Free will and morality

Should you think about your duty, or about the consequences of your actions? Or should you concentrate on becoming a good person?

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Immanuel Can
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Re: Free will and morality

Post by Immanuel Can »

bahman wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 4:51 pm You cannot help it, you either have an inclination toward one option or not.
Yes, you can. You can decide not to act on that inclination. Or you can choose to act on a different inclination, since you always have multiple ones.
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 4:04 pm

The outcome of gambling is different from your desire to win.
Of course. But that's different from arguing the gambler has no motive. He clearly does. And even if he's wrong about getting it, he certainly finds that motive appealing. That's why gambling is addictive, as well.
I was pointing to gambling to show that there are situations that the outcomes of the decision are not known.[/quote]
However, even in gambling, they are expected.

The gambler thinks he knows he can win. So it's not a countercase at all.
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 4:04 pm
In the end, you have the ability to resist the final reason for no reason otherwise you are following a reason and you are not free.
That's the part I simply think is not believable.
It is very true.
We have to disagree. i don't think it's at all plausible.
Determinism has nothing against morality.
Oh, it certainly does.

If I have no choice but to do one particular thing, it doesn't even make sense to ask, "Is that moral?"
Why it does not make sense?
Because you can't choose. Whether it's "moral" or not is moot.

In a Determinist world, there's only one way in which any situation can go. Not two. Not ten. Just one. And you can't have a "choice" of one, inevitable thing.
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Feb 06, 2023 5:16 pm Moreover, in a Determinist world, there is not even a thing called "morality," apart from the fact that it designates an odd delusion that people are, for some unknown reason, preprogrammed and predetermined to have. It's not objective. It corresponds to nothing that exists in reality, other than this common delusion.
What does not make sense in a deterministic world is moral responsibility rather than morality.
No. Because you are not response-able, meaning "not able to respond." You can only do whatever it was you were predetermined by fate to do anyway. You have no ability to change that.

But that's just one evidence that Determinism is hogwash.
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Feb 06, 2023 5:16 pm
If a person follows this code then he is behaving deterministically.
Not at all.

If I read that it says in the code, "You must not steal," I'm still perfectly free to make the decision whether to believe that code or decide to steal anyway. If I choose to steal, that's my decision; but if I choose to take the code seriously and not steal, that is also a decision I have made. I'm still free. The code didn't "make" me do anything. It didn't even "motivate" me to do it. All it did was present an option to me, which I remained free to accept or reject.
I said if you follow by which I mean that you make an unfree decision.
It's still not true. I can choose to follow, or not.
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Feb 06, 2023 5:16 pm
Of course, options must be available otherwise no one can make a decision.
Right. And not just options, but motives as well. For one has to have reasons to choose one or another among many options. That doesn't imply the reasons "make" you choose one option or the other, as I suggested above. All it means is that you get to choose among the options, based on the motives you choose to pay attention to.
Motives or inclinations define options.
No, they're quite different. I may have the "motive" or "inclination" to fly by flapping my arms. It sounds like a lot of fun, actually. But I cannot. I do not have that option. I certainly may have the "motive" to be king of the world; but I cannot. Other people prevent me. I do not have that option, though I have the motive.

Options are what you CAN do.
Motives and inclinations speak to what you WANT to do.
Sometimes they're the parallel; but often, they're not.
We are programmed too.
A Determinist imagines that. But foolishly, she argues her case.

Why argue a case if people cannot change their minds? Determinism says they cannot: there is only one way their mind can ever be, at a given time. So why argue? It cannot induce her interlocutor to "change" his mind. Change is not real. Whatever his mind was going to be anyway, that it will be.

Again, another reason why Determinism's idiotic.
Flannel Jesus
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Re: Free will and morality

Post by Flannel Jesus »

Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 5:07 pm Why argue a case if people cannot change their minds? Determinism says they cannot
I don't know where this misconception comes from. I've never heard a determinist say it. I've heard it plenty from others
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bahman
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Re: Free will and morality

Post by bahman »

Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 5:07 pm
bahman wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 4:51 pm You cannot help it, you either have an inclination toward one option or not.
Yes, you can. You can decide not to act on that inclination.
I am not talking about a decision in this part of my argument. I talked about the decision in the rest of that comment.
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 4:04 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 4:04 pm
That's the part I simply think is not believable.
It is very true.
We have to disagree. i don't think it's at all plausible.
Again: You either decide in a situation based on a reason or not. There is no other option.
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 4:04 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 4:04 pm Oh, it certainly does.

