RE: If free will was not real
August 22, 2016 at 2:22 am
(This post was last modified: August 22, 2016 at 2:23 am by Gemini.)
(August 21, 2016 at 7:56 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: What is happening in the brain of someone with a gun pointed at them that is different from the same brain imagining its future state after choosing the chocolate cake?
The differences you would see with neuroimaging.
Quote:How is having a gun pointed at my head not just another decision to be made? I fail to see the distinction between the two decisions is anything more than an artifact of your definition. You could define free will as making decisions in the absence of Bobo the clown, simply making a definition doesn't imbue the situation with metaphysical properties it didn't have before the definition.
The kind of classic compatibilism I'm arguing for isn't a metaphysical position. We aren't suggesting that the definition imbues the situation with metaphysical properties. We do believe that freedom from duress/coercion by other agents is more salient to agent autonomy than the absence of Bobo the clown.
Quote:If our will isn't free under 'duress' then it isn't free under ordinary thought processes either. You say that being free from duress/coercion is a real property that human beings can have. I'm not seeing the 'real' part of it in the brain. Just decisions. Gun, no gun. Cake, no cake. It's all the same in the brain.
It's not metaphysically free, in the sense of contra-causal free will, no. Is there a difference is how the causal process of making a decision to eat cake vs. making a decision with a gun pointed at your head is experienced? I should hope so; so long as you're not conflating determinism with fatalism, there should be a difference in the way these decisions are experienced.
Likewise, if, for example, a bank employee emptied out several accounts she was entrusted with, it will make a tremendous difference in how we react to that whether there was gun pointed at her head or whether she made the decision free from duress. Compatibilists aren't arguing that the latter case justifies retributive punishment, but it does require that we take action toward this agent that we wouldn't if she was acting under duress.
Again, these distinctions are meaningful in these types of contexts, and that's what compatibilists are pointing out.
A Gemma is forever.
