Where Do Moral Questions Stop?

[Tassman]

I never quote mined Harris, nor did I suggest that he would conclude God. I made it clear that as a good atheist he would not. His point is nevertheless relevant.

Relevant to what?

Tell me Tass, how is this out of context? http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/t...-consciousness

It is not an oversimplification Tass, I said "all our acts and thoughts are predetermined, including what we find moral or not." What exactly do you disagree with in this statement?

[hamster]

If morality ends with human satisfaction and happiness then it seems like it would be easier to use science to develop a pill or procedure that makes people satisfied with whatever circumstances they happen to be in. Or at least happy with what our current system can't control.

for example if murder and theft are inevitable then change our brains to create a much higher tolerance or acceptance for murder and theft so we're satisfied with it. Our brains and our instincts are the problems here, they're not compatible with the real world.

[seer]

The point is Tass, there is zero scientific reasons for how or why, even in principle, that consciousness could come about. And why would it be dishonest for a theist to conclude God? Or at least the possibility of God? Harris, being a good card carrying atheist, would not - but we all have or biases - I see nothing dishonest here.

Tass, I never said we were not part of the process, only that we we have no freedom if you are correct. Sure a house fly could poop on my potato salad and be part of the causal chain, but so what? It is just as determined as any other creature or thing in your deterministic cosmos, and no less determined than us and our choices. And yes, human beings are special to God - and that means you too Tass bro.

Aren't two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father's consent. But even the hairs of your head have all been counted. So don't be afraid therefore; you are worth more than many sparrows. Jesus

[Tassman]

The point is Tass, there is zero scientific reasons for how or why, even in principle, that consciousness could come about. And why would it be dishonest for a theist to conclude God? Or at least the possibility of God? Harris, being a good card carrying atheist, would not - but we all have or biases - I see nothing dishonest here.

naturalism, i.e. where supernatural or spiritual explanations are specifically excluded or discounted.

Tass, I never said we were not part of the process,

only that we we have no freedom if you are correct. Sure a house fly could poop on my potato salad and be part of the causal chain, but so what? It is just as determined as any other creature or thing in your deterministic cosmos, and no less determined than us and our choices.

We have the illusion

And yes, human beings are special to God - and that means you too Tass bro.

Aren't two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father's consent. But even the hairs of your head have all been counted. So don't be afraid therefore; you are worth more than many sparrows. Jesus

[seer]

naturalism, i.e. where supernatural or spiritual explanations are specifically excluded or discounted.

Tass, you keep trying to minimize Harris' conclusion. He is a Neuroscientist after all, with years of research under his belt. And yes I'm free to exercise my theistic bias just as you are free to exercise your atheistic bias.

We have the illusion

Yes, so when ISIS slaughters children or sells them into slavery they are only doing what the were predetermined to do. Like you quoted in the other thread:

[Tassman]

Tass, you keep trying to minimize Harris' conclusion. He is a Neuroscientist after all, with years of research under his belt. And yes I'm free to exercise my theistic bias just as you are free to exercise your atheistic bias.

Yes, so when ISIS slaughters children or sells them into slavery they are only doing what the were predetermined to do. Like you quoted in the other thread:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/

And these events go back before the dawn of human history to beyond the formation of our universe.

So, if you want to argue that ISIS or Moses or the Conquistadors, in their slaughter of innocent men, women and children,

[seer]

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/

And these events go back before the dawn of human history to beyond the formation of our universe.

So, if you want to argue that ISIS or Moses or the Conquistadors, in their slaughter of innocent men, women and children,

Nonsense Tass, it makes perfect sense to speak in those teams because logically that is what it is. If every event is necessitated by antecedent events and conditions together with the laws of nature then we are clearly predetermined to do what we do - whether good or evil.

[Jichard]

naturalism, i.e. where supernatural or spiritual explanations are specifically excluded or discounted

Yup. He tried to use this same dishonest quote-mine of Sam Harris on me before, along with trying to misrepresent people like Chalmers and Putnam. I can almost guarantee you, that seer has no idea what position Harris, Putnam, or Chalmers hold. He's just misrepresenting them because he thinks it suits his position. The moment they say something that doesn't suit his position, he'll conveniently ignore them. That's what his special pleading commits him to.

