A thing about religious (and other) people and the illusion of free will

[FrustratedFool]

Everyone always does what they prefer. Literally one hundred percent of the time. It would never be any different. So it's like, we have free will, but only the free will to do what we wanted to do and were going to do anyway. You are always just doing what you prefer to be doing.

I agree. The free will-determinism debate seems totally beside the point to me, because whether we think we're making completely free choices or believe we're just executing our tasks in the grand algorithm, we still have to make decisions about our lives and abide by them.

I think the issue with freewill is the knock-on effects.  

If our behaviours are determined then not only is moral responsibility/morality as most understand it now a redundant concept, but it also means that if we simply build a big enough computer and get enough information about the present we can with 100% accuracy know the entire past and predict the entire future.  

If, however, we think freewill exists then we have a much greater warrant for believing in immaterial minds, souls, God and ghosts etc. as we've already made the leap to assuming that something is free from the cause-effect chain of physics.

Freewill or the lack of it leads to other things, it seems.

[Istvan]

If our behaviours are determined then not only is moral responsibility/morality as most understand it now a redundant concept

All we were saying is that we still have the anxiety of making decisions, knowing what society considers acceptable behavior. Even if we reject the idea of free will, we still would teach kids what constitutes ethical behavior, expect people to abide by their promises and honor their contracts, etc. Advocates of the no-free-will idea like Sabine Hossenfelder are careful to make a distinction between determinism and fatalism; our choices are part of the process or algorithm or whatever, so we're still obliged to treat decisions like they matter.

And even if we reject the idea of free will, we don't just allow people to murder and rape without consequences. I assume there would be some method of dealing with destructive behavior that doesn't rely on religious moralism, but it would still broadly resemble punishment.

if we simply build a big enough computer and get enough information about the present we can with 100% accuracy know the entire past and predict the entire future.  

"Simply"? Sounds like sci-fi fantasy to me.

free from the cause-effect chain of physics.

I figure if we're looking at physics to tell us about ethical decision-making, we already know what answers we consider acceptable.

[FrustratedFool]

If our behaviours are determined then not only is moral responsibility/morality as most understand it now a redundant concept

All we were saying is that we still have the anxiety of making decisions, knowing what society considers acceptable behavior. Even if we reject the idea of free will, we still would teach kids what constitutes ethical behavior, expect people to abide by their promises and honor their contracts, etc. Advocates of the no-free-will idea like Sabine Hossenfelder are careful to make a distinction between determinism and fatalism; our choices are part of the process or algorithm or whatever, so we're still obliged to treat decisions like they matter.

And even if we reject the idea of free will, we don't just allow people to murder and rape without consequences. I assume there would be some method of dealing with destructive behavior that doesn't rely on religious moralism, but it would still broadly resemble punishment.

if we simply build a big enough computer and get enough information about the present we can with 100% accuracy know the entire past and predict the entire future.  

"Simply"? Sounds like sci-fi fantasy to me.

free from the cause-effect chain of physics.

I figure if we're looking at physics to tell us about ethical decision-making, we already know what answers we consider acceptable.

1)  Agreed.  Consequences etc would still exist (and we would want them to).  But the language and implications becomes markedly different.  Ethics really then becomes about behaviour modification and enlightened self-interest, not the breaking of some objective moral code.  And people are no longer evil or bad, merely unlucky.  Rehabilitive justice becomes more consistent than retributive.  And so on.  The implications are still large.  And even affect personal respones (since accepting that freewill likely doesn't exist, I've become far more forgiving, less judgemental, and more inclined to accept a nanny-state etc).

2) Yes, lol, 'simply' in the comparative sense of it's just a straightforward tech issue, not an issue of something being utterly incalculable.  

3) I don't follow your point about physics and ethics.

[Harry Haller]

I think free will exists but it exists in a very narrow window. 

Most of life is outside of our control.  Events happen around us that we have no control over.  Events have happened in the past that have created the present that we have no control over.  Many of the decisions we feel like we make with our "free will" are heavily influenced by our genetic makeup and past experiences.  We are largely predisposed to feel, think, and react in certain ways.  Predisposition is not predetermination.  We may feel led to think and react in certain ways but we can actively choose to follow those predispositions or go a different direction.  Our free will is largely equal to our own self-control.  

No person is free who cannot command themself - Pythagoras

[Gawdzilla Sama]

"free will" is humans facing decisions and making choices. Not "fate" about it.

[Istvan]

Many of the decisions we feel like we make with our "free will" are heavily influenced by our genetic makeup and past experiences.

