compatibilism

[Flannel Jesus]

No -- click -- it should be added that it is simply preposterous -- idiotic? -- that I am equating people who believe things with Nazis.

The gaslighting never stops

[iambiguous]

Biggy: you're all Nazis!

So-called Nazis: you're playing a dumb game and nobody else wants to play it

Biggy: I see that I have won, and your "I" is beginning to crumple!

Iwanna, I feel like biggy is having some sort of parallel conversation in bizarro land, where the above conversation actually makes sense. Man thinks he can cause our "I"s to crumple, whatever that means in this context, just by calling us Nazis ... ?

Click.

Go ahead, Iwanna, embarrass yourself even further and top this.

[Belinda]

There is no sense in which the will is free but we may feel free to the extent we are ignorant of causality, to and the term 'will' alone is sufficient for that purpose.

Yes, if we knew all there is to know then chance would not enter into our choices. As it is we aren't omniscient and it's nothing but the element of chance in our decisions that make us feel free of causes.

[iambiguous]

I'm trembling. When I came to a philosophy forum, the last thing I expected to see was people who believe different things than me!

Click.

Note to the true moral and political objectivists among us:

Explain to him that in fact you really do divide the world up between those who are "one of us" [the good guys, the smart guys] and those who are "one of them" [the bad guys, the dumb guys].

He seems convinced that you are all just a figment of my imagination.

On the contrary, start here: https://knowthyself.forumotion.net/f6-agora

Oh, so THAT'S what an objectivist is.

Again, just for the record, I have never once argued that I know what an objectivist is. I have merely noted what existentially, subjectively, subjunctively, etc., "I" have come "here and now" to believe "in my head" what objectivism encompasses. This: the belief that one can be in sync with what is construed to be the "real me" or "core self" or "soul" in sync further with the right thing to do and the right way to understand something in regard to moral, political and/or religious value judgments out in the is/ought world. As opposed to the either/or world where tons and tons of things can be believed objectively. And demonstrated objectively to be true for all of us.

I merely add this here: click.

Then back to his or her own ridiculous rendition of my rendition of it:

And here you are, dividing the world between objectivists and everyone else. Objectivists are to be feared. They're dangerous, they're one of them. The bad guys. (Maybe the dumb guys too, who knows?)

Now, that's idiotic, Iwannaplato. If I do say so myself.

I don't read that forum btw. I think you need an account to see everything, and I had an account at one point but I've lost the password and don't feel like signing up for a new one. Do you think I should?

Note to Satyr:

Tell us about him back then. Was FJ "one of us" or "one of them"?

[iambiguous]

Please pinpoint specifically where I assert that anyone who has any belief at all makes them an objectivist. An objectivist in the sense that they believe that all others are obligated to believe what they do.

You didn't clarify that bit I bolded in the conversation, in any of the opportunities you had. If you read the places I quoted you, you didn't say anything about this obligation.

Because of course you didn't. Because you can't find anything where I implied I believe in such an obligation.

Why has it taken you this long to clarify the "obligation" aspect of your use of objectivism?

Unbelievable.

Over and over and over again I note those like IC [with his Christian God] and Satyr [with his "my way or you're a fucking retard" take on genes and memes] who insist that you are obligated to think as they do about God or Nature...or else. The "or else" part being different for each of the moral, political and religious objectivists among us.

From my own subjective, rooted existentially in dasein point of view, if you believe it is possible to be in sync with the real you and, further, the real you is able to grasp the most rational and virtuous manner in which to resolve a moral conflict like abortion, then, "in my own personal opinion", you are an objectivist.

That doesn't have anything about obligation, that's just about beliefs.

That depends of course on the objectivists who are in power in any particular community. In regard to, say, legal obligations. Or, among those like the Amish, moral obligations. To shun or not to shun someone. Or, for the Nazis, their own belief that they were obligated -- morally? -- to kill you if you were a Jew. Or the distinction Putin makes between beliefs and obligations in regard to Ukraine.

...being a moral objectivist as I understand it revolves around someone who is convinced that they are in sync with their "true self" -- their soul -- in sync further with the "right thing to do".
Or the right way to understand something.

Someone who thinks they have the right way to understand something, again, says nothing about any obligation of others. That's just a belief.

Again, it always comes down to the context and how those in power react to what others not in power say.

You really dropped the ball here. You're blaming me but it's your own fault for choosing to misuse a word and refuse to clarify at numerous opportunities.

