But the way you constructed your post, was not incompatible with compatibilism. — charleton

I didn't mean to rule out compatibilism. Quite the contrary, I meant to point out that bahman's definition was too strict to accommodate many common conceptions free will, such as compatibilists ones, and also some libertarian ones (which don't all rely on the most restrictive and implausible understanding of the principle of alternative possibilities).

It is exactly that offered by compatibilists, except that the emphasis is different. To compatibilism free will is the ability to act determinedly in the absence of constraints. — charleton

For sure, but, as I had attempted to stress, the relevant compatibilist idea of a constraint on free will is much more restricted than the idea appealed to by bahman (or by some libertarians). Many compatibilists don't view 'internal' causal antecedents such as values or desires to constitute constraints on free will, whereas bahman seems to be defining free will as the absence of *any* sort of antecedent causal determination, including such things as values, desires or reasons (and not just external constraints such as threats, coercition or lack of resources and opportunities).

If I recall correctly, Aristotle was writing to and for a class of gentleman in Athens society, if so, then his position is not unexpected, and I think Kant's moral works were framed more towards the general public (poor people) of his time. I think their thoughts need to have modern interpretation. — Cavacava

The issue that I brought up concerns a conundrum regarding the ascription of moral praiseworthiness to the action of an agent. This connects to the topic of free will because of the connection between freedom and responsibility, on the one hand, and the connection between personal responsibility and praiseworthiness on the other hand. I dont think pointing out that Aristotle and Kant had different target audiences goes to the core of the issue. Both of their arguments seem to me to have intuitive appeal even if we bracket out prejudice and agree that all human beings, aristocrats or not, can justifiably be praised for their efforts in vanquishing bad temptation, or for their being able to do well effortlessly. I was attempting to show that the apparent inconsistency between the Aristotelian and the Kantian criteria of praiseworthiness is the result of a misconception regarding the nature of moral (or rational) praiseworthiness and that both the Aristotelian and the Kantian conceptions of ethics show in different albeit complementary ways why our modern 'metaphysical' conception of praiseworthiness is misguided.

I see. But lets back to our discussion. Do you believe that we could live the best if we always choose rationally, pick up the best, rather than choosing freely, pick up the worst? — bahman

This rather amounts to asking if our being less rationally or morally fallible would make us more or less free. I don't think there is a categorical answer to this question. There is an interesting conundrum that arises from comparing Aristotle's to Kant's idea of moral praiseworthiness. According to Aristotle's conception of a virtuous agent, someone who refrains effortlessly from acting selfishly, say, is more praiseworthy than someone who must make an effort since the first one is manifesting a more virtuous character. Kant, on the other hand, holds that the person who must overcome the most strongly felt temptation in order to refrain from acting selfishly is more praiseworthy since she displays a superior ability to have her reason control her passions. So, your question is rather similar to the question whether someone is freer accordingly whether she displays moral praiseworthiness in accordance to Aristotle's or to Kant's account of moral praiseworthiness.

I think there is a way to reconcile Aristotle's and Kant's intuitions, and this consists in construing moral praiseworthiness not as a metaphysical (intrinsic) attribute of an agent but rather as the normative dimension of a social reactive attitude the function of which is to scaffold moral growth. We praise the person who act virtuously (and/or rationally) effortlessly because she is an exemplar model of virtue (or wisdom or intelligence). And we also praise someone who effortfully emulates acts of virtue because such efforts promote moral (or intellectual) growth. In both case, the aim is the same -- virtuous action and dispositions -- and the achievement of this aim also is what constitutes the ability to act freely and responsibly.

To me constraint just limit options whether they are external or internal. You cannot do that because of shame then one option is gone. You cannot do that because of shortage of money then one option is gone. — bahman

Yes, I think a confusion over the concept of a constraint, such that it is viewed as a mere restriction or impediment on the exercise of free agency (and hence constitutes a mitigating factor for personal responsibility) lays at the root of some incompatibilist intuitions. Not everything that is a causal antecedent of an action is a constraint in this fashion. Some causal antecedents of someone's action are 'internal' not just in the sense that they can be traced to process or states that are located inside of the skull but also in the sense that they are part of the enablement of the agent's abilities to rationally deliberate about what to do. To be able to deliberate rationally, on that view, entails that one's deliberative process is suitably integrated with one's core values and commitments, for instance (and also enable one to rationally appraise the salient features of one's practical situation). It is somewhat incoherent to view such enabling causal antecedents of one's rational deliberative processes to constitute negative 'constraints' on one's freedom, since removing those so-called constraints just amounts to destroying what makes one into a free rational agent in the first place.

