thoughts on determinism

[iambiguous]

From “Whither Morality in a Hard Determinist World?”
by Nick Trakakis

[b]

One might contend that even if there is little or no evidence that we are free and morally responsible, the consequences of denying moral responsibility are so grave that we should continue living under the (perhaps false) impression that we were free in the sense required for moral responsibility. This line of thought goes as far back as Kant, and has been vigorously defended in more recent times by Saul Smilansky. According to Smilansky, libertarian free will does not exist, but once we remove it from our picture of reality, our fundamental values, practices and attitudes – such as the belief in our potential for blameworthiness according to what we do, our appreciation of achievement in ourselves and others, the sense of value and meaning in our lives, and so on – would be placed under great risk, if not largely destroyed.

[/b]

I have always found reasoning of this sort to be rather peculiar.

If, in a hard determined world, everything that we think is only as we must/can think then thinking like this would merely be part and parcel of that as well. We can no more freely remove determinism from our thoughts then we can freely insert it.

Either we have some capacity to freely choose our thoughts or we don’t. This “let’s pretend that we do have free will even though we know that we do not” approach is simply bizarre to me.

I always come back to, “what the hell am I missing here”?

So, what am I missing?

[iambiguous]

Nick Trakakis:

[b]

More perspicuously, hard determinism – at least as classically expressed by such thinkers as Spinoza and Holbach – is committed to the following three theses:

(1) Free will (in the strong sense required for moral responsibility and moral desert) is not compatible with determinism.
(2) There is no free will (in the above sense), because:
(3) All events are determined.

Contemporary hard determinists, however, are unlikely to accept the third of these theses, preferring instead to remain non-committal about the truth of universal determinism (particularly in the light of developments in twentieth-century physics).

[/b]

This is yet another factor that will muddy the water here.

And it does so because the “developments in twentieth-century physics” pertain largely to the world of quantum mechanics. Which is just another way of noting that the “laws of matter” may not be nearly as “deterministic” as some supposed. After all, if the laws of matter are somehow intertwined with the role of those observing the interaction of matter, what does that tell us about what we can [or, perhaps, cannot] know about the laws themselves?

Which, from my frame of mind, is just another layer to be added in/to the gap between what we think we know about these things here and now and all that will need to be known in order to grasp the reality of human will objectively.

[iambiguous]

Nick Trakakis:

All of our actions and choices are either alien-deterministic events (i.e., events such that there are causal factors beyond our control by virtue of which they are causally determined), or truly random events (i.e., events not produced by anything at all), or partially random events (i.e., events such that factors beyond the agent’s control contribute to their production but do not determine them, and there is nothing that supplements the contribution of these factors to produce the events).

Here is another tricky proposition: “random events”.

What does it mean for something to be truly “random” here? Does it mean that out of the blue something “just happens” – it happens such that it cannot be linked to any causal laws of matter?

This doesn’t seem reasonable at all to me.

But here [eventually] we get around to the evolution of matter into the mysterious marvel that is human consciousness.

Prior to self-conscious matter, is it even possible to imagine matter interacting in an entirely random fashion? I don’t see how. Whatever precipitated the big bang precipitated a universe that seems to be wholly in alignment with mathematics and the laws of physics. Or seems to be depending on the extent to which quantum physics is relevant here.

Still, the human mind is matter like no other. But even here what unfolds is never really “random”.

Instead, what we think and feel and do seem to be intertwined both in the immutable laws of matter and in the more problematic [existential] implications of dasein. We are clearly predisposed by the past to make the particular choices that we do in the present. But it’s not like things just pop into our head in a wholly random manner. It is simply that the complex intertwining of nature and nurture make it extremely difficult at times to pin these things down. Let alone to pin them down objectively.

