Not Convinced Determinism Makes Sense of Moral Responsibility. Convince Me It Does

[pocaracas]

So... if our mind is deterministic, how can we be held accountable for what it does? Is that it?

We can, because we're dealing with two different layers of "we" in one sentence.
The low level layer is pure neuron firing...
The higher layer contains our experiences, our memories, our personality, our sensory information and decides on a behavior, based on those. Some of those decisions are made in a split second, almost automatically... others require some "cpu cycles" to gather everything. The potential punishment is one of the factors that have to go in that processing!

This is where the current scientific consensus is leading... not that it's there yet, but... it's where it's going...

Thank you for replying. I'm surprised the other responses consisted only of ignorance of the philosophical problem and the ready embrace of moral relativism. Many of the "New Atheists" obviously don't agree with postmodernism and neither do I. In fact, the only way to accuse religion of promoting evil (rather than merely going "left") is to have some objective compass of morality by which to judge religious teachings as immoral. As to your point about the potential punishment that goes into our brain processes, I'm not really sure how that's relevant. Can atheists justify moral duties--in conjunction with determinism--why a person OUGHT to do something, even if doing so results in punishment for that individual instead of reward? Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris seem to hold that determinism and moral duties can co-exist, unless I've misunderstood their views, and I'd like to understand that better.

The other responses are what they are because this subject has (recently) been done to death on this forum.
When I mentioned punishment... perhaps "consequences" should have been more apt a word. Lots of information go into making some decisions and behaviors. As to the consequences, the absence of detailed information makes one use probabilities.... what are the odds this present will please my wife? what are the odds I get caught if I rape that cute cheerleader? what are the odds people will think less of me, if I speak my mind?
If the perceived intuitive probability (stemming mostly from past experience) supports a given behavior, then it is carried out.... it seems this would be one of the last processes before actually carrying out the behavior... many considerations must come before this one: "Do I want to waste time doing this?" "Can I do it?", etc....

Now the "ought"... Looking back at history, the "ought" seems to be a product of society.
Ought we have slaves? - some time ago, it was our duty to have slaves... and the slaves' duty to be slaves... did that make it right? it seems yes. (I'd disagree, but I'm in the now)
Ought we have slaves, now? no. Do some of us wish we had slaves? definitely!
The difference being? a different perception of the value of each human individual at the level of the national code of law.



Society also has some weight in the decision making process of the brain. Some individuals will sacrifice themselves for the betterment of the social group of which they are a part... others will never do so... willingly.