Free will however is ability to choose an option regardless of any constraint. — bahman

This is a rather contentious definition of free will. It certainly doesn't fit the conceptions of compatibilists. I don't think even most libertarian incompatibilists would be happy with such a definition. Most philosophers agree to distinguish between broadly external and internal constraints on agency and practical deliberation. External constraints limit the options that are open to you in any particular deliberative context while internal 'constraints', including the constraints of rationality and character, enable you to take ownership of the deliberative process.

Compatibilists, unlike libertarians, believe even the internal constraints are deterministic. It is true that some libertarians believe that whatever someone actually does freely, he or she ought to have been able to refrain from doing it (or to do something else) in the exact same circumstances regardless of the antecedent causal constraints on the action being internal or external to the process of deliberation and decision. This is the strongest possible version of the so called 'principle of alternative possibilities' (PAP). But that is a rather minority positions among defenders of the possibility of free will.

Sweden is a shithole. Rape, shooting, grenade exploding, car burning capital of Europe. — tom

Rape statistics can be misleading when comparing Sweden with other countries. The prevalence is 60 reported rapes per 100,000 population, compared to half as much in the U.S. and one third as much, on average, in European countries. But there are several factors that appear to bias this result. "In Sweden, once an act has been registered as rape, it retains this classification in the published crime statistics, even if later investigations indicate that no crime can be proven or if the offence must be given an alternative judicial classification." And also: "The Swedish police registers one offence for each person raped, and if one and the same person has been raped on a number of occasions, one offence is counted for each occasion that can be specified. For example, if a woman says she has been raped by her husband every day during a month, the Swedish police may record more than 30 cases of rape. In many other countries only a single offence would be counted in such a situation."

As for the murder rates, those statistics may be somewhat more reliable. In Sweden, it was 1.14/100,000 in 2015, compared with 4.9/100,000 in the U.S.A.

Does that mean that the U.S.A. is a sh*thole country as well? Donald Trump seems to think is is although he expresses it with the more politically correct "not great anymore", as implied by his MAGA campaign slogan.

Where in the equations does it talk about biological aging? — Rich

They don't because they're equations of physics and not biology. But they do tell you how much time will be elapsed on Earth, and on the ship, as measured by any clock that is governed by physical processes such as, say, an atomic clock or a clock based on local measurements of the travel time of a pulse of light. There is no reason, though, why there would be a mismatch between the rates of typical biological processes and the rates of the underlying physico-chemical processes that they normally are correlated with.

GTR — Rich

So, you are making use of the equations of the General Theory of Relativity? Those equations are Einstein's field equations. They will tell you how to relate the metric tensor (that describes the geometry of space-time) to the stress-energy tensor (that describes the density and flux of energy and momentum in space-time). From this, is should appear that the people who remain on Earth have a space-time path that follows closely a space-time geodesic (and might follow it even more closely if they were orbiting the Earth in 'free fall' rather than resting on its surface) while the travelling twin follows a path that deviates very sharply from this geodesic (because of the rockets). When you integrate the proper-time along the space-time path of the traveler, you should find out that this proper-time is shorter than the time elapsed along the path followed by people who stay on Earth.

Sorry, you can't stick spaceship engines in the equations. But I'll double check. — Rich

What equations are you talking about? Are you making any use at all of the Lorentz transformations (as you should?) In that case you surely should be aware that those equations apply to space and time coordinates as measured in *inertial* reference frames. The reference frame in which the Earth remains at rest and the reference frame in which the travelling rocket remains at rest can't both be inertial frames since there is a relative acceleration between them. So, you have to think again how you might be misusing the equations of special relativity to apply to accelerating reference frames.

Relativity is about RELATIVITY — Rich

Actually, I remember reading that Einstein had come to have some misgivings about his theory being named "Theory of Relativity". He thought this was unfortunate and had a tendency to give rise to misleading interpretations. That's because there is much more of an emphasis, in the so-called theory of "relativity", about *invariants*. The speed of light, for instance, in an invariant. Spatial distances between events, or the speeds of point particles, already had been regarded to be relative to a frame of reference in the framework of classical mechanics, but the frame relativity of (instantaneous) distance, duration, and simultaneity all are direct consequences of the invariant geometry of Lorentzian space-time (in special relativity) and of the invariant intrinsic curvature of space-time represented by the metric tensor (in general relativity).