[iambiguous]

Nick Trakakis

[b]

It is often thought that the first and most obvious casualty in the moral realm, once hard determinism is adopted, is the idea that human beings are sometimes morally responsible for their decisions and actions. Indeed, this result seems to simply fall out from the account of hard determinism given above that there is no free will of the sort required for moral responsibility. But what is it for a person to be morally responsible? Roughly speaking, to be morally responsible for something (e.g., an action, an omission, a character trait) is to be worthy of a particular kind of reaction – typically, praise or blame. But when are such reactions of praise and blame appropriate or called for? Answers to this question give rise to two competing conceptions of moral responsibility. According to one view, the merit-based view, praise or blame is an appropriate reaction toward someone if and only if they merit – in the sense of `deserve’ – such a reaction, given their behaviour and/or character traits. This is perhaps the commonsensical view of moral responsibility, but there is an alternative: the consequentialist view, according to which praise or blame is an appropriate reaction if and only if a reaction of this sort is likely to bring about a desired change in the agent and/or their behaviour.

[/b]

Yes, this is a rather succinct manner in which to sum up the ways in which most of us approach the relationship between “free will” and “moral responsibility.”

We choose to do the right thing and are praised. We choose to do the wrong thing and are blamed. Or even punished. And right and wrong here can revolve either around a deontological or a consequentialist frame of mind.

What it leaves out entirely however is the manner in which I construe moral narratives as rooted in dasein, conflicting goods and in political economy.

But at least we can reasonably grasp the manner in which it frames the relationship between free will and moral responsibility.

[iambiguous]

Nick Trakakis

Derk Pereboom states that hard determinists must relinquish our ordinary view of ourselves as morally responsible in the merit-based sense, that is, as deserving blame for immoral actions and as deserving praise for actions that are morally exemplary. In this regard, I think Pereboom is entirely correct. Even so, the hard determinist need not renounce moral responsibility altogether, but may instead reconceive our commonsense notion of moral responsibility in consequentialist terms. Indeed, this is the route normally taken by determinists, both hard and soft. J.J.C. Smart, for example, states that, “[t]hreats and promises, punishments and rewards, the ascription of responsibility and the nonascription of responsibility, have a clear pragmatic justification which is quite consistent with a wholehearted belief in metaphysical determinism”.

Again, and again and again: this is the distinction I am not able [here and now] to wrap my head around.

It is as though someone believes that everything we think, feel and do is only as we must – but they “choose” instead to pretend that this is not the case at all. Why? In order to be “practical” about the need for men and women to at least believe that they are freely choosing to either do the right or the wrong thing.

All the while knowing that nothing is ever not as it can only be.

[iambiguous]

Nick Trakakis

Borrowing one of Smart’s examples, we can see how this pragmatic or consequentialist justification would operate in practice by supposing that a student, Tommy, fails to do his homework and as a result his teacher deems him to be morally responsible or blameworthy. On the view we are considering, the teacher’s reaction would be appropriate only if her act of blaming Tommy is likely to influence Tommy’s attitudes and conduct in certain desirable ways. On the other hand, such a reaction on the part of the teacher would not be appropriate if Tommy suffered from some illness which prevented him from doing his homework, since in that case no amount of exhortation or threats would succeed in modifying his behaviour. But if Tommy’s failure to do his homework is simply due to laziness, then his behaviour may well be open to influence, and the threats or punishments of his teacher would form part of the environment that helps influence Tommy’s behaviour. In such a scenario, ascriptions of blame would have a definite and valuable purpose. As Smart sees it, then, ascriptions of moral responsibility, and therefore of praise and blame, have a purely instrumentalist rationale of influencing other people’s behaviour.

Here, too, Tommy [and those reacting to him] are either able to make choices of their own volition or they chose only what they must choose as necessary components of the laws that compel matter to interact as it must.

Now, in a world where we do have some capacity to exercise free will, this exchange can certainly seem reasonable. Objectively, Tommy either does or does not do his homework. And, objectively, he either does or does not have a medical condition that might necessitate his not doing it.

But once we switch over to the hard determinist model everything would seem to be intertwined in the inevitable. We might have different perspectives on it but all of the perspectives would seem to be of a whole. The whole of existence/reality being only what it can ever be once the laws of matter are configured into what they in fact are.

The mystery then revolves more around why they did configure as they did. Why not some other way instead?

Or why does existence even have existence at all?

