Criticising Strawson’s Compatibilism
Nurana Rajabova is wary of an attempt to dismiss determinism to keep free will.
In other words, the idea of determinism is irrelevant to the application of our reactive attitudes.
Unless, perhaps, reactive attitudes themselves are in turn no less an inherent manifestation of the only possible reality.
Same here. The “metaphysical realm” is in turn no less a necessary component of a wholly determined universe.
He says,
“The optimist’s [compatibilist’s] style of over-intellectualizing the facts is that of a characteristically incomplete empiricism, a one-eyed utilitarianism. He seeks to find an adequate basis for certain social practices in calculated consequences, and loses sight (perhaps wishes to lose sight) of the human attitudes of which these practices are, in part, the expression."
Does this seem reasonable to you? If so, note how it is applicable to you given the thoughts you think, the emotions you feel, the things you say and the things you do in interacting with others. Again, in particular, when you are engaged in interactions that revolve around conflicting value judgments. How might it be applicable in regard to Mary’s abortion?
The same thing though. The pessimists/determinists don’t lose sight of things and accept things as they are because they were never able not to. If the gap was never able to be other than what it must be and what we fill it with or extract from it is simply another mind-boggling manifestation of all Nature’s dominoes toppling over on cue.
Whatever that means, of course.
As for bringing this…
“…only if some general metaphysical proposition [ie free will] is repeatedly verified, verified in all cases where it is appropriate to attribute moral responsibility.”
…down to Earth? Well – click – who wants to start?
And around and around we go. The particularly hardcore determinists argue that he didn’t assert that because he was never able to assert it. And if his brain compelled him to say what he did about emotions, what difference does it make what it compelled him to say or feel…about anything.
greenfuse
More to the point [mine] if whatever I think about what he thought about emotions, neither one of us were ever able to freely opt not to think, what we think about them in and of itself is all fated, destined?
And, again, given free will, thoughts and feelings exchanged in the is/ought world are [for me] no less rooted existentially in dasein. The question then becomes this…are my thoughts and feelings about dasein itself also just another inherent manifestation of the only possible reality?
Nurana Rajabova:
greenfuse:
I just don’t make a distinction between what we think, feel, say and do and how we react to what others think, feel, say and do. If it’s dominoes, it’s dominoes all the way down. Unless, of course, the mind-boggling domino that is the human brain is like no other matter there has ever been…It really did “somehow” acquire autonomy. And there is no fucking way I would ever rule that out.
Really, try to connect the dots between the Big Bang and the human species and Smart Phones. What could possibly be more unimaginable…other than by way of God?
After all, no matter how sophisticated science is in explaining how things work in the universe, how much closer are they to explaining why it is how it is.
greenfuse:
What is “inevitable and natural”? Again, some determinists argue that everything under the sun made of matter is bounded by what some call “the immutable laws of matter”.
We’re just stuck “here and now” in a world where even the philosophers and scientists are a long, long way from a TOE…let along a description of how “for all practical purposes” we ourselves fit into everything.
greenfuse
Maybe I missed that post, that example, but from my frame of mind “here and now”, any example you provide about any human interactions is no less but one more inherent component of the only reality there could ever possibly have been.
So, I’m not sure – can never be sure? – how we can ever resolve any of this other than in arguments.
And I will always respond to actual attempts to connect the dots between “in my head” and everything that anyone would have to know about the existence of existence itself in order to provide a comprehensive assessment of the human condition.
So, instead of responding to the post, you assert that it must be the only reality, but opt not to discuss the reasons I thought that despite it being the only reality, we could and I would give someone responsibility for their actions.
You opt not to interact with the actual post. You restate your assumption that if it was the only possible outcome then it must be wrong to assign responsibility.
Hey, look, I have sympathy for that reaction. But I already presented a case on the issue. You didn’t miss my post, you responded to it, but only to refuse to discuss any the responsibility issue unless the example was abortion. But here you say it doesn’t matter what act is discussed, your same argument (actually mere assertion) would hold. Well, if you believe that, what you said about this being the only reality so you can’t hold people responsible…if you believe that they you could have discussed the issue using my example. I have explained 1), that using a less controversial moral issue, avoids getting distracted by the enormous and extremely charged differing opinions on the morality/immorality of abortion AND 2) that I do not consider abortion immoral, so that scenario doesn’t work for me.
To make this clear in a new paraphrase: I put some time in to respond to a request on your part. You first refused to respond to assigning responsibility on the issue I raised, yet here you tell me it doesn’t matter what the issue is, your incredulity that someone could be held responsible for something that was always going to happen is all you need to say.
I have no idea what that means. You’re not sure how we can resolve this other than in arguments?
