How does “everything” here not include a choice to either throw up or not throw up our hands?
Hell, in this world there are those who would actually choose to throw the baby into the street themselves. Watch enough “true crime” docs and there is almost nothing that flesh and blood human beings won’t do to sustain what they have come to construe as in their own best interest.
But: Have they come to construe this freely of their own volition? How is that determined beyond all doubt?
If nothing else, I take exception to the manner in which you present your argument here as an objectivist. As though regarding a question this philosophically baffling, you have already pinned it down.
Acknowledging in turn that you could never have not convinced yourself that you have pinned it all down.
I’m more than willing to concede that even in accepting that we do possess some measure of autonomy, there is almost no chance that what I think is the case here is wholly in sync with an actual understanding of existence itself.
We are responsible in that the choices we make precipitate consequences. I once walked around a corner, spooked a dog, and the dog ran into the street and was hit by [of all things] an MTA bus! It died.
Now, I’m responsible for its death though few would insist that I am in turn morally culpable.
But: In a wholly determined unvierse, what aspect of this incident was it ever really possible for me to freely change?
Yes, we choose things and there are consequences. But are we ever really free to not chose them?
Same with the incident with the policeman. Were the interactions of matter unfolding in his brain responsible for the shooting? Was he ever able to effectively control those interactions? How do these relationships “work” for all practical purposes? And here neurologists and others are attempting – using the scientific method – to establish that. Materially, phenomenologically, existentially.
But it seems [to me] that you are suggesting that only if their findings [based on empirical evidence gathered and then collated experimently] come into sync with your already established conclusions [deductions, intellectual contraptions] will they be right.
In my view, this is far more a psychological contraption that you concocted allowing you to imagine a future in which human interactions are more in sync with behaviors [re conflicting goods] that appeal to you as “right” and “just”.
And this allows for the sort “comfort and consolation” that comes with at least being able to imagine a more “progressive” future for our species.
Only, from my way of thinking, given a wholly determined universe, you were never able not to think this.