'To say that you could have done otherwise, is simply to say that the universe could have been different at that exact point in time' — PeterPants

This claim seems to rest on a misconception regarding the way human beings, qua responsible agents, relate to "the universe". The universe simply is everything there is, including you. You are a flesh and blood animal; you are not a disembodied Cartesian ego: the mere passive spectator of epiphenomena being generated by your brain. So, of course, if you had done something else than you actually did, then the universe would have been different. That doesn't mean the "rest" of the universe would have made you do it or that you didn't have the opportunity and freedom to do it in the actual case where you didn't.

i fully understand that, and actually thought i had basically said it..
My point was that this rules out the notion that at a specific instance in time, any given person could do one thing OR another. Its simply not true, in a given situation (the situation includes your brain state etc) you can and will do one thing.

As far as i can see, to think otherwise is to presume the existence of magic.

According to it, there is no source of action that is not an "external coercion" or "external impediment"; whether it is "felt" or not is really a matter of indifference. — John

Yes, I think most compatibilists, because of the metaphysical picture that comes bundled up with the uncritically accepted doctrine of universal determinism, generally have a hard time distinguishing what it is in the aetiology of human action that constitutes external constraint to our freedom from what it is that is a constitutive part of (internal to) our power of free agency. It is just very hard for them to see how it is that free agency comes to be constituted, what its biological and social/cultural "determinants" (or enabling conditions) really are.

determinism is not an assumption, its all there is evidence for, to assume there is anything outside of determinism is the magical doctrinal assumption.

I say that all thoughts feelings and 'decisions' are deterministic just like everything else we see, you seem to assume that there is something else, based on... what exactly?

i fully understand that, and actually thought i had basically said it..
My point was that this rules out the notion that at a specific instance in time, any given person could do one thing OR another. Its simply not true, in a given situation (the situation includes your brain state etc) you can and will do one thing. — PeterPants

This is precisely what I think is a bit nonsensical. You yourself are not part of the practical situation where you are called to act. That would only make sense if you would picture yourself floating like a ghost alongside yourself at the time of acting and trying to figure out how to pull the strings that animate your own body. What rather constitutes your practical situation, at the time when you must make a responsible decision, are the opportunities open to you, the set of your practical abilities, and the rational considerations that may tell, by your own lights, what it is that it would make sense for you to do.

determinism is not an assumption, its all there is evidence for, to assume there is anything outside of determinism is the magical doctrinal assumption. — PeterPants

There are both deterministic and indeterministic systems in the world. From a quantum mechanical perspective, most physical systems are indeterministic although for some practical purposes the indeterminism can be abstracted away (e.g. as is the case for many macroscopic, non-chaotic systems). Maybe more importantly, for purpose of understanding the behavior of rational agents and other animals, the principles that govern them need not reduce to or be explained by the deterministic laws that govern their material constituents. It's usually more a matter of form and function: how those parts normally function together.

you are considering a different picture to the one im talking about.. i agree entirely with what you said.

what IM saying, is that if you go to any MOMENT, a single moment, not a period of time, a single instant in time, and everything in the whole universe is a particular way, every atom, every quantum state, all of it (obviosly including your body and brain) then the thing that happens next is determined by the current setup, and we as agents have NO INFLUENCE over that whatsoever. and that is precicely what most people believe free will is, the capacity to overcome determanism, to break it, to do something outside of what is determined by the universe.
If you dont support that notion of free will, then we have no argument.

But quantum states are quite irrelevant, and they don't allow for the free will people claim exists. to claim that something on the scale of a human brain acts in an in-deterministic way is absurd and baseless.

what IM saying, is that if you go to any MOMENT, a single moment, not a period of time, a single instant in time, and everything in the whole universe is a particular way, every atom, every quantum state, all of it (obviosly including your body and brain) then the thing that happens next is determined by the current setup, and we as agents have NO INFLUENCE over that whatsoever. and that is precicely what most people believe free will is, the capacity to overcome determanism, to break it, to do something outside of what is determined by the universe. — PeterPants