If you want to drown your own posts in a unique vocabulary, you'd really benefit from the ability to clearly define your terms. You haven't done that here. Hence why everyone thinks you mean something different by "objectivist" than what you actually mean.

That might be the case if I were insisting that my own understanding of the word really was the one and the only objectively true manner in which all rational men and women must choose to understand it themselves or cease to be rational. Given some measure of free will.

In fact, I make it a point to argue that in regard to "I" in the is/ought world, my own vocabulary here is in fact no less a uniquely existential contraption. And, given new experiences, relationships and access to information and knowledge, I might change my mind about any number of things here. Just as I had over and over and over again in the past.

[Flannel Jesus]

.

You really dropped the ball here. You're blaming me but it's your own fault for choosing to misuse a word and refuse to clarify at numerous opportunities.

If you want to drown your own posts in a unique vocabulary, you'd really benefit from the ability to clearly define your terms. You haven't done that here. Hence why everyone thinks you mean something different by "objectivist" than what you actually mean.

That might be the case if I were insisting that my own understanding of the word really was the one and the only objectively true manner in which all rational men and women must choose to understand it themselves or cease to be rational. Given some measure of free will.

This response shows a drastic misunderstanding of how words work, especially in philosophy.

I'm not asking you to justify any one true objective thing. Just to be clear and explicit about your own use of words.

You've chosen to call people objectivists, it is up to you to make it clear what you mean by that. You haven't done that. You have failed in a big way at that, and then blamed others for your own failure of communication.

[iambiguous]

From my own subjective, rooted existentially in dasein point of view, if you believe it is possible to be in sync with the real you and, further, the real you is able to grasp the most rational and virtuous manner in which to resolve a moral conflict like abortion, then, "in my own personal opinion", you are an objectivist.

That doesn't have anything about obligation, that's just about beliefs.

He is so certain of his 'personal opinion, which he judges as rooted existentially in dasein point of view, that he's happy to say you are the imply/say you are the same as Nazis, Gulag makers, etc. How is that different from what he calls objectivists.

Let him note where I have ever been "happy to say" that Flannel Jesus or anyone here is the same as the Nazis and the Gulag makers. Let him note where I have even flat out insisted that FJ is an objectivist. Instead, I have noted what existentially, subjectively and entirely rooted in dasein, I have come to construe "in my head" the meaning of an objectivist to be.

And then I noted how, down through the ages, there have been any number of God and No God autocrats/authoritarians who came to power and demanded that citizens embrace their own moral and political and spiritual prejudices...or else.

But, in turn, I note that I have no way in which to demonstrate that any of them were necessarily wrong regarding their convictions. And that, in fact, I am fractured and fragmented in regard to all value judgments.

Then I ask of those here who do not construe themselves to be such to describe to me given a particular context and the assumption that we do live in a free will world, why that is the case.

He qualifies his opinion in his fancy as serious philosopher ways. But none of these qualifications give him pause from associating you with people he thinks are evil.

On the contrary, given determinism as I understand it, good and evil are entirely interchangeable to nature in the only possible world. And, given a free will world, good and evil in the absence of God, are merely historical, cultural, social and political constructs in an essentially meaningless and purposeless world bursting at the seams with contingency, chance and change.

And, in my view, the more that begins to sink in for some here as a reasonable frame of mind the more they feel compelled -- subconsciously? -- to make it all about me, the "idiotic" messenger himself.

And nowhere does he justify that the people he labels as objectivists deserve in any way to be associated with monsters.

That's because I never do label anyone in that manner. Instead, I note that in regard to some of their believes -- Satyr at KY or AJ here -- others will depict them as monstrous.

He can't manage to see the irony of attacking objectivists by saying they are a threat to people who believe in democracy and the rule of law. IOW objectivists are a threat to objectivists. Hell, many pacifists are objectivists. And so on.

The irony is that -- click -- given my own fractured and fragmented moral and political philosophy, I'm not really "for all practical purposes" able to attack anyone. Not the Nazis. Not the Taliban. Their values are no less rooted existentially in dasein. And in a No God world their behaviors are no less able to be rationalized. All I can note is that in fact when those like them do get into power they do in fact become dangerous to others who do not or will not or cannot "toe their line".

Right? Call them objectivists or call them something else. That part doesn't change.

[Flannel Jesus]

Right? Call them objectivists or call them something else. That part doesn't change.

Most people just call Nazis Nazis. Being objectivists is not considered by anybody but you to be one of their defining features...

