• Metaphysician Undercover
    12.3k
    There's nothing absurd with my conditional. If you do not will the actions, then they are not yours, since they occur without your will. If mind control was real, and someone could mind control you and get you to do a nefarious deed, would you say that it is you who did the nefarious did, or rather the person who mind controlled you?Agustino

    Yes, if someone controls you to make you do a nefarious deed (the devil made you do it), the act is still yours. The rock breaks the window despite the fact that someone throws it.

    Here's the other premise: actions performed with the body and/or mind of another are not that person's actions if they do not will them. No contradiction.Agustino

    But the act is carried out by your body. Despite the fact that someone controlled you, there is no argument here to prove that the act was not carried out by your body.

    Based on whether the person wills the actions or not when they occur.Agustino

    The problem is that even things without will carry out actions. So the fact that you did not will an act is insufficient to prove that the act is not yours.

    We were talking just about humans. If you want to generalise to other animals, then obviously moral responsibility is not required. But one of the two components of moral responsibility (which are will and reason) is still required. Animals lack reason, but they do not lack will.Agustino

    An act with moral responsibility is a special type of act. Animals don't have moral responsibility, but animals still act, and those acts are the acts of the animal which performs them. So why would you argue that a human act without moral responsibility is not an act of the human being which performs it?

    No, the action is not mine in the sense I've specified above. I do not will the action, and hence I cannot be morally responsible for it. From a moral point of view, the action is not mine. From a biological point of view, or a physical one if you want it, the action belongs to my body as the immediate initiator.Agustino

    You haven't yet produced the reasoning for your premise which allows you to say that if you are not morally responsible for an act, then the act is not yours. But of course that premise is absurd, because if it were the case, then animals and inanimate things would be incapable of acting, because they are not morally responsible for their acts.
  • Agustino
    11.2k
    Yes, if someone controls you to make you do a nefarious deed (the devil made you do it), the act is still yours. The rock breaks the window despite the fact that someone throws it.Metaphysician Undercover
    No, the immediate cause of the act may be your body, but your body is not you. I identify you with the will and the intellect. If your body remains, but the will and intellect are gone, then I would say that you are gone. But if will and intellect somehow remain without body, then you are most certainly not gone.

    But the act is carried out by your body. Despite the fact that someone controlled you, there is no argument here to prove that the act was not carried out by your body.Metaphysician Undercover
    I agree with that.

    So why would you argue that a human act without moral responsibility is not an act of the human being which performs it?Metaphysician Undercover
    Both humans and animals have will.
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    12.3k
    No, the immediate cause of the act may be your body, but your body is not you. I identify you with the will and the intellect. If your body remains, but the will and intellect are gone, then I would say that you are gone. But if will and intellect somehow remain without body, then you are most certainly not gone.Agustino

    I don't believe that you can separate a person's body from a person's will and intellect, in this way. It doesn't make sense to say that a person is a will and intellect, but not a body. If you could show me a will and intellect without a body, and demonstrate that this is a person, then I might believe you. Until then, I think you're talking nonsense.
  • Agustino
    11.2k
    It doesn't make sense to say that a person is a will and intellect, but not a body. If you could show me a will and intellect without a body, and demonstrate that this is a person, then I might believe you. Until then, I think you're talking nonsense.Metaphysician Undercover
    Do you believe in God? God is a person that has no body.

    Do you believe in angels? Angels are persons that have no body.
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    12.3k
    Do you believe in God? God is a person that has no body.

    Do you believe in angels? Angels are persons that have no body.
    Agustino

    I'm not convinced that God is a person with no body, and from what I've heard about angels, each angel has providence over a physical body. Anyway this is irrelevant because we are talking about human persons. You were addressing me, and the relationship between my body, and my will and intellect, do you believe me to be a god? Perhaps if we were all gods, it would be appropriate to separate the actions of one's body from the actions of one's intellect, to say that if an action of a body is not willed, it cannot be an action of that god. But we're not gods, and we do have involuntary acts.
  • Agustino
    11.2k
    But we're not gods, and we do have involuntary acts.Metaphysician Undercover
    Sure, but we were discussing:
    It doesn't make sense to say that a person is a will and intellect, but not a body.Metaphysician Undercover
    So apparently, it can make sense for someone to be a person (formed of will & intellect) and without a body.
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    12.3k
    So apparently, it can make sense for someone to be a person (formed of will & intellect) and without a body.Agustino

    Not in the sense that I know "person". And this is a big problem which theologians have run into in modern times, a rejection of the idea that God is a person.
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