When Rich says that there it no 't' in GR, I think he means to say that there is no time dependence of the invariant structure of the metric tensor (that is, of the geometry of space-time). That is true in a sense. It's just because space-time incorporates the temporal dimension and hence does not, as a whole, have a variable geometry as a function of time. This would just not make sense since there isn't a temporal dimension external to space-time. However, from an empirical standpoint, for finite creatures such a us who live in a particular moment in time and are interested in making predictions about the future (and explaining the past) the equations of General Relativity can be put to use operationally to factor out the time dimension relative to a specific local frame of reference relevant to us and predict how strong the gravitational field will be in each point of space relative to this specific frame of reference, and how it will vary as a function of time (as measured by local stationary clocks).

I browsed this thread rather quickly. It seems not to have occurred to many participants that the Lorentz transformations from which time dilation, space contraction, and the relativity of simultaneity all derive are transformation formulas that apply to *inertial* frames of reference only. An inertial frame of reference is a frame of reference within which test masses that aren't subjected to any external force move in straight lines at constant speed. The effects from gravity are neglected in the framework of Special Relativity.

The twin paradox that was alluded to earlier arises when one neglects that the traveler twin can't be considered at rest in one single inertial frame of reference if she is going to eventually turn around and come back to Earth. The situation must therefore be analysed with respect to at least three frames of reference: one in which the Earth (and the twin remaining at home) remains at rest at all times, a second one in which the traveling twin is at rest during the outward journey, and a third one in which she is at rest during the returning journey. (We can imagine, for simplicity, that the acceleration period when the travelling twin reverses course is very short).

Considering the mutual Lorentz transformations of time and space coordinates between those three frames of reference solves the paradox through highlighting the asymmetry between the situations of the two twins. The traveling twin must effectively "jump" from one frame of reference to another one between the two legs of her trip, and at that time (as measured by her local clock) the definition of simultaneity with the corresponding time on Earth shifts. This shift accounts for the fact that her local clock marks a shorter duration than the clock on Earth over the duration of the whole trip in spite of the fact that, as referred to her own reference frames (on both legs of the trip) less time elapse on Earth that does on the ship on each separate leg of the trip.

John McDowell by Tim Thornton — Marty

This is a fantastic introduction to John McDowell's thought. Maximilian de Gaynesford also wrote such an introduction, which is quite good though not as accurate as Thornton's one.

Didn't have Gulag Archipelago on Kindle. This is pretty good though. Also got a sample of Street's Oyama ontogeny of info recommend. — Baden

Gulag Archipelago is autobiographical, of course, and very good. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is awesome. You might enjoy Cancer Ward, also, which is semi-autobiographical and set towards the end of the Stalinist era.

Well, in this case, they most likely didn't realise that the forum has been fucked for the past two years right up to the present. — Sapientia

The old forum still has its use. It's a convenient place where not to post in case one is espousing an extreme form of Wittgensteinian quietism.

Some eight months ago, darthbarracuda wrote:

"What something is is not simply a question of its material constitution but of its relationship to other things as well."

This has become my philosophical motto. It's hard to pack more wisdom about metaphysics into one short sentence.

No. How does it go? — Bitter Crank

It goes like this: (Tutti: )Taaaah! (Solo:) Parapapa tatata parapapapa, parapapa tatata parapapapa, parapapa taratatatatata tilitilti tilitili tilitili titatata titatata titatata titatata titatata titatata titatata brrrrrrrrrrr... etc.

For an enjoyable introduction to ordinary language philosophy, you may consider:
John L. Austin, Sense and Sensibilia, OUP (1962)

For some more introductory reading on analytic philosophy, engaging yet deep:
Gregory McCulloch, The Mind and Its World, Routledge (1995)
and from the same author: The Game of the Name (1989)

By and large, it is unsurprising that the people who post on the site on average like the way it is run. It's a bit like asking meat eaters if they like meat. 'More meat or less meat, or just the right amount?'

A more interesting question would be, 'what are you trying to do on the site?' — unenlightened

This is indeed an apt analogy. Another question that it suggests would be: "Which fellow participant should we eat next?"

I use shotguns with some frequency, but have only fired one kind of handgun, a .357 Magnum, and I was shocked at how often I missed the target--the stationary target. Of course, with scatter guns your chances of hitting a target are much greater, but when you shoot trap or sporting clays your target is moving at a pretty good speed. The difference between a moving target and a stationary one is profound, and people have a tendency to move.

