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.

And you’ve agreed that this physical universe needn’t exist or be real in any context other than its own. — Michael Ossipoff

I do not know what this means. The existence of the universe has no a priori necessity, so, it is contingent. A posteriori, it is necessary.

The universe is what we abstract logic and its relations from. Thus, it has priority over logic. In other words, if there were no universe, there would be no logical relations because logic would not exist.

Every fact about this physical world corresponds to part of an “If”. …to a proposition that is part of an abstract implication. — Michael Ossipoff

Yes, but our experience of the events comes first, then we abstract the relation, and finally find other instances of the same relation.

The question is one of the order of dependence. In that order, logic comes after the physical universe.

Re peanut eating: Agreed.

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?

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Responsibility is a social convention simply because people believe in free will, not because it is metaphysically true. — Noah Te Stroete

OK. Responsibility came up because I was asked what free will would explain. It seems to me that if there is no free will, then there would be no reason to believe there is, because no one would feel responsible. That brings us back to asking how the feeling of responsibility could evolve, given that it can serve no purpose if people are physically compelled to act as they do?

Also, if intentions can have no physical effect, how can we talk about them, for surely talking about them is a physical process that necessarily depends on operation of the intentions we discuss? But, if intentions did have no physical effect how could the intentional state of feeling responsible change what we do in the future?

Hive society animals have a completely different form than our own so I feel your comparison is unfair. You use hive insects as the example for all social animals and that is a mistake, at the very best we could be compared to other primates but not insects. — Jamesk

Of course we are much different than hive insects, but that does not undermine my point. The thesis was that responsibility is explained by us being social animals. If this were true, then a responsibility relation would be a feature of all social animal groups. That is not the case, so, the concept requires more than us being social animals to explain it.

Unless you think that morals are a natural feature of the world, which i do not, I also don't think comparing us to other species is helpful either, — Jamesk

I always find such statements puzzling. Aren't we, with all of our intellectual and social complexity, part of the natural world? Isn't intentionality as natural as physicality -- even if they are not reducible, one to the other? Of course we are very different than other species and ignoring our differences can invalidate conclusions, especially when thought is involved.

I think there is a natural basis for morality, but that it's elaboration is social, cultural and historical, if that is what you mean.

A supervenience relation there doesn't exclude either the notion that mental, aesthetic properties are physical or nonphysical. — Terrapin Station

Agreed. So what philosophic value does the supervenience relation have? How does it help us develop a consistent understanding of human experience?

No, you're not getting the idea. If there's a supervenience relation, one can't obtain without the other. Planets could still exist if we didn't. — Terrapin Station

Your "can't" is about physical, not logical or metaphysical, necessity. Your "could" has the force of an imagined state, not physical possibility. We know, for example, that the Moon plays a protective role with respect to asteroid collisions. On the other hand, we do not know that the earth could have formed outside of an environment that also led to the formation of the other planets. Our specific evolution depended on the solar system being as it is, with asteroid collisions occurring when and how they did, and with the laws of nature, physical constants, and initial state of the universe being as they are.

Your ability to imagine something physically unrealizable does not make the imagined state physically possible.

I do not believe that mental phenomena cause changes in the brain as you do. If mental phenomena were causally efficacious, then wouldn’t it be possible for telekinesis to occur? It is much more likely that mental phenomena supervenes on the physical brain. This is knowable a fortiori. It is consistent and coherent with neuroscience. Your claim is not. — Noah Te Stroete

Clearly, mental phenomena have physical effects. In the placebo effect, telling the patient that a drug is efficacious makes it more efficacious. This is a proven fact. In the UCLA study I mentioned earlier, cognitive therapy of OCD patients resulted in substantial rewiring of their brains as shown by before and after MRIs.

As for telekinesis, Dean Radin and Roger Nelson (1989) reviewed 832 experiments by 68 investigators in which subjects were asked to control random number generators, typically driven by radioactive decay. They subjected the results to meta-analysis, a method for combining data from many experiments. While control runs showed no significant effect, the mean effect of subjects trying to influence the outcome was 3.2 x 10^-4 with Stouffer’s z = 4.1. In other words, subjects controlled an average of 32 of every 100,000 random numbers, and this effect is 4.1 standard deviations from pure chance. The odds against this are about 24,000 to 1.

