Indeed, and 'complicated' is certainly right, but is it that you think such a notion of free-choice need be abandoned for that reason? Or are you more in favour of rolling up one's sleeves and getting stuck in nonetheless? — Isaac

It depends on what one expects the result of such an inquiry to look like. Moral philosophers traditionally tend to look for simple, universal principles in a theory, modeling it, more-or-less, on fundamental physics. I am skeptical that such simple, exceptionless organizing principles could underlie most humanistic notions, such as responsibility or freedom, so to me the more obvious approach would be more in the line of stamp collecting than grand theorizing. This approach is characteristic of the relatively new field of experimental philosophy ("x-phi"), which uses the methods of sociology and experimental psychology to study "free will" and such as aspects of human attitudes and behavior, and then offers modest generalizations that do not go too far beyond the available evidence.

I'm sometimes required to help plead for judicial leniency on the grounds of a person's upbringing or environment. The basis for such action is that somewhere in this muddle we (those involved at the time) can agree that such influences were outside of the person's preferred choices. — Isaac

Oh, interesting. Yes, that's just the sort of example that I had in mind (and how such attitudes can vary, change, be contested, etc.)

In retrospect, I think you are right that determinism is neither here nor there in the issue of moral responsibility and free will. — Olivier5

It is relevant to the extent that the starting point for Strawson's thesis is the old debate on the compatibility of personal responsibility/free will with determinism. But he argues that indeterminism is no better than determinism in this respect. He is looking for "ultimate" responsibility in a reductive sense; with this framing a person can never be "ultimately" responsible, because the buck will always pass to something else (because he already prejudged that it should!) - whether it is a prior state of the universe + deterministic dynamics or chance events.


Responding in the thread while claiming not to be involved is a performative contradiction :razz: You have no obligation to respond just because you are mentioned, but there's no need to be rude.

But he argues that indeterminism is no better than determinism in this respect — SophistiCat

Yes, and that is the key take away message for me: whether one adopts a determinist or an indeterminist outlook doesn't change the problem of freedom that much.

Edit: That's because the question of whether somebody could (theoretically speaking) have acted differently now seems esoteric to me, and secondary to a better question, more pragmatic and real, which is whether somebody should (morally speaking) have acted differently. And if you ask the question this way, it is meaningful even in a fully determinist outlook.

You have no obligation to respond just because you are mentioned, but there's no need to be rude. — SophistiCat

Is this a wind-up? I have never had so many notifications on a thread I have no interest in. And please don't give me lessons on manners. I answered one question directed specifically at me and you accused me of hijacking the thread. Manners are not your strong suit either. Stop @ing me. It's just weird apart from anything.

if something can be said to not be caused by the self, the agency is lacking for attributing responsibility... — ChatteringMonkey

Yeah, that's basically it.

But this all seems build on very shaky grounds, because there is no objective measure for selfhood as you said... but more than that, identity is also ever changing and not entirely disconnected from how the world will react to certain presentations of self. — ChatteringMonkey

True, but it's not as if equally difficult to judge aspects of psychology are not also (necessarily) addressed in court - things like intent, state of knowledge, genuineness of religious belief, capacity to make decisions... Some crimes are only possible to even commit in a given state of mind. So assessing the origin of constraints on choice as self/non-self is just run-of-the-mill practice. It may be shaky, but we're going to do it anyway (we can't not) so we either do it with some attempt at scientific-style objectivity, or we just make it up.

I am skeptical that such simple, exceptionless organizing principles could underlie most humanistic notions, such as responsibility or freedom, so to me the more obvious approach would be more in the line of stamp collecting than grand theorizing — SophistiCat

Absolutely. I can't think why anyone (except perhaps the religious) would expect a process like evolution combined with a chaotic-dynamic process like societal interactions to result in a set of mental processes which could be described in any universally generalisable way at all.

This approach is characteristic of the relatively new field of experimental philosophy ("x-phi") — SophistiCat

I've not heard of this, do you have any names or reading to suggest?

Oh, interesting. Yes, that's just the sort of example that I had in mind (and how such attitudes can vary, change, be contested, etc.) — SophistiCat

Yeah, the thing about court is that the right and wrong of the action has already been set (the law), so the only leeway allowed is the extent to which constraints on free-choice were external or not. Really, really liking strawberry ice-cream places a constraint on free-choice when at the ice-cream parlour (one is more inclined to choose strawberry) but it's not a defence, nor a reasonable plea for leniency in the case of stealing some strawberry ice-cream. Being forced at gun-point is. So the only issue here for psychology is the extent to which certain constraints from inside one's brain can still be seen as external to one's self such that they count more in the gun-to-the-head category and less in the really-like-strawberry-ice-cream category. That's why I get so cross when people want to take that argument away on the purely ideological grounds that they feel more comfortable about the idea of free-will. It's fine on a random internet forum, but in the real world such nonsense actually threatens years of progress dealing with the mentally ill and socially deprived defendants.

That's why I get so cross when people want to take that argument away on the purely ideological grounds that they feel more comfortable about the idea of free-will. It's fine on a random internet forum, but in the real world such nonsense actually threatens years of progress dealing with the mentally ill and socially deprived defendants. — Isaac

Maybe you get cross just because your braincells determine you to be cross... I'm trying to be really charitable here, Isaac style, by thinking of you as a puppet rather than as an agent.

So assessing the origin of constraints on choice as self/non-self is just run-of-the-mill practice. It may be shaky, but we're going to do it anyway (we can't not) so we either do it with some attempt at scientific-style objectivity, or we just make it up. — Isaac

Maybe this question is born out of ignorance, but what is the attempt at scientific-style objectivity here?