I am unsure if this is really what "most people" believe free will is. Sam Harris for sure seems to believe that this is the conception of free will that must be refuted. He seems to hold to this naive conception very dearly because that saves him the trouble of refuting (or of learning anything about) less philosophically naive conceptions of our ordinary concepts of agency freedom and moral or rational responsibility.

quantum systems are not deterministic, they simply have variables that seem to be determined by randomness. :P

but none of that is here nor their, to claim that something on the scale of a human brain acts in an indeterministic way is absurd and baseless. — PeterPants

You ignored the second part of my comment. Even if human brains can be construed as deterministic systems, that doesn't mean that their functions, let alone the functions of the distributed systems that they are integral parts of (including human bodies, their environments and their cultures) are governed by principles that are reducible to the laws that deterministically govern the behaviors of neurons.

of course, but why would you assume thats the case, i see no evidence of this ability and thus see no reason to come up with explanations for it...
You seem to assume the ability is their, and then you consider that maybe our brains break determinism to make it happen. seems pointless to me.

on your Sam Harris comments, i disagree, i dont think he is as ignorant of the more nuanced views as you think, i think he is arguing (as i am) against the only concept of free will worth arguing over, i see no reason to argue against more nuanced philosophical views of free will.
If you dont support this idea of free will, then whats the problem? so basically i dont understand this criticism you gave. Also, wasn't it basically just an argument from authority? you gave no real argument.

of course, but why would you assume thats the case, i see no evidence of this ability and thus see no reason to come up with explanations for it... — PeterPants

What ability don't you see any evidence of? The ability to make justified rational decisions or enlightened moral choices?

on your Sam Harris comments, i disagree, i dont think he is as ignorant of the more nuanced views as you think, i think he is arguing (as i am) against the only concept of free will worth arguing over, i see no reason to argue against more nuanced philosophical views of free will.
If you dont support this idea of free will, then whats the problem? so basically i dont understand this criticism you gave.

But the conception of free will you are arguing against just is sophomoric and ridiculous. No philosopher who I know endorses it. (And I've read papers by well over one hundred philosophers who have published on the topic). Maybe "ordinary people" who are being probed into coming up with explanations regarding the source of their abilities to act responsibly in a universe that is allegedly governed by impersonal forces come up with funny explanations. But just because the explanations aren't very good, or are overly simplistic, doesn't entail that what is explained doesn't exist!

"What ability don't you see any evidence of? The ability to make justified rational decisions or enlightened moral choices?"

No... straw man alert straw man alert! :P
no no, its just the choices bit, of course our actions are influenced by morality and rationality, just like a computers actions are influenced by energy states, logic circuitry etc. its a wonderful and beautiful phenomena.

'But the conception of free will you are arguing against just is sophomoric and ridiculous"

great then you agree with me, so why are you arguing against me?
wait... but you DID defend that sophomoric and ridiculous conception just before.. didnt you?
You implied that we could do multiple different things, based on our decisions entirely abstracted from determined reality... didnt you?

"Maybe "ordinary people" who are being probed into coming up with explanations regarding the source of their abilities to act responsibly in a universe that is allegedly governed by impersonal forces come up with funny explanations. But just because the explanations aren't very good, or are overly simplistic, doesn't entail that what is explained doesn't exist!"

im confused here... the ability for a person to act responsibly obviously comes from our genes and our culture... right?

Whats this got to do with free will/determinism?

No... straw man alert straw man alert! :P
no no, its just the choices bit, of course our actions are influenced by morality and rationality, just like a computers actions are influenced by energy states, logic circuitry etc. its a wonderful and beautiful phenomena. — PeterPants

Those are two rather different sorts of influences. The deterministic computer isn't responsible for the inputs that are provided to it and those inputs determine the outputs. Hence, we don't hold the computer responsible for having had any choice in churning out those outputs, given the inputs that it didn't have any choice being provided with.