[iambiguous]

Nick Trakakis

[b]

Can moral goodness be accommodated in a hard determinist world? Pereboom thinks it can. He holds that even if, under hard determinism, ought' judgements are never true, it remains the case that judgements such as It is morally good for person S to do A’ and `It is morally bad for S to do B’ can be true. He offers the following illustrations in support of this view:

Thus, for example, even if one is causally determined to refrain from giving to charity, and even if it is therefore false that one ought to give to charity, it still might be good to do so. Cheating on one’s taxes might be a bad thing to do, even if one’s act is causally determined, and thus, even if it is false that one ought not to do so.

[/b]

For all practical purposes:

What does it mean to speak of good and bad here [or even true and false] when one can only speak of anything as one must speak of anything?

Also, in a world where opinions on taxes are ever embedded politically in conflicting goods, there is still no way objectively in which to determine if taxes [or government itself for that matter] is a good or a bad thing.

Also, the manner in which any one particular individual might opine on taxes will always be more or less embodied in dasein.

[b]

At least one question this immediately raises is: What sense of good' is operative here? One obvious option, in the light of what has been said earlier, is to give goodness’ a consequentialist reading. On this view, an action is considered morally good insofar as it has certain consequences (e.g., the greatest possible increase of pleasure over pain). But the hard determinist, as already mentioned, has a number of options available within normative ethical theory, even including a deontological understanding of moral goodness.

[/b]

This, in my opinion, does not change the points that I am raising. Any ethical theory that you subscribe to is embedded in the immutable laws of matter. And there is still no way, either as a consequentialist or a deontologists, to determine objectively how we ought to interact socially, politically and economically.

Or none that I have come across. But that acknowledgment is always part and parcel to my frame of mind here. I can suggest certain things about these relationships, but I have no way in which to demonstrate that they are in fact true objectively.

[iambiguous]

[b]From “Moral Responsibility in a Deterministic Universe” by Ray Bradford

Philosopher Daniel Dennett provides a sufficient definition of determinism on page one of his book Elbow Room when he states, “All physical events are caused and determined by the sum total of all previous events.” When people conceive of the choices they must navigate in everyday life, they appear to implicitly assume such an outlook on the universe–after all, choosing between alternatives only proves meaningful if one deterministically expects certain choices to result in certain consequences. Yet the application of determinism to human behavior itself elicits overwhelming hostility. A primary criticism tends to center on the issue of moral responsibility. Critics often argue with a mixture of disbelief and indignation that the concession of a deterministic universe (from which human behavior is not exempt) would entail the breakdown of morality and personal responsibility. They contend that if humans lack the capacity to act otherwise given a set of initial conditions in the universe, morality loses its basis of rationality and its raison d’être. They not only find such a world preposterous, but they imagine society would spontaneously disintegrate into anarchy as individuals justify their unbridled selfishness with “I could not have done otherwise.” [/b]

Yes, this is an excellent summation of the problem that determinism poses for me. In other words, if we do assume that hard determinism is true, what does it mean “for all practical purposes” to speak of moral responsibility at all?

[iambiguous]

A quote from Stephen Hawking

If there really is a complete unified theory that governs everything, it presumably also determines your actions. But it does so in a way that is impossible to calculate for an organism that is as complicated as a human being. The reason we say that humans have free will is because we can’t predict what they will do.

What is he saying here? Just because the complexity is such that we can’t predict what we will do, does not mean that, in a determined world, it can’t be predicted.

Right?

And if what we do can be predicted because what we do is only what we must do in order to be in sync [necessarily] with the laws of matter, then free will is no less an illusion.

And thus moral responsibility would seem to be subsumed in that as well.