Radin and Diane C. Ferrari (1991) analyzed 148 studies of dice throwing by 52 investigators involving 2,592,817 throws, found an effect size (weighted by methodological quality ) of 0.00723 ± 0.00071 with z = 18.2 (1.94 x 10^73 to 1). Radin and Nelson (2003) updated their 1989 work by adding 84 studies missed earlier and 92 studies published from 1987 to mid-2000. This gave 515 experiments by 91 different principal investigators with a total of 1.4 billion random numbers. They calculated an average effect size of 0.007 with z = 16.1 (3.92 x 10^57 to 1).

Bösch, Steinkamp, and Boller (2006) did a meta-analysis of 380 studies in an article placing experiments in the context spoon bending and séances. They excluded two-thirds of the studies considered. Nonetheless, they found high methodological quality, and a small, but statistically significant effect. Unsatisfied, they attacked the data for lacking a predictive theory, and suggested that workers find a stronger effect. Such demands are not scientific. General relativity was confirmed by minuscule effects, e.g. a 43 arc second per century anomaly in perihelion of Mercury discovered in 1859, but unexplained until 1916. Further, no objective effect can be adjusted to meet skeptics’ demands.

In sum, for anyone committed to the scientific method, and willing to follow the data where it leads, there can be no doubt that mental states can modify physical states.

I have no doubt that most mental states supervene on physical states as well as on planetary positions. More importantly, I think that neural and glial processing play an essential role in human thought. Just because intentionality is not reducible to physicality does not mean that the two exist independently. The sphericity of a ball is not reducible to its material, but that does not mean that the sphericity and rubberiness are separate substances.

Descartes drew his line in the wrong place. The mind has an essential physical subsystem. This was recognized by Aristotle, Aquinas and most other pre-Cartesian thinkers. The problem is that we have no reason to believe that intentional operations are reducible to physical operations, and very good reason to think that they are not.

Nothing actually known to neuroscience contradicts anything I have said. If you think otherwise, please be specific.

If it's not subjective, then it obtains independently of what anyone thinks about it. What would be the evidence of that? — Terrapin Station

I am not saying that responsibility has no subjective element, but that it is not entirely subjective. Responsibility is a relation between a subject and a forseeable, objective state of affairs that would not be, had the subject not acted as he or she did.

This relation exists whether or not it is known to exist. Suppose I bully a person online and as a result that person decides to commit suicide. I may never know that happened, still, I'm partly responsible for it.

We are only morally responsible as a matter of convention. Metaphysically we are not responsible. — Noah Te Stroete

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? Again, what would motivate anyone to give an arbitrary convention a central role in social interaction? Wouldn't such centrality be completely irrational and long-since recognized as such?

Furthermore, I’m not the one who espouses proairesis. You do. I believe memory, beliefs, mood, and need, etc., are necessary And sufficient causes of our decisions. You keep setting up Straw Men instead of addressing my premises. — Noah Te Stroete

Proairesis merely names the process leading to a decision. It literally beans "before choice." So, there is nothing to espouse with regard to its existence unless you believe that there is no thought leading to a decision, which would seem to ignore the relevant phenomenology.

What Aristotle noted about proariesis is that it is an iterative process. One begins with a goal to be effected, then finds means of effecting that goal, then finds means of effecting those means and so on. These observations are compatible with both deterministic and libertarian views of choice, and they certainly do not rule out a role for memory, beliefs, mood, need, etc.

I have no problem with the causes of a decision being both necessary and sufficient. That is a very different matter than the choice being necessitated. Necessarily, these factors are in involved, and the factors effecting a decision are sufficient to the actual decision does not mean that the decision is necessary. For example, necessarily I need skills sufficient to house building to build this house does not mean that having those necessary and sufficient skills compels me to build this house rather than that.

If you still feel we are at an impasse, then my best to you.

Supervenience claims do not merely say that it just so happens that there is no A-difference without a B-difference; they say that there cannot be one. — Terrapin Station

Yes, I see the modal "can." Our biological existence depends on living in the kind of universe that we do. If the laws of nature, the physical constants and the initial state of the universe were different (so that the planets were not as they are) we would not be here to act as we do. Thus, there is a necessary link between human behavioral changes and the planetary movements, but not a causal relation. That is why supervenience is a philosophical distraction, and a poor substitute for causality.