I wonder if "we can't not" because we have some kind of a priori moral intuition that this is the right way to judge these matters... or if this moral intuition comes from our notions of identity and agency. If it's the former, maybe there is some merit to just calling it what it is, a moral intuition, and not to try to fabricate some theoretical post hoc justification.

To me the distinction of self/non-self seems problematic as a basis for attributing responsibility because identity is such a fluid concept. Maybe it works in this case, but it seems like we would run into trouble quite quickly if we were to try to apply it consistently across the board... I could be wrong.

what is the attempt at scientific-style objectivity here? — ChatteringMonkey

I just mean a move away from individual conclusions on the matter, supported by nothing but convention, toward investigation, testing, increased rigour, etc. I say science-style because I don't think most of psychology can quite call itself a science yet.

I wonder if "we can't not" because we have some kind of a priori moral intuition that this is the right way to judge these matters... or if this moral intuition comes from our notions of identity and agency. If it's the former, maybe there is some merit to just calling it what it is, a moral intuition, and not to try to fabricate some theoretical post hoc justification. — ChatteringMonkey

Maybe, but by saying "we can't not", I was actually aiming to be much broader than that. In the context of this discussion, I think it extends out to simply that we make assumptions about how changes we make to the environment affect the behaviour of others. The very premise of criminal punishment is just such an assumption - that an environment in which criminals are punished will alter the behavior of would-be criminals to deter them from such activities.

All psychology is, when it gets involved, is a more formalised and better tested collection of these assumptions. Not perhaps the strength with which Geologists can tell us the earth is round, but significantly better (I hope) than whatever some random judge happens to reckon.

So when I say "X's free choice was constrained by his circumstances such that he should not be punished for his actions to the same extent as someone less constrained" I'm not really saying anything about morality. I think the moral intuition is already assumed (that someone with less free-choice is more deserving of leniency - think gun-to-the-head). I'm just making the case about the existence and strength of such constraints.

Maybe, but by saying "we can't not", I was actually aiming to be much broader than that. In the context of this discussion, I think it extends out to simply that we make assumptions about how changes we make to the environment affect the behaviour of others. The very premise of criminal punishment is just such an assumption - that an environment in which criminals are punished will alter the behavior of would-be criminals to deter them from such activities.

All psychology is, when it gets involved, is a more formalised and better tested collection of these assumptions. Not perhaps the strength with which Geologists can tell us the earth is round, but significantly better (I hope) than whatever some random judge happens to reckon. — Isaac

I want to say I certainly applaud these efforts, just to make that clear.

So when I say "X's free choice was constrained by his circumstances such that he should not be punished for his actions to the same extent as someone less constrained" I'm not really saying anything about morality. I think the moral intuition is already assumed (that someone with less free-choice is more deserving of leniency - think gun-to-the-head). I'm just making the case about the existence and strength of such constraints. — Isaac

But, and this is maybe more nitpicking than anything else, I don't think the gun-to-head analogy works here. If it were a matter of free choice that would have to lead to acquittal it seems to me, and not leniency which already implies some guilt... which leads me back to my initial intuition that leniency is not so much a matter of free choice.

I could give other examples, like age-exemptions to responsibility, which also don't necessarily align with the self/non-self distinction and free choice.... but seem to be more a matter of an assumed lack of knowledge of the consequences etc.

There are a lot of different moral intuitions at play here, which you probably don't disagree with.... I guess my qualms are not so much with the methods of testing, but more with these moral intuitions themselves, or rather with the lack of clarity of which moral intuitions are applicable when.

I've not heard of this, do you have any names or reading to suggest? — Isaac

Here is one representative (I think - I am no kind of expert) example, with some thoughts on x-phi: Joshua Shepherd, The Folk Psychological Roots of Free Will (2017). This paper has a larger survey of recent experimental work: Esthelle Ewusi-Boisvert, Eric Racine, A Critical Review of Methodologies and Results in Recent Research on Belief in Free Will (2018).

I don't think the gun-to-head analogy works here. If it were a matter of free choice that would have to lead to acquittal it seems to me, and not leniency which already implies some guilt... — ChatteringMonkey

Interesting to consider why though. If someone forces you at gunpoint to rob a bank, you've still robbed the bank, you're still guilty of that crime. The law may have provision such that in those circumstances there's no actual crime (I don't know the law on this one), but I still see that as leniency, just written into law. The spirit of that law (that stealing is wrong) has still been violated. And it's not as if you had no choice - you could have just let them shoot you, you could have tried some Jason Bourne style disarming manoeuvre. We simply accept that, although you did actually rob the bank, and we can envisage a way in which you could have done otherwise, any normal human being in those circumstances would have done the same.

I could give other examples, like age-exemptions to responsibility, which also don't necessarily align with the self/non-self distinction and free choice.... but seem to be more a matter of an assumed lack of knowledge of the consequences etc. — ChatteringMonkey

Don't get me started on age exemptions. Most are either draconian or ridiculous (or both). All are just pragmatic tools to cut down on court time. The degree to which children can understand the situations they find themselves in can be judged to no less a degree than can that of someone with mental health issues or learning difficulties. To suggest that an eleven year old understands rights and wrongs enough to bear some criminal responsibility and yet withhold from them a say in the creation of those laws for a further seven years is barbaric. There's one scrap of science behind any of this, and that's that people's capacity for judgement is still developing until maybe their mid twenties, there's absolutely no evidence whatsoever for any of the nonsensical stages in between and all it does is institutionalise young people for being young....[continues rant safely away from keyboard].

the lack of clarity of which moral intuitions are applicable when. — ChatteringMonkey

Unfortunately we live in a world of 7 billion with probably 7 billion slightly different moral intuitions. expecting clarity here is a lost cause.

Thanks, I will have a read.