[iambiguous]

[b]From: “Moral Responsibility in a Deterministic Universe”
by Ray Bradford

Any discussion on the bearing of determinism upon issues of moral and personal responsibility first requires an adequate understanding of determinism and its distinction from fatalism. Dennett’s definition of determinism adequately captures the viewpoint as, “All physical events are caused and determined by the sum total of all previous events.” Human behavior, as with all other causal sequences in the universe, is a function of antecedent states and causes. Popular misconception often interprets this viewpoint as the position that all our behaviors, including me writing this paper, are the direct one-to-one result of our genetic composition. While such a position is one form of determinism, genetic determinism, it is not the most widely accepted version. By and large, determinism instead suggests that human behavior results from an incredibly complex function of inherited genetic predisposition, environmental and cultural influences, and prior responses to, and interpretations of, environmental influences (learning). However, the theory holds that given an initial set of conditions external and internal to the mind, only one “choice” or behavior will result. Thus, given any set of actual initial conditions in this world (as opposed to slightly different “possible worlds”), any person’s “choice” could not have been otherwise.

While easy to confuse, determinism carries a subtle but significant distinction from fatalism. Fatalism suggests that certain events will occur regardless of how humans act. This is a significantly different conclusion than determinism. Dennett aptly sketches the distinction in his interview with Reason magazine, “Fatalism is the idea that something’s going to happen to you no matter what you do. Determinism is the idea that what you do depends. What happens depends on what you do, what you do depends on what you know, what you know depends on what you’re caused to know, and so forth–but still, what you do matters. There’s a big difference between that and fatalism. Fatalism is determinism with you left out.” [/b]

This distinction has always been one I can never quite seem to grasp “for all practical purposes”. How “in the world” is it applicable?

Fatalism, after all, is defined as: “the belief that all events are predetermined and therefore inevitable.”

Either I must type these words or I have some capacity [however problematic and/or inexplicable] to choose not to. Or to choose other words instead.

I can understand that events will unfold because of how we choose to act. But: if we choose to act only in accordance with the immutable laws of matter, then there is still nothing other than those particular events unfolding in the only possible world.

I still see “choice” here as equivalent to the falling dominoes. Only the dominoes are utterly mindless matter not able to be conscious of toppling over per the natural laws of physics.

[iambiguous]

[b]From “Moral Responsibility in a Deterministic Universe” by Ray Bradford

One option pursued by defenders of the forking paths model of decision making involves focusing on the randomness or indeterminacy involved in obtaining multiple potential effects from a given cause. Libertarian philosopher Robert Kane attempts to locate this indeterminacy on the quantum level. He argues that the mind essentially harnesses the existence of quantum indeterminacy and uses it to generate alternative paths. Many philosophers and physicists, including Einstein, have argued that describing quantum mechanics as indeterminate may ignore a critical, deterministic, hidden variable. However, even if quantum indeterminacy were conceded as ontological for the sake of argument, Kane’s argument still has a large burden to truly support the forking paths model. As Dennett points out, how can random resolutions of quantum-level events provide people with any control over their behaviors? Behavior arguably occurs on a much more macro-level where Newtonian physics apply. Moreover, while the movement of an individual particle on a quantum level may be ontologically indeterminate, its distributions prove easily predictable–hardly a strong starting point for the argument that indeterminacy can percolate up to alternative paths.[/b]

This is yet another fascinating aspect of the debate that revolves around free will. The role played by “reality” on the quantum level. Can the mind [does the mind] “essentially harnesses the existence of quantum indeterminacy and use it to generate alternative paths.”

And, if so, how does a mind operating on the macro-level even begin to pin this down? How precisely are the macro and micro worlds intertwined re “existence”?

And some [as with Einstein above] suggest the “indeterminacy” that seems to prevail on the level of “quantum mechanics” is really just reflective of the fact that physicists have simply not yet discovered the laws of matter [the bigger picture] that takes this indeterminacy away.

In other words, we will just have to sit back and wait patiently for the next Newton or Einstein to come along and shift the paradigm yet again.

There is always that tricky balance between those things we seem to control with one or another measure of autonomy and the truly mechanical parts that unfold both in and around us like clockwork.

And that always takes us back to the marvel that is mind. Matter like nothing else there has ever been before.

[Flannel_Jesus]

@iambiguous

What is he saying here? Just because the complexity is such that we can’t predict what we will do, does not mean that, in a determined world, it can’t be predicted.

It means it can’t be predicted from inside the universe by a being inside the system it’s trying to predict.

