• A Christian Philosophy
    1.2k
    It is appropriate to hold oneself (or another person) accountable for a bad act because we know he could have chosen not to do it. Here's how he could have: if he had a stronger disposition to do good, [...] he would not have done itRelativist
    In other words, we reward and penalize certain behaviours as a form of conditioning, like training dogs to behave a certain way. This objection is addressed in the video. This explains our rules on a societal level but it does not explain why we praise or blame people on a personal level. There's a difference between judging a dog and judging an (adult) human for acting badly. We judge the dog as poorly trained, but we judge the human as being morally wrong or evil.


    It's PRECISELY why we perceive that we could have made a different choice. To deny this, you would have to assume that fantasizing about a past choice entails a perfect duplication of the mental conditions that led to the decision. If it is NOT perfect, then it is not a valid basis for claiming this is a good reason to believe a different choice was actually possible.Relativist
    Conceiving valid thought experiments is not impossible. For one thing, we don't need to simulate every factor; we can just use the mental factors we currently have (current mood, beliefs, etc.) and only need to imagine a simple situation.

    Additionally, as described in the video, we perceive freedom differently between cases with only one type of motive (e.g. ice cream vs ice cream) and cases with multiple types of motives (e.g. ice cream vs charity). In the latter, we perceive to be free, where as in the former, we do not.


    If there's no God, then human life came to exist as a product of deterministic laws of nature. A deteministic law cannot be a source of ontological contingency.Relativist
    I can only grant you that LFW came from something other than deterministic laws. After that, to claim that this something must be an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God is jumping to conclusions.

    As a side note, would you not agree that an OG would necessarily have LFW? Since it is the first cause, its actions cannot be determined by any prior cause.


    It sounds ludicrous to claim I do not initiate the raising of my arm.Relativist
    Can you further explain what you mean by "initiate"? For example, when a computer boots up because a person pressed the power button, who initiated the event—the person, the computer, or something else?
  • Relativist
    3.1k
    This explains our rules on a societal level but it does not explain why we praise or blame people on a personal level.A Christian Philosophy
    Because of our moral sensibilities- the emotions we feel when considering the acts.

    In other words, we reward and penalize certain behaviours as a form of conditioning, like training dogs to behave a certain way.A Christian Philosophy
    Do dogs have moral sensibilities? Do they have empathy? Do they have vicarious experiences? Do they have moral beliefs? I don't think so, and this means it's extrememy different.

    Conceiving valid thought experiments is not impossible. For one thing, we don't need to simulate every factor..A Christian Philosophy
    You're making excuses for treating the thought experiments as evidence for ontological contingency. "It seems like we could have chosen differently, therefore we could have chosen differently."

    We would absolutely need to duplicate it with 100% accuracy- an impossibility. No thought experiment is actually winding the clock back to the exact mental conditions at the time the thought processes occurred.

    Additionally, as described in the video, we perceive freedom differently between cases with only one type of motive (e.g. ice cream vs ice cream) and cases with multiple types of motives (e.g. ice cream vs charity). In the latter, we perceive to be free, where as in the former, we do not.A Christian Philosophy
    Your scenario is contrived is ridiculously simplistic and it ASSUMES what you're trying to prove: LFW. You erroneously assume moral "motives" can't exist under compatibilism, you ignore the many complex factors involved with developing our various tastes, wants, and even our beliefs about morality. I described some of the details on my last post, and you simply ignored it. Did you even read it?
    I can only grant you that LFW came from something other than deterministic laws.A Christian Philosophy
    This is problematic, because there's no evidence of any causally efficacious factors in the world that are NOT deterministic, except for quantum indeterminacy (which you rejected). But if QI is involved with mental processes, it only introduces randomness. So there's no basis to support the claim that we are somehow a source of ontological contingency. This is exactly the reason compatibilism was developed, to show that the perception of free will was compatible with determinism.

    As a side note, would you not agree that an OG would necessarily have LFW?A Christian Philosophy
    Of course not. There's no reason to think an OG has the capacity for intentional behavior and to make decisions.

