RE: A thing about religious (and other) people and the illusion of free will
November 10, 2023 at 4:53 pm
(This post was last modified: November 10, 2023 at 4:56 pm by Angrboda.)
(November 10, 2023 at 3:52 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote:(November 10, 2023 at 1:09 pm)Angrboda Wrote: Because desire isn't objective. If you think that something subjective can also be objective, then I'd say you have problems that I can't fix.
Drinking while driving isn't an aspect of the drinking, it's an aspect of the driving, so, no, we don't imprison people for drinking. That's why you snuck the word related in there. You're just engaged in equivocation now.
Basing something solely on desire is not objective, but it isn't clear that we are incapable of desiring things because of some fact about that thing, rather than some fact which is only about ourselves. No matter where we fall on that issue, though, I hope I never come across as a person who thinks that our legal system is a paragon of objectivity. I'm absolutely certain that a great many of our laws and the consequences for breaking them are fundamentally relative - and at least some are wholly subjective with the perfect example being a law bought and paid for that isn't in the interests of the state or anyone else.
Only if none of it is subjective. Subjectivity is like piss in the pool. Once it's in there you can't get it out. There is no such thing as a fact about a thing that can make it desirable in and of itself.
(November 10, 2023 at 3:52 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: I'm pointing out that we do these things - not that any of them are equivalent or insisting that they are all completely objective in their aims or their enforcement- a quick glance at the statutes and outcomes demonstrates that they are not. You can also be thrown in jail for littering...which is waaaaay down there on the "is this gonna get a bystander killed unless we jail this person" scale. We might wonder whether drunk drivers or litterers should see consequences closer to an arsonists, or whether a litterer and a drunk driver are over punished and an arsonist is under punished. Smoking causes all sorts of issues - but the kind of smoking that does that isn't the kind that we criminalized. What happened there? All good questions. Why we prevent arsonists from setting fires...by imprisoning them if need be... imo, less so. To prevent fires. Why do we want there to be less fires....likely...something true about fires.
What purpose do you think is served by pointing them out? It seems a pointless digression even if you could get clear of the fallacies.
(November 10, 2023 at 3:52 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: All of that in mind, I can't spot anything untrue, or that would be made untrue by free will being illusory, about who is responsible for a crime that they have committed. Free will or no free will we can certainly catch an arsonist and know they did it. So I personally can't agree with the idea that, absent free will, we can't assign blame. That our legal system just could not work, though I do agree that retributive justice would be groundless. OFC, as I mentioned, it seems indefensible either way. I don't think it fits realist ethics. Hold you, and literally, as the responsible party? Sure. More than that is elective. There are definitely people who want retribution and retributive justice, I'm familiar with the desire myself - but I still don't think it has a place in law or ethics.
No, nothing about fires themselves leads to a justification for holding arsonists accountable. It is solely a fact about a subjective state. Free will seems necessary if we are to hold people accountable for what are in other people's minds, but you seem to think that lacking an intention relevant to you, I am somehow responsible for what is or isn't in your mind or someone else's mind. That's why the just so facts necessarily including subjective ones is a problem without free will.
I'll give you a tip. This all traces back to your being confused about the nature of the moral system you have endorsed.
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