Could we not also bias deterministic influences as well? Using freewill to make uniform types of determined choices (not all choices are black or white) on a constant basis could also influence the chains of influence that influence us. In other words we can take some part in causality, even if it is a small one. Shifting towards our preferred spectrum of gray.

↪Terrapin Station Could we not also bias deterministic influences as well? Using freewill to make uniform types of determined choices (not all choices are black or white) on a constant basis could also influence the chains of influence that influence us. In other words we can take some part in causality, even if it is a small one. Shifting towards our preferred spectrum of gray. — Jamesk

Insofar as I understand what you are saying there, sure.

Wasn't Strawson saying that we are not ultimately responsible for our actions? This seems to be a radical claim, and it has huge implications for human concerns. At least I think so. — Noah Te Stroete

Yes, he is saying that we are not ultimately responsible. But Strawson's ultimate responsibility is not the same as what we usually think of as moral responsibility. To paraphrase Dennett, it is not the moral responsibility worth having. It is irrelevant to our concerns.

I see what you’re saying.

You make a valid point that some preliminary research on motivation and decision-making does indicate that our brain makes at least some decisions prior to our becoming consciously aware of it, as demonstrated by, for instance, Benjamin Libet's experiments. There have also been experiments with split-brain patients which apparently demonstrate that at least some of our explanations for why we acted in a certain manner are post hoc confabulations.

However, it would seem to be a non sequitur to move from these experimental results to inferring that there are no such things as mental states. Even if my desire for peanuts (and subsequent motor functions aimed at obtaining peanuts) was preceded by neurological activity of which I was not consciously aware, that does not impugn the reality of my mental state <desires peanuts>. Whatever the causal or neurobiological origin of said desire, there is no reason to doubt it exists, unless one holds the rather idiosyncratic view that mental states can only be genuine if they have no causal precedents whatsoever.

However, it would seem to be a non sequitur to move from these experimental results to inferring that there are no such things as mental states. — Arkady

That wasn't my intention, I do not deny that mental states exist. My problem is that 'mental sates' are largely mysterious, at least as much as deterministic forces and causality.

The first line of your post was "One problem with your theory is proving that mental states exist at all," which I took to be your questioning the existence of mental states. Perhaps I misunderstood, then.

I wasn't being clear, the lesser problem is empirically detecting them whereas the greater problem is knowing what they do, how they do it etc.

Please forgive my absence and the consequent delay in responding. Mea culpa.

I don't think this quite cuts it. If responsibility were an arbitrary convention, how can it play a dynamic role in our personal and social life? ... — Dfpolis

I'd be careful how you're using "arbitrary" there. Something being conventional or subjective doesn't imply that it's "arbitrary" in the sense of "random" or "per (fleeting) whim," Neither implies that the thing in question is irrational either. — Terrapin Station

First, conventional and subjective are completely different concepts. Things are subjective because they are properties of subjects as such, not because they are inadequately grounded in reality. In other words, the reality they're grounded in is at the subjective pole of the subject-object relation. Conversely, things exist by convention if they result from some explicit or implicit social covenant or agreement.

Second, the common understanding of covenants or agreements is that they are shared acts of will. If one denies the existence of effective acts of will, it is hard to see how anything could ultimately be the result of common consent. In a deterministic world, everything exists by necessity, with nothing ultimately depending on acts of will. It seems disingenuous, then, to say that responsibility does not require free will because it is explained by common consent, i.e. by acts of will. In sum, if you hold that that conventional consent isn't free, then responsibility exists by necessity.

Third, I certainly agree that the concept of responsibility is rational, but it is hard to see how a determinist can agree. What would it mean, socially, to hold Jane responsible for her acts? Would it justify punishment? Social disapproval? How would that be just if Jane were foreordained to do what she did? You might argue that it would deter others from acting in the same way by increasing the weight of negative consequences in their considerations, but would that really justify the consequences of blaming Jane?

As for how something that's only a convention, or only a way we think can play a dynamic role in our personal and social life, it's hard to believe that you're even asking that question, because why would you think that something that's just a way that we think or just a convention wouldn't be able to play a dynamic role in our personal and social life? — Terrapin Station

I don't think that, but I don't see how you could not. I'm confused about your model of decision making. I can understand the notion of physical determinism. In fact, I'm a determinist with respect to purely physical systems. If you believe that we are purely physical beings, fully describable in principle by physics, then being a determinist makes some sense. The problem is that when you appeal to rationality, as though intentional considerations make some difference in human actions, I am confused. Why should rationality make any difference in a world fully determined by its physics? It seems very odd that what we decide to do rationally should be the exact same thing that physics determines that we will do. This is even more peculiar given that the initial state determining the physical outcome is an existent, but largely unknown, distribution of field strengths, while the premises of our proairsis are unrelated intentional commitments (beliefs) that may or may be true.

