Free will is wholly deterministic

[Walker]

But in a just system, the ability of the accused to have chosen to do otherwise is a requirement of culpability.

To be accused does not imply guilt. To assume that the accused could have done otherwise is to put the burden of proof upon the accused, and not the prosecution. Innocence then becomes the thing to prove, and not guilt.

That's exactly backwards. Are you a closet Leftist?

[Sculptor]

Are you free to act when a thief puts a gun on your head and asks you to open your safe?

Duh no. Obviously

I think I am.

Yeah if you want to die.
But wanting to die is determined before you saw the robber.

[Immanuel Can]

No, it is not inhumane to appropriately assign responsibility to those who perform an action.

The insane, young children, and the oblivious are not capable of being criminally responsible, and the law agrees with me about that. I have no idea how you imagine somebody who cannot form the intention of criminality can be "responsible" for something they didn't even understand.

Either way, it seems a distractor from the main business here. Let's get back to the OP.

[Immanuel Can]

Conscience compels action for those who do as conscience dictates.

"Compel" is the wrong word. "Motivates"? Perhaps. But what's clear is that people do not have to do what their consciences tell them to do.

Those who do need to do what their consciences tell them...

Name one. Name one person who's so bound by his or her conscience that he or she is literally incapable of resisting it.

Obeying conscience isn't a "need," a necessity; it's an option. And everybody takes liberties with that option. So it's no example of Determinism. It's very likey a clear case of free will.

[Immanuel Can]

But in a just system, the ability of the accused to have chosen to do otherwise is a requirement of culpability.

To be accused does not imply guilt.

You've got the point backward. I'm not saying the accusation implies guilt. i'm saying that absent the ability to choose, nobody can be justly accused of being guilty of anything.

[henry quirk]

Well, if the story is true, that was a special case. And if it's not true...

No. The need to betray is the cause of every betrayal, and the causes of the need to betray vary by individual and circumstance.

Why did Judas betray Jesus?

I reckon it was sumthin' other than a need.

[Skepdick]

No, it is not inhumane to appropriately assign responsibility to those who perform an action.

I have no idea how you imagine somebody who cannot form the intention of criminality can be "responsible" for something they didn't even understand.

This trope is so tired...

If determinism the criminal had no choice in performing the act (and so shouldn't be held responsible for his actions).
If determinism is true the police officer had no choice in performing his duties (and so shouldn't be held responsible for arresting the person).
If determinism is true the judge had no choice in performing his duties (and so shouldn't be held responsible for convicting the person).

You get life in prison for stealing candy. Nature made who you are? Nature made the judge be unfair.

[Iwannaplato]

Volition. Will. I can choose to obey my conscience, or I can choose to disobey it.

And what leads you to choose what you choose in relation to conscience?

[Age]

Look AT 'these people' here, FIGHTING and ARGUING OVER which "side" IS RIGHT, while NEVER ONCE STOPPING to even just CONSIDER that JUST MAYBE 'free will' AND 'determinism' BOTH EXIST, and MAYBE even EQUALLY.

[Iwannaplato]

You talk of these -- goals, desires, values -- as though they were items I acquire, that are some how apart from me.

I'll admit that language is tricky here. I don't believe those things, which are of different categories are not part of you. I think they are part of who you are.

I value, I desire, I goal-set. These are things I do.

right and you've had these values before that moment of choosing.

And, yes, history and circumstance inform my choices, but they do not determine my choices (my choosing).

What does? If it is not what you want and value, what else is there?

I am not obligated by biology, psychology, or the laws of physics to fear dogs becuz I was bitten by one. The event informed me, it didn't, necessarily, infirm me. I choose where I stand when it comes to dogs. Not the unfortunate event.

That's not a direct response to what I wrote. I didn't write about obligations to have a certain reaction to a traumatic event.

A determinist does not have to believe...

A necessitarian, if necessitarianism is true, doesn't actually believe anything anymore than the free will, if neccessitarianism is true, is actually free.

if necessitarianism is true, we're all utterly mired in causal chains. Our thoughts, which seem original to us, couldn't be anything other than what they are. Our choices aren't choices at all. They're events issuing forth from events.

And you are not responding to my point about what a determinist needs or does not need to believe.

[Immanuel Can]

Volition. Will. I can choose to obey my conscience, or I can choose to disobey it.

And what leads you to choose what you choose in relation to conscience?

Well, you have to be careful with the phrase "leads you to." It can sound one of two ways: Deterministic, or not.

If, by "leads you to," you mean something Deterministic, like "what combination of forces makes you end up with one outcome and not another," then your question assumes its own desired answer, and so isn't a fair question.

If, by "leads you to," you mean something like "what factors might you consider in forming a final decision," then you've not presumed Determinism and left open an answer incorporating will, so the question would be apt.

But either way, the meaning of the question predetermines the range of answers you're able to expect. So which one did you mean?

[promethean75]

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.p ... e#p2916285

The entire last page of this ongoing debate is a demonstration of the trouble the metaphysical concept 'will' creates in the freewill debate. It stifles a clear recognition and understanding of what causality is or invents altogether another different kind of causality through which immaterial things and/or processes interact.

Peacegirl is still right, Magnus has just recently killed it, what HumAnize means isn't clear to me and lorikeet seems (to me) still unable to understand what is meant by determinists when they say there is no freewill.

