• ToothyMaw
    1.3k
    The purpose of this post is to encourage some sort of discussion about moral responsibility and free will, two topics that interest me quite a bit. I argue that people cannot be held accountable morally - at least not reliably. I will begin with some definitions and an introduction to some of the most prominent views on free will and moral responsibility.

    Compatibilism: a solution to the problem between free will and determinism; it is the thesis that free will is compatible with determinism.

    Incompatibilism: the doctrine that free will and determinism are incompatible.

    Determinism: the doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will. Some philosophers have taken determinism to imply that individual human beings have no free will and cannot be held morally responsible for their actions.

    Free will: the ability to choose between different courses of action unaffected by causes external to the will, or, according to Hobbes, the ability to act without external impediments to the will.

    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.

    This argument has heavy implications for moral responsibility: if determinism is true, it is difficult to see how people can be held morally responsible for their decisions; the conditions necessary for anyone’s decisions have already occurred long before said decisions happened; our brains are bound by the laws of cause and effect like any other observable physical process.

    A compatibilist reply to the incompatibilist argument might be that all that is required to hold one responsible for one’s actions is the ability to act freely in accordance with one’s will. It remains that even if causal determinism is true and one is not the ultimate source of one’s actions, one is still acting in accordance with their will much of the time, a fact that is compatible with causal determinism. Furthermore, Hobbes asserts that freedom is merely the ability to do what one will in the absence of external impediments. With this new understanding of what it means to act freely it appears that perhaps people can be held morally responsible for their actions.

    The compatibilist argument put formally for an instance in which one acts in accordance with an unimpeded will:

    1. An agent, x, can be held responsible for an action, a, iff said agent acts in accordance with an unimpeded will.
    2. X commits act a in accordance with an unimpeded will.
    3. X can be held responsible for act a.

    While this might allow for a certain form of moral responsibility, it doesn’t address the fundamental argument raised by the incompatibilist argument - one is still not the ultimate source of one’s actions. That being said, one might argue that it doesn’t need to; it redefines what it means for an act to be free and then establishes a new model for moral responsibility compatible with determinism - not to mention the burden of proof is on the incompatibilist to demonstrate that causal determinism is true to negate said argument. I would argue, however, that the previous argument is not sufficient for establishing moral responsibility for any acts because of the principle of alternate possibilities (PAP), which is as follows:

    1. An agent is only responsible for an act if said agent could have done otherwise.
    2. An agent could have done otherwise only if causal determinism is false.
    3. Therefore, an agent is responsible for an action only if causal determinism is false.

    Implicit in (2) of this argument is the assumption that no one has power over the facts of the future if determinism is true. This seems to me to be a reasonable claim, but if someone can offer a compelling counterargument I would be receptive.

    When the PAP is applied to the compatibilist argument for free will one is left with the mere assertion that people act in accordance with their wills (which is itself compatible with determinism); how can one act freely if they must be able to have chosen otherwise to be held morally responsible for an act, even if they acted free of external impediments? Thus, the burden of proof is shifted to the compatibilist to prove determinism wrong in order to hold people morally responsible for acts. This leads to a gray zone in which it is uncertain if people can be held culpable, and it seems to me that until it is proven that determinism is false we should withhold judgement on whether or not people can be held morally responsible for their actions.

    I am aware that there are more contemporary forms of compatibilism but I thought this would be a good place to start a discussion.
  • Isaac
    10.3k
    1. An agent is only responsible for an act if said agent could have done otherwise.ToothyMaw

    The concept 'could have done otherwise' means something different depending on whether one has a foundation of indeterminism or not, and if not whether compatibilist or not.

    Basically, if a compatibilist, 'could have done otherwise', just means 'other people in roughly the same circumstances have chosen differently'.