So, does you model of decision making involves some Leibnitzian parallelism, a kind of monadology? Or do you think, as I do, that the intentional state that terminates or decision making process is ipso facto physically effective? If the latter, then on what do you base your determinism? Certainly most of our practical reasoning is not syllogistic, and so logically indeterminate. What actually determines our decisions is the weight we freely give to competing considerations.

if you're using the term "responsibility" for that objective fact, you'd have to be careful to remove all normative/evaluative connotation from the term . . . which would be difficult to do outside of a specialized academic context, — Terrapin Station

No, I see the normative implications of responsibility as quite rational, because I see the agent as the radical origin of a new line of action that resulted in, or at least contributed to, the result for which the agent is responsible.

What I do not see is how responsibility can play any just role in a deterministic system of ethics.

Furthermore, no one in their right mind would claim that behavior supervenes on the planets. Where did you get that from? — Noah Te Stroete

By applying the standard definition I quoted from the SEP. My point is not what anyone would do,. but what the definition allows. That the definition allows such unrelated and irrelevant facts to be supervenient shows the irrelevance and distractive nature of the concept.

Thank you.

I am not wring such a book now. I wrote a 400 page manuscript back in the late 80s and early 90s that was well-received in private distribution.

I am sorry that you saw this as a pissing contest. I see it as a dialog in which we each do the best to defend our positions.

People, or the entire Earth, could disappear. That's not just imaginary in the sense of fantastical, it could easily happen for a number of different reasons. — Terrapin Station

Yes, it could happen. However supervenience is an asymmetrical relation, so if A supervenes on B, it need not be the case that B supervenes on A.

Supervenience is handy as a way of talking about a certain kind of dependence relation, without restricting the relation to situations where we're claiming either a substantial identity or a causal relationship. — Terrapin Station

I didn't say that supervenience was ill-defined. Just that it was a distraction, especially in the context of the mind body problem. I used astrology, which involves supervenience, but not causality, to illustrate my point. Let us focus on dependencies that give us insight into problems of interest rather then being distracted by supervenience.

Humans are social animals
Humans have developed the concept of morality and responsibility
Therefore all social animals will develop the same concept.

All humans are social animals
If humans develop morality because they are social animals then
All social animals would do the same.

How do your premises lead to that conclusion? Your argument is neither sound nor valid. — Jamesk

These are not my arguments. If being a social animal explains responsibility, we have the following argument, valid by the modus ponens:

If an animal species is a social, then it has a responsibility dynamic.
Ants are social animals.
Ants have a responsibility dynamic.

I do not deny that being social animals enters into the dynamics of human responsibility. Clearly it does. I am saying that being a social animal is not sufficient to explain the human responsibility dynamic.

No, I see the normative implications of responsibility as quite rational — Dfpolis

The problem is that there are no objective normatives.

Have these experiments been replicated with the same results? It seems they would have to be replicated a few times with the same results to be cogent. — Noah Te Stroete

What I cited were meta-analyses of hundreds of experiments. Meta-analysis is a technique developed in physics to refine the accuracy of physical constants. It involves both reviewing experiments' methodology and the statistical aggregation of the results of many similar experiments. Given that the effects here are small, any single experiment can show no effect or or a negative effect due to random fluctuations. That is why it is important to aggregate the results of many experiments.

A possible source of error in meta-analyses is the so-called "file drawer effect." It happens when researchers looking for, say, a positive effect, find no effect or a negative effect and decide to file their work away rather than publish it. The meta-studies I cited considered possible file drawer studies and found that the number required to reduce the results to insignificance was unreasonably high -- many times the number published. So, it seems that the result is well confirmed.

Also, the placebo effect can be explained by brain states. Is placebo treatment sustainable? — Noah Te Stroete

I have no doubt that the brain plays a role in the placebo effect. Still, initiating cause of the effect is intentional, not physical. It is a belief on the part of the patient that the placebo will help -- and not some physical manipulation of the patient. As the effect works with different languages and cultures its explanatory invariant is a common intentionality, rather than an common physical instantiation.

I have not read any studies on sustainability. Anecdotally, one hears of patients being on placebos for years.

First, conventional and subjective are completely different concepts — Dfpolis

I wasn't using "or" in the sense of "here's another word for the same thing." I was using it in the sense of "cats or dogs"--two different things we could be talking about.

At any rate, conventions aren't arbitrary.

What I cited were meta-analyses of hundreds of experiments. Meta-analysis is a technique developed in physics to refine the accuracy of physical constants. It involves both reviewing experiments' methodology and the statistical aggregation of the results of many similar experiments. Given that the effects here are small, any single experiment can show no effect or or a negative effect due to random fluctuations. That is why it is important to aggregate the results of many experiments.