Of course one can read "can" more narrowly, as having something to do with causality, but the definition does not require it, and, in my opinion, the whole point of supervenience is to avoid discussing causality. Consider:

Supervenience is a central notion in analytic philosophy. It has been invoked in almost every corner of the field. For example, it has been claimed that aesthetic, moral, and mental properties supervene upon physical properties. — Supervenience by Brian McLaughlin & Karen Bennett in SEP

The implication would seem to be that since these non-physical properties supervene on physical properties, that there must be an (unknown) dynamic by which the non-physical are manifestations of the physical. As I have shown by my astrological example, logically there is no such implication. Of course, the philosophers pointing out this supervenience would say that no such implication was ever asserted, only supervenience. That is certainly true, but the question is what motivates a discussion of the supervenience of the non-physical on the physical if not the hope/desire/implication of a dynamic connection? Yet, without a dynamical connection all there really is, is a distraction, for almost everything supervenes on almost everything else.

if and only if exact similarity with respect to B-properties guarantees exact similarity with respect to A-properties. — Terrapin Station

Yes. Let's look at history again. Go back to 0437 GMT 1835. Whatever the historical state of the world then, it cannot be that state without the planets having the exact state they had. If we look at the actual changes that happened between then and 0438 GMT, those historical changes cannot have occurred without corresponding changes in orbital positions. Such is the nature of supervenience.

A good deal of philosophical work has gone into distinguishing these forms of supervenience, and into examining their pairwise logical relations. — Terrapin Station

It is certainly true that there are different kinds of modality, but the differences in kinds of modality do not depend on supervenience, but on the underlying dynamics of the case.

We may not technically responsible in the sense you are seeking, however our position in the group 'holds' us (and all of the groups members) responsible for their acts. So you are responsible without being responsible and that is fine because we are all the same in this respect. All of us are egalitarian victims of determinism so freedom doesn't really come into it. — Jamesk

This is why I brought up ants. They and bees have social roles and follow rules of contingent behavior, but because they have no choice of role or contingent behavior, they have no need for the concept of responsibility. It is only because we can choose new roles and violate the social expectations (an intentional concept) by the exercise of free will that the concept of moral responsibility arises. In other words, being social animals does not necessitate the dynamic of responsibility. So, being free agents explains the need for the concept of responsibility, while being fully determined social animals does not.

Thus, the two weaknesses of your position are: (1) you have provided no reason to believe that we are determined, and (2) you have provided no reason for the existence of the responsibility dynamic you admit exists.

The particular factors are always necessary and sufficient causes of the particular “choice”. Always. Across the board. — Noah Te Stroete

I understand that this is your belief. I do not see an argument supporting your belief.

I do not think that choice belongs only to the privileged. The poor and homeless can act with charity and kindness, or with anger and hostility as easily as the wealthy and powerful.

It is clear that the cause of anything must be sufficient to effect it. There is no reason to think that the cause of everything must necessitate it as opposed to some other effect it is sufficient to cause. To make your case, you need to establish the necessity you claim.

People engage in a behavior we call "choosing", this is indisputable. Even if a different choice could not have been made, it is still the case that the choice has been made and it is is a direct result of the choosers deliberation. The choice is in the causal chain. — Relativist

I have no argument with any of this, but it does not (1) show that that only one line of action is in our power, or (2) that we are morally responsible for acts fully determined prior to our conception.

The drunk driver may have been compelled, but punishment is still necessary to keep dangerous people off the streets and for deterrence. — Noah Te Stroete

I agree, that we may be justified in removing sources of immanent danger from society, even if they did not choose to be as they are. That has nothing to do with the question of moral responsibility.

Is this adult child responsible, or is the parent who failed to teach the child discipline and responsibility? — Relativist

If there is free will, the parents are responsible for choosing to raise junior without concern for the larger good. Junior is responsible for choosing to drink and drive, and, depending on how mentally competent junior was at the time of the accident, for fleeing the scene. They are each responsible because the possible consequences of their choices were foreseeable, and there were better options available, that they either knew or had a duty to learn.

If there is no free will, the parents had no real choice in how they raised junior, and junior had no choice but to drink, drive and kill. So, there is no more responsibility in the entire scenario than there is in lightening striking and killing the bicyclist. Both would be purely physical events, devoid of moral responsibility.

You seem to be arguing that since responsibility can be distributed, it is entirely subjective. As my first paragraph shows, I reject that. The Germans who chose to do nothing when their Jewish or gay neighbors disappeared in the night bear partial responsibility, as those who continue to support Trump bear partial responsibility for his family separations, condoning political murder, and further degradation of the environment.