    Can you further explain what you mean by "initiate"?A Christian Philosophy
    I don't know what you're looking for, because it seems self-evident. So it would be best if you describe the process as you perceive it during the act, . Needless to say, don't assume LFW in your description, because that's a post-hoc interpretation. IOW, describe what you are thinking, and the relation between your conscious thoughts and your brain stimulating the nerves in your arm that makes it perform the action.
  • A Christian Philosophy
    1.2k
    I'm afraid we are making very little progress. Here's an attempt at answering a few objections but I'm not hopeful we will reach an agreement and we may have to call it quits soon.


    Because of our moral sensibilities- the emotions we feel when considering the acts.Relativist
    We can feel emotions about dog behaving badly as well, and judgement does not follow from mere emotions. The fact is that we consistently judge humans to be morally evil when misbehaving (not dogs), and moral evil is not compatible with determinism.


    You erroneously assume moral "motives" can't exist under compatibilism, you ignore the many complex factors involved with developing our various tastes, wants, and even our beliefs about morality. I described some of the details on my last post, and you simply ignored it. Did you even read it?Relativist
    I think you misunderstand my argument, as I do believe that moral motives can exist under compatibilism, and this is not my point. But I don't want to spend more time trying to clarify it, so let's drop it.

    Yes, I read all your posts. I don't comment on every line because that would take too long, but in general, my view is that adding more determined factors to the explanation does not resolve the issue. In the end, each factor is nothing but a cog in a large system of cogs.


    This is problematic, because there's no evidence of any causally efficacious factors in the world that are NOT deterministicRelativist
    You forgot your original point of this topic. Pasted below. I'm just responding to the objection that God must exist if we have LFW. After that, yes, LFW is not compatible with determinism and I reject determinism.
    OK, let's not assume God. Early in the discussion, you agreed that ontological contingency requires a source of contingency. If there's no God, then human life came to exist as a product of deterministic laws of nature. A deteministic law cannot be a source of ontological contingency. Case closed.Relativist


    Of course not. There's no reason to think an OG has the capacity for intentional behavior and to make decisions.Relativist
    The OG's actions cannot be determined from prior causes, being the first cause. So if its actions are also not free, then what are they?


    I don't know what you're looking for, because it seems self-evident. So it would be best if you describe the process as you perceive it during the act, . Needless to say, don't assume LFW in your descriptionRelativist
    Okay, I will assume determinism and not LFW. When a person raises their arm, all the mental processes originate from factors outside the person, just like the computer booting up originates from a person pressing the power button. In both cases, the event is not initiated by the object acting the event. Under determinism, the only initiator is the OG, and every subsequent object is just a cog.
  • Relativist
    3.1k
    moral evil is not compatible with determinism.A Christian Philosophy
    You must be making some unstated assumption about the nature of morals. The presence of moral intuitions is perfectly consistent with determinism (and materialism).

    moral evil is not compatible with determinism.

    Yes, I read all your posts. I don't comment on every line because that would take too long, but in general, my view is that adding more determined factors to the explanation does not resolve the issue.
    A Christian Philosophy

    You misunderstand. I was giving you a GENERAL account of the mental process we all go through IRRESPECTIVE of whether or not LFW is true. Those factors all apply (beliefs, dispositions, moods...). This should be common ground -I see no reason why you shouldn't accept everything I said.

    You forgot your original point of this topic.A Christian Philosophy
    My original point was that ontological contingency needs to be accounted for ontologically:
    If A accounts for B:
    then B is contingent iff A could have account for ~B AND this means A is a "source of contingency"
    Otherwise A necessitates B

    A second point I made very early is that there doesn't seem to be any sources of contingency in the world except for (possibly) quantum indeterminacy. I believe you agreed, although you deny that QM is indeterministic. So why should we believe minds are a source of contingency - an anomaly? You've given no justification for this.
    The OG's actions cannot be determined from prior causes, being the first cause. So if its actions are also not free, then what are they?A Christian Philosophy
    Best guess is that it would be a quantum system, so the actions that ensue would be the product of quantum indeterminacy. What that implies is dependent on the actual nature of QM - i.e. which interpretation is correct \
    I will assume determinism and not LFW.A Christian Philosophy
    You are missing the point! Make no assumption at all, and just explain what seems to be going in in your mind. We ought to be able to agree on what seems to be going on. The question then becomes: how do we explain this sequence of events with LFW vs compatibilism?