I suspect that most of the law abiding citizens carrying firearms for protection haven't spent much time being trained in their use. — Ciceronianus the White

This is a problem that the NRA is well aware of, and it motivates one of the very few gun regulations that they would approve of. They have thus endorsed a new regulation proposal that would make it illegal for people who are being shot at to move.

It was something you wrote about how there can never be too much virtue, Pierre-Normand, but forgive me if I've misread you, I've ended up reading things rather late and may have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. — mcdoodle

No trouble. But this is indeed what I was saying. Once properly characterized, an Aristotelian virtue isn't something that anyone can have in excess. Any form of excess is a vice, per definition. And while a particular practical circumstance can make contrary ethical demands on one, and those demands would be made salient though the specific exercises of two different virtues, the rational ability to properly arbitrate between those two conflicting demands is a manifestation of both virtues rather than one of them being overruled by the other one.

This is one area where, while agreeing with Pierre-Normand on the whole, I would differ with him. Aristotle is famous for thinking there is some sort of mean in virtue and vice, with virtue as the mean and vice as the excess, so that for instance he doesn't think anger is wrong in itself: but the virtuous person will have the right sort of anger for the right reasons at the right object. Never to be angry would then be as non-virtuous as being irascible, for example. — mcdoodle

I don't see where it is that we have any disagreement. What you call "the right sort of anger" we might call the right sort of circumstance for expressing anger (the recognition of which is connected to the right sort of rational motivation, or virtue). There are four columns in an Aristotelian table of virtues. The first column label a form of behavior, or a sort of feeling. Corresponding to anger, there is the virtue of patience or good temper. To this virtue corresponds two vices, stemming from excess of deficit: irascibility or indifference ("lack of spirit"). My main point is that, owing to the fact of human virtue's internal connection with both practical wisdom (a practical cognitive ability) and practical deliberation, one can't have the virtue of good temper in excess relative to the demands from another virtue. The virtue of good temper is the general ability to strike a good balance in behavior between manifesting too much or not enough anger while the practically relevant features of the situation have been made properly salient in the mind of the agent by a proper exercise of all the other virtues of character.

Your post is confusing... — TheMadFool

As I said, Aristotle's practical "syllogism" only is a syllogism by analogy to the theoretical syllogism. Unlike the latter it doesn't have a deductive form. This is sometimes noted through saying that it is defeasible (e.g. by Anthony Kenny). But this is misleading. That's because many philosophers, since the early efforts of the scholastics, have attempted to formalize practical reason through providing explicit rules of inference, and through devising the operator "ought to..." or "it is good to..." in order to form the proposition that expresses the general end signified by Aristotle's major premise. They have noted, though, that a conclusion of the form "therefore, I ought to A" can never be derived "undefeasibly", whatever rules of inference those philosophers had come up with, because in actual exercises of practical deliberation there might always come up a new general premise of the form "I ought not to A" or "I ought to B", where doing B is incompatible with doing A. This is why, also, Aristotle insisted that the "conclusion" of a practical syllogism isn't a proposition by rather an action. You can express it verbally with the sentence "I ought to A" or "it is good to A", in the present circumstances, but the terms "ought to" or "good" do not mark a function in deductive reasoning. They rather signify the form of practical reason (as opposed to "true", which marks the form of theoretical reason). And it belongs to the form of practical reason that you can't deduce what to do from general premises. You must be sensitive to the particulars of the situation in order to wisely select *both* the major and minor premises of the practical "syllogism".

Aristotle also characterized theoretical deliberation as a rational move from the specific towards universality (what is universally true in a general domain), whereas practical deliberation moves from the general (what is good in some respect) towards the specific (what must be done here and now). But an action never has been fully specified until it has been done (which is marked by the progressive/contrastive contrast in grammatical aspect). This is another reason why practical reason can't rest on deductively valid logical rules of inference. Actions are produced by ongoing practical reasoning and practical reasoning is a process of progressive rational specification that isn't over until the action has been done.

I think it may occasionally be a tad too strict, even though, to my knowledge, I haven't myself been moderated before. Maybe there ought to be a thread where "deleted" posts are relegated, unless they are grossly and intentionally offensive (or constitute spam)?

Perhaps I misunderstood Aristotle. — TheMadFool

Aristotle if frequently misunderstood. That's because he talks with a rather thick Greek accent.

What I'm particularly hoping and looking for are the premises, the obvious truths that are necessary for Aristotle's idea on morality to make sense. He said it's enough to be rational to be good. Doesn't that imply that there are objective facts about the world that will, on applying reason, lead everyone to goodness?