The case where humans are being influenced by principles of rationality or morality is quite different. The principles of rationality are not part of the initial state of the universe or the laws of physics. Both the laws, or the initial state, could have been different and this might not have had any relevant impact on what the principles of rationality are. They would remain the same. If you are asked to evaluate whether modus ponens is a valid rule of inference, for instance (or whether its application to some specific bit of practical reasoning is relevant) then it is absolutely no use to inquire about the initial state of the universe or the laws of physics. It is also quite irrelevant to inquire about the causal impacts of the "inputs" to your brain. The principles of rationality aren't inputs to people's brains. This is not where to look for in order to understand why people make the choices that they make, in the case where they are acting rationally or morally.

In the specific case of morality, looking for its source in our evolutionary past, for instance, leads one straight to the commission of the naturalistic fallacy. What makes something worthy of being valued can not be reduced to any sort of causal explanation as to why you actually came to value it.

of course they are very different sorts of influence, i dont see how that matters.

what if we make a computer that changes its own program, put it in a robot and it ends up killing people, it it then personally responsible for its actions? was it not an unfortunate series of events originating in a lack of foresight on whoever originally made the robot?

i dont see how any of this leads you to human minds having the ability to break free of determinism.. my argument is very simple, it is as follows.

there is no evidence whatsoever that human minds have any ability to make decisions outside of deterministic behavior, just like a complex computer.

Thats it, thats all im arguing. do you have such evidence? because most people seem to simply assume we have such a magical ability, presumably based on the way 'choices feel'.


morality and whatnot is a rabbit hole we should probably not go down here. but suffice to say, i think its perfectly rational and requires no supernatural shenanigans, morality seems to simply be a desire to improve everyone well being. (yes i 100% follow Sam Harris' thinking in this area)

great then you agree with me, so why are you arguing against me?
wait... but you DID defend that sophomoric and ridiculous conception just before.. didnt you?
You implied that we could do multiple different things, based on our decisions entirely abstracted from determined reality... didnt you? — PeterPants

You misunderstand. I argued the exact opposite: that you ought not to construe the free human agent as an entity that can control the unfolding of the universe from some ethereal standpoint outside of it (and from outside of her own body and brain). It is from within the universe, as an integral part of it, that the embodied human agent exerts control over her own future. And you have not shown how the deterministic laws that govern physical systems (while abstracting away most of their significant functional features) preclude human beings from having such abilities to freely and responsibly determine their own futures.

"And you have not shown how the deterministic laws that govern physical systems (while abstracting away most of their significant functional features) preclude human beings from having such abilities to freely and responsibly determine their own futures."

Im not argue that they do.. nor am i arguing that humans don't have that ability.

im arguing that 'humans' are just yet another physical entity, that we are no different from machines, except in complexity. a computer can determine its own future too. the computers electronics fail, and it dies, its insufficiently constructed hardware determined its future. ie, part of the computer, determined the rest of the computers future.

so what? wheres the free will come into any of this?

what if we make a computer that changes its own program, put it in a robot and it ends up killing people, it it then personally responsible for its actions? was it not an unfortunate series of events originating in a lack of foresight on whoever originally made the robot? — PeterPants

Daniel Dennett says that we are "wet robots". He may be called a mechanicist-compatibilist since he endorses a view of the universe (and all the living things in it) being a set of complicated mechanisms. I don't personally endorse this metaphysical picture, but I think he has a point. The neural circuits inside of our brains (and inside of an intelligent robot's computer) could perfectly well run deterministic algorithms and this fact alone would not have any incidence on our freedom and responsibility. If a robot would become a killer robot then maybe its creators would share some of the blame. That would not necessarily absolve the robot. Likewise, if you hire a hit man to kill someone, then you are responsible for the murder just as much as the hit man is. Responsibility isn't a buck that must stop in just one single place. It is more a matter of social, moral and political decision to decide how responsibilities for rational actions must spread out among multiple agents (where some of the agents -- parents for instances -- hold some responsibility for raising or supervising other agents on their way to the acquisition of greater rational and moral autonomy).

