You don't seem to be understanding that I don't agree that it's coherent to say that there is anything not located in particular places and times. That includes numbers and premises of arguments. — Terrapin Station
It may be inconsistent with some strong doctrine of nominalism (of spatiotemporal particulars), but is it incoherent? Where is the number five located, in your view, and when did it go there? — Pierre-Normand
For all that, an agent's reason for acting (which may be the same as another agent's reason for acting on a different occasion) — Pierre-Normand
an agent's reasons for acting have some sort of a relationship to time since they can weigh with that agent's process of practical reasoning at some time and not at other times. For all that, an agent's reason for acting (which may be the same as another agent's reason for acting on a different occasion) isn't identical to the process whereby the agent grasps it and acts on its ground. — Pierre-Normand
What I am relying on, in order to distinguish conceptually between your (a)-items and your (b)-items is the irreducibility of the latter to the former, and, in parallel to that, the irreducibility of rationalizing explanations of behavior to nomological-causal explanations of behavior in terms or 'psychological' laws (or neurophysiological laws). — Pierre-Normand
When the agent is at (b), that's a series of events in the agent's brain, during a particular range of time. — Terrapin Station
The problem with that is that on my view, propositions, meaning and truth only are particular events in particular persons' brains (at particular times, etc.) — Terrapin Station
This fact isn't something that obtains in either Sam's or Pam's brains — Pierre-Normand
It's a problem for comments like:
This fact isn't something that obtains in either Sam's or Pam's brains — Terrapin Station
It's not coincidental--coincidental means they're effectively "random" with respect to each other. That's not the case here. People interact, they influence reasoning, they influence expression, etc. — Terrapin Station
I'm not saying anything about hard determinism (I buy free will--remember) or being compelled to believe something. It's not a coincidence because we're not talking about apparently "random," unconnected occurrences that have nothing to do with one another. None of that takes any of this outside of particular actions/events that have spatial and temporal locations.
So when we're talking about particular actions/events with spatial and temporal locations, (a) is either connected to (b) (and (b) (C)) in a causally deterministic way or it is not. They're all a series of actions/events with spatial and temporal locations. So it's a matter of whether ontological freedom is possible anywhere in the system or not. — Terrapin Station
It is the attempt to insert (b) in between (a) and (c) in a linear chain of nomological event-causation that I am objecting to. — Pierre-Normand
(b)-items don't have the proper logical form to figure as causal relata in event-event chains of nomological causation. — Pierre-Normand
When complex systems such as living things, animals, and human beings, are functionally organized, — Pierre-Normand
many features of their behavior can be explained by appeal to their specific powers, — Pierre-Normand
(2) those features that enable their functional capabilities to channel their circumstances and opportunities into autonomously generated (and/or rationally intended) outcomes. — Pierre-Normand
1. The natural reaction to hearing about the drunk driver killing the bicyclist is a reactive attitude that the driver is guilty. In most cases, a perpetrator has a feeling of guilt after recognizing a consequence of a bad choice — Relativist
It is inconceivable that we would stop holding such people morally accountable, or stop feeling guilty, even if it were somehow proven that determinism is true. — Relativist
Indeed, the fact that we have these attitudes contributes to our behavior, because we generally prefer to avoid guilt and social approbation, and enjoy pride and respect. — Relativist
2. Could the drunk driver have done differently? Yes she could have, if she had held the strong belief that the risk of driving drunk was so great that it outweighed her impulse to do so. This could only have occurred had there been something different about the past (formation of that belief), but that's reasonable. If our choices aren't the result of our personal beliefs, dispositions, and impulses - what are they? Random? — Relativist
#1 and #2 are more or less independent, but in tandem they provide not only a coherent account of moral responsibility, they also explain why normal functioning people strive for generally moral behavior. We want to avoid guilt, fit in, and we want to avoid approbation by others. — Relativist
But I'm not attempting to insert it in a linear chain of nomological event-causation. That latter part is up to you. I'm just saying that it's there in a linear chain of spatio-temporal events, because anything else is incoherent. Whether those events are deterministic is up to you--that's what I'm asking you. — Terrapin Station
Some philosophers such as Jeagwon Kim have mustered arguments, such as the causal exclusion argument, in order to infer determinism at the supervenient level of description (such as the description of the rabbit in functional physiological and/or behavioral terms) from the determinism of the system being supervened upon (the set of the rabbit's inanimate material parts). I think those arguments are flawed, but Kim at least acknowledges the need for such an argument whereas you seem to take its conclusion for granted or just believe the denial of this conclusion to be incoherent. — Pierre-Normand
Minus the fact that I don't actually agree that determinism is the case, yes, I think there is no need for such an argument, because there's no good reason to believe otherwise, no good argument for an alternate position.The fact that it's easier to talk about "functional" physiological and behavioral stuff from a different conceptual and linguistic perspective certainly isn't a good argument in support of their being some sort of ontological distinction. That would amount to very naively reifying language/the way we find it easiest to think about something. — Terrapin Station
The only thing I'm disagreeing with is that I'm not actually a determinist and I'm not a realist about laws--I believe there can be nondeterministic phenomena at (2) (and thus at (1)). — Terrapin Station
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