Compassionist wrote:Daniel Dennett is a compatibilist. He explained his position in 'Freedom Evolves'. It didn't make sense to me. It's possible that he is right and the hard determinists are wrong ...
OK. Good. That's all I wanted to establish. You
are an agnostic about this too.
Compassionist wrote:... but strangely enough, hard determinism makes sense to me. If you penalise people for speeding, it reduces speeding. This is simple cause and effect. No free will is necessary for this process to work. Why would we need compatibilism? It is redundant.
I was going to say that I don't think that compatibilism is a position held solely for the purposes of making the penal system work; rather it's a position about how the world
is. But actually, on reflection, I'm not so sure about that. I think that compatibilists
are looking for a way to come up with a notion of free will that is compatible with determinism but that also implies the kind of moral responsibility that means that people deserve to be punished for their misdeeds, in proportion to the severity of those misdeeds. Yes, perhaps that is the starting point. Hmmm ...
Anyway, I think you're wrong about penalising people who speed in order to reduce speeding being "simple cause and effect". According to the Scottish government, for example, "Little is known about the role of legal enforcement and penalties in influencing driving behaviour and hence safety on the roads." At the moment, when deciding what penalty to attach to a particular offence, most penal systems attempt to follow the principle that the punishment should fit the crime. The more harm an offender has caused by his or her offence (or in some cases the more harm he or she
might have caused), the more severe his or her punishment. They don't always succeed in that, but it's a principle that is thought to be a good one to aim for. It chimes with most people's sense of fairness. If a penalty for an offence is determined only by what is necessary for the purposes of deterrence, however that might be determined, then there is no guarantee that it will be proportionate to the severity of the offence. One might end up with certain grave crimes being punished less severely than relatively minor ones, simply because they are less responsive to the deterrent effects of punishment. A system that's based on the assumption that we all have free will and are all morally responsible for our crimes, unless that responsibility is diminished as the result of mental impairment, allows for a retributive system of justice, which allows us to let the punishment fit the crime. And that doesn't just apply to penal systems: it applies to the way people treat each other in their everyday lives, too. It is entirely understandable that people would want to hang on to that principle. I can see the appeal of it myself. But I think the notion of "just deserts" is also hugely problematical.
Compassionist wrote:As I said in my previous post, I am assuming that other people have similar sensory, cognitive and affective processes to myself. Perhaps they don't. If you take away that assumption, it is not possible for me to consider others to be as unfree as I am. I actually feel constrained. I don't feel free. I have to take Seroquel to keep myself from hallucinating. How is this compatible with free will?
Free will, whoever is defining it, does not have to be utterly unrestricted in every way. We all have constraints. The need to take medication would be one of them. There are plenty of others. People who believe in free will believe that one is able to make choices
within those constraints. They might not be free to become Prime Minister, or to swim the English Channel, or to walk without the use of a stick, but they're free, they feel, to buy broccoli rather than cabbage for their evening meal, or to switch off the TV if it bores them, or to tell their spouses that they love them. Even if you don't feel those kinds of freedom yourself (which is surprising, even allowing for your medical conditions), you surely are aware that other people feel them. Apart from anything else, they've told you that they do.
Compassionist wrote:I know there are various conflicting definitions of free will. Which one is right? I am using the one that I can relate to i.e. free will is the freedom to choose freely.
It isn't a matter of which one is right. If someone with whom you are discussing free will is saying that he believes in a particular kind of free will, then there is no point in repeatedly asserting that free will does not exist if you're referring to a different kind of free will. You need, at least, to be talking about the same thing. Having said that, I'm still very unclear myself about what animist does mean by free will. So I'm not saying it's easy.
Compassionist wrote:Was I being arrogant? It didn't feel that way to me.
I'm sorry, Compassionist. Arrogant can mean very different things. I don't think you were being haughty or conceited. I don't think you were betraying an exaggerated sense of your own importance. So in that sense I don't think you were being arrogant. I should have stuck with just "presumptuous". You were presuming to know what other people really believe, deep down.
Compassionist wrote:It flowed from the assumption that other people's sensory, congnitive and affective processes are similar to mine.
It might have flowed from that assumption, but it also implied that people who believe in free will must know deep down that it doesn't exist but are refusing to accept that uncomfortable fact, which is what "in denial" means. And that when people say that they feel free, as they have done repeatedly in this thread, they somehow don't really mean it. That came across to me as a slur on other people's honesty, though perhaps more honesty with themselves than with other people.
Compassionist wrote:Hard determinism is consistent with all I know about what it is like to be me, other people and reality.
I know, and I do understand that, really I do. Sometimes I am overwhelmed by how blindingly obvious it seems. But I am also prepared to accept that I might be missing something important. That my inability to understand compatibilist arguments is a consequence of the limitations of my intellect rather than of the weakness of those arguments.
Compassionist wrote:How do you know that solipsism is bullshit and not worth the time and the effort?
It is pointless to debate solipsism with anyone because if it's true then only my mind exists and you and everyone else are merely figments of my imagination. And if the person I'm talking to thinks it's true then they think that only their mind exists and that I and everyone else are merely figments of their imaginations. I know that's not true, but nothing I say can possibly convince them of that. As a philosophy it's pointless, absolutely pointless. And rather ugly. Fortunately, very few people actually believe it.[quote="Compassionist?]It actually doesn't take much time or effort![/quote]It's taken both time and effort for me to type the preceding sentences.
Compassionist wrote:What about simulation hypothesis or reincarnation according to karma or afterlife?
I'm not interested in discussing any of them. They are all equally implausible to me.
Compassionist wrote:Thanks to your protest, I will certainly refrain from doing so in the future but I don't think I could have refrained in the past because the variables were different at that point in the spacetime continuum.
I didn't say that you could have refrained in the past.
Compassionist wrote:Are you (the readers of this post) real people or simulations? You might tell me that you are a real human being but are you sure? Could all of us be aliens trapped in a simulation machine? Could death be the only exit from this simulation?
Again, what on earth is the point of thinking along these lines? OK, you can think about it once, the first time you're introduced to the idea (which in my case was over thirty years ago), and it might be sort of fun for a
very short period. But then it gets stale. It is not a fruitful train of thought. It is a dead end.
Compassionist wrote:I have already read [Daniel Dennett's] book 'Freedom Evolves' so I am familiar with his stance. I respect everyone's sincerity ...
Good. So when someone tells you that they feel free, believe them.
Compassionist wrote: I still don't understand how the same variables could produce a different choice. A choice doesn't occur in a vacuum. A choice occurs as a result of interacting variables.
Yes. I don't think compatibilists are suggesting that the same variables could produce a different choice. Some compatibilists seem to be saying that
different variables, including a person having different wants, could produce a different choice. But I just don't understand how that helps, and how it implies the kind of free will that in turn implies moral responsibility!
Mind you, compatibilism has evolved. It's a bit more sophisticated than it used to be. There is a supplement to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
article on compatibilism entitled:
"Compatibilism: State of the Art". I think I need to read it several times!
Emma