It’s in principle predictable to a being outside the system - someone not inside our universe - but not by someone inside.

[iambiguous]

[b]From “Moral Responsibility in a Deterministic Universe”
by Ray Bradford

In his essay “Freedom and Resentment,” the philosopher P.F. Strawson provides strong rebuttal for the claim that moral responsibility would evaporate in a deterministic universe. Strawson takes a unique approach to the conflict by challenging the assumption that a theoretical question of determinism could pragmatically alter the reactive attitudes we undergo as part of the human experience. Strawson focuses on what he describes as “personal reactive attitudes” that include feelings of anger or resentment in response to another individual’s demonstration of ill will. He takes great length to show when they do and do not arise in the course of human behavior, and to demonstrate that human existence without such attitudes would be largely inconceivable. [/b]

When confronted with claims like this, the first thing that always pops into my head is this: how is the claim more than just an intellectual contraption? In other words, how would it become applicable to Mary “out in the world” when she is confronted with the agonizing predicament of choosing or not choosing to abort her baby?

And, in my discussion with peacegirl above, she seemed of the opinion that our emotional and psychological reactions to the world around us were also wholly subsummed in the “design” – in the immutable laws of matter.

Thus:

According to Strawson, when we find ourselves knowingly wronged by another individual who exhibits both awareness of the wrongdoing and a normal psychological state, we react with “morally reactive attitudes” of anger or resentment. In contrast, when someone wrongs us under the pretense that “he didn’t realize what he was doing” or “she was not herself at the moment,” or if the perpetrator possesses psychological abnormalities (compulsions, moral underdevelopment in the case of children), we tend to suspend our personal reactive attitudes and take what Strawson calls an “objective attitude” toward the individual. We discuss the ways the individual should be managed or directed most efficaciously. Occasionally we demonstrate such attitudes with fellow human beings in normal psychological states as well. Adopting an objective attitude toward “normal” individuals usually results from either intellectual curiosity or the desire to “avoid the strains of involvement.” On the pragmatic level, Strawson sees the claim that determinism would destroy the basis for moral responsibility as tantamount to claiming that a theoretical conviction of determinism would cause us to abandon personal reactive attitudes altogether in favor of objective attitudes.

What does it mean to make a distinction regarding a “pragmatic level” when all levels of human interaction [including the subjunctive] are subsumed in the only possible reality? How are “normal” and “abnormal” psychological states not also but necessary components the only possible reality?

I keep thinking there must be some aspect of “compatibilism” here that I’m always missing. And perhaps someday it might finally be within my grasp. If in fact it is there to be within one’s grasp at all.

[iambiguous]

[b]Moral Responsibility in a Deterministic Universe
by Ray Bradford

While Strawson’s arguments appear convincing, some critics may attempt to dispute their significance by stating that his contentions only argue the unavoidability of moral responsibility in a deterministic universe and say nothing of its rationality. These critics ask what the rationale behind such “moral responsibility” could be if people had no alternative courses of action. In response to these counterarguments, strong defense exists in Strawson’s writings. He notes that the question seems to miss the point entirely by failing to understand the inextricability of reactive attitudes from the human experience or the “natural human commitment to ordinary inter-personal attitudes.” As Strawson states, “This commitment is part of the general framework of human life, not something that can come up for review as particular cases can come up for review within this general framework.” Moreover, as Strawson also accurately observes, should we obtain a detached God’s-eye view with which to evaluate the rationality of our morally reactive attitudes, the criteria for evaluating their rationality would not be the truth of determinism, but rather their efficacy in improving or deteriorating the quality of the human condition.[/b]

Again, from my perspective, this either revolves around the circular logic of the assumptions made or it devolves altogether into intellectual gibberish.

If, in the only possible material world, Mary must abort her baby, where does that leave us?

Is it really a legitimate “rationale” for moral responsibility “if people have no alternative courses of action”? What does it mean for all practical purposes to speak of the “natural human commitment to ordinary inter-personal attitudes" when the manner in which others will react to her abortion is also in sync with matter unfolding in the only possible world?