    To argue that 'could have done otherwise' literally means to change the course of events from those which were determined begs the question. Indeterminism must be assumed before such a notion can be coherently spoken of.
  • ToothyMaw
    1.3k
    To argue that 'could have done otherwise' literally means to change the course of events from those which were determined begs the question. Indeterminism must be assumed before such a notion can be coherently spoken of.Isaac

    I don't see how this is the case. If one could have acted in a different way, altering the present, then this means that said person could have chosen between a number of possible alternatives, i.e. free will exists. However, if one assumes that no one has power over the facts of the future, then determinism must be proved false because if it is true it negates any sort of indeterministic account of moral responsibility. No where is indeterminism assumed except insofar as it is implied that if determinism were false and people could choose from different alternatives free will would exist and people could be held morally responsible.
  • ToothyMaw
    1.3k


    I think the idea of free will is internally coherent, but it doesn't exist.
  • T Clark
    13.9k
    The purpose of this post is to encourage some sort of discussion about moral responsibility and free will,ToothyMaw

    I've been around the forum for a while, and I generally avoid free will discussions. By "generally" I mean "always." A new one shows up every couple of weeks. They're usually poorly laid out and sloppily argued. I wanted to post this to acknowledge that you've done a very good job setting up this discussion. You've given definitions and stated your assumptions clearly. You've laid out the arguments clearly and even-handedly. You've defined the question narrowly in a way that should be easy to keep on track. I wish all of the discussions started on the forum could be this good. It was a pleasure to read your opening post.

    I especially like that you acknowledged the distinction between the free will/determinism argument and the question of whether or not there is moral responsibility. People usually don't address the distinction and just assume without stating it that determinism means no moral responsibility.

    All that being said, I don't have much to offer to the discussion. It's your own fault. You've laid out your arguments so clearly and defined the question so well, I can see my way of seeing things does not fit in. That's a real accomplishment. Thank you.
  • ToothyMaw
    1.3k
    I still would like to see what you have to say.
  • tim wood
    9.3k
    Hmm. I had already typed out a response, but then on closer reading of your OP saw that you had that covered. By determinism you must mean that someone knows something specific ahead of time. Because to know only that something will happen without knowing what won't do, because in that sense we're all gods, and gods have free will, yes? (And it does not matter if even the gods don't.)

    Let's assume, then, a god knows. This would appear to crystalize the future in some causative sense. Perhaps, but the argument to hold must show that the knowledge is also specifically causative as to every possibility. And that just plain is not the case. Consider: it's trivially easy to to test whether I can satisfy myself - or you yourself, anyone him- or herself - that I have a free choice determined by my will. Shall I wiggle my finger? Or shall I choose to not wiggle my finger.

    Now, you might argue that a god always already knows what I will choose. But even if you do, then so what? The point being that I have free will in my own person. And having it establishes the existence of free will, and thus grounds the possibility of moral responsibility.

    And a corollary, that a god's knowledge is not itself causative. Suppose it were: God knows that I will wiggle my finger, for so I have willed it. But I change my mind, deciding that I will not wiggle my finger. Just where, exactly, does that leave God?

    And while these arguments have a fractal quality in that one can peer into them at almost any level of detail, I'm persuaded that such effort would not change the substance of the argument.

    Btw, I echo T Clark's compliment on your OP here. But a lesson for us all: there is a tldr upper limit on the length of OPs, the longer, the fewer readers. Which may in the scheme of things be a good thing!
  • ToothyMaw
    1.3k
    Hmm. I had already typed out a response, but then on closer reading of your OP saw that you had that covered. By determinism you must mean that someone knows something specific ahead of time.tim wood

    By determinism I mean that if one had knowledge of every state of the universe one could predict the actions of any being in it. Also, yes, on a more human level, the knowledge that some specific event will happen ahead of time.

    Let's assume, then, a god knows. This would appear to crystalize the future in some causative sense. Perhaps, but the argument to hold must show that the knowledge is also specifically causative as to every possibility.tim wood

    Now, you might argue that a god always already knows what I will choose. But even if you do, then so what? The point being that I have free will in my own person. And having it establishes the existence of free will, and thus grounds the possibility of moral responsibility.tim wood

    If you had free will it would be undetermined what you would do it seems to me; you have the capacity to choose between multiple alternative actions unconstrained. You might say god could know all of the actions available to you, but he wouldn't know which one you would choose, otherwise your decisions would be constrained and/or predetermined; the only way god could predict every action of every being is if the universe is deterministic itself; the existence of the knowledge of the actions of every being would imply this. And while the knowledge might not be causative it does mean your actions would be predetermined.

    Or maybe god isn't omniscient and is a bungler.
  • tim wood
    9.3k
    And while the knowledge might not be causative it does mean your actions would be predetermined.ToothyMaw
    Agreement (I think) until this. Predetermined subject to the parameters of predetermining - but this goes to the physics of things in time, itself a considerable problem to date.