I'll bet you agree with me that the adult child is responsible. — Relativist

The adult child has the major share of the blame. That does not make the parents blameless.

I am still wondering how you can blame anyone, if no one has a real choice?

Both will be exhibiting behavior that can plausibly considered to have been determined by their beliefs, dispositions, and impulses. — Relativist

Plausibly. Yet, we choose to commit to our beliefs. I can decide that since God is the author of nature, reading the book of nature may throw light on the book of Genesis. If I'm disposed to drink too much, I can choose to work at being sober. By repeated acts of will, over time I can develop better impulse control. So, while you might plausibly argue that an immediate reaction is determined by beliefs, dispositions, and impulses, that reaction can well be the result of the kind of person we have chosen (or not chosen) to be.

I am still waiting for an account of responsibility that works if we have no free will and all acts are determined.

A set of properties A supervenes upon another set B just in case no two things can differ with respect to A-properties without also differing with respect to their B-properties. — Supervenience by Brian McLaughlin & Karen Bennett in SEP

Whatever happens to occur to the alcoholic is predetermined based on his memories, beliefs, experience, mood, and whatever need he feels he needs to satisfy. There is no optimization calculus. — Noah Te Stroete

Okay, we agree that there is no optimization. That being the case, what makes the outcome of proairesis deterministic? It seems that if we find many lines of action satisfactory, no one is predetermined. What we decide is based on the kind of person we intend to become.

Knowledge does enter proairesis both in the options considered, and in our estimation of where each will lead. I do not see that either implies determinism. On the contrary, the more we know, the freer we are. Knowledge removes the constraints imposed by ignorance.

Supervenience does not do away with cause and effect. — Noah Te Stroete

I didn't say supervenience does away with causality. I said it distracts from it. As statisticians remind us, correlation does not mean causality. Co-occurance is irrelevant. What counts is causal dependence. So, what causal relation guaranties that that our intentionally derived decision will be physically realizable? On my theory, the commitment to a line of action can change how we will behave physically. On your theory the relation seems purely coincidental, rather than causal.

The physical determination of the planets does not supervene on human behavior. — Noah Te Stroete

But, it does! Read the definition of supervenience: "A set of properties A supervenes upon another set B just in case no two things can differ with respect to A-properties without also differing with respect to their B-properties." The human states cannot change without there being a difference in the planetary positions. That is exactly why people invented astrology. The problem is that the connection here, though necessary, is not causal in either direction.

I wasn't saying that we should do anything like astrology. — Noah Te Stroete

I did not mean to suggest that you were. I am criticizing the concept of supervenience as a bargain-basement replacement for causality.

The physical determination of the planets does not supervene on human behavior. — Noah Te Stroete

According to the definition, it does. Neural physical processes play a dynamic role in the operation of the mind. Supervenience, while well-defined, provides us with no assurance that the changing properties bear any important relationship to each other.

Survival is of prime importance and we survive better in groups, — Jamesk

Yes. We are social animals.

it is not a choice made of freewill. — Jamesk

Then, it is not a choice at all. Unless there is more than one possibility open, there is nothing to choose. Did the moon choose the earth as its orbital partner? Of course not.

If we are social animals, but we can choose to live alone, isn't that evidence that we are not fully determined by our nature?

I agree with much of what you said, but I still see no answer to my basic question. How can a being who is not the radical origin for a line of action be responsible for that line of action?

If A causes B, and B causes C it is still the case that B's existence caused C. If we did not exist, we could not act. — Relativist

I addressed that in my second paragraph. Being an instrumental cause does not make one responsible unless one is a willing instrument. Hammers are not responsible for how they are wielded.

None of us have freewill. We are 'all in it together' fate believes in equality. We choose to live in societies. Societies need rules to function. Rules need the attachment of responsibility to function. We agree to the rules so we agree to our share of responsibility. — Jamesk

You seem to begin with an unargued faith position, and then immediately contradict it by saying that we choose to live in societies. If we have no free will, we can't choose anything.

Ants have rules, and I have yet to read an account of the social behavior of ants that mentions moral responsibility. Do you have a more detailed argument?

But this choice is not made in a vacuum. The alcoholic might have learned that he was being "punished" for consuming too much alcohol in the sense that he hit rock bottom and things weren't going well for him. — Noah Te Stroete

A free decision is not an unmotivated decision. If I am seriously weighing two options, which ever I choose can be explained in terms of the factors motivating it. Thus, the fact that we can explain decisions in terms of motivating factors does not show that they are determined.