And we don’t have a “God’s eye view” do we? And even from the perspective of an omniscient God, we would seem compelled always to interact only to the extent that it must align itself necessarily with that which God already knows will unfold.

Either way, with or without God, there seems to be no exit from the “brute facticity” that is the laws of matter.

And how would the “efficacy in improving or deteriorating the quality of the human condition” not be embedded in turn in this determined world as well?

What I do here is to suggest the possibility of free will without being able to demonstrate or to prove it; and then situate our moral interactions in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

But at least I know the limitations of the language I use here.

[iambiguous]

[b]Moral Responsibility in a Deterministic Universe
by Ray Bradford

Dennett turned to the idea of the prisoner’s dilemma, well-known to economists for its relevance to self-interest models. In the prisoner’s dilemma, two individuals suspected of committing a crime are caught, but there is not enough evidence to convict either unless one confesses. If neither confesses (they cooperate with each other), both will be set free. If one confesses (the defector) but the other does not, the individual who confesses will be set free while the other (the cooperator) receives a long jail sentence. If both confess, they will both go to jail for a shorter, but still significant amount of time (two defectors). Under this scenario, an efficacious and low-risk, short-term policy for a self-interested individual would entail confession. The individual would either receive no jail term or a short jail term (defecting) as opposed to the alternative of a no jail term or long jail term scenario (cooperating). An even more beneficial short-run strategy for the self-interested individual would involve convincing the other prisoner of your intentions to cooperate, but confessing instead (bluffing for self-interest). While these policies may have short-run benefits to the self-interested individual, they are obviously not optimal for the “society” (both individuals). Over the long haul, if the prisoners could develop a way to know they could count on one another to avoid confessing (by obtaining an ability to accurately distinguish other cooperators from bluffing defectors), they both stand to benefit significantly more than they would by pursuing their own short-sighted self-interests as defectors. [/b]

How, in a determined world, could any of this be “calculated” other than in accordance with that which each prisoner is compelled to calculate in order to be in sync with the only possible world? Thus it’s not a question of doing either what is moral or what is expedient – only in doing what is always necessary.

How [realistically] can there be a distinction made doing what is or is not in your own self-interest when the “self” itself is just one more inherent component of the only possible reality?

Always I come back here to this: What in the world am I missing when I can only ever miss that which I am compelled to miss?

Then it all becomes entangled [for me] in the, at times, exasperating relationship between words and worlds. The limitations of language in grappling with things like this. Back perhaps to Wittgenstein’s, “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”

[iambiguous]

[b]From: “Moral Responsibility in a Deterministic Universe”
by Ray Bradford

Dennett goes on to say that our unadulterated inclinations have a bias toward short-term rewards at the expense of larger benefits down the road. This makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint of survival, since long-term benefits prove meaningless to a dead organism. Yet, as we have found with the prisoner’s dilemma, it is advantageous to us as organisms to pass up these smaller short-term gains for more sizable long-term ones–and convince others of our ability to do so. Thus, we have problems of both self-control and convincing our peers of our capacity for self-control, and it is from these grounds that moral responsibility emerges as the pinnacle of the arms race. [/b]

But just as with the choices that are being made regarding the dilemma faced by the prisoners, are not the choices that we make regarding the dilemma embedded in short-term vs. long term benefits, also embedded merely in the illusion of free choice?

Is not the evolution of life on earth just another inherent manifestation of the laws of nature? And of the necessity built right into it? How different really is that from the evolution of planet earth itself? In other words, before the advent of life. Is not the only distinction here that life has evolved to the point of mind – minds able to grasp that per the inherent laws of matter there really is no distinction to be made between the evolution of matter before and after the creation of life?

Yes, minds become conscious of the choices that they make…whereas before minds matter was conscious of nothing at all. But the choices that they make would still seem only as they ever could be in the only possible reality there ever could be because reality is matter and matter unfolds only as it must.

This pivotal point for Dennett reflects the fact that our long-term reward consists of a sterling reputation of “moral” character that we must sacrifice short-term benefits’ “temptation” to obtain. What we consider morally responsible behavior emerges as a self-control mechanism, since demonstrating self-control at individual points of temptation proves difficult with our bias toward myopic self-interest. Thus, we essentially co-opt our emotions into “moral responsibility” to control our own behavior with “broad brushstrokes.”