People's being responsible for what they do therefore isn't independent of the way they are being held responsible according to (sometimes freely endorsed) social norms. But just because those two things are being created together doesn't mean that responsibility isn't real. It just means that it only exists withing a determinate social context. (And, analogously, it can also hold withing the practical perspective of a single rational agent -- on a desert island, say -- who choses to lead a rationally integrated life and to hold herself responsible for her own past shortcomings).

i fully support Dennit's view, except that i disagree with his silly notion of holding onto the term 'free will'.
he believes society would break down without the delusion, so he hides the truth. he has openly admitted to this. he believes some things are better not known.
he pretends (knowingly) that free will is 'degrees of freedom'. while in reality, no one means that when they use the term.
I disagree with the conclusions he draws from a lack of free will, he thinks they are bad, i dont.


I agree with everything else you said about responsibility, i hope you didnt think i didnt. it all seems quite obvious to me, but thank you for making it clear anyway.

my argument is more about blame, the only place i see a lack of free will having an effect on how we think, is in blame.
i dont blame anymore, i recognize that peoples flaws have reasons, reasons beyond their control. 'bad' people are sick people, they need help not hatred.

my argument is more about blame, the only place i see a lack of free will having an effect on how we think, is in blame.
i dont blame anymore, i recognize that peoples flaws have reasons, reasons beyond their control. 'bad' people are sick people, they need help not hatred. — PeterPants

To praise and blame people just is to hold them responsible. When you are holding someone responsible for having acted badly, because in this instance her having acted badly wasn't purely accidental but rather reflects badly on her character, then you are blaming her. If the blame is merited, then it ought to be met by that person with some sense of shame or regret. Feeling ashamed or regretful just is for one to recognize that the blame is merited, and being on that account motivated in making amends and trying to do better in the future. The social configuration of those emotions and "reactive attitudes" (as Peter Strawson calls them) not only enable people to make progress on the path towards greater rational and moral autonomy, it is also in part constitutive of those rational and social abilities. She can't be rational who doesn't hold herself responsible (i.e. isn't happy or unhappy about herself) for her successes or mistakes in reasoning. She can't either display moral awareness who wouldn't feel any shame for her own misdeeds.

Rewards and punishments likewise can be social practices that scaffold autonomous abilities and partially constitute them. Parking tickets punish people who park illegally while respecting their autonomous choices to do so in some circumstances. (Sam Harris would probably see this as a second best solution to some form of brainwashing or brain surgery that would entirely remove people's abilities to park illegally in any circumstance.) And, of course, rewards and punishments are effective with dogs who can't be reasoned with, or with children who can't reason yet. But in the latter case, they also instill in them the more mature reactive attitudes that lead them on the path towards greater rational and moral autonomy.

I actually disagree here, to hold someone responsible is not to blame, i distinguish between the two.
we can of course, ignore the words and stick to the ideas. so please feel free to substitute better words in :P.

if someone harms me, i hold them responsible, i expect them to apologize if they are a moral agent, i ask for them to make amends, all for pragmatic reasons, but i dont blame them, i blame their environment, their imperfect genes, the whole multitude of variables that led them to their current situation.

there is a practical (and thus logical) place for personal responsibility, there is no such place for blame.

please note, im using the word blame here to include a negative emotional response, thats how i distinguish it from responsibility.

perhaps a better way to say this, is that i hold people responsible for their actions, but i recognize they are not ultimately responsible for who/what they are, and thus i feel towards them the same as i would any human. (or at least i try).

"(Sam Harris would probably see this as a second best solution to some form of brainwashing or brain surgery that would entirely remove people's abilities to park illegally in any circumstance.)"

He wouldn't put it that way, he would likely point out (not to put words in his mouth :S) that what you call 'brainwashing' we call society. is treating theft like its a bad thing 'brainwashing' the next generation?
but, why are we talking so much about morality? i dont see how its remotely related..

so yes, i agree that bad behavior usually is and should be met with shame, i would say this is due to cultural conditioning and innate human altruism as given by evolution.

if the world was populated by beings, it is indeed objectively better if those beings have a sense of personal responsibility. But what does this have to do with free will?

if someone harms me, i hold them responsible, i expect them to apologize if they are a moral agent, i ask for them to make amends, all for pragmatic reasons, but i dont blame them, i blame their environment, their imperfect genes, the whole multitude of variables that led them to their current situation. — PeterPants

This is strange, and I doubt if you can really live up to this lofty (however misguided) ideal. Your pragmatism seems to be grounded on an utilitarian reconstruction of the pont of ordinary reactive attitudes. But you are claiming (as Harris does) some sort of detached, emotionally withdrawn, purely theoretical stance on your own daily social intercourses, rather on the likeness of Star Trek's Mr Spock.