I think this way of framing the question would be unintelligible to Aristotle. It might be correct to say that Aristotle's conception of ethics is realist (it's not up to us, or up to our conventions, whether some action is good or bad) and cognitivist (it is either true or false that we ought to do this or that). But modern ethical theories often are foundationalist in the sense that they purport to deduce truths about value jugements, or about the moral goodness of actions, from general principles. This wouldn't make sense for Aristotle.

David Wiggins has explained Aristotle's conception of practical deliberation (in view of determining what one ought to do; or what it is good to do) through contrasting it with the "blueprint model" of ethical knowledge. According to the blueprint conception, when you know what to do in a particular situation it is because you have a general idea of what it is that ought to be done in situations of that kind. This general knowledge is derived from the ethical theory conceived as a blueprint (it can be derived in a complicated manner from several ethical axioms). And from this general knowledge, and your specific knowledge of the situation, you can derive logically (deductively) what it is that you ought to do.

But Aristotle's explanation of practical deliberation doesn't work like that at all. Aristotle's practical "syllogism" is merely analogous to a theoretical syllogism since it has a major premise (stating a general truth regarding an end pursued in action) and a minor premise (identifying a particular means and opportunity to achieving that end). The conclusion of the practical syllogism, though, isn't a proposition. It is an action (or an intention for the future), and it isn't arrived at deductively. In fact, it can't logically be arrived at deductively since actions don't have a propositional form. Rather, in order to be valid, the practical syllogism must reflect the wisdom of the agent in selecting both premises in accordance with the morally salient features of the situation (the end that ought to be pursued) and the reasonableness of the action (as a means to achieving that end). That is, among many potentially conflicting ends, the practically wise agent must judge which one of those ends has precedence over the other ones in light of, in part, the means available. And there is no general blueprint for doing that.

A solution that I thought of many years ago goes like this: amend the U.S. Constitution to say that every congressional district must be drawn with at least one right angle. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

It would be more fair if each district were drawn with at least one right and one left angle.

What is the phrase "the unity of virtue" supposed to mean? — Cabbage Farmer

The idea simply is that you can't have a virtue if you don't have them all. This thesis is not as extravagant as it may seem. The reason why the thesis makes sense is because you can always imagine practical situations where the demands from two different virtues (courage and modesty, say) appear to conflict. But each virtue, considered in isolation, consists in one's having a motivation to act that is in proportion with the rational demands of the situation. Hence, to exhibit courage is to face danger when the situation demands it and neither to fear too much (cowardice) or not enough (rashness). But in some situations, what it is that determines "too much" fear or "not enough" fear, in a fearful situation, and hence what it is that determines if an act is cowardly or rash, may be the demands from the virtue of modesty (not being either too shy nor shameless). Hence if the agent lacks in her virtue of modesty, she will also be led, in some circumstances, to display cowardice or rashness.

Reason -- logos -- thus mediates between the various virtues of character and unifies them in practical deliberation. Too much of one virtue can never lead to an act that is vicious in another respect. Hence, there is no such thing as too much of a virtue. (By analogy, you can't have a heart that is too healthy. If the functioning of your heart damages the health of your kidneys, say, then it's not a healthy heart. But in this case the unity of organic health rests on the teleological organization of the body rather than the form of practical rationality.)

What does it mean to say "practical wisdom and virtue go hand in hand"? I take it one who is virtuous has practical wisdom, but some agents with practical wisdom are not virtuous. Is every agent of the latter sort an akratic, and is every akratic an agent of that sort? — Cabbage Farmer

Akrasia is a very difficult concept and my thoughts about it are far from definitive. In fact, two of my favorite philosophers -- John McDowell and David Wiggins -- who are fine interpreters of Aristotle, have had a dispute about its meaning and I have not yet managed to grasp the full significance of this dispute. But in any case, I think it can be argued that someone who lacks in virtue necessarily lacks in practical wisdom. The reason why it might seem that this is not the case is because, as you notice, the akratic agent seems to know what it is that she ought to do, and yet she lacks the motivation to do it. This indeed demonstrates a flaw in her character, and hence a lack of virtue. But the fact that her practical judgment (which is a singular act of her capacity of practical wisdom) is correct in this singular instance doesn't entail that her capacity of practical wisdom is intact. It only illustrates that her flawed capacity sometimes yields a correct judgment that matches what an agent who has both virtue and practical wisdom would judge and do in the same circumstances. It is easy to imagine different circumstances, though, where the flaw in her character will lead her not to be behaving akratically but rather lead to her practical judgment being clouded and hence to her rationalizing away her own bad or irrational action.