    This is the same problem in your description of making a decision: you aren't describing observed behavior; you jump straight to a LFW account and then compare it to some strawman distortion that you claim is compatibilist. This is why you get nowhere: you establish no common ground, and just claim your LFW account is better than your strawman-compatibilist account. I tried to establish common ground with my detailed description of the decision process, and you mistakenly treated this as some compatibilist alternative.
  • A Christian Philosophy
    1.2k
    Alright, let's reset and find some common ground. I dropped the points that I believe are not essential.

    Yes, the factors (beliefs, dispositions, moods...) all apply in the decision making.
    Yes, LFW implies contingency; and determinism is not compatible with LFW.

    You are missing the point! Make no assumption at all, and just explain what seems to be going in in your mind.Relativist
    I genuinely don't know what you are asking if I did not do it correctly last time. Can you do it first? Then I will do the same.
  • Relativist
    3.1k

    OK.


    3:25PM- I read your response and made the decision to lift my arm at 3:35 PM. I set an alarm on my phone to notify me the time has been reached.

    3:35PM- The alarm is ringing, so I lift my arm.

    Some small period of time occurred between the alarm going off and the arm lifting. During this time, my brain unconsciously processed and interpreted the sound - and the fact became part of my conscious awareness. But without giving it further thought, I lift my arm once I realize the alarm is sounding.

    We know the arm-lifting action is initiated by the firing of neurons, which stimulate nerves in my arm that cause the muscle to contract.
    __________
    Is there anything I left out of the process that you think is important? Is there any part of this you disagree with?
  • A Christian Philosophy
    1.2k

    I agree with the description up to and including "I lift my arm once I realize the alarm is sounding."

    After that, ...
    We know the arm-lifting action is initiated by the firing of neuronsRelativist
    The arm lifting is caused by the firing of neurons. Why do you call it "initiated"? It is not the start of a causal chain, or the start of a branch of a previous causal chain.
  • Relativist
    3.1k
    That's fine, we can say the firing of neurons causes the arm to lift (by sending electrochemical signals to the nerves that activate the muscles).

    I omitted one important thing: this neuron firing had an antecedent in the mind.

    At 3:25 I had made the decision to lift when the alarm went off. This established a mental intent (to lift when the alarm sounds) that was dormant until triggered by the alarm going off. No conscious thoughts took place between the 3:25 decision and the arm lifting. So there was a direct causal link between this intent and the arm lifting.
  • Relativist
    3.1k


    I'll just point out that the arm-lifting was caused by my intent. Therefore the arm-lifting was an intentional act. Acting with intent implies agency.
  • A Christian Philosophy
    1.2k
    I accept that the arm-lifting was intentional. But I believe another criteria for agency is the capacity to initiate an action. Can you defend that the action was initiated by you?
  • Relativist
    3.1k
    I don't understand your issue. I established the intent, and I acted upon it- which implies I caused my brain to fire the sequence of neurons that stimulated the nerves that trigger the muscles. Obviously, we aren't consciously aware of the neuron activity, but clearly that is happening.
  • A Christian Philosophy
    1.2k
    Which step in the process is the initial step?
  • Relativist
    3.1k

    3:25PM- I read your response and made the decision to lift my arm at 3:35 PM.

    Did you have something else in mind? Remember, this is independent of LFW/compatibilism.
  • A Christian Philosophy
    1.2k
    But that decision was necessitated by prior factors - my response, your beliefs, mood, etc. I see no distinction in any of the steps to make one of them the initial step.
  • Relativist
    3.1k
    Necessitated? You forget that we're trying to establish a common ground scenario, in terms of what we perceive to be happening. I indeed made a decision (this entailed a mental process) at 3:25. The fact that I made the decision is important, because without that - I wouldn't have lifted my arm. Again, set aside LFW/compatibilism and tell me if this sounds right.
  • A Christian Philosophy
    1.2k
    Alright. Let's remove the word "necessitated". That decision was caused by prior factors - my response, your beliefs, mood, etc. I still see no distinction in any of the steps to make one of them the initial step.