    But also the problem here becomes figuring out, exactly, what knowing is. What's needed is an account for what happens when I change my mind. On one hand, god knows I will wiggle my finger because I have willed to do so. Presumably this means that so far as god is concerned, my finger will be wiggled: i.e., that event will leave the province of the will and become a fact. Ah, but I change my mind. So god did not after all know. And if I vacillate between willing to wiggle my finger and willing to not wiggle my finger, what if anything can be said then of god's knowledge? At best that he knows I either will will to or will will not to wiggle my finger. In short that he knows that something will happen, but not what.

    Either that he knows what will happen or won't happen, in which he is wrong and his knowledge not knowledge. Or that his knowledge is general and does not in any case descend to specifics, but remains only in possibilities. Which with respect to knowledge of specifics is just no knowledge at all.
  • Joshs
    5.7k
    I just finished Ray Monk’s biography of Wittgenstein, which did much to clarify my reading of his Philosophical Investigations. Maybe someone on this forum familiar with Witt can confirm my contention that the whole way the issue of moral responsibility is being presented in the op in relation to the concepts of free will and determinism constitutes what he would call a confusion of language, and the issue as formulated is not one to be resolved but to be dissolved.
  • ToothyMaw
    1.3k
    Agreement (I think) until this. Predetermined subject to the parameters of predetermining - but this goes to the physics of things in time, itself a considerable problem to date.tim wood

    I don't see what the issue is with this assertion. If the universe is deterministic everything is predetermined. What you seem to be getting at is that the laws of physics could be determined and static, but people could generate new outcomes via their free choices. Is that what you are saying?
  • tim wood
    9.3k
    Two: 1) so far it appears that physics itself isn't exactly deterministic, or if it is, we can't know what it exactly will determine. 2) People (at least), insofar as anyone can tell, do control as to determination of the future by their free choices.

    Let's now consider the "if" - which has pretty much already been done above. Your ultimate knower is subject wrt exactly what the future will be, to my free will. And that will needs only be free to me. He either knows or does not know. What he knows is subject to my changing my mind - so he does not know. Or if he knows that I change my mind, then he does not know what I will choose.

    As to any causative effect of knowing, how? Even just the physics of knowing the future are certainly problematic. The best we can do here is say that something will happen, and after it happens, that something did happen.

    And observe, even after the fact the knowledge is approximate and contingent - or if not, then it's nothing we can know either as or of knowledge. To prove otherwise, it seems to me, it must be proved that I never can freely will to wiggle or not my finger. And I do not see any way at all to do that.
  • ToothyMaw
    1.3k
    As to any causative effect of knowing, how? Even just the physics of knowing the future are certainly problematic. The best we can do here is say that something will happen, and after it happens, that something did happen.tim wood

    Unless I'm mistaken we can model things like projectile motion or the elliptical orbit of moons with an accuracy that is sufficient to be in agreement with other models such that they are also accurate within certain (perhaps arbitrary) parameters. It seems to me that this is good enough to predict most of the events relevant to humans. Why wouldn't some ultimate knower be able to do things like that even better and predict the actions of people?

    I don't think I need to prove that you cannot wiggle your finger freely, but rather you need to show why the laws of physics do not obtain wrt the choices made by humans.
  • tim wood
    9.3k
    Well, you can model all day long and tomorrow to. But I think you're missing the at-least two-pronged nature of the problem.

    1) At a human level the problem is intractable.

    2) And above I have argued that at any level the problem is intractable. But even if we posit the possibility of such knowledge, there's no transaction between us and it. Suppose there were. I know what I am going to do tomorrow. So I don't do it; I do something else. And what just happened!

    You might argue that my beliefs about my own free will are illusion. But in this peculiar instance, the illusion is substantive. If by every test I have free will, then I have free will. Nor am I persuaded that any test is necessary. It may be enough to merely think, suppose, or imagine that I have free will.

    And you have added "predicting." And that word does your argument no good.

    Btw, what is your argument? My side is that free will exists, and that moral responsibility finds a ground in it.
  • ToothyMaw
    1.3k
    Btw, what is your argument? My side is that free will exists, and that moral responsibility finds a ground in it.tim wood

    Alright, to be honest I'm very confused by your line of argumentation. Are you saying that no ultimate knower is possible, and thus determinism is false? I still don't see why you brought up god.