Yes, but rationality alone doesn't cut it. I mean it's not enough to be just rational. I can go even further and say that, sometimes, rationality impedes the good. — TheMadFool

That's true of "rationality" as it is commonly understood in modern times (maybe since the 17th century). But it's not true of rationality as Aristotle understands it. In modern times rationality tends to be understood in a restricted sense that only covers "logical thinking" (so called) and instrumental practical deliberation (how to determine means to our ends). It accords with Hume's dictum that "reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions", which makes it difficult to conceive that the passions, virtues and emotions can be regulated by reason or form constitutive parts of our rational faculty. It also makes it difficult to conceive of reason's internal-conceptual connection to morality.

Then they are surely the same thing! Or at least they/it has a name? — Jake Tarragon

They are co-extensive but they are not the same thing. They are co-extensive because they are inter-dependent. Someone who has picked up bad habits, or has defects of character (which is basically the same thing, for Aristotle) will have her process of practical deliberation biased or impeded by her vicious motivations. She will thereby not have the ability to recognize what it is that she must do in some range of specific situations. Conversely, if that person lacks an ability to reflect wisely about the requirement of her practical situation (because she hasn't thought things through or lacks a decent moral education) she will pick up bad habits and develop features of a vicious character since she won't be able to distinguish what it is desirable to do (what is rationally/morally good to do) from what she merely believes that it is desirable to do in specific situations. Thus, Aristotle defines desire as the (mere) appearance of the good.

To become virtuous is to develop motivational tendencies that don't stand in the way, and that indeed are partly constitutive, of an ability both to perceive clearly what it is that (rationally and morally) ought to be done and to do it.

What is practical isn't good e.g. it's practical to kill all old people since they're, well, useless (this isn't my view). — TheMadFool

You are confusing "practical" with "utilitarian" or "instrumental". Practical reason, as opposed to theoretical reason, is the part of reason that is concerned with determining what one ought to do rather than what one ought to believe.

Reason has two domains of application in Aristotle: theoretical and practical. Practical reason is in good order when a rational being has acquired practical wisdom (phronesis) and virtue. (practical knowledge is an excellence of the ability to know what to do in particular situation, while virtue is an excellence of character). Practical wisdom and virtue go hand in hand; this is a consequence of the unity of virtue and of the analysis of the process of practical deliberation. Hence, excellence in rationality -- practical and theoretical -- has virtue of character and practical wisdom as requirements. Nazis don't have either of those, arguably.

So, either way we're screwed. — Bitter Crank

We probably are screwed to some extent but that is no argument for inaction. It might be extremely difficult, at this stage, to limit global warming below 2°C (above preindustrial value) by 2100. But we still have a choice between aiming at stabilisation not too much above this value after 2100, on the one hand, or exceeding 3°C or 4°C by 2100, with temperatures still increasing rapidly, on the other hand. Either way, the Greenland ice sheet will probably melt over the next few centuries, but the fate of the much larger Antarctic ice sheet is up to us. And so is the amount of ocean acidification, which is also a significant threat to fisheries.

Your "either way we're screwed" philosophy assumes that we must chose between the yellow and red lines. But our choice really is between the blue and green lines, since this is what is consistent with foreseeable scientific progress in renewable energy production and reasonable political will.

Here's where I am a bit more skeptical, not because I wish to deny the claim, but because I don't know enough about it to have formed a definite position. Climate science, like most other forms of science, is in fact rather complex. I certainly think humans have had an impact on the climate (how could they not?), but as for whether our burning of fossil fuels is "largely" responsible for global and regional climate change, I don't know. Most scientists say that this is the primary cause. But some of these scientists' research is paid for by ideologically driven interest groups, which is somewhat suspicious (though does not in itself invalidate said research). — Thorongil

Not only do most scientists who have a relevant expertise in climate science, or atmospheric physics, believe that the enhanced greenhouse effect if largely responsible for recent global warming, the consensus is that this human contribution is somewhere around 110% of the observed temperature increase (from the latest IPCC assessment). It is thus more likely than not that the natural contribution was a mitigating, albeit short term, cooling effect. This is mainly due to the solar irradiance having dropped slightly since 1960.