But what can it even mean to speak of this in terms of “self-control” in a wholly determined world? Thus the need to speak of “moral” character rather than of moral character. We are tempted only in that we cannot not be tempted.

All of the strokes [however broad] would seem to be at one with the mechanism that is the design unfurling itself like clockwork. One tick at a time.

[iambiguous]

[b]Why Buridan’s Ass Doesn’t Starve?
by Michael Hauskeller

Imagine you go to a restaurant. Looking at the menu, you discover that they serve your two favourite meals – say asparagus and spinach tart. What will you do? You may hesitate for a while, but then you will make your choice. You have to make a choice, don’t you? Even if you’re hungry or greedy enough to order both, you have to decide which to eat first.

Now, how do you decide? Given that you like both equally, why do you choose, say, spinach tart, and not asparagus? There are two possible general answers. You can say either that:

a) There is no reason (no cause) for your choice. You just act, and you could equally well choose the other meal. Or:
b) There is a reason, but it’s unknown to you.

The second answer seems more plausible, because it accords with a principle that’s fundamental to the way we think. This principle is commonly called Leibniz’s Law, or the Principle of Sufficient Reason. It can be stated in various ways:

• Nihil sine ratione: Nothing is without a reason.
• Nothing happens without a sufficient reason/cause.
• For each event A there is another event B (or a combination of events) that precedes it and fully explains why A had to happen.
• Ex nihilo nihil fit: Nothing comes out of nothing.[/b]

Just how mysterious are the choices that we make? Leaving aside those that revolve around moral responsibility, the mere fact of choosing what to eat [or what to eat first] can be made to seem quite perplexing.

We know that “I” is in there somewhere but we don’t know if “I” can ever really grapple with this wholly.

Try as I might, I am not able come up with an argument that would seem to contain the whole truth here. I know that my choice of foods is embedded in dasein. Which is to say that I choose the sort of foods that I have become acclimated to choose given the life that I have lived. For example, I don’t choose the foods that someone who was raised in a more affluent/cosmopolitan family/community might choose. In other words, those who are more familiar [existentially] with far more exotic, “gourmet” meals from around the world.

That’s just never been a part of my life. Now, sure, I could perhaps choose to explore that world. Anyone who has the financial wherewithal, always has that option. But, given the manner in which I have come [again, existentially] to think about food in my life, it is just not something I have any inclination to do. But that too is no less embedded in dasein.

So, the reasons that I choose to eat as I do seem apparent to me. But is there actually the possibility that what seems apparent to me is only that which must seem apparent to me? Is my “agenda” regarding food no different from my moral and political agendas: merely the embodiment of matter unfolding as it only ever could have unfolded?

But then I am back to the seeming futility of devising a methodology for determining this…given all of the conflicting arguments I have come across over the years that tug me ambivalently in equal and opposite directions.

As for nothing and something, some seem to argue that everything there is came out of nothing at all. And how do we pin that down?

[iambiguous]

[b]From “The Information Philosopher” website:

Peter Strawson argued in 1962 that whatever the deep metaphysical truth on the issues of determinism and free will, people would not give up talking about and feeling moral responsibility - praise and blame, guilt and pride, crime and punishment, gratitude, resentment, and forgiveness.

These “reactive attitudes” were for Strawson more real than whether they could be explained by fruitless disputes about free will, compatibilism, and determinism. They were “facts” of our natural human commitment to ordinary inter-personal attitudes. He said it was “a pity that talk of the moral sentiments has fallen out of favour,” since such talk was “the only possibility of reconciling these disputants to each other and the facts.” [/b]

How I translate this:

Even if we are not able [philosophically, scientifically etc.] to pin down the objective relationship between determinism and moral responsibility [out in the world of human interactions] we react to others as though we are in fact choosing our behaviors freely and thus we can be held responsible for the consequences of those behaviors that others do not approve of. And especially regarding those behaviors that others deem harmful to them.