I don't think anyone really believes at this late date that we're in complete conscious control of our choices, and that our decisions are totally free from any influences like neurochemistry or socioeconomic status. Such an idea of "free will" is so absurd it refutes itself. But the no-free-will advocates (look at neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky, currently in the spotlight for another book about how free will is an illusion) throw out the baby with the bathwater, quite explicitly denying any difference between accidental and deliberate acts and invalidating any notion of moral responsibility whatsoever. Don't we want to make valid distinctions between people who can and can't be held responsible for their actions? Is it unthinkably moralistic to have qualms about living in a world where rape victims are just as culpable as their rapists?

The existentialist in me wonders why people even look at physics to tell us about the legitimacy of ethical decision-making in the first place. Just because physics exhaustively describes the movement of three-dimensional bodies through conventional time-space doesn't mean it's the appropriate source for answers about personal choices. And there are plenty of other things that only apply to our phenomenological life-world ---like language, love, art, justice and meaning--- that should go on the trash heap too if our basis for experiencing them doesn't exist at the subatomic level. If I said that physics proves the English language is an "illusion," or that we only "think" we're listening to a Mozart opera, people would have every reason to laugh. But for some reason, the idea that our choices matter is something we're so desperate to jettison that any old science-words will do.

[The Grand Nudger]

Just a cursory look at Sapolsky - I found an interesting quote that seems to sum up what you're mentioning.

there can be no such thing as blame, and that punishment as retribution is indefensible.

I think we can still assign responsibility for an act to the actor. We do that even when we think the behavior is compulsive. Still their compulsions. The second part I can't disagree with, though. I don't think it's defensible whether we have free will or not.

I doubt, though, that Sapolsky means for us to infer that he could not tell you who took the candy out of the candy jar. I strongly suspect that part of his conclusion there with respect to blame boils down to the mountain of blame we traditionally lay on this or that which, like whether or not retribution is acceptable as a response to crime, may be indefensible regardless of whether the people who engage in the behaviors we shame freely will to do so.

It seems to me that we can say that someone is an arsonist, and say that they are responsible for the fire, and say that we are going to prevent them from lighting any more fires, and say that they may not be responsible for -the way they are- but they will be responsible for repairing the damage that they've done to whatever extent they can. Better outcome than any other animal could expect. We'd just shoot em and not worry about whether they freely willed to burn down the zoo.

[Angrboda]

It seems to me that we can say that someone is an arsonist, and say that they are responsible for the fire, and say that we are going to prevent them from lighting any more fires, and say that they may not be responsible for -the way they are- but they will be responsible for repairing the damage that they've done to whatever extent they can.  Better outcome than any other animal could expect.  We'd just shoot em and not worry about whether they freely willed to burn down the zoo.

If there's no moral culpability involved, on what basis do we deny them the right to start more fires? We don't deny anyone else that right, so where's the reason?

We don"t restrict people for amoral acts unless there"s a relevant community interest. We don't try to isolate people for eating spam so they don't eat spam again.

[The Grand Nudger]

Moral culpability and legality are pretty distinct things, right? It's not inconceivable that a person burns down a building and is apprehended as having done something good or righteous or justified - a hero - but it's still arson. Conversely, to find a course of action reprehensible and utterly unconscionable - but perfectly legal.

The simple answer is that we prevent arsonists from lighting fires because they are arsonists. Because those fires often turn out to be consequential. Because we have a compelling interest in preventing arson. I don't see how it would matter, to that, whether we believed that they were morally culpable or whether we believed they could help themselves. We blame them for the fire because they started the fire. We restrict their freedom so that they do not start more fires.

I think the sort of blame he's referring to is when we say that a - because they are arsonists they are evil...and b - because they are evil we should go above and beyond preventing them from starting more fires, go beyond holding them responsible for damages to the extent that they can be held responsible. When blame on flimsy premises becomes the cause for retributive, rather than reformative or restorative justice.

[Angrboda]

Moral culpability and legality are pretty distinct things, right?  It's not inconceivable that a person burns down a building and is apprehended as having done something good or righteous or justified - a hero - but it's still arson.  Conversely, to find a course of action reprehensible and utterly unconscionable - but perfectly legal.  

The simple answer is that we prevent arsonists from lighting fires because they are arsonists.  Because those fires often turn out to be consequential.  Because we have a compelling interest in preventing arson.  I don't see how it would matter, to that, whether we believed that they were morally culpable or whether we believed they could help themselves.  We blame them for the fire because they started the fire.  We restrict their freedom so that they do not start more fires.

That seems to be a "we do it because we do it" kind of response. It doesn't really address the question of why we restrict people's liberty for some things rather than others. Smoking and drinking likely have as much consequence as an arson or two, yet we don't restrict people who practice those habits.