Over the long term, the current natural tendency also is a cooling effect due to the Milankovitch cycles. Those cycles have been responsible for the recent glacial/interglacial transitions and for the slow cooling that occurred since the Holocene Climatic Optimum 6,000 years ago. Over the last 150 years there occurred a sudden reversal of this long term cooling trend and an accelerated pace of warming that tracks total atmospheric CO2 concentration (which is now higher that it has been in the last several million years and still increasing rapidly). The way global temperature is thus tracking CO2 concentration is in very good agreement with climate models.

Scientists are also discouraged from research that might be critical of the consensus view, a profoundly anti-scientific practice, given that all major scientific breakthroughs and revolutions in the past have occurred due to some individual or individuals challenging the consensus view. That, too, is somewhat distressing.

Not all scientific progress is progress of the revolutionary sort. There is also progress of the "puzzle solving" sort that happens during what Kuhn called episodes of normal science. Contemporary climate science is indeed "normal science". Scientists tend to be critical of individuals who seek to overthrow the consensus wholesale and promote a scientific revolution. This is not distressing. Before a scientific revolution has occurred, the proponents of the revolution often are seen by the mainstream scientists as fools or crackpots, and indeed this negative judgement is correct most of the time.

There is a very small minority of scientists who have a relevant expertise in climate science, who aren't crackpots, and who purport to be highly critical of the consensus. I am thinking of Richard Lindzen, Roy Spencer, John Christy, Judith Curry, S. Fred Singer, and a handful others. It is hard to see them as promoting a new revolutionary paradigm, though, since their arguments are very weak and all over the place. They all agree much more with the basic science endorsed by mainstream climate science than they do with each other; and their advocacy efforts mainly center on attempts to sow doubts throug highlighting cherry picked results. They do agree with each other on the ideology, though, since they all seem to be ultra-libertarians who believe government regulations and taxes to constitute the highest form of evil the world has ever seen.

But norms are just another factor that causally influences us. They are simply values or habits that influence our mental and physical actions. — litewave

This is incorrect because the manner in which norms of sound reasoning (either practical reasoning or theoretical reasoning) govern our behaviors and our thinking when we understand them is categorically different from the manner in which physical events cause physical effets in accordance with laws of nature.

One intuitive way to highlight this categorical difference between laws and norms is by appeal to the idea of direction-of-fit that has been popularized by John L. Austin and his student John Searle, but that apparently traces back to Aquinas. The main idea is very simple. The Earth is caused to orbit the Sun along its actual trajectory in accordance with Newton's laws of motion and of universal gravitation. If, however, there is a deviation between the "laws" and the actual trajectory, then there is something wrong with our understanding of the laws. Our knowledge of them must be revised (although, oftentimes, a merely apparent violation of the laws can be accounted for by some external influence). In any case, the Earth is not breaking any actual law of nature. On the other hand, if a computer, a cat, or a human being behaves in a way that fails to accord with a norm of design, a biological norm, or a norm of reasoning, respectively, then that doesn't show that there anything wrong with our understanding of the norms. That may rather show that the computer is buggy, the mouse is sick, or the human being is irrational.

This is in part why our sensitivity to norms of sound practical reasoning don't account for our behaviors being in accord with them (or failing to be in accord with them) in the same way laws of nature account for material effects following material causes in accordance with them.

So what? Even when we don't know physical laws or the past state of the universe they still influence us and everything we do we do within their context. — litewave

I am not arguing that the laws of nature, and whatever may be happening in my brain, or my past education, experience, etc., don't "influence" what I do (whatever those "influences" on my thinking may amount to, exactly). What I am saying is that *all* of those influences and "causal factors" are utterly irrelevant to the question of the validity and soundness of the mathematical demonstration that you are purporting to evaluate. Your only guidance for doing this is your knowledge of sound principles of mathematical reasoning. If someone is going to challenge your understanding of those principles, or the manner you are bringing them to bear to a specific problem, then it is only incumbent on that person to make a rational argument. The laws of physics and the past "causes" of your mental states, whatever they may be, are irrelevant. Only the rational 'form' of your thinking is relevant.

Again, some of those causal antecedents may be necessary in accounting for your having developed the necessary cognitive skills. But when you have developed them to a point sufficient for your becoming intellectually autonomous -- for your having acquired an ability to think rationally -- then, from that point on, what it is that is relevant to governing your thinking are the rational principles that you have come to understand. And those principles are not hostage to any sort of future discovery about the deep workings of the physical universe or the specific inter-connectivity of your brain cells.