There is a subtext here, viz. the utilitarian assumption that there is an optimal course of action -- one that results in the greatest happiness, is impelled by the most libido, or has the maximal value of some other utility function. However, if you look at the lead up to decisions, what Aristotle calls proairesis, that is not how we choose. I have never assigned a value to each motivating factor and then calculated which option maximizes the resulting utility. In fact, such a calculation cannot be done, implicitly or explicitly. The reason is simple: motivating factors are not commensurate. No amount of sex will satisfy our need for nutrition, and neither will satisfy our need for understanding. Thus, no trade-off is possible.

H. A. Simmon has written about this at length. Human decisions are made using satisficing rather than maximization. We choose courses of action that satisfy as many of our needs as possible, rather than finding one that maximizes some utility function. As there are many courses of action that can satisfy our needs, satisficing, unlike optimizing, does not constrain us to a single line of action.

Of course, at any point in time, we place more weight on some dome needs/motivating factors than others, but the weight we give each is not predetermined. It is a result of us deciding, implicitly or explicitly, what kind of person we want to be. In your example, even after hitting bottom, the alcoholic still has to decide if they are willing to tolerate the collateral damage alcoholism causes, or if they want to commit to being sober.

Isn't the population of the planet evidence of evolutionary success of our characteristics? — Noah Te Stroete

Perhaps, but it does not tell us that our characteristics are as you imagine them. You think that we can imagine alternatives, but are still pre-determined to one course of action. I think that being able to conceive alternatives that we cannot effect can have no evolutionary value. What I am asking for is an evolutionary argument showing that the ability to conceive unimplementable alternatives is not a waste of time and energy.

I know that you have said that we can remember our previously examined alternatives, and I grant you that. I also grant that as a result, we may decide differently in the future. What I do not see is how deciding differently will increase reproductive success, given that only one option is physically possible in any event.

I believe there is a supervenience between the act of commitment and physical realization. But just as the physical realization is deterministic, so are the mental processes. — Noah Te Stroete

I think supervenience is an irrational distraction -- one invented to avoid discussions of causal ontology.

A set of properties A supervenes upon another set B just in case no two things can differ with respect to A-properties without also differing with respect to their B-properties. In slogan form, “there cannot be an A-difference without a B-difference”. — Supervenience by Brian McLaughlin & Karen Bennett in SEP

There can be no historical events without variations in the positions of the moon and planets, but that does not mean that we should all be studying astrology. The critical issue is what causes what, not what supervenes on what -- which is usually totally irrelevant.

So, to return to the central question, how is it that the intentional process of proaiesis just happens to terminate in the one course of action that is physically predetermined -- especially if there is no causal relation between our intentional commitments and our physical behavior?

Now this is not to say that you couldn't still be right about all this, but I still have concerns that need to be addressed. — Noah Te Stroete

As you can see, I an willing to take the time to address them.

I'm sure that many who died in the Holocaust had doubts about a providential God. — Noah Te Stroete

Of course they did. The problem of evil is real, and I know of no solution that can put our feelings of dismay to rest.

We can still have moral responsibility in the absence of freewill in the Libertarian sense. — Jamesk

How? If whatever I do is fully immanent, fully determined, in the state of the world before we are conceived, then our actual existence can play no role in determining how we act. Under what theory/definition of responsibility can a being whose actual existence plays no role in determining an act be responsible for that act?

Of course, being predetermined would allow us a role in our acts. We would be instrumental causes. Thus, your theory would seem to make instruments responsible for what they are used to effect. That being so, are hammers responsible for hammered artifacts?

I’m still not SURE I agree that a long-term goal is a sign of free will. It is still a choice but a choice that constantly and repeatedly has to be made. I gave my reasons for believing why I think decisions or choices are determined. — Noah Te Stroete

By itself, a goal is not a sign of free will, but the choice of a goal against a compulsion is a sign that the compulsion is not determining. Consider an alcoholic who habitually goes into every bar he or she passes. One day they commit to being sober. That commitment makes no physical change. Their brain is still wired the same way. Every time they pass a bar, they still start to walk in. So, they remind themselves of their commitment and, by force of will, walk by. Each time they do this, they change their neural connections by a small amount. In time, their new intentionality is incarnated in a new neural pathway. This is the neurophysical reflection of the ancient observation that repeated good behavior leads to habits of right action, aka, virtues.

