Morality in Nature

[bennyboy]

Wrong. As I said, choice requires an agency, which the sun and the rock do not have. The girl, however, chooses pink.

Yes, but your definition of agency is arbitrary. There's no singular agent at all-- there's the IDEA of a singular agent. These are very different things.

I do accept a moral agent with all its implication - including actual free-will. Its just that what I understand by actual free-will is different from what you do.

I didn't say "free-will," by whatever totally not-free definition you are trying to make it mean. I said "actual-free-will."

So back to our murderer-- there IS actually no singular agent responsible for the behavior. Maybe a particular brain region led to the killing, and all the rest of the brain is a nice, functional guy. Maybe he had a stroke, or has a blood clot. Maybe he was abused and his world view is broken. Lumping all those possibilities under a single agency, just because they are collectively called by a single name, is cruel. If there's no single agent (i.e. the brain somehow unified by a spirit, or a will or whatever), then inflicting punishment on the entire system is immoral.

Wrong. There is a set of interconnected processes that constitute a singular agency. A stroke, blood cot or past event are not a part of that agency.

You forgot abuse, brain development issues, exposure to crime and violence at a young age, etc. etc. That is, you exactly forgot all the influences, totally beyond a person's control, which inevitably led to his murderous moment.

Anyway, this singular "agent" you talk about is a complete myth. Just because you attach a name to multiple processes, most of them completely unconscious and inaccessible to the murderer, does not mean there is anything singular about them.

EXCEPT as an idea. And that's what I'm talking about. As much as you want to objectify SOME of the human experience (e.g. free will), you continue to mythologize this singular agent, which I challenge you either to define or produce. Sure, you can wave airily at a person and say, "There's Bob. He's the agent. He killed someone." But that's not really a good representation of the processes that led to the killing.