[Tassman]

Nonsense Tass, it makes perfect sense to speak in those terms because logically that is what it is. If every event is necessitated by antecedent events and conditions together with the laws of nature then we are clearly predetermined to do what we do - whether good or evil.

[seer]

That is just silly Tass, we are no more responsible for our acts than a chimp, a house fly, or a rock rolling down a hill. All of these are equally determined.

Again from Dawkins:

But doesn't a truly scientific, mechanistic view of the nervous system make nonsense of the very idea of responsibility, whether diminished or not? Any crime, however heinous, is in principle to be blamed on antecedent conditions acting through the accused's physiology, heredity and environment. Don't judicial hearings to decide questions of blame or diminished responsibility make as little sense for a faulty man as for a Fawlty car?

Why is it that we humans find it almost impossible to accept such conclusions? Why do we vent such visceral hatred on child murderers, or on thuggish vandals, when we should simply regard them as faulty units that need fixing or replacing? Presumably because mental constructs like blame and responsibility, indeed evil and good, are built into our brains by millennia of Darwinian evolution. Assigning blame and responsibility is an aspect of the useful fiction of intentional agents that we construct in our brains as a means of short-cutting a truer analysis of what is going on in the world in which we have to live. http://edge.org/q2006/q06_9.html#dawkins

The idea of responsibility is nonsense, a useful FICTION.

[Jichard]

That is just silly Tass, we are no more responsible for our acts than a chimp, a house fly, or a rock rolling down a hill. All of these are equally determined.

Again from Dawkins:



The idea of responsibility is nonsense, a useful FICTION.

Looks like seer is quote-mining Dawkins as if Dawkins' position was representative of all atheists.

seer, there's no need for you to keep pretending that compatibilists don't exist.

[Psychic Missile]

Looks like seer is quote-mining Dawkins as if Dawkins' position was representative of all atheists.

seer, there's no need for you to keep pretending that compatibilists don't exist.

Could you tell me how compatibilism would conflict with that quotation from Dawkins?

[Jichard]

Could you tell me how compatibilism would conflict with that quotation from Dawkins?

This is seer's dishonest quote-mine of Dawkins:

"But doesn't a truly scientific, mechanistic view of the nervous system make nonsense of the very idea of responsibility, whether diminished or not? Any crime, however heinous, is in principle to be blamed on antecedent conditions acting through the accused's physiology, heredity and environment. Don't judicial hearings to decide questions of blame or diminished responsibility make as little sense for a faulty man as for a Fawlty car?

Why is it that we humans find it almost impossible to accept such conclusions? Why do we vent such visceral hatred on child murderers, or on thuggish vandals, when we should simply regard them as faulty units that need fixing or replacing? Presumably because mental constructs like blame and responsibility, indeed evil and good, are built into our brains by millennia of Darwinian evolution. Assigning blame and responsibility is an aspect of the useful fiction of intentional agents that we construct in our brains as a means of short-cutting a truer analysis of what is going on in the world in which we have to live.
http://edge.org/q2006/q06_9.html#dawkins"

seer wants to pretend that this is the position atheists are committed to. That's not the case. For example, one can be a compatibilist who thinks that free will, moral responsibility, and blame are compatible with causal determinism. For example:

"Compatibilism is the thesis that free will is compatible with determinism. Because free will is typically taken to be a necessary condition of moral responsibility, compatibilism is sometimes expressed as a thesis about the compatibility between moral responsibility and determinism.

[...]

A person who is a morally responsible agent is not merely a person who is able to do moral right or wrong. Beyond this, she is accountable for her morally significant conduct. Hence, she is, when fitting, an apt target of moral praise or blame, as well as reward or punishment. And typically, free will is understood as a necessary condition of moral responsibility since it would seem unreasonable to say of a person that she deserves blame and punishment for her conduct if it turned out that she was not at any point in time in control of it. (Similar things can be said about praise and reward.) It is primarily, though not exclusively, because of the intimate connection between free will and moral responsibility that the free will problem is seen as an important one."

seer's been told this before, but that doesn't stop him from ignoring/evading it and pretending otherwise. He's basically trying to trick people through his quote-mines of Dawkins.