So, yes, changing your brain wiring is not easy. It does require constant recommitment, and the lack of apparent progress can be discouraging. Still, over time it happens.

As for evolution, the mental exercise of weighing choices is a mechanism nature has chosen that has made humans successful. It is a mischaracterization of what I believe to say that evolution decides which is better, viz. the decision made or the option not taken. The mechanism is what evolution selected for. — Noah Te Stroete

Of course evolution would not be making the individual decisions. Still, we need a mechanism for evolutionary selection of the capacity to represent multiple options -- one that translates into reproductive success -- or evolution does not explain the phenomenon. (Note also that selecting the ability does not explain primary appearence of the capacity, without which it could not be selected.

If evolution does favor the consideration of options, how is this an argument for determinism? Surely, the consideration of options is useless unless we are free to implement the one that we decide is better. It would be very coincidental if the one that we judged to be better mentally were also the only one that was physically realizable. Such a parallel relation reminds me of Leibnitz' monadology and would seem to require a providential God. Isn't it more rational to think that the very fact of commitment to the better option is one of the conditions of physical realization -- just as it is in the above example of the reforming alcoholic? So, if we are free to choose which option we think better, and often free to implement it physically, where does determinism enter?

I believe consciousness is just as real as matter as I am a spiritual person. — Noah Te Stroete

I agree. I am also a spiritual person. We are fairly close in our beliefs, but differ on some details.

You are welcome.

I was being called to dinner when I last responded, so had little time. Let me start again.

Evolution works by selecting successful variant genotypes. It does so by means of "reproductive success," which is a very brutal means, viz. it lets their young live, and kills the deselected variant and/or its young. Let's assume that, suddenly, an individual emerges who is able to think of more than one possible action, but is constrained (on your hypothesis) by the laws of nature to execute only one.

First, one may wonder in what sense the other options are "possible" as opposed to imaginary. Perhaps in some other world I might have gone 70 mph on the I-15, but in this world, it was impossible to do so. What I could have done in some imaginary world is completely irrelevant to what I can do in the real world.

Second, you suggest that the advantage of being able to think of the other option is that we remember it, and make better decisions next time as a result. In the abstract, I find this an interesting observation, and one that may well be true. The question is, does it make sense in the narrow context of evolution? What is "better" in the evolutionary sense is what gives us more viable offspring. What is "worse" is what kills us, or at least gives us fewer viable offspring.

When we come to the second occasion, the one in which we remember the alternative, how does remembering an alternative that was never tested by evolution equip us to make a "better" decision in the evolutionary sense? I do not see that it does. I grant that the knowledge of past alternatives can change what is chosen on the second occasion, because any variation can, but I do not see why it will increase as oppose to decrease the number of viable offspring we have.

Third, it is unclear how you are thinking of decision making. I see it as an intentional process, supported by physical processing, that terminates in an attempt at physical action. Is that how you see it, or do you see it as a purely physical process with an epiphenominal conscious overlay? In other words, does what we think really matter?

I can understand, given that you suffer from a compulsive disorder, you have a hard time seeing yourself as free. Still, I see you as acting freely. Why? Because even though you feel compelled to do x, you have freely decided that you do not want to do x and are seeking the means (via CBT) to avoid doing x. We know that we are committed to a goal when we are actively engaged in means to attain that goal. It seems from what you have said that even though you are compelled to do x, you are working on the means of ceasing to do x.

That brings me back to the case of the UCLA OCD patients. Even though they had their various compulsions, they were committed to breaking those compulsions, sought and found means of doing so, an were able to incarnate their intentionality in new neural pathways.

Yes, reward and punishment can affect behavior. I see no evidence that it can change the goal to which one is committed.

I understand your argument. The question is: how can evolution determine that an unimplemented decision is better than an implemented one? All it can do is select survivors based on the decisions they actually make.

The best of luck to you. You might ask your therapist about the UCLA results.

I have no reason to doubt that you have free will. You may have trouble executing some decisions because of your disorder, but not being a psychiatrist, I'm not really qualified to speak to that. I do know that in the case of OCD, it has been proven (at UCLA, if memory serves) that cognitive therapy can rewire the brain. You may want to read about it, and see if it might help you. If you are interested, I can look up the citation(s).