Try this real simple way to think about how the word 'will' is being intended and used and what it can and can't mean when used this way.

If your position is that all that exists is either a material thing or process of interaction between material things ('events'), and that if there were such a thing as causality, it would govern only and all those material things and processes, then when u use the word 'will' to describe the behavior of a human and not of a rock, u are slipping another kind of material not like the material of the things and processes that are subject to causality, into the equation. And u may not realize u are doing this (if you're someone who is doing this).

It means nothing to say that man is 'aware', that he can 'plan', that he feels like he could have chosen mint chocolate instead, that he 'organizes' his actions, that he can predict with great accuracy what might happen and choose what to do accordingly, that when he thinks the words 'imma stand up', he can suddenly stand up.

None of this is an argument against determinism, fundamentally. A fundamental argument against determinism would have to involve a complete abandonment of materialism and its truths for some variation of Cartesian substance dualism.

That is to say nothing about a human being or what it does would exclude itself from causation unless it was called an act of 'will'. And yet a rock can in some instances act very much like u, but you'd not give it a 'will'.

And finally even if there were a cartesian ghost in your machine with freewill, it'd not be free to interact other than it did with your machine, not be free to be other that it was, etc. Harris, Sam was one to point this fact out as well.

[Iwannaplato]

Volition. Will. I can choose to obey my conscience, or I can choose to disobey it.

And what leads you to choose what you choose in relation to conscience?

Well, you have to be careful with the phrase "leads you to." It can sound one of two ways: Deterministic, or not.

If, by "leads you to," you mean something Deterministic, like "what combination of forces makes you end up with one outcome and not another," then your question assumes its own desired answer, and so isn't a fair question.

If, by "leads you to," you mean something like "what factors might you consider in forming a final decision," then you've not presumed Determinism and left open an answer incorporating will, so the question would be apt.

But either way, the meaning of the question predetermines the range of answers you're able to expect. So which one did you mean?

Just formulate it your way. A lot weighs on this choice, obviously, perhaps even more so for a Christian. Or better put a Christian knows that a lot weighs on this choice...eternal effects. Tell me about your answer that incorporates will. What separates you out from the person who generally ignores his conscience. One might mention motivations, but use whatever words you would use.

[Immanuel Can]

And what leads you to choose what you choose in relation to conscience?

Well, you have to be careful with the phrase "leads you to." It can sound one of two ways: Deterministic, or not.

If, by "leads you to," you mean something Deterministic, like "what combination of forces makes you end up with one outcome and not another," then your question assumes its own desired answer, and so isn't a fair question.

If, by "leads you to," you mean something like "what factors might you consider in forming a final decision," then you've not presumed Determinism and left open an answer incorporating will, so the question would be apt.

But either way, the meaning of the question predetermines the range of answers you're able to expect. So which one did you mean?

Just formulate it your way. A lot weighs on this choice, obviously, perhaps even more so for a Christian. Or better put a Christian knows that a lot weighs on this choice...eternal effects. Tell me about your answer that incorporates will. What separates you out from the person who generally ignores his conscience. One might mention motivations, but use whatever words you would use.

I think I already have formulated it, in earlier messages: I've said that "antecedent conditions" establish the range of options a given person has; and some may even encourage certain predilections and preferences, as (for example) upbringing has something to do with the inclinations or morals one has in place when a decision is made. But ultimately, the individual person has the decision of how he reacts to these "antecedent conditions," and whether he goes along with things like "conscience." And as such, he's a responsible agent, capable of answering for his choices.

John Locke comes at the same question from the opposite end. He reasons it this way: God calls all men to give account. You can't give account for a decision you didn't make. So it follows that God has endowed mankind with not merely existence, but with free will and options as well.

Coming from either end, those are the right explanations, I would say.

[Iwannaplato]

I think I already have formulated it, in earlier messages: I've said that "antecedent conditions" establish the range of options a given person has; and some may even encourage certain predilections and preferences, as (for example) upbringing has something to do with the inclinations or morals one has in place when a decision is made. But ultimately, the individual person has the decision of how he reacts to these "antecedent conditions," and whether he goes along with things like "conscience." And as such, he's a responsible agent, capable of answering for his choices.

You're paraphrasing the idea that you are free to choose. What leads to your choosing. I mean, in your own experience. You could listen to your conscience or you could, I don't know, yell at your wife and demean her. You make a choice. How?

A determinist would argue that you make that choice based on values and emotions and desires. You love this person. You have been told to honor this person. You think it is good to not demean someone, especially a loved one. You want to reciprocate her kindness towards you. And so on and so on.

Are you saying something other than your values, desires, sense of the good, fear perhaps of her reactions and so on is causal and you call this will? I don't know what that word means.

Do you make this choice to be kind against your desires, wants, values, goals?

You mentioned will?

Animals can have strong wills and weak wills. But it can't be that, then, I assume.

So what is this will that is free and it is free also from making desisions caused by your desires, values, wants, and goals?

From my perspective I have motivations based on desires, values, goals, wants. Free will seems to entail that I can go against these causes, ignore them.

But why in Heaven's name would I want to go against what I want, desire, value and have as goals?

If you say, well sometimes desires aren't kind, say. Well sure, but I also have desires to get along with people. I have values of kindness. I value intimacy. I value social connections. I have all sorts of motivations to not be a cruel guy.

Free will seems to be offering me the option of ignoring what I value.

What's the use of that?