RE: Not Convinced Determinism Makes Sense of Moral Responsibility. Convince Me It Does
December 4, 2013 at 6:23 am
(This post was last modified: December 4, 2013 at 6:25 am by genkaus.)
(December 1, 2013 at 5:44 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: It seems that one of the strongest selling points for theism is moral responsibility and free will, oftentimes in a form of the Moral argument for God's existence. However, I think its safe to say that scientific research has thoroughly vindicated the old philosophical notion of determinism, which necessarily negates the traditional (if not incoherent) idea that man is *actually* free to choose his thoughts/behaviors. Determinism is held by the majority of atheists I've encountered and many of them also hold to some idea of moral absolutes, which in my mind entails duties or responsibilities. Can someone explain to me how determinists define free will differently than it has been traditionally understood and how humans can be held morally responsible for actions they were not actually the cause for?
First of all, I don't think that the moral responsibility and free-will constitute what is generally known as the Moral argument.
As for the main argument, I regard the determinism/free-will/moral responsibility debate as being based on bad premises. Specifically, the debate only becomes relevant with the assumption of certain supernatural phenomena.
To start with, I agree with determinism. I assume all phenomena occurring in the universe to have a cause and thus I believe in multiple causal chains all originating from a single point.
Given that, when I look at the term free-will, I ask "what is it the will is supposed to be free from?". The most common answer I find is "causation", i.e. the will is not determined by prior causes but is somehow, spontaneously generated. Given my agreement with determinism, I obviously find this concept to be ridiculous and if the that was the only point of the debate, I'd happily leave it behind and move on.
But, as it turns out, the reason why free-will is regarded as significant is because of the entrenched notion that without free-will there can be no moral responsibility. And this is what confuses me. Why would a causeless and spontaneously generated will magically give rise to moral responsibility? The only way for "you" to be held responsible for your will would be if you are the progenitor of your will. In which case, for your will to be free from determinism, the "you" must also be free from causality - meaning, the worldview where free-will leading to moral responsibility makes any sense (in fact, the only worldview where free-will can be a coherent concept) is the one where "you" are some sort of spirit existing beyond the material universe bound by causality.
Obviously, since I don't buy into that worldview, I find the traditional conception of free-will to be nonsensical - however, moral responsibility still needs to be accounted for. For this, we need to examine the cases where we consider morality to apply. Simply put, for us to call a person moral or immoral, he must have the capacity to reflect upon his thoughts, principles, actions and their consequences and thus act accordingly. Consider this a complex program where different factors are weighed in and evaluated. Irrespective of whether or not this system is deterministic in nature, without the existence of such a system, we cannot and do not assign moral responsibility.
So, within a deterministic worldview, I'd say that "you" are a complex program, initially determined by external events, but as time goes on, the having the capacity to examine and alter your own code. So, in the end, while your existence is still deterministic in nature, there are two parts to your programming - one which is alterable by yourself and one which is a given. Any action attributable to the alterable component can have a moral dimension. Given this, the idea of free-will that I find relevant to moral responsibility is freedom from any unalterable factors such as external constraints or biological conditions.
For example, if a person within the normal limits of sanity chooses to plant a bomb in a crowded ares, we'd consider him morally responsible for his actions. He had the capacity to reflect on his motivations, actions and consequences - that his programming resulted in that choice becomes irrelevant in face of the fact that it could've altered itself. If a psychopath chooses to do it - he too is held morally responsible. Lack of empathy does not negate the ability to reflect upon one's actions. However, someone insane - someone we assume has no such capacity, would not be held responsible. Similarly, someone externally constrained - such as by a gun to his head - is also not held morally responsible.
(December 1, 2013 at 5:58 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: Does not one have to hold to some form of objective morality to use examples of "evil" as one of the primary railing points against religion?
AFAIK, the primary rallying point is not "evil" but "causing suffering". Ofcourse, you could argue that this assumes causing suffering as evil and thus presumes some sort of moral code - but then, preventing suffering is a common theme in almost all moralities.