If you can't buy the Maserati, what sense does it make to say that you are choosing it? You must be choosing it for something, or you can't truthfully be said to be choosing it at all. — Herg

Whenever I select or prefer one thing over another, I'm choosing it. Even though I can't implement my choice now, it is still a choice. If I were to win the lottery tomorrow, I would not go through the selection process again, I would simply implement my pre-existing choice. What am I choosing it for? The car I aspire to own.

In the context of our discussion, choosing L1 means choosing L1 in order to execute L1, and the presumption is that you have the power to execute L1, because if you don't, you cannot truthfully be said to be choosing L1 at all. — Herg

Choosing is an intentional act. It creates a disposition that will be physically implemented if possible, but even if the implementation isn't now possible, the state of the world has changed because I now have a disposition to act that I lacked before my choice. It is a common thing for people to first choose, and then await their chance.

The relevant point is not what seems to be true, but your unargued claim that it only seems to be true. — Dfpolis

We agree that it seems that executing L1 rather than L2 is in your power; the burden of proof is on you, not on me, to prove that both L1 and L2 actually are in your power. As for 'unargued', what do you imagine I have been doing since we started this conversation? — Herg

I've already shown how we know potentials. As for what you have been doing, as I recall, you have been criticizing the notion of free will, but have offered no reason to believe in determinism.

What an odd argument. Science is able to make reliable predictions precisely because, in cases such as the vinegar and baking soda case, there is no free will; the vinegar and the baking soda, when mixed together, have to make carbon dioxide because they have no choice in the matter. — Herg

Not quite. There is free will here. I may choose to mix them or not. Still, even if I choose not to mix them, the potential to produce carbon dioxide remains. This is just like choosing not to go to the store. Even though I choose to stay home, the potential to go remains.

Yes, free will does not enter into the reaction, but that's equally true of many choices once implementation begins. Once I step out of the plane door to begin a skydive, there is no going back.

That is how we know that making carbon dioxide in such a situation is possible. — Herg

No, that is not how we know that producing carbon dioxide is possible. We know acetic acid and sodium bicarbonate will react as they do because previous investigators have have freely chosen to investigate analogous cases. We have never examined, and no one could ever examine, the exact case before us, contextualized as it is. We must rely on reasoning by analogy.

Chemistry is the result of a long history of experiment and analysis in which we find analogies to the case at hand. The same is true of our knowledge of having incompatible options equally in our power.

So what would be the parallel situation when you are contemplating whether to stay at home or go to the store? It would have to be that we can only predict that you will go to the store, and therefore know that going to the store is possible for you, if you, like the vinegar and the baking soda, have no free will. — Herg

Let's look at the relation between prediction and potential. As I said earlier, the first way of knowing what is possible is to observe what is actual, for it could not be actual if it were not possible. Prediction is just a slight variation on this, in that a reliable prediction tells us what will become actual. Still, to make the prediction, we do not rely on the actuality of the predicted event, but on our knowledge, by analogy, of the determinate potential for that event. The question is, are all potentials determinate (determined to be actualized)? You seem to think that they are. I do not.

Consider our vinegar and baking soda. Do they always have the potential to produce carbon dioxide? I, and most chemists, would say they do. On you theory, they do not unless this vinegar and this baking soda are actually mixed to produce carbon dioxide at some point in the future. I say this because you seem to deny the second way of knowing potential -- by analogy with other cases. A potential that is never realized is, by definition, not a determinate potential -- it is not a potential that can be verified by a confirmed prediction, for ex hypothesis, the mixing will never happen.

Premiss: On some previous occasions I have gone to the store, and on other previous occasions I have stayed at home.
Conclusion: Therefore on this occasion I have it in my power to either go to the store or stay at home.

This is an invalid argument. In order to have free will it is not sufficient for there to be some occasions when a potential action (e.g. going to the store) is actualised; it has to be the case that you have the power to realise the potential action in some particular case. In effect, you are confusing a type of action (going to the store) with a token action (going to the store on this occasion). — Herg

There are two questions here. First, do you or do you not think that potencies can be known by analogy? If you do, how strong does the evidentiary basis need to be before you are willing to rely on the analogy?

Clearly, if I only went to the store once, and it was a harrowing experience, it might not actually be in my power to go to store now. Perhaps I might freeze on the way, be eaten by a lion or be struck by a car. I am happy to concede that analogical reasoning lacks the reliability of deductive reasoning. I also stipulate that one case is a narrow basis for an analogical conclusion. Having said all that, few of us doubt it is in our power to go the store -- even if we have only gone once, and probably if we'd never gone before.