Well, one way to at least potentially resolve it would be to actually respond to the post instead of what you did which was to tell me you were not going to respond to it. Further the above quote of yours is a bizzare thing to say, given that you asked for someone to explain how someone can be held morally responsible in a deterministic universe. If discussing that is pointless, why bother requesting an explanation for that position?
“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.”
— Tolstoy
Or in this case, anything that might have been laid in front of him. Whatever it was, it can be dismissed by an assertion and incredulity. There’s no need to even read it.
That reads like if someone gives you a complete theory of everything you’d actually respond to someone who in this case responded to a request of yours. Not that the writing is clear.
You seem quite confident that a good default is that one cannot reasonably give someone responsibility for their actions if determinism is the case. I can’t see where you have justified this default, but I do see the assertion of it and your sense of incredulity that anything else might be true.
At least in your first paragraph it’s clear that you believe determinism to be the case. I haven’t seen where you do what you expect others to do in the quote below regarding either determinism or how one can not…morally I guess, assign responsibility to people for their acts if they were always going to do that. Perhaps you could justify these positions. Or you could go back and read my post that you did manage to tell me you weren’t going to respond to. I suppose I can be grateful that you let me know instead of just ghosting it.
Anyway, as you were…I’ll not bother you on the issue anymore. Your incredulity, now repeated many times in at least a couple of forums is working for you and you don’t really want to discuss or focus on counterpositions. OK, got it.
Winston Churchill: “A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.”
I know, you’ve changed your mind before. Maybe you’ve found a way to prevent that. Anyway, I’ll leave you to your thread.
Criticising Strawson’s Compatibilism
Nurana Rajabova is wary of an attempt to dismiss determinism to keep free will
Assigning Moral Responsibility
Admittedly, the natural human disposition to react to interactions, to which Strawson draws attention in his first point, is an undeniable reality. It’s a quality humans carry as both embodied and social beings.
As noted by others, however, sure, I might be misconstruing his point. For all I know the author herself might be misconstruing it. Strawson seems [to me] to be making a distinction between acting and reacting. Mary acts by aborting her unborn baby/clump of cells. Others react to this in conflicting ways…all up and down the moral, political, and spiritual spectrum. But Mary’s behavior itself derives from her own subjective reaction to the unwanted pregnancy. Then the billions and bilions of human actions/reactions day after day after day after day going back millennia.
Like clockwork?
This could certainly be the case. So, how do we go about attempting to actually demonstrate it?
Just out of curiosity, if you were to take his assumptions to a convention of neuroscientists, how might they, well, react to it? Would they be able to connect the dots between the human brain and the human mind here? Such that a chemical and neurological distinction between human action and human reactions can be noted. Can be established?
Also, as noted before, imagine the universe had locations where free will prevailed and locations where determinism prevailed. Those in the free will sector visit Earth in a spaceship from time to time. They gaze down at us in the determined sector. They see us acting, they see others reacting to that, they see us reacting to their reactions. But they know that both the actions and reactions observed are wholly programmed by our brains. Basically, they see us interacting the way we see ants interacting…all in sync with brains in sync with the laws of matter.
But to then become conscious of that? But only because you were never able not to become conscious of it?
All organisms are reactionary organisms, meaning that all outward behaviors are motivated from without or from within, when it is from within, it generally involves fulfilling a biological need that is to be found from without. All behaviors are motivated thus spelling out reaction, not action, there being no such thing as human action. I would be most interested if someone here could give me an example of an unmotivated action thus supporting the concept of free will. If all creatures were not reactionary creatures evolutionary adaptation would be quite impossible. Reaction is how we are functional aspects of the world and not separate from it. Even our experience of everyday reality or apparent reality, was pointed out by Spinoza to be due to the alterations made by the energies of ultimate reality to our bodies giving us experience, which itself is a reaction to the outside world. Consciousness is the working of the machine/organism, not the machine itself, and that working is reaction through and through. Your thoughts?
Criticising Strawson’s Compatibilism
Nurana Rajabova is wary of an attempt to dismiss determinism to keep free will
Interestingly enough, studies show that human bodily reactions do not occur only in response to physical stimuli; they can also happen in relation to ‘moral things’.
On the other hand, “moral things” are pertinent only to actual flesh and blood human beings. Physical down to the bone.
And then on up into the brain. But how exactly are they connected? Or, as some seem inclined to suggest, “who needs to know that”?
Okay, but then this part: what one individual deems to be delicious another deems to be disgusting. Same with morality. What is morally repugnant to some, others actually pursue as enlightened.
In other words, even given free will, human brains are no less the embodiment of dasein. Moral responsibility is the real deal, but no less rooted historically, culturally and in regard to our uniquely personal experiences.
Of course, they might be. If “somehow” when brains evolved into us, emotions were “somehow” different from thoughts. Whereas from my frame of mind, they are both intertwined existentially out in a particular world understood in a particular way. Then the Benjamin Button Syndrome.