[Flannel Jesus]

Let him note where I have ever been "happy to say" that Flannel Jesus or anyone here is the same as the Nazis and the Gulag makers. Let him note where I have even flat out insisted that FJ is an objectivist. ... given my own fractured and fragmented moral and political philosophy, I'm not really "for all practical purposes" able to attack anyone. Not the Nazis. Not the Taliban.

I really hate all this pussyfooting. Calling someone an objectivist, saying "objectivists are dangerous because Nazis were objectivists", and then cowering down behind this "but but but I'm fragmented."

It's like a pedo priest who has just had his way with a child, and just as the townsfolk are about to beat him to death for it, he pleads with them, "please, I was very fragmented while I did it. I'm not even sure I liked it!"

It doesn't matter how fragmented you are when you say it you goof. If you say it, justify it. If you realize you can't justify it, admit that and say you were wrong. Your fragmentation does nothing but excuse you for your douchebageries.

[iambiguous]

Like, Nazis were objectivists and that's why objectivists are dangerous? Nazis also brushed their teeth, is anyone with a tooth brush dangerous?

Over at ILP these days, one might expect to read preposerous things like this regarding something that I posted there. But it still manages to startle me from time to time that at a forum derived from Philosophy Now magazine, I'm still dealing with it.

Seriously, does anyone else here actually believe I am insisting that anyone who believes anything at all is an objectivist...and that this makes you a Nazi?

Or that a Nazi brushing his teeth in Utah somewhere today is, in a free will world, equally as dangerous to, say, Jews, as a Nazi herding Jewish men, women and children into the gas chambers in Auschwitz?

Then just more of the same, if I do say so myself, idiotic spew.

I don't find it offensive so much as dumbfounding. Conversing with biggy in this thread feels like some absurdist episode of the Twilight zone.

I'm sure he thinks his interactions have been absolutely flawless though, and he's contributed nothing at all to the pointless turn this thread has taken. No, it's completely normal to start talking about objectivist Nazis as soon as someone expresses some beliefs about compatibilism...

I'd really like to see some introspection from him. I know it's a lot to ask, but just for him to go back and read the interactions he's had with a specific focus on the question, "why do people think I'm using the word objectivist in this way?" If there's an ounce of philosophical rigor in him, he'll come back and say "you know what guys, I totally see that my words led you to that understanding. That's my bad." We could move forward if he did that. I'm gonna find it hard to move forward through the gaslighting though.

A "condition", right?

[Iwannaplato]

Right? Call them objectivists or call them something else. That part doesn't change.

Most people just call Nazis Nazis. Being objectivists is not considered by anybody but you to be one of their defining features...

And determinists, determinists....

Right. Ayn Rand believed in capitalism. Karl Marx believed in Communism. Adolph Hitler believed in the Final Solution. The Taliban believe in Allah. The Pope believes in Catholicism.

So, historically, what has often happened when those who believe in something gained power and had the capacity to insist that others must believe the same thing...or else? Again, I call them objectivists and, subjectively, I suggest that they are dangerous to those who believe instead in, say, democracy and the rule of law.

Call them something else if you must.

In a thread about compatiblism people who believe their position on compatbilism is correct are called objectivists. Then we are told that people with beliefs may one day come to power and do bad stuff.

Well, jesus, perhaps Iambiguous will come to power and kill objectivists.

Batch people in groups, label them negatively, make a case that this - having beliefs - is a dangerous situation.....

I mean, who does that reminds us of.

Can't the topic just focus on the arguments, examples, guesses, possible implications, analysis of beliefs related to determinism.

The 'what else would you call them?' is telling. The option of not calling them a perjorative term and not fantasizing about future misdeeds when they come to power is just not on the table. It's a matter of which pejorative term to label people with, which slippery slope fantasy and hysteria to engage in.

[iambiguous]

I've had this same train of thought as well. Like, Nazis were objectivists and that's why objectivists are dangerous? Nazis also brushed their teeth, is anyone with a tooth brush dangerous?

[Or blaming him for the behavior of psychopath nihilists. He's aware of them, and points out they exist, but he doesn't seem to blame himself for them or consider his position as deserving to be compared to theirs.

Again, what on earth are they proposing here...that I blame them for Nazis?

As for psychopathic behavior that would depend entirely on the extent to which, even in a free will world, the behaviors are derived from brain afflictions such that they are basically beyond one's control.

Instead, it is the sociopaths that may or may not [philosophically] be moral nihilists. But if one is a sociopath I would certainly not hold moral nihilists personally responsible for that. That part is always rooted existentially in dasein.

