Morality in Nature

[genkaus]

Okay. At least you're consistent.

I accept moral ideas, including those of punishment, exactly because I don't accept the deterministic definition of free will, and of self, that you do. I take choices to be real things, not labels for reducing a complex environment down to a single behavioral impulse.

I don't think your position makes sense. To accept a determinist view, in which a person ultimately has a choice of 1 option in every scenario, means that morality has no meaning.

Fair enough. I don't think your view of free-will and morality makes sense either. The idea that morality can only apply to non-deterministic choices would require that there was no specific cause or reason behind the choice and we know from experience that that is not the case with our choices.

I would hope that your view on crime fighting is a statistical one, a la Minority Report-- because no other stance makes sense GIVEN determinism.

Don't know about that. Never seen the movie.