It seems to me that Sam Harris often fails to distinguish practical from theoretical reason and thereby seeks to substitute to our practical understanding of our interactions with our fellow human beings a theoretical understanding of the causes of our behaviors. He wants us to treat each other like we were dogs. Hence, his utilitarianism, combined with this theoretical-instrumentalist stance, yields an understanding of the point of morality rather similar to what is depicted (critically) in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and (uncritically) in B. F. Skinner's Walden Two. (A Clockwork Orange also comes to mind)

its really quite simple... on an intellectual level i dont blame them, i hold no ill will against them, my actions rarely betray this stance.
But obviously im not a robot, i still react emotionally all the time. and sometimes i react emotionally against people who could not have done otherwise, its a difficult instinct to get over.

I dont see any contradiction here, do you?

reason is reason, there is no theoretical/practical reasoning, what are you talking about?

"He wants us to treat each other like we were dogs"
what? no..
wait.. are you like some theist who believes we have souls are are not animals and need to be treated with special human dignity and all that stuff? if so then we have likely hit an impasse. if not then im very confused about where the heck this came from.

i fully stand with Sams view of Morality, and im yet to hear a remotely relevant criticism against it. I have however, heard a LOT of criticism of straw man versions of it..

"t seems to me to be generally the case that Sam Harris often fails to distinguish practical from theoretical reason and thereby seeks to substitute to our practical understanding of our interactions with our fellow human beings a theoretical understanding of the causes of our behaviors. He wants us to treat each other like we were dogs"

so, im really confused about this practical / theoretical understanding thing. Id appreciate if you could explain further.
The way i see it (this should help you set me straight) is that we all create models of other peoples behaviors in our minds (theoretical models) these models are based on our real world experiences of people (derived practically)...
I dont see the difference, practical reasoning seems to just be intuition? surely not... you surely are not appealing to intuition over reasoning.

reason is reason, there is no theoretical/practical reasoning, what are you talking about? — PeterPants

Deciding what to believe isn't the same as deciding what to do. Of course, both of those abilities rest on rational abilities, broadly construed, but they are still distinctive ways of making use of them.

i still cant see the difference, they both seem to just be reason.. can you give an example of 'practical reasoning' as opposed to 'theoretical reasoning'?

and i don't think anyone decides what to believe, belief just happens. things are as convincing as they are to us, we cant just decide to believe something that is not convincing to us.
i mean... maaaaaybe its possible i guess, but its certainly not the norm.

so, im really confused about this practical / theoretical understanding thing. Id appreciate if you could explain further.
The way i see it (this should help you set me straight) is that we all create models of other peoples behaviors in our minds (theoretical models) these models are based on our real world experiences of people (derived practically)...
I dont see the difference, practical reasoning seems to just be intuition? surely not... you surely are not appealing to intuition over reasoning. — PeterPants

Even if you could somehow acquire a perfect "model" of a fellow human being and thereby know exactly how different "interventions" on them would "produce" different behaviors and emotional responses, you would still not know what to do since this theoretical knowledge would not speak to the reasons why you should intervene in a way that produces such results. The aim of practical reason is to decide what to do and this is governed just as much by the evaluation of the desirability of the ends as it is with the effectiveness of the means (or their permissiveness). Theoretical reason is completely silent regarding both permissiveness (duties, commitments, responsibilities, etc.) and the valuation of ends.

i STILL dont see the difference...

obviously no one has a perfect model of another human being, we certainly dont have that capacity yet.
so what? i dont see your point.

Sam is making a model just like anyone else, your not even interacting with it, your saying its bad somehow because its 'theoretical'... its based on his experiences with people just like any other model is...

ie, people dont like being punched, my goal is to safekeep others wellbeing, therefore i shouldn't punch people. this is a model, its practical, and its theoretical. its not hard science, its a hypothesis of sorts... your drawing a strong distinction without any difference in my eyes.