in fact if free will has any role, it would be to allow the robot to be good, not bad. — TheMadFool
I am grateful but the free will defense for the problem of evil is wrong. — TheMadFool
A well-known "solution" to the problem of evil is that god allows evil because he desired to bestow free will upon us. Thus, we, possessed of free-will, have the liberty to do anything and "sometimes" we do evil and hence there is evil in the world. — TheMadFool
This is very enlightened. I just prefer the theistic bias as opposed to the atheistic or other bias. I think there is something in us that continues on after our bodies die. I have no proof of this in a scientific sense, but what would that proof even look like? I have my reasons which are sufficient for me. — Noah Te Stroete
That’s fair enough - I have a problem with ignorance in preferring either bias, but otherwise I think it’s possible for a both/and approach to this question of existence. I guess it depends on what you mean by ‘something in us’. Personally, I think it’s our perceived potentiality that continues on in the minds of those with whom we’ve connected in life, which enables ‘who we are’ to interact with the world after our bodies die. So, for me, it’s not something in us, but the immaterial and irreducible qualities of our relations with others that we should be maximising while we’re alive. — Possibility
What is happiness? — TheMadFool
What do we fear? Do we fear to be unhappy, whatever that means? In my book, we seem to fear suffering, itself and its cause, generally identified as evil. If so, do you think fear is conducive to free will? Can we fear and still be free? What about the problem of evil? If our motivation is based entirely on fear of evil (suffering & its cause) does it make sense to claim god allows evil so that we may be free? — TheMadFool
I think the hardest part about understanding ‘evil’ is realising that the only ‘evil’ in the world from ‘God’’s point of view is in humanity’s fearful interaction with the world. — Possibility
I believe humans are motivated primarily by a desire to be happy. When a person's actions do not contribute to or even undermine their happiness, I consider those actions ignorant. — Tzeentch
That’s where we’ll never agree.
— Brett
You don't think chimpanzees have a culture? — Isaac
Maybe you’re being amusing. But in any case I mean we’ll never agree over the whole nature/nurture thing. — Brett
But all creatures like us are embedded in a culture, s — Isaac
My position is that we create our culture, not the other way around. — Brett
Those are actions of free will, maybe imbedded in culture over time but not inherent in us, they’re learned. — Brett
... as a means of distinguishing anger (as an example of a 'natural tendency') from civility (which I introduced as a convenient catch-all term for what you were describing as choosing sometimes not to assert anger). — Isaac
Since all intelligent animals have a culture, then all intelligent animals have the possibility that the behaviour they exhibit is 'learnt behaviour', yes? — Isaac
So what I'm asking is - if any exhibited behaviour could be learned behaviour (including the behaviour of other animals), then how do you know that anger-associated behaviour is not learned (but rather is a 'natural tendency'), but civility is learned? — Isaac
They created a creature capable of being good and bad, that is they were whole, complete. W — Brett
So therefore to have free will we must have a tendency for evil. So yes, God allowed for evil so that free will could exist. — Brett
That which we want to do but shouldn't do needs disincentives and being evil assures eternal torment in hell. The way the reward-punishment system in religion is structured suggests in no uncertain terms that we prefer not to do good (why promise heaven?) and, not surprisingly to me, that we prefer to do evil (why threaten hell?). — TheMadFool
How would you describe the world in terms of good and evil? Balanced? More evil? More good? — TheMadFool
Fear is extremely important to my point because hell/jail/the gallows serve as threats to prevent people from doing what they want — TheMadFool
Fear is extremely important to my point because hell/jail/the gallows serve as threats to prevent people from doing what they want as opposed to heaven, tax breaks, recognition, respect, all rewards to encourage people to do what they don't want. Since it doesn't make sense for god to incentivize something we already want to do and threaten us with dire consequences for something we don't want to do, the concepts of hell and heaven, reward and punishment testify to what our nature is: we're disinclined to do good, thus the reward and we're innately evil, thus the punishment. — TheMadFool
‘Want’ is an unhelpful way to describe it, IMO, because what we want right now doesn’t always correspond to what we want a year from now, or over the course of our lifetime, or what we want for our children or our community. This is the main reason for morality and incentives: that we recognise what we do as connected not just to the present, but also to past and future interactions with the world and with other moral agents. The capacity we have to anticipate or dread, to value the potential of events, actions and experiences in relation to time and in relation to the experiences of others, enables us to predict long-term collaborative benefits in a behaviour whose immediate or short-term value to the individual is negative, for instance, and to then incentivise that behaviour so that it appears more valuable to those whose awareness, connection and collaboration with the world may be more limited. Or alternatively, to predict long-term or widespread harm in a behaviour whose immediate or short-term value to the individual is high, and then to attach a threat to that behaviour so that it is devalued sufficient to deter those whose focus is more limited.
So I don’t think it’s a matter of being ‘disinclined to do good’ or being ‘innately evil’, but rather that these values of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are at the very least relative to the variable 4D relations between events. — Possibility
To begin with, I want bracket off all moral theories other than religious morality in this discussion. Within the realm of religious morality, it is an undeniable fact that goodness is rewarded and evil is punished and it is this that gives us a glimpse of how we've assessed our own nature: a tendency towards evil and a reluctance to be good. If we are good by nature, why would we need positive reinforcement? Had we not the tendency to be bad, why would we put in place deterrents? — TheMadFool
Let’s say, for instance, that instead of the Decalogue as a set of DON’Ts, we were given a set of DO’s. — Possibility
I think we have a tendency to be ignorant of our ultimate potential, which translates to an apparent tendency towards ‘evil’. — Possibility
in fact if free will has any role, it would be to allow the robot to be good, not bad. — TheMadFool
was thinking about that. So kind of you to bring it to my attention. It does seem that every don't can be rephrased as a do e.g. thou shalt not kill can be expressed with the equivalent thou shalt value life. The intriguing question is why were most of the 10 commandments expressed in the negative, "thou shalt not" rather than in the positive, "thou shalt"? A possible answer is that people were ignoring, most probably out of ignorance, the positive forms of the negative injunctions which had the undesirable effect of what were classified as immoral behavior being common practice. Thus the need to clearly spell out what not to do rather than what to do. For instance, to tell someone not to smoke makes sense only if that person had a smoking habit. Ergo, people were murdering, stealing and coveting like no one's business which translated into the don't, thou shalt not format of the 10 commandments.
It's a good thing you brought up the issue of ignorance and while I accept, given that morality needs an understanding of what has moral value, that ignorance has a role, it's neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for immorality; after all many immoral people have a very sound knowledge of ethics and yet choose to act in violation of moral principles and I haven't heard of people who're mentally challenged, the quintessentially ignorant person, being accused of immorality. — TheMadFool
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