As Aristotle points out, we must not expect the same certitude in ethics as we do in other sciences. The subject matter is simply too complex. So, I grant that my argument is not deductively sound, but reasoning by analogy never is.

I do maintain that what applies to mixing vinegar and baking soda also applies to humans, in that given a certain potential for human action, it is simply a matter of physical law whether the potential is actualised. — Herg

This does not cut it. No law of nature precludes the mixing of vinegar and soda that will never in fact be mixed, and no physical law prevents me from going to the store even if I decide to stay home. In both cases, it is the decision of the agent that determines whether or not the potential is actualized.

There appears to be a physicalist subtext here, viz. the assumption that intentions are physically determined. No rational model supports this hypothesis, and reflection on the fundamental abstraction of natural science tells us that there cannot be a reduction of subjective intentional operations to objective physicality for the simple reason that natural science lacks the requisite concepts.

There is no reason to think that human intentions are determined by physics, and sound experimental studies to show that they are not. That being so, we can form intentions that are physically unrealizable, as my example of wanting to go 70 mph when traffic conditions prevented me from going more than 20 mph. When our choices physically constrained (unable to be implemented because of physical conditions), we can recognize it. Since there is no conflict between intentionality and realizability in deciding whether or not to go to the store, I have no reason to believe I am physically constrained.

Of course, one can engage in magical thinking or paranoia, believing that even though we do not see them, there are forces arrayed against us, but such conjectures are hardly parsimonious. It is more rational to say that when we are constrained by physical reality, we are generally aware of it and that when we are unaware of constraints, we are free to act as we will.

Actually, quantum theory says that all unobserved physical processes are fully deterministic. Unpredictability enters only when quantum systems are observed. — Dfpolis

Since this directly contradicts everything I have ever read about quantum physics, I have no comment to make, and I shall not raise quantum physics with you in the future. — Herg

In the course of acquiring my doctorate in theoretical physics I have probably studied quantum theory more deeply than you. If you like, I can supply you with references to standard texts.

We are free if we are not constrained. We are constrained when we want to do A, but are prevented. This happens many times, so we know how to recognise constraints when we see them. For example, yesterday I wanted to go 70mph or more on the I-15, but traffic constrained me from going more than 0-20 mph. When I decide whether or not to go to the store, I experience no such constraint. So, I am free to choose either. — Dfpolis

This appears to be compatibilism, and if that is your position, then we have been arguing at cross purposes. I am not a compatibilist. My understanding of free will is that it requires the ability to do otherwise than one actually does. — Herg

I'm not a standard compatibilist. I deny that free decisions are fully immanent in the state of the world before the existence of the agent. At the same time, I affirm that human decisions are adequately caused and mindful, not random. In other words, agents resolve prior indeterminism to fully determine their free decisions. So, before the agent acts, L1 and L2 are equally possible, but after the decision, only one is possible.

I reject the "I could have done otherwise" formulation because I could not have done otherwise and be the person I am. Every decision we make forms who we are. I am the person formed, in part, by the history of my decisions.

Free will is necessary to explain the reality of moral responsibility -- which happens in the world. People know that they are responsible for actions they freely choose, — Dfpolis

No, they don't know this. They believe it, but belief is not knowledge, and therefore there is nothing requiring explanation. — Herg

I understand that you must say this to be consistent, but it makes no sense. How could we evolve to feel remorseful for what was, in fact, unavoidable? What a waste of biological resources that would be! If I am predetermined to do L1, how could any moral intuitions change this?

Intuitions of responsibility and remorse are actual phenomena -- "something requiring explanation," as you say. You may claim that free will is not the proper explanation, but that is not enough. The phenomena remain. You dislike the standard explanation, but offer nothing better.

So, there is a middle ground between fully determined and mindlessly random, viz. the result of mindful action on the part of a free agent. — Dfpolis

This is just speculation, because you have not established grounds for believing that minds complete the determination of actions. — Herg

It is a matter of experience and philosophic reflection since Aristotle's discussion of proairesis that humans reflect to determine which of various possible means best reflect their values in effecting their ends. Are you denying that you have weighted, perhaps iteratively, various means of advancing your life? And doesn't such reflection reduce many possible means to the one plan you actually choose to implement?