This year I became a hard incompatibilist with a vengeance. Not a fan of compatibilism. I can explain why.
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This being a Philosophy forum, I look forward to it.
do it
Do tell.
My understanding of āincompatibilismā is that it either rejects the notion of freedom or it rejects the notion of causal determinism. Which one do you reject?
If you reject freedom then you probably have a very simplistic understanding of what freedom means, a kind of ācannot have any causes or reasons for doing what it didā which is absurd. If you reject causal determinism then you reject any way of explaining why anyone does anything, as if things do not have reasons for being what they are, which is even more absurd.
To further clarify along the same lines as Humā¦
Is it a) libertarian freedom and b) hard determinism we are saying are incompatible [becauseā¦ a) they are, and b) they donāt exist]?
Or are we talking about a) self-determination within given conditions, subsumed within b) Godās sovereignty (permissive/concurring will)? These are compatible.
My stance is similar to that of philosophers like Gregg Caruso, Derk Pereboom, Galen Strawson (son of PF) and non philosophers like Sam Harris and Sapolsky.
Does this still accurately reflect Sam Harrisā position?
You said āI can explain whyā. Thatās not an explanation, thatās just a list of names.
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Welcome to academia.
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Dear gentle thinkers!
Beyond the valid arguments that are derived from science/physics (the law of cause&effect, probabilistic or not), in order to disprove the claim that there is human free will, there is another convincing way, derived from pure philosophical logic:
It is the causa suiāimpossibility.The knowledge that causa sui (ācreation of itselfā) is impossible, because nothing can be the cause of its own creation. A thing or a person X cannot be the cause or the creator of the same X, because X cannot exist before its existence. This would indisputably be a logical fallacy. The knowledge that X cannot create X is not something we learn empirically (a posteriori knowledge), but something we a priori know. This fact renders free will impossible, because the self who makes a decision about something is never free of antecedent conditions, pre-existing the existence of this very self. Even if there was a ghostly, magical self somewhere out of the physical world making its āown decisionsā independent of the usual cause-effect chain (impossible, but let us entertain this miraculous concept), this self would still be the creation of other previous processes emanated from sources beyond that self. No āfreedomā here either.
ā Giannis Delimitsos
I quite agree, sir, and am baffled by anyone who would believe otherwise.
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Thank you! The belief in free will is deeply ingrained in our modern culture and thatās why, despite the fact that it is logically incoherent, itās very difficult to shake off.
All we do flows from what we are (and external factors, and physics) and we didnāt create what we are, so we are not morally responsible for what we do. We canāt have basic desert moral responsibility. The whole concept of ādeservednessā is incoherent. So yeah, what he said. The causa sui thing.
I find this all fine, and liberating, in fact. I donāt like compatibilism. I think they change the subject to a pragmatic argument and ignore or downplay the metaphysical part, which is fine, but theyāre hiding from the main point.
We canāt have the kind of free will such that it leads to a reasoned intuition of backward looking moral responsibility, thus blame and praise doesnāt make a whole potential of sense, outside of practical things like deterrent and incentive.
This all just leads to people say āso what?ā And to that I say, capitalism, religion, criminal justice, leans heavily on the concept of deservedness in addition to consequence or instrumentalist considerations.
I donāt have a huge issue with the pragmatic arguments for deterrent and incentive, but people actually BELIEVE is basic deservedness moral responsibility. And this belief leads to bad shit.
None of this is super new. Spinoza said as much. But the fact that most philosophers are āCompatibilistsā makes it interesting, because they are fucking wrong, lying pussies, and by emboldening the just world fallacy they are contributing to suffering.
ā¦ and even if one didnāt have to be a causa sui to have freewill - say you can be created and from that moment forward you cause what you will be - the problem of how a new causal agency is suddenly introduced into the world of material causal agency when a human is born, is still there.
Some magic substance that springs into being upon being born, wielding the power to command the movement of physical things against the will of the laws of physics? Donāt be silly. Thereās no way you got around the laws of physics or physical causation when you just stood up from the sofa. Those ionized potassium particles traveling through your axons donāt have a choice to generate more or less of a charge, which means you donāt have a choice or not to stand up. The sonsabitches will either cross the threshold and initiate a synapse or they wonāt. And you will sit there and wait until they figure out what theyāre gonna do whether you like it or not.
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From an epistemological aspect, I wouldnāt say they are certainly wrong. I always leave at least an iota of possibility that I might have been wrong. So I would say: āit seems to me they are wrong on this matter, becauseā¦ā.
And Iād never call them as you did. Firstly, out of respect to other peopleās thesis. And secondly, due to my belief that they could not have had other opinion than precisely that.(Thereās no free will remember?)
For the rest, I agree with youā¦
āAnd Iād never call them as you did. Firstly, out of respect to other peopleās thesis.ā
But i do not think Gamer could have done otherwise, due to my belief that he could not have had an opinion other than precisely that.
In a backward-looking perspective, surely yes. But, in a forward-looking perspective, my words may (or may not) have an effect upon him/her, or/and upon the others who are following the discussion. And, of course, I certainly do not blame him/her in the basic deserts sense for what he said.
Which means we each have capacity (to choose/want/identify) that we didnāt create, but/so it is our choice to act according to it, or in violation of it, and how. If we did not have that choice, we would never feel dissonance when our choices violate self=other. We would never even feel misplaced dissonance when we take responsibility that is not ours. Violation of our capacity is not necessarily a bad thing. For example, we have the capacity for a lot of power, but it is our choice whether our instantiating of that power in our behavior violates self=other. We have the capacity for empathy, but when that empathy violates self=other (think of a mother who wants to protect her child from every pain, stifling their growth as an individual independent from her, because her empathy is tainted by her identity being too wrapped up in the child), we have the capacity to deny the empathy from determining our choices. Or we can redirect our empathy to fall in line with what is good for the child, and not just the mother (if we are that mother)ā(ultimately, if it is not also good for the child, then it will also not be good for the motherā¦her character, etc.).
In that way, our choices create our second nature/character (virtue or viceāif virtueā¦ then they do not merely COcreate, they willfully fulfill).
I didnāt read everything.
Define āfree willā please.
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The concept of free will refers to the supposed capacity of humans to make choices independently (completely or partially) of the antecedent conditions and states of the cosmos.