If I have no choice but to do one particular thing, it doesn't even make sense to ask, "Is that moral?"
Why it does not make sense?
Because you can't choose. Whether it's "moral" or not is moot.
Of course, you can choose in a deterministic world. Even a computer can choose between two options given a criterion.
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 4:04 pm In a Determinist world, there's only one way in which any situation can go. Not two. Not ten. Just one. And you can't have a "choice" of one, inevitable thing.
Options are real in a deterministic world but only one of them is realizable. Have you ever programmed a simple code? Most of the codes are impossible to write without conditional operation.
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 4:04 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Feb 06, 2023 5:16 pm Moreover, in a Determinist world, there is not even a thing called "morality," apart from the fact that it designates an odd delusion that people are, for some unknown reason, preprogrammed and predetermined to have. It's not objective. It corresponds to nothing that exists in reality, other than this common delusion.
What does not make sense in a deterministic world is moral responsibility rather than morality.
No. Because you are not response-able, meaning "not able to respond." You can only do whatever it was you were predetermined by fate to do anyway. You have no ability to change that.
That is true that you have no ability to change fate in a deterministic world but what this has to do with the wrongness or rightness of an action? You can define right and wrong acts in such a world. You can choose the right act always and avoid the wrong act according to the definition. What you cannot do is to make deterministic agents responsible for their actions.
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Feb 06, 2023 5:16 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Feb 06, 2023 5:16 pm Not at all.

If I read that it says in the code, "You must not steal," I'm still perfectly free to make the decision whether to believe that code or decide to steal anyway. If I choose to steal, that's my decision; but if I choose to take the code seriously and not steal, that is also a decision I have made. I'm still free. The code didn't "make" me do anything. It didn't even "motivate" me to do it. All it did was present an option to me, which I remained free to accept or reject.
I said if you follow by which I mean that you make an unfree decision.
It's still not true. I can choose to follow, or not.
You are not following.
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Feb 06, 2023 5:16 pm
We are programmed too.
A Determinist imagines that. But foolishly, she argues her case.

Why argue a case if people cannot change their minds? Determinism says they cannot: there is only one way their mind can ever be, at a given time. So why argue? It cannot induce her interlocutor to "change" his mind. Change is not real. Whatever his mind was going to be anyway, that it will be.

Again, another reason why Determinism's idiotic.
Again, we are programmed too. We are however free.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Free will and morality

Post by Immanuel Can »

Flannel Jesus wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 5:14 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 5:07 pm Why argue a case if people cannot change their minds? Determinism says they cannot
I don't know where this misconception comes from. I've never heard a determinist say it. I've heard it plenty from others
It comes from comparing the behaviour of Determinists from what they declare they believe. They declare there is only one "road" for everything, causally predetermined to be there. Yet they act like people have a choice as to whether or not they believe that, because they argue.

In other words, it comes from people observing the hypocrisy of Determinists, who, by their own actions, can't even keep faith with themselves.
Flannel Jesus
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Re: Free will and morality

Post by Flannel Jesus »

Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 6:00 pm
Flannel Jesus wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 5:14 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 5:07 pm Why argue a case if people cannot change their minds? Determinism says they cannot
I don't know where this misconception comes from. I've never heard a determinist say it. I've heard it plenty from others
It comes from comparing the behaviour of Determinists from what they declare they believe. They declare there is only one "road" for everything, causally predetermined to be there. Yet they act like people have a choice as to whether or not they believe that, because they argue.

In other words, it comes from people observing the hypocrisy of Determinists, who, by their own actions, can't even keep faith with themselves.
But it's a non sequitur that determinists literally don't agree with. "The physics of our universe are deterministic" is not incompatible with "that person can change their mind".
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Free will and morality

Post by Immanuel Can »

Flannel Jesus wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 6:31 pm But it's a non sequitur that determinists literally don't agree with. "The physics of our universe are deterministic" is not incompatible with "that person can change their mind".
Actually it is. Don't excuse the Determinists, just because in addition to their other "charms" they're illogical. If we use logic, we can see that's exactly where Determinism directs us.

Under Determinism, neither "choice" nor "person" are sources of effects. Instead, we're all living on one superhighway of precertain eventualities, bounded by guardrails that cannot be traversed, with no off-ramps or u-turns possible. The only thing that can ever happen is the next thing that is going to happen. And nothing called a "person" or a "choice" is going to prevent the relentless chain of cause-and-effect they presuppose from producing exclusively that outcome that it was bound to produce. End of story.

That this is silly doesn't seem to stop them from arguing. So I don't know whether you're a Determinist or not; but if you really were, you wouldn't be arguing either. You'd be believing that whatever I was going to think was nothing more than an inevitability, so it wouldn't be worth your time.

