“An Argument For Compatibilism”
Jason Streitfeld
from the Specter of Reason website
This observation alone encompasses just how problematic discussions like this can become. He says that he agrees but he may well be saying that only because he was compelled by his brain compelled by the laws of nature to say it. Just as we say we are choosing to read his words only in assuming that it was within our own autonomous capacity to choose not to. And then when, compelled or not, we bring God into the discussion that just adds another convoluted layer. After all, if an omniscient God is just another inherent manifestation of a wholly created universe…what then? Or, if, instead, an omniscient God created the universe and then created us to be autonomous how is what we choose to do not already known by God Himself. How here is free will squared with His omniscient nature?
And, again, in reflecting on all of this how is the mind of the compatibilist qualitatively different from the mind of the determinist? What, given the compatibilist perspective, would be any different? In particular, in regard to human interactions down here on Earth.
These points are embedded in an argument for compatibilism. When all I want to know is how on earth in a determined universe points that could only have been made are somehow in sync with the idea that peacegirl and others raise in distinguishing between choosing to raise them and “choosing” to raise them. I see this as embedded necessarily in the the psychological illusion of free will embedded necessarily in how the human brain must function.
The way forward [for me] is to explain how the past, present and future move as they do when a distinction is made between hard determinism and compatibilism. What changes in regard to what actually does happen?
And why focus on morality and moral responsibility if one is only ever able to make that the focus in the only argument that one is ever able to make. Isn’t that why? If you argue for a coherent picture going all the way back to what brought into existence the laws of matter themselves isn’t your argument going to be just another inherent component of that?