No soul? No free will and no responsibility then, yet the latter's essential...

[Duty]

Here's the argument in brief video form for free will impossibilism, for anyone who's unfamiliar with it (Shazza?). 





If there were some kind of ethereal supernatural "soul" in the picture (for which there is, of course, zero evidence) then perhaps some from of free will would be possible, but for the atheist, it's a simple impenetrable brick wall. No human has free will. And yet,

For society to function in any kind of moral way people need be held responsible for their actions (eg - crime). You frequently hear the line "they did it of their own free will" etc. I say this is the core paradox of being alive in society and that the sooner everybody gets on board with it the better, instead of giving a lame ass shrug and carrying on as normal. Here's my new mantra, to be drilled into my puny, malleable, yielding, fickle mind:

We need be held responsible for our actions, including by ourselves, although in truth the logic and evidence overwhelmingly directs that we are not. This is the fundamental foundation of a modern, atheistic, civilised society, and the bolded bit need be drilled home from infancy.

Yup, it's the mother of all paradoxes, but there we have it, it's....inescapable.

Forty thoughts AF?

[The Grand Nudger]

Nah, soul™ might have a nature as well, and that nature might be constrained in the relevant manner. Christians assert as much with regularity.

When people say "they did it of their own free will" they're attempting to load the act down with conceptual baggage for-purpose.They did a good thing of their free will™ - which is better..or a bad thing of their free will, which is worse. It's not a statement of fact with respect to the action in question - but with respect to alleged underlying intent. We are held responsible for our decisions regardless of whether we freely will any action - and freely willed action is not a requirement of holding us responsible for our decisions.

We make the decisions regardless of whether we freely will anything, and we hope to dissuade poor decision-making...especially by non freely willed means. If the candy machine gave us a snickers when we ordered a twix, we'd be just as pissed.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

We don't need some phantasmagorical future punishment and reward system to be good.

[no one]

That train left a long time ago.

[Duty]

We don't need some phantasmagorical future punishment and reward system to be good.

Can't find the cartoon but:

"In Hinduism, you can burn your wife. In Islam, you can beat your wife. In Christianity you can't burn or beat your wife, but if you do, you can be forgiven."

[The Grand Nudger]

We don't need gods to make us act like assholes, either. They're just a performance enhancing drug.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

We don't need some phantasmagorical future punishment and reward system to be good.

Can't find the cartoon but:

"In Hinduism, you can burn your wife. In Islam, you can beat your wife. In Christianity you can't burn or beat your wife, but if you do, you can be forgiven."

My wife wouldn't put up with that shit. That's one of the reasons we chose each other.

[AFTT47]

For society to function in any kind of moral way people need be held responsible for their actions (eg - crime).

What do you mean exactly by, "held responsible for their actions?"

I ask because that statement sounds like a call for punishment. Aside from deterrence, punishment is pointless. If I wrong you and you kick me in the balls in retribution, that doesn't really make anything right - even if I have free will. You might take satisfaction in the fact my balls hurt. It might have the utility of discouraging me from doing it again. But it doesn't reverse whatever wrong I did to you.

In my view, any kind of "justice" should be in the form of restitution. That's a good consequence to one's actions that's practical whether we have free-will or not.

For society to function, we need to have individuals to respect the common good. There will always be those who do not. If we deal with them pragmatically and logically rather than emotionally, does it really matter if they have free will or not?

1. Force restitution when possible.

2. Rehabilitate if possible.

3. Remove from society if necessary. Simply warehouse those individuals who are a danger to society and treat them humanely. Hold no malice for them.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Can't find the cartoon but:

"In Hinduism, you can burn your wife. In Islam, you can beat your wife. In Christianity you can't burn or beat your wife, but if you do, you can be forgiven."

My wife wouldn't put up with that shit. That's one of the reasons we chose each other.

My missus defined our relationship after we’d been shacked up for about a year. Over supper, I jokingly asked, ‘What would you do if I cheated on you?’ Between bites, she smiled and said, ‘Kill you in your sleep.’

Boru

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Here's the argument in brief video form for free will impossibilism, for anyone who's unfamiliar with it (Shazza?). 





If there were some kind of ethereal supernatural "soul" in the picture (for which there is, of course, zero evidence) then perhaps some from of free will would be possible, but for the atheist, it's a simple impenetrable brick wall. No human has free will. And yet,

For society to function in any kind of moral way people need be held responsible for their actions (eg - crime). You frequently hear the line "they did it of their own free will" etc. I say this is the core paradox of being alive in society and that the sooner everybody gets on board with it the better, instead of giving a lame ass shrug and carrying on as normal. Here's my new mantra, to be drilled into my puny, malleable, yielding, fickle mind:

We need be held responsible for our actions, including by ourselves, although in truth the logic and evidence overwhelmingly directs that we are not. This is the fundamental foundation of a modern, atheistic, civilised society, and the bolded bit need be drilled home from infancy.

Yup, it's the mother of all paradoxes, but there we have it, it's....inescapable.

Forty thoughts AF?

It isn’t a paradox at all. If there is no free will, then all of our actions are constrained. This includes acting as though we have free will, and all the repercussions of doing so.

If Joe chops up his wife and feeds her bits to the neighbour’s pet shark, we can argue that, in the absence of free will, Joe could have done nothing else - it is impossible for him not to have done this and he bears no moral responsibility for his actions.

Then the police come and investigate Joe. He’s arrested and brought to trial, convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison. While in prison, Joe gets into a fight with Jim, gets shanked, and dies of his wounds. But no one in this chain of events - not the cops, not the jurors, not the judges, not the prison guards, not Jim - could not have acted in any other way.

This is why the ‘no free will’ position fails as a scare tactic. People generally frame it as, ‘If criminals have no free will, then society can’t punish them’. This is just stating that ONLY Joe has no free will. But if Joe has no free will, then no one has free will. We can’t help but punish him any more that he could not have killed his wife.

Boru