[JimL]

This is seer's dishonest quote-mine of Dawkins:

"But doesn't a truly scientific, mechanistic view of the nervous system make nonsense of the very idea of responsibility, whether diminished or not? Any crime, however heinous, is in principle to be blamed on antecedent conditions acting through the accused's physiology, heredity and environment. Don't judicial hearings to decide questions of blame or diminished responsibility make as little sense for a faulty man as for a Fawlty car?

Why is it that we humans find it almost impossible to accept such conclusions? Why do we vent such visceral hatred on child murderers, or on thuggish vandals, when we should simply regard them as faulty units that need fixing or replacing? Presumably because mental constructs like blame and responsibility, indeed evil and good, are built into our brains by millennia of Darwinian evolution. Assigning blame and responsibility is an aspect of the useful fiction of intentional agents that we construct in our brains as a means of short-cutting a truer analysis of what is going on in the world in which we have to live.
http://edge.org/q2006/q06_9.html#dawkins"

seer wants to pretend that this is the position atheists are committed to. That's not the case. For example, one can be a compatibilist who thinks that free will, moral responsibility, and blame are compatible with causal determinism. For example:

"Compatibilism is the thesis that free will is compatible with determinism. Because free will is typically taken to be a necessary condition of moral responsibility, compatibilism is sometimes expressed as a thesis about the compatibility between moral responsibility and determinism.

[...]

A person who is a morally responsible agent is not merely a person who is able to do moral right or wrong. Beyond this, she is accountable for her morally significant conduct. Hence, she is, when fitting, an apt target of moral praise or blame, as well as reward or punishment. And typically, free will is understood as a necessary condition of moral responsibility since it would seem unreasonable to say of a person that she deserves blame and punishment for her conduct if it turned out that she was not at any point in time in control of it. (Similar things can be said about praise and reward.) It is primarily, though not exclusively, because of the intimate connection between free will and moral responsibility that the free will problem is seen as an important one."

seer's been told this before, but that doesn't stop him from ignoring/evading it and pretending otherwise. He's basically trying to trick people through his quote-mines of Dawkins.

Seer may have been told this about compatibilism before, but I have to agree with seer that the above assertion doesn't really explain exactly how free will is compatible with causal determinism, it just asserts that it is. I think it only fair that if we demand of those on the other side of the issue that they explain exactly where in the evolutionary process God inserted free will, then it is also incumbent upon us to explain the same from our causally deterministic perspective. I'm not saying that there isn't a cogent explanation, and perhaps one has been given already and I haven't seen it, but it isn't in the above, and I think that perhaps that is why seer is being dismissive in his responses. I'm not sure if seer would appreciate a reasoned explanation supporting the compatibilist perspective or not, but I would certainly like to hear it.

[Jichard]

Seer may have been told this about compatibilism before, but I have to agree with seer that the above assertion doesn't really explain exactly how free will is compatible with causal determinism, it just asserts that it is. I think it only fair that if we demand of those on the other side of the issue that they explain exactly where in the evolutionary process God inserted free will, then it is also incumbent upon us to explain the same from our causally deterministic perspective. I'm not saying that there isn't a cogent explanation, and perhaps one has been given already and I haven't seen it, but it isn't in the above, and I think that perhaps that is why seer is being dismissive in his responses. I'm not sure if seer would appreciate a reasoned explanation supporting the compatibilist perspective or not, but I would certainly like to hear it.

Nor does seer's quote-mine of Dawkins show why free will is compatible with determinism. seer just quote-mines Dawkins and pretends that's enough to show that atheists are committed to the idea that determinism is incompatible with free will, moral responsibility, and blame. Well, if seer thinks quoting sources is enough, then he'd be disingenuous if he claimed that my quoting sources is not enough.

In any event, I don't see any conflict between free will and causal determinism. Unless they some reason for the two being incompatible, I don't see any reason to think that they are. Free will would involve agents intentions being apart of the causes for what those agents. Those agents intentions would be causally influenced by the information those agents have access to; that would have to be the case in order for those agents to make informed choices. So there's no room for complaining that causal factors such as information inhibit one's free will, since those causal factors are required for one to make free choices. Instead, what would actually interfere with free will are causes that would bypass one's intentions. But causal determinism does not entail bypassing. So causal determinism does not entail a conflict with free will.