    The fact that I made the decision is important, because without that - I wouldn't have lifted my arm.Relativist
    Sure. And in a system of cogs A, B, C, cog B is also important for cog C to move; but it is not an initial step.
  • Relativist
    3.1k
    I still see no distinction in any of the steps to make one of them the initial step.A Christian Philosophy
    So...even if LFW is true, there was no initial step?

    It seems to me, the natural thing to label as the first step is the decision, which was produced entirely by my mind.

    There were external influences, such as the discussion we're having, but no one else demanded, encouraged, or even suggested I raise my arm at that time.

    My decision, (and only my decision) was the direct cause of the arm lifting.

    My thought processes (and only my thought processes), was the direct cause of the decision.
  • A Christian Philosophy
    1.2k
    So...even if LFW is true, there was no initial step?Relativist
    I thought we were setting aside any mentions of LFW/compatibilism. :wink:
    Since you're asking... LFW allows the causal chain to branch out to multiple paths. Making choice A, between A and B, initiates path A.


    There were external influences, such as the discussion we're having, but no one else demanded, encouraged, or even suggested I raise my arm at that time.Relativist
    Not under compatibilism. Since your decision was determined, we could say the factors demanded (better yet, compelled) that you raise your arm.


    My decision, (and only my decision) was the direct cause of the arm lifting. My thought processes (and only my thought processes), was the direct cause of the decision.Relativist
    As previously stated, this does not imply agency. Cog B, and only cog B, is the direct cause of the movement of cog C, yet cog B is not an agent.
  • Relativist
    3.1k
    I thought we were setting aside any mentions of LFW/compatibilismA Christian Philosophy
    I mentioned it only to remind you that we're establishing a scenario that does not presuppose either LFW or compatibilism. You had said, "I still see no distinction in any of the steps to make one of them the initial step."

    Are you thinking there's a first step if LFW is true, but not if compatibilism is true? Or are you saying there's no first step, regardless of which is true? If the former, then you're off the track of establishing common ground. The common-ground scenario is intended to describe how things SEEM to us, so we can then analyze more deeply. We need to do that before we jump into comparing a LFW account vs a Compatilist account of the scenario.

    Regarding your assertion that there is no agency if compatibilism is true, this displays a misunderstanding. I'm hoping this becomes clear after we establish some common ground and then hone in on what is the same and what is different. In the meantime, I suggest reading the Compatibilism article, in the Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Throughout the article, there's discussion of what an "agent" does. The issue it discusses is whether or not the agent can be said to be freely willing his actions. The fact that there is agency is not at issue.
  • A Christian Philosophy
    1.2k
    I mentioned it only to remind you that we're establishing a scenario that does not presuppose either LFW or compatibilism. You had said, "I still see no distinction in any of the steps to make one of them the initial step."Relativist
    LFW or compatibilism are not presupposed. As quoted below, you said that intent implies agency. I responded that it does not if there is no initial step.
    Acting with intent implies agency.Relativist


    We have spent enough time establishing common grounds. You know where my disagreement lies: You believe that compatibilism allows for agency; I believe it does not because agency implies an initial step from the agent as per this article, and I see no initial step under compatibilism. You have attempted to defend it by showing here that the person has causal efficacy, and while that's true, it is different than an initial step. If you can one day defend that there is an initial step under compatibilism, then we can chat again.
  • Relativist
    3.1k
    LFW or compatibilism are not presupposedA Christian Philosophy
    You had asked me:

    Which step in the process is the initial step?A Christian Philosophy

    Why did you ask this, if you don't believe there is an initial step even if LFW is true? What's the relevance?

    I've been attempting to get you to examine the mental processes involved in a decision, and to see that this analysis would not yield an answer to the question of whether the process is deterministic.

    Irrespective of whether or not we have LFW, I raised my arm because I wanted to.

    Irrespective of whether or not we have LFW, my wants were influenced by my history of experiences.

    Irrespective of whether or not we have LFW, my unique genetic material led to the unique structure of my central nervous system, and this influences the way I think and thus, the choices I make.

    The only real difference is that LFW depends on the assumption that there is some factor present that is outside the natural, deterministic causal chain. No objective analysis can show that this is the case.
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