This feels “real” to us and that has to be enough until the objective truth can finally be pinned down.

But it would seem that, however one either talks or does not talk of “moral sentiments”, we are still just groping in the dark. We each of us one by one take a more or less educated leap of faith to a point of view that either assigns moral responsibility to ourselves and to others or presumes this is all just an illusion in a world where everything that we think, feel and do is only as it ever could have been.

My own dilemma moreover goes further still. Even if I do take that leap to free will [and I do] I still land on this:

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values “I” can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction…or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then “I” begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

[iambiguous]

[b]

From “The Information Philosopher” website:

Since Peter Strawson changed the subject in 1962 from free will to moral responsibility, there has been an increasing tendency to equate free will with moral responsibility.

From the earliest beginnings, the problem of “free will” has been intimately connected with the question of moral responsibility. Most of the ancient thinkers on the problem were trying to show that we humans have control over our decisions, that our actions “depend on us”, and that they are not pre-determined by fate, by arbitrary gods, by logical necessity, or by a natural causal determinism.

[/b]

Since I have taken my own “existential leap” to “free will”, the question I always focus on is not whether “I” have some capacity to control the choices I make [I presume that I do] but the extent to which “I” can ever really grasp how much control is really within my reach.

Again, some things that we choose to do are more or less embedded in necessity. We can’t choose to forgo food and water or we will die. We can’t choose to be successful at some task unless we first learn how to do it. We can’t choose to ignore the laws of nature or we will suffer the consequences.

Similarly, we can’t not choose a moral or a political agenda if we wish to interact with others.

But here the choices are different in that they do not revolve around either/or so much as is/ought. It is one thing to make choices when you are a doctor aborting a fetus, another thing altogether when you are an ethicist arguing which choice is moral and which immoral.

That’s the part I focus on pertaining to dasein and conflicting goods.

In other words, some choices revolve around either/or. Either you choose to do the right thing [the thing aligned objectively with reality] or you will not accomplish the task the choice aims toward.

Even if the doctor does presume that she is free to choose to perform abortions, there are particular choices that she must make [of necessity] if she wishes to do this successfully. This transcends dasein and conflicting goods.

But for the ethicist, dasein and conflicting goods are marbled through and through her decisions.

And that’s where my “dasein dilemma” comes into play. Just having free will does not enable someone to choose “the right thing to do” when confronted with the conflicting value judgments embedded in the abortion wars. Whereas one can choose the right course of action if the task revolves instead around aborting the baby.

[iambiguous]

[b]

From “The Information Philosopher” website:

Strawson himself was optimistic that compatibilism could reconcile determinism with moral obligation and responsibility. He accepted the facts of determinism. He felt that determinism was true. But he was concerned to salvage the reality of our attitudes even for libertarians, whom he described as pessimists about determinism.

“What I have called the participant reactive attitudes are essentially natural human reactions to the good or ill will or indifference of others towards us, as displayed in their attitudes and actions. The question we have to ask is: What effect would, or should, the acceptance of the truth of a general thesis of determinism have upon these reactive attitudes? More specifically, would, or should, the acceptance of the truth of the thesis lead to the decay or the repudiation of all such attitudes? Would, or should, it mean the end of gratitude, resentment, and forgiveness; of all reciprocated adult loves; of all the essentially personal antagonisms?”

[/b]

Yes, but are they not “natural human reactions” because they are fully in alignment with nature? And is not nature fully in alignment with the inherent laws of matters? And are not the inherent laws of matter fully in alignment with…with what exactly? With God? With whatever brought everything that exists into existence out of nothing at all?

Again: for all practical purposes, what does it mean [in a determined world] to speak of my “acceptance” of all this? As though there was ever any possibility [in a wholly determined world] that this could be anything other than what it must be.

And yet I always come back to the assumption that, since these are the speculations of some very, very sophisticated minds, there must be something in my own mind that still doesn’t “get it”.

But: Are or are not our subjunctive reactions to the world around us [and to the subjunctive reactions of others] no less subsumed in the design? Necessarily subsumed.