[Iwannaplato]

I've tried a couple of times to send us back to the discussion of compatiblism. (though I obviously participated also in the large tangent about participatnts)

Here's another shot at coming back to compatiblism:

I think this article articulates the points a few people are making here that are useful and I'll put in some quotes from the article below the link. Note: I will continue to black box the actual metaphysical truth. I do not think the article resolves it (nor do I really think an article good, my guess), but I thought it was clear on many parts of the issues....

https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-think-a ... H2BOVix6_s

1) Here an argument in favor of thinking as if one had free will, why this is helpful in improvement:

To the extent that the idea of free will involves some fictions, this could be a good thing, as long as we are aware that they are fictions. Take the idea that we ‘could have done otherwise’, so central to the free will debate. There is a sense in which this is never literally true. But the thought that we could have done otherwise is neither meaningless nor useless.

In his book Freedom Evolves (2004), Daniel Dennett illustrates this with the example, borrowed from John Austin, of a golfer who misses an easy putt, and then thinks: ‘I could have holed it.’ If you think this means that, were time to be rewound to the moment the golfer played the shot, then she could have played it differently, you’d be wrong. The golfer herself probably doesn’t mean that either. Rather, she means that holing the shot was well within her skillset, and that this was the kind of shot she would usually pull off.

The thought ‘I could have holed it’ does not therefore serve to inform us of an alternative reality that didn’t come to pass. It is to focus the mind of the golfer on the mistake so that she doesn’t repeat it next time, perhaps by making her think about what it was that made her slip up.

All ‘could have done otherwise’ thoughts have a similar value and function. It is only because we reflect on the things that could so easily have been done differently if conditions or our frame of mind had been slightly different that we learn to take responsibility and do better next time. Such helpful thoughts differ from others when we could not have done differently in any comparable situation. There is a sense in which the golfer could not have done otherwise, whether she missed an easy shot or an almost impossible one. But whereas it makes sense to think about the easy miss as something that could have been avoided, it serves no purpose to think about the impossible shot in the same way.

2) Here, actually, earlier in the article, using, more or less, the golf example as a way of showing that improving oneself morally could function similarly and that praise and blame (especially in relation to oneself) can work and be justified along similar lines.

Praise and blame don’t depend on absolute freedom

The idea that we need the concept of voluntarist free will for praise and blame, reward and punishment is also highly questionable. The major philosophical justifications for punishment are retribution, deterrence, reform of the offender and signalling societal disapproval. Of these, only the first requires voluntarist free will for its justification, and many find the notion of retribution repugnant in any case.

A rethink of free will requires not the abandonment of the idea of responsibility but its reform. No one is ultimately responsible for who they are, nor therefore for what they have done. But responsibility does not need to be ultimate to be real. Responsibility is not given out whole and complete at birth but is something we learn to take more of. To accept that one has done wrong and take responsibility for it is to resolve to try not to do it again and to put right anything that went wrong. We evidently do have the capacity to do this, and that is all that matters. Whether at some fundamental level these responses are inevitable is beside the point.

Here he takes up the 'brain made me do it' confusion. And also what people really mean when they say they are free.

In giving up the voluntarist conception, we don’t have to throw out the notion of free will altogether. Free will isn’t an illusion, it’s just that the voluntarist conception of free will is flawed and untenable. It understands the free/unfree distinction to hinge upon whether our beliefs, desires and choices have causes or not, which is ridiculous, since obviously everything is caused. What we need is a ‘compatibilist’ conception of free will, one that reconciles human freedom with the causal necessity of the physical world.Such a conception is hiding in plain sight, in the ways in which we distinguish between free and unfree actions in real life. We rarely, if ever, ground this distinction in a metaphysical thesis about causation. Rather, we distinguish between coerced and uncoerced choices. If no one ‘made me do it’, I acted freely.

Worries about free will tend to shift these coercive forces to within us, most obviously when people say: ‘My brain made me do it.’ But ‘your brain’ can’t make ‘you’ do anything, unless ‘you’ is something separate from your brain. If your brain is part of you, ‘my brain made me do it’ makes no sense. After all, if your brain wasn’t key to your decision-making, what else could be? Your immaterial soul? It is telling that almost everyone who defends voluntarist free will answers ‘yes’ to this ostensibly rhetorical question and has a religious belief in such souls. For those of us who accept the materiality of human animals, this option is a non-starter.