It would be an intention that stimulates an intention. For example, you have the intention to eat eggs. This intention, along with other factors, may stimulate your intention to go to the corner store to buy some eggs. — litewave

When you do X in order to do Y then your doing X can be construed as a manifestation of your intention to to Y. If you are breaking eggs in order to make an omelet, then your breaking eggs isn't merely "caused" by your intention to make a omelet. It is rather part your action of making an omelet. This is why Elizabeth Anscombe explained intentional actions (in progress) as exercises of practical instrumental rationality. Actions and their "parts" are internally structured by means-end relationships. Furthermore, the instrumental rational abilities that are being exercised while acting are constitutive of those abilities to act intentionally at all. If you don't know that (and how) you must break eggs in order to make an omelet then you don't know how to make an omelet either.

So, the sense in which the intention to Y "causes" the intention to X, in the case where you are intending to do X in order to do Y doesn't refer to the same sort of causal relation that holds between throwing a rock at a window and the window breaking. It is a manifestation of instrumental rationality, and this rational ability is internal to the agent's own ability to Y. So, saying that intending to Y causes your intending to X is rather like saying that your believing that 102 is an even number causes your belief that 102 isn't a prime number. This is misleading, at best. It is better to say that your knowledge that even numbers above 2 aren't prime is constitutive of your ability to judge that 102 (or any other even numbers above 2) isn't prime. In any case, it should not be construed on the model of causation between events in accordance with natural laws.

The Wikipedia article gave the essense of compatibilist free will: it is the freedom to act according to one's motives without obstruction. You can analyze and differentiate what the "motives" or "obstruction" are but compatibilist free will remains compatible with the fact that everything we do is ultimately determined by factors over which we have no control, while libertarian free will is not. — litewave

This is only a negative characterization of "compatibilist free will". Of course, saying that one is a compatibilist just is to say that one holds that the capacity of free will isn't inconsistent with universal determinism. When you want to go further than that and specifies what it is about free will that characterizes it a such (i.e. as being "free" in the relevant sense) and that is being alleged to be compatible with determinism, then the overwhelming majority of philosophers stress the essential connection of freedom with responsibility. This is also the ground for denying the ascription of free will to non-rational animals; and the reason why absence of compulsion doesn't cut it as a criterion.

The SEP article that I quoted makes this clear. Interestingly enough, while I don't know any contemporary compatibilist philosopher (as apparently you don't either) who doesn't stress this essential connection between freedom, in the relevant sense, and personal responsibility, there are a few libertarian philosophers who seem not to bother too much with it. This is why libertarian accounts sometimes run into the 'luck objection' or the 'problem of intelligibility'. But if your own account of "compatibilist free will" happily dispenses with the necessary connection with responsibility, then that would seem to make it indistinguishable from some crude libertarian accounts. If our deep motives can be necessary outcomes of the impersonal laws of nature then they may just as well be the contingent outcomes of random quantum fluctuations. It wouldn't seem to make any difference as far as our freedom and responsibility are concerned.

Evolution promotes values that are beneficial to survival, health and reproduction. Not all of those values can be regarded as moral. Morality is based primarily on one of the values that evolution promotes: compassion. It is an important value that facilitates emotional and cooperative bonds between people and seems to be part of the integrative processes in our minds. — litewave

You can't cast the content of moral thought solely in evolutionary terms. If you are going to grant that evolutionary pressures account for both moral and immoral tendencies, then you have thereby failed to account for our ability to distinguish between those two sorts of tendencies. And yet, we are able to do so.

While it may be the case that some of our naturally evolved cognitive abilities and emotional tendencies (e.g. a capacity for empathy) are required for sustaining our ability to make moral judgments, those evolved tendencies aren't guaranteed to yield sound moral judgments, or even to have sound moral judgment as their aims, and they indeed often don't. The only ultimate aim that they have is reproductive fitness, and this is something distinct from the aim of morality.

We act based on the limited information we have. That doesn't mean that our thought processes are non-causal. — litewave

I am not arguing that our thought process is non-causal, or causal. I am not talking about any sort of process. The working of our brains is causal and "mechanical", in some way. But our judgments are constrained by norms. To know how our "thoughts" are caused doesn't tell us whether those thoughts constitute sound judgments anymore than knowing the physical principles that govern the behavior of a computer tells us whether or not the program that it runs is buggy. Appeals to rational or functional norms are irreducible to causal explanations. And that's because things that flout norms (buggy computers or irrational agents) still obey the laws of nature perfectly (or rather, their material constituents do). Judgments can be right or wrong, but laws of nature just are what they are. This is why you can't learn right from wrong through studying the laws of nature or the manner in which material things are governed by them.