That Determinists cannot live like Determinists -- and, in fact, that nobody has ever been able to do so -- should alert you to the fact that they're just operating in bad faith. Determinism is hogwash.
Flannel Jesus
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Re: Free will and morality

Post by Flannel Jesus »

If your world is missing something when the world is just composed of casual physics, imo your world will still be missing that something when you add in some randomness.

I'm not a pure determinist myself, I see randomness in the universe, but that randomness isn't the source of my freedom, my responsibility, or my ability to look at evidence or arguments and change my mind.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Free will and morality

Post by Immanuel Can »

Flannel Jesus wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 7:06 pm If your world is missing something when the world is just composed of casual physics, imo your world will still be missing that something when you add in some randomness.
You're right. Randomness is not the answer.

Here's a great little vid that agrees with you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4arOKZvuZK4.
I'm not a pure determinist myself, I see randomness in the universe, but that randomness isn't the source of my freedom, my responsibility, or my ability to look at evidence or arguments and change my mind.
Right. Randomness would just mean that you were in a machine you didn't understand...that it would have unpredictable "laws" you couldn't always track...and you'd still be nothing but a victim of prior forces.

But of course, it wouldn't make you free, or make sense of the fact that you are an individual who can choose.
Flannel Jesus
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Re: Free will and morality

Post by Flannel Jesus »

Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 8:10 pm
Flannel Jesus wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 7:06 pm If your world is missing something when the world is just composed of casual physics, imo your world will still be missing that something when you add in some randomness.
You're right. Randomness is not the answer.

Here's a great little vid that agrees with you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4arOKZvuZK4.
I'm not a pure determinist myself, I see randomness in the universe, but that randomness isn't the source of my freedom, my responsibility, or my ability to look at evidence or arguments and change my mind.
Right. Randomness would just mean that you were in a machine you didn't understand...that it would have unpredictable "laws" you couldn't always track...and you'd still be nothing but a victim of prior forces.

But of course, it wouldn't make you free, or make sense of the fact that you are an individual who can choose.
So once all of that has been said, I don't see why determinists must be acting in bad faith.

You may think they're incorrect - I think a strong determinist is at least partially incorrect - but being incorrect and acting in bad faith are two entirely different things.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Free will and morality

Post by Immanuel Can »

Flannel Jesus wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 8:46 pm So once all of that has been said, I don't see why determinists must be acting in bad faith.
Simple: what they claim to believe is obviously not what they actually apply to life. That's "bad faith." That's hypocrisy. Classic.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: Free will and morality

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

bahman wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 12:25 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 7:32 am
bahman wrote: Mon Feb 06, 2023 4:43 pm First thing first, free will by definition is the ability to unbiasedly choose between at least two options.
..........
Morality, however, is not about liking or disliking but about what is right or wrong. It is our thoughts that are guiding us about the correctness of a decision. We are however biased by our thoughts when we follow our thoughts in a situation. Therefore, there is no relation between free will and morality.
The moment one is caught to make a decision on what is supposedly a "moral" issue, that is not morality-proper but rather a pseudo-morality or applied ethics.

Regardless of what decision is made and acted upon in such a judgment, there is no 'free-will' but rather one is conditioned by various constraints.
So you think that there is no free will.
You missed my point; There is conditional free will but there is no real absolutely absolute freedom and free will.

Point is, in the case of the moral agent, free will is always related [entangled] to the moral agent; thus, whatever the acts of the moral agent, it is always conditional and never free in the absolute sense.

Note I wrote above;
"That you are not thinking of killing any human at present [presumably you really are] indicate you have a certain degree of moral competence which is within a certain state of free-will."

In the above case, you are in a state of free will but only a conditional free will.
There are various conditions of free will.

For example,
if one is a prisoner in a prison, one is free to do whatever is capable of doing within his prison cell or prison compounds, but overall the prisoner is not free to be outside the prison walls.

When you deliberate the subject of morality and free-will you need to take the above into consideration.
Flannel Jesus
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Re: Free will and morality

Post by Flannel Jesus »

Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 10:20 pm
Flannel Jesus wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 8:46 pm So once all of that has been said, I don't see why determinists must be acting in bad faith.
Simple: what they claim to believe is obviously not what they actually apply to life. That's "bad faith." That's hypocrisy. Classic.
You seem to accept that randomness doesn't give us anything of use, so if determinists simply don't believe in randomness then there's no way to "apply that to life" differently from indeterminists, since randomness doesn't give us anything...
Peter Holmes
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Re: Free will and morality

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bahman wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 3:51 pm
Peter Holmes wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 2:22 pm The issue of free will v determinism does have a bearing on moral responsibility - praise and blame for behaviour.
No, a person is not morally responsible when she/he makes a free decision. That is true since there is a conflict of interest when a free decision is required. Let's say that action A is wrong. Let's assume that you have a strong desire to perform A. On the other hand, you are a moral person so you don't want to perform A. There is a conflict of interest here. You need a free decision when options are equally liked in this example, options are to perform A or not to perform A. This type of situation when I call it a boundary happens all the time. You should not be blamed or praised if you perform A or not perform A.
I don't understand your 'boundary' analysis or model - why the existence of a conflict of interest has any bearing on the freedom or lack of it when making a choice. My stupid, no doubt. I'll keep at it.