I appreciate his pointing out the problem of hoping to be free to go against one's own desires and values....

[Flannel Jesus]

In his book Freedom Evolves (2004), Daniel Dennett illustrates this with the example, borrowed from John Austin, of a golfer who misses an easy putt, and then thinks: ‘I could have holed it.’ If you think this means that, were time to be rewound to the moment the golfer played the shot, then she could have played it differently, you’d be wrong. The golfer herself probably doesn’t mean that either. Rather, she means that holing the shot was well within her skillset, and that this was the kind of shot she would usually pull off.

The thought ‘I could have holed it’ does not therefore serve to inform us of an alternative reality that didn’t come to pass. It is to focus the mind of the golfer on the mistake so that she doesn’t repeat it next time, perhaps by making her think about what it was that made her slip up.

All ‘could have done otherwise’ thoughts have a similar value and function. It is only because we reflect on the things that could so easily have been done differently if conditions or our frame of mind had been slightly different that we learn to take responsibility and do better next time. Such helpful thoughts differ from others when we could not have done differently in any comparable situation. There is a sense in which the golfer could not have done otherwise, whether she missed an easy shot or an almost impossible one. But whereas it makes sense to think about the easy miss as something that could have been avoided, it serves no purpose to think about the impossible shot in the same way.

Fantastic, I've approached it a similar way mentally myself. If free will is the "feeling that I could have done otherwise", there are absolutely other useful ways to interpret that feeling that aren't contrary to determinism. 100% on board with that approach

Praise and blame don’t depend on absolute freedom

The idea that we need the concept of voluntarist free will for praise and blame, reward and punishment is also highly questionable. The major philosophical justifications for punishment are retribution, deterrence, reform of the offender and signalling societal disapproval. Of these, only the first requires voluntarist free will for its justification, and many find the notion of retribution repugnant in any case.

A rethink of free will requires not the abandonment of the idea of responsibility but its reform. No one is ultimately responsible for who they are, nor therefore for what they have done. But responsibility does not need to be ultimate to be real. Responsibility is not given out whole and complete at birth but is something we learn to take more of. To accept that one has done wrong and take responsibility for it is to resolve to try not to do it again and to put right anything that went wrong. We evidently do have the capacity to do this, and that is all that matters. Whether at some fundamental level these responses are inevitable is beside the point.

Fantastic again. Couldn't agree more.

Worries about free will tend to shift these coercive forces to within us, most obviously when people say: ‘My brain made me do it.’ But ‘your brain’ can’t make ‘you’ do anything, unless ‘you’ is something separate from your brain. If your brain is part of you, ‘my brain made me do it’ makes no sense. After all, if your brain wasn’t key to your decision-making, what else could be? Your immaterial soul? It is telling that almost everyone who defends voluntarist free will answers ‘yes’ to this ostensibly rhetorical question and has a religious belief in such souls. For those of us who accept the materiality of human animals, this option is a non-starter.

I agree with this, BUT I'd also say that the idea of mind dualism or souls or some other magical place for our thoughts and our will to exist doesn't, in my mind, change the larger picture at discussion here. Everything I think now, I would think the same if we found out tomorrow that mind dualism or souls are real. I don't even think we need to assume materialism - I consider materialism a reasonable assumption, and a good jumping off point for this discussion, but not actually a necessary component to reach these conclusions.

[Iwannaplato]

I agree with this, BUT I'd also say that the idea of mind dualism or souls or some other magical place for our thoughts and our will to exist doesn't, in my mind, change the larger picture at discussion here. Everything I think now, I would think the same if we found out tomorrow that mind dualism or souls are real. I don't even think we need to assume materialism - I consider materialism a reasonable assumption, and a good jumping off point for this discussion, but not actually a necessary component to reach these conclusions.

I think I agree. Presumably most dualisms have causation between substances. I suppose in a dualism one could think that the brain is not you and you soul is you. Though if your brain has total control of you, but you disidentify with your brain, then your soul is not an agent. There are spiritualities that are like this, even some interpretations of some religions - parts of HInduism and Buddhism come to mind. But then there really is no you to push around. You're just the Buddha or the all consciousness or Vishnu observing yourself.

If your soul is an agent, then you can't be compelled by your brain, at least there must be some kind of intersubstance causation in both directions. But if your soul has, say, a longing to be close to God or to love others or to participate in nature, and it can do something about it. If it's desires are parts of causal chains, then 'my brain compelled me to.....' is at the very least painting something in binary terms when it is more complicated.