    If you could clearly lay out your argument and address the OP directly I would be able to clarify what my own argument is; I'm not sure what I'm arguing against.
  • ToothyMaw
    1.3k


    I mean you didn't even quote the OP in your first post.
  • tim wood
    9.3k
    Alright, to be honest I'm very confused by your line of argumentation. Are you saying that no ultimate knower is possible, and thus determinism is false? I still don't see why you brought up god.ToothyMaw

    Ultimate knower, 14 letters, God, three letters.

    Determinism itself is a fact. At every instant no end of things are determined. "Possibility" is ambiguous. Possible in fact, certainly not. Think about it. And don't even let yourself think about the knower's knowing and knowledge of himself.

    In imagination? Sure, if you like. What if? But what for, beyond whatever the brief transient benefits of such imaginings might yield. Ultimate knowing/knowledge, as accessible, leads to some pretty obvious paradoxes. If not accessible, then not knowable, Hmm. QED.

    Determinism, then, no. A plaything for children.
  • ToothyMaw
    1.3k


    But the point I made is that determinism must be proven false to justify moral accountability. I don't contend that it is true in the OP; my point is that judgement should be withheld until we find out if it is indeed false. No ultimate knower is even required, and your examples in favor of an ultimate knower not knowing anything specific assume the existence of free will, as far as I can tell.
  • ToothyMaw
    1.3k


    How could an ultimate knower not know the outcome of someone's decisions unless free will exists? Even if they change their mind all of that would be known to the ultimate knower, unless they have free will. Your contention that the ultimate knower wouldn't know the outcomes of people's decisions rests on the assumption that they have free will, so to say that the ultimate knower wouldn't have knowledge because people have free will assumes the lack of existence of an ultimate knower. You are assuming that the ultimate knower does not exist by assuming that people have free will. I am contending that an ultimate knower, if people don't have free will, would know every action of every being.
  • tim wood
    9.3k
    But the point I made is that determinism must be proven false to justify moral accountability.ToothyMaw
    And I think I have done just exactly that. As to assuming my own free will, I do not assume it. I prove it. Argument is not for contemplation in Socratic detachment, rather it is for a Socratic gnawing and chewing. Gnaw. chew.
  • baker
    5.6k
    my point is that judgement should be withheld until we find out if it is indeed false.ToothyMaw
    Judgement is about exerting power, not about truth.
  • ToothyMaw
    1.3k


    Maybe for an authoritarian regime that murders people for speaking their minds.
  • ToothyMaw
    1.3k


    I still don't understand what your argument is; you've barely even addressed the OP directly.
  • baker
    5.6k
    Maybe for an authoritarian regime that murders people for speaking their minds.ToothyMaw
    No, it's how ordinary people are: they love to judge others, in matters big and small. It's how they exert power.
  • ToothyMaw
    1.3k


    Then I suppose most people live a pretty sad existence. Maybe our government should just exert its power and put them out of their misery.
  • tim wood
    9.3k
    You are assuming that the ultimate knower does not exist by assuming that people have free will. I am contending that an ultimate knower, if people don't have free will, would know every action of every being.ToothyMaw

    Except I have not assumed, but have instead proved. With your "if" you can have what you like, in "if'-land. But that's not where you are, is it?

    I leave to you your ultimate knower, but argue, and I think prove, that he can't be in the world we occupy. And if he is God, then when we get to heaven He may judge us on your terms, heavenly terms, but certainly not on earthly terms.
  • baker
    5.6k
    Then I suppose most people live a pretty sad existence.ToothyMaw
    Not at all. They get pleasure when judging others. This pleasure, the gratification of moral indignation is a motivation for judging others. To withold judgment would be to deny oneself this pleasure.
  • ToothyMaw
    1.3k


    If you are referring to my own indignation I think it was justified. Seriously, though? Judgement is about power, not truth? What kind of shitty philosophy is that? Did you just read 1984 for the first time?
  • baker
    5.6k
    Judgement is about power, not truth? What kind of shitty philosophy is that?ToothyMaw
    The one that pretty much everyone I know lives by. And they are doing well!
  • ToothyMaw
    1.3k
    Except I have not assumed, but have instead proved. With your "if" you can have what you like, in "if'-land. But that's not where you are, is it?tim wood

    Actually it totally is where I am. I want moral responsibility to be a tangible thing. That would make me happy, but I try not to just work backwards to justify the assumptions and conclusions that make me happy. .
bold
italic
underline
strike
code
quote
ulist
image
url
mention
reveal
youtube
tweet
Add a Comment

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.