in that situation demands that there are no more dinosaurs).

So in this situation, "X" is true, but it is not the case that X. -->

"There are still dinosaurs" is true, but it is not the case that there are still dinosaurs.

Therefore, the equivalence schema is false.

The way I get from that is that this:

2) The "X" mentioned on the left of the above and the "X" used on the right of the above are the same English sentence and so mean the same thing — Michael

Makes no sense unless you assume the same sentence cannot mean two different things in two different situations. If one sentence can change meaning over time (which it seems to me it obviously can), then what you follow with, 'and so mean the same thing,' cannot be asserted.

Okay, first of all, I am not ignoring anything, or attacking straw men. I have been replying to you patiently and in good faith.

Second of all, you are here confirming something that you a moment ago denied -- that your position depends on the claim that the same sentence cannot occur in more than one language. At least that seems to be what you say when you say this:

'being the same sentence' is to be understood as being in the same language — Michael

If I understand you correctly, your position hinges on a substantial thesis about the identity condition of sentences -- that the same sentence cannot exist in more than one language. Otherwise, the above counterexample works. Do you agree?

No, we do not agree; you intend the equivalence schema to mean that:

"X" is true

and

X

mean the same thing. As I have been at pains to show you, they do not. They are not equivalent, and one being true while the other false is in no way a contradiction. Getting to the point of this discussion, what this means is that how we use words like "horse" has nothing to do with what a horse is, or what it takes to be a horse. The latter is only intelligible if you mistakenly think, like you do, that the above two are somehow equal in meaning, rather than both accidentally being true at the same time in the present, in virtue of the current meaning of the sentence.

So are you claiming that a sentence is defined not just by the symbols that make it up, but also its meaning? Is a sentence something more than a certain string of symbols, or syntactic structure? Cannot the same sentence mean different things in different situations?