The irony then being that death itself makes human actions and reactions, well, you tell me.
Free will cannot be without dasein. There has to be a context of values (you call them competing goods) that we are ordering according to (or in divergence from… which is cognitively distorted “freedom”) recognition of personhood,
Our thoughts which seek to grasp/classify cannot do so outside a value frame/taxonomy—because where we place our attention is not value-free. However, we can check for incongruities or contradictions, both linguistically/psychologically & practically in the external world… retracing our reasoning/experiencing steps back to the “unfractured, unfragmented” of balanced recognition of personhood in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
Have you read C.S. Lewis’ The Abolition of Man by any chance? Care to discuss?
Criticising Strawson’s Compatibilism
Nurana Rajabova is wary of an attempt to dismiss determinism to keep free will
In the first scenario I’ll refer to death caused by non-living beings, such as natural events (e.g. earthquakes) or inanimate objects (e.g. water).
One thing seems reasonable. This: That the laws of matter are such that almost no one will argue that the earthquake has free will.
Then all the animals that, like human beings, are conscious. But to what extent can it be said that they are autonomous? Instead, most of them are driven by deep-seated biological imperatives, instincts, drives, libidos.
With human consciousness, however, it comes to revolve more around the assumption that “somehow” as biological life evolved on Earth, we hit the jackpot. We became self-conscious. Then over time this permitted us to invent language. Then the creation of science and philosophy.
But then those who believed that between philosophy and science mere mortals were within reach of truly understanding…everything?
And then those who scoff at that and insist everything always comes back to God.
Okay, I’m the first to admit that when contemplating something like this it seems impossible – preposterous? – that it all really does come back to the “brute facticity” of nature unfolding only as it was ever able to unfold. But until it is determined how – why? – human brain matter itself actually accomplished this task…?
The part about “agency” for example:
“Agency is the capacity of an actor to act in a given environment. It is independent of the moral dimension, which is called moral agency. In sociology, an agent is an individual engaging with the social structure.” Wikipedia
How does this not rest on the assumption that all of it does unfold given human autonomy? I just find it easier to imagine “here and now” that a God, the God created us rather than bringing it all back to the…Big Bang?
On the other hand, what God?
Just out of curiosity, what are we to make of God’s agency, of Mother Nature’s agency, as Milton barrels down on Florida?
Well if you read further in the very article you quoted from you’ll find that agency is not necessarily free will.
Agency is contrasted to objects reacting to natural forces involving only unthinking deterministic processes. In this respect, agency is subtly distinct from the concept of free will, the philosophicaldoctrine that our choices are not the product of causal chains, but are significantly free or undetermined. Human agency entails the claim that humans do in fact make decisions and enact them on the world. How humans come to make decisions, by free choice or other processes, is another issue.
Note that last part. Agency might be considered part of a free will model by some, but it need not be, and those believing it is free will based agency would need to make this clear.
Why would those who believe in a free will based agency need to make that clear, but those who believe in agency without free will would not?
Especially when they just said it is contrasted with reactions to deterministic processes.
Don’t they need to explain how it is contrasted, and yet not contrasted?
I think when you contradict yourself like that, it’s not about burden of proof, it’s about just admitting that you were wrong and reformulating your theory.
Maybe their definition of free will is wonky, and/or maybe interpreting everything as deterministic is the wrong worldview?
It’s worse than a God of the gaps argument because it just ignores the gap entirely. Handwaving is almost a ritual in this scenario.
Sure, both would. In the specific situation I was responding to Iambiguous who was interepreting the use of agency to entail free will was being asserted. So, my response fit that situation.
I missed the word deterministic or determinism in the other post. Could you quote that`?
Well, the actual post is an article written by Nurana Rajabova, critical of Strawson whom she thinks is throwing out determinism. I don’t think Strawson threw out determinism, not in the article she is criticizing. In any case, it would be odd for her to have to do this, since she believes in determinism, and I think it would be weird for Strawson to have to admit he is wrong about free will, since he bypasses both free will and determinism and isn’t really writing about that metaphysical issue. He is more or less defending moral reactions regardless of whether we have free will or are determined.
Sure, though I’m not sure who they is.
I’m not really sure what you’re talking about. In that post I was focused on what the use of the term agency and saying it exists entails.
But he isn’t dismissing determinism, if you mean the Strawson. Maybe, you could, like, quote.
Further I was responding to Iambiguous quoting from the person criticizing Strawson. Who is it you think is promoting free will? Maybe, you could, like, quote something. I don’t really know what you’re responding to.
Here’s a screenshot of you making an assertion supported by the article to which Biggy is responding. Therein lies the phrase “deterministic processes”. Read my response again.
Biggy. You’re not an atheist or nihilist anymore (or … was that a false assumption on … my … part?). When were you gonna come down from your skyhooks and tell us?