A possible source of error in meta-analyses is the so-called "file drawer effect." It happens when researchers looking for, say, a positive effect, find no effect or a negative effect and decide to file their work away rather than publish it. The meta-studies I cited considered possible file drawer studies and found that the number required to reduce the results to insignificance was unreasonably high -- many times the number published. So, it seems that the result is well confirmed. — Dfpolis

Very interesting. Are brain waves emitted photons?

And if we change the wording from social animals to social mammals would that make it clearer for you?

Thank you for the compatibilist accounts.

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

That is not in dispute.

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

This is the very point in question. Personally, I hold no one responsible for actions in which they played no determining role. So, based on my contrary conception, factually, it is simply not inconceivable. As I recall, Clarence Darrow convinced one or more juries to acquit by convincing them that his clients were determined to act as they did. So, this claim is false.

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

No one is disputing that feelings of responsibility help guide our behavior. The question is are such feelings well-founded. The argument fails to show that they are not.

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

As it stands, 2 is not a compatibilist account of responsibility, but an argument for why a drunk driver should not be held responsible. One might decide to send her to jail to change their behavior, but that does not mean that she is responsible for what she did, only that we might, by this crude means, re-program her.

No one is denying the role of experience or of beliefs in the decision making process. Practically everyone knows, intellectually, that drunk driving involves grave risks. The question is not about acquired knowledge, but about how the agent weighs the incompatible factors that motivate driving drunk or not. There is no numerical trade-off between the relevant factors, so despite utilitarian objections, no algorithmic maximization can determine the decision. I think we can agree, further, that the decision is made in light of a subjective weighting process -- one that is neither algorithmic nor syllogistically conclusive.

Can't we also agree that how a person weighs such factors is not merely backward looking, not merely a matter of past experience and belief, but also forward looking -- a matter of what kind of person the agent wishes to be? And, if that is so, then the past is not fully determinative. We know, as a matter of experience, of cases of metanoia, of changes in past beliefs and life styles. While this does not disprove determination by the past, it makes it very questionable.

As for being "random," that depends on how you define the term. If you mean not predictable, not fully immanent in the prior state, free acts are random in that sense. But, if you take "random" to mean "mindless," no account of well-considered decisions can hold they are random in that sense. Personal beliefs, dispositions, and impulses all enter proairesis, but they alone cannot be determinative because they are intrinsically incommensurate. They are materials awaiting the impress of form. It is not what we consider, but the weight we give to what we are consider, that is determinative. And, we give that weight, not in view of the past alone, but in view of the kind of person we want to emerge in shaping our identity.

#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

I don't think the arguments given do this. They begin by noting that we feel responsible, and show how this plays a role in our behavior -- none of which is in dispute. The question of why would we have a false belief in responsibility if we are not responsible is simply not addressed. Why couldn't we reprogram the drunk driver with prison or a scarlet "D" because reprogramming works (if it does), and not because of an irrelevant responsibility narrative?

Re peanut eating: Agreed.

The problem is that there are no objective normatives. — Terrapin Station

Really? Why?

Human beings have a hierarchy of needs that must be met to become fully realized. Thus, norms (this system of needs) is built into our empirically discoverable nature.

I wasn't using "or" in the sense of "here's another word for the same thing." I was using it in the sense of "cats or dogs"--two different things we could be talking about.

At any rate, conventions aren't arbitrary. — Terrapin Station

Fair enough. As for conventions being arbitrary, some are, like what an ABBABABA computer state means. Others may be a bit less so, but the fact that they require agreement means they are not predetermined, and so are arbitrary in that sense.

Yeah, really. Because that's the way the world is. No matter where you look in the mind-independent world, you'll not find any normatives.

Are brain waves emitted photons? — Noah Te Stroete

Brain waves are electrical voltage variations detected on the scalp. They result from the collective firing of neurons, which is an electrochemical process. As all electromagnetic field changes are associated with photons, so are brain waves, but their frequency is so low they have virtually no energy.

Brain waves are electrical voltage variations detected on the scalp. They result from the collective firing of neurons, which is an electrochemical process. As all electromagnetic field changes are associated with photons, so are brain waves, but their frequency is so low they have virtually no energy. — Dfpolis

Thanks. I always wondered how to explain them.

And if we change the wording from social animals to social mammals would that make it clearer for you? — Jamesk

It would certainly rule out social insects, but it would not explain why being social would require a responsibility dynamic in the sense we experience it. As I said, if we were not free, we might need re-programming, but that does not require a concept of responsibility. We see such reprogramming in the training of animals, which are not held responsible for the behaviors we are trying to modify.

Yeah, really. Because that's the way the world is. No matter where you look in the mind-independent world, you'll not find any normatives. — Terrapin Station

But, we do find them in society, which is objective and observable. So, I deny your claim. Perhaps it would help if you define what you mean by a "norm."

You are welcome.