I also think that the person should not be blamed when the desire is so strong that the person could not help it and perform A. This situation is on one side of the boundary. What is left, is when the desire is very weak and the person manages to not perform A. This situation is on another side of the boundary. Are you going to praise the person?
Maybe talk about praise and blame muddies the issue. I shouldn't have introduced it. And without it, your point here about responsibility is very stark. How do we deal with the person who acts on an overwhelming desire to kill another?
Peter Holmes wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 2:22 pm But I suggest morality - moral rightness and wrongness - is separate from the free will/determinism issue.
That is obviously true.
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bahman
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Re: Free will and morality

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Veritas Aequitas wrote: Wed Feb 08, 2023 3:48 am
bahman wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 12:25 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 7:32 am
The moment one is caught to make a decision on what is supposedly a "moral" issue, that is not morality-proper but rather a pseudo-morality or applied ethics.

Regardless of what decision is made and acted upon in such a judgment, there is no 'free-will' but rather one is conditioned by various constraints.
So you think that there is no free will.
You missed my point; There is conditional free will but there is no real absolutely absolute freedom and free will.

Point is, in the case of the moral agent, free will is always related [entangled] to the moral agent; thus, whatever the acts of the moral agent, it is always conditional and never free in the absolute sense.

Note I wrote above;
"That you are not thinking of killing any human at present [presumably you really are] indicate you have a certain degree of moral competence which is within a certain state of free-will."

In the above case, you are in a state of free will but only a conditional free will.
There are various conditions of free will.

For example,
if one is a prisoner in a prison, one is free to do whatever is capable of doing within his prison cell or prison compounds, but overall the prisoner is not free to be outside the prison walls.

When you deliberate the subject of morality and free-will you need to take the above into consideration.
I am not talking about the freedom of will where you are able to do whatever you like. I think we are constrained yet even in such a condition we sometimes have options.
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bahman
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Re: Free will and morality

Post by bahman »

Peter Holmes wrote: Wed Feb 08, 2023 10:02 am
bahman wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 3:51 pm
Peter Holmes wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 2:22 pm The issue of free will v determinism does have a bearing on moral responsibility - praise and blame for behaviour.
No, a person is not morally responsible when she/he makes a free decision. That is true since there is a conflict of interest when a free decision is required. Let's say that action A is wrong. Let's assume that you have a strong desire to perform A. On the other hand, you are a moral person so you don't want to perform A. There is a conflict of interest here. You need a free decision when options are equally liked in this example, options are to perform A or not to perform A. This type of situation when I call it a boundary happens all the time. You should not be blamed or praised if you perform A or not perform A.
I don't understand your 'boundary' analysis or model - why the existence of a conflict of interest has any bearing on the freedom or lack of it when making a choice. My stupid, no doubt. I'll keep at it.
Think of a situation with two options, A and B. This means that the person has a tendency toward A and B. Let's say that the tendency of the person toward A and B are TA and TB respectively (TA, for example, is the tendency toward vanilla ice cream, and TB, for example, is the tendency toward chocolate ice cream). Three scenarios are available: (1) TA>TB, (2) TA=TB, and (3) TA<TB (in the first case you have more tendency toward vanilla ice cream than chocolate ice cream, etc). TA=TB is the boundary in which it separates two other scenarios from each other, namely (1) and (3). What I am saying is that you need a free decision for the second scenario when TA=TB. You can decide to choose TA in the first scenario and Tb in the second scenario without any problem. I hope that is clear now.
Peter Holmes wrote: Wed Feb 08, 2023 10:02 am
I also think that the person should not be blamed when the desire is so strong that the person could not help it and perform A. This situation is on one side of the boundary. What is left, is when the desire is very weak and the person manages to not perform A. This situation is on another side of the boundary. Are you going to praise the person?
Maybe talk about praise and blame muddies the issue. I shouldn't have introduced it. And without it, your point here about responsibility is very stark. How do we deal with the person who acts on an overwhelming desire to kill another?
If the person is a psychopath then it is wise to take him/her to the mental hospital. Otherwise, try to see what is the problem and try to find a solution for it.
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