[deleted] t1_j9ardf1 wrote
Reply to comment by InTheEndEntropyWins in Compatibilism is supported by deep intuitions about responsibility and control. It can also feel "obviously" wrong and absurd. Slavoj Žižek's commentary can help us navigate the intuitive standoff. by matthewharlow
>If someone commits a crime freely, you want to put them in prison. But if someone if forced or coerced into the crime, then they will probably found not guilty and not put into prison.
Why does it have to be described like that, though?
If someone commits a murder without coercion, we can decide that it's a problem with their brain chemistry and we can't fix that brain chemistry so we need to remove that brain chemistry from society so that it won't happen again.
If the murder is committed under coercion then maybe the brain is fine it was just external circumstances. So we'd not imprison that brain but we might try to remedy the external circumstances.
This would lead us to exactly the outcome as you described, with harsher penalties for the first and not for the second.
And I described the whole thing without even mentioning free will!
We can pretend that free will exists and attribute our justice system to that but we don't need the idea of free will to have the justice system that we already have.
If anything, the idea of free will can remove our empathy. If free will exists then maybe people are choosing to be evil. But if free will doesn't exist then we can have compassion for the people who are unfortunately burdened with having no choice but to do evil acts.
(Can't believe that I'm defending Sam Harris but here we are!)
InTheEndEntropyWins t1_j9az4ai wrote
>Why does it have to be described like that, though?
It's a useful and pragmatic way that we have to describe things with our current knowledge and technology.
>If someone commits a murder without coercion, we can decide that it's a problem with their brain chemistry and we can't fix that brain chemistry so we need to remove that brain chemistry from society so that it won't happen again.
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>If the murder is committed under coercion then maybe the brain is fine it was just external circumstances. So we'd not imprison that brain but we might try to remedy the external circumstances.
We don't even know what the brain is supposed to look like, let alone the technology to do such a brain scan.
Also what if the person was coerced but there was also a chemical imbalance in the brain? Would you punish the person who really didn't do anything wrong?
So in the present day, the test for if the brain is good/bad is basically the compatibilist free will test.
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>And I described the whole thing without even mentioning free will!
Maybe, I have two thoughts. First as I already mentioned, they aren't practical or might even be impossible alternatives, so in the meantime you have to use compatibilist free will.
Above you've described how to do things that are impossible. Imagine you were a judge in the present day and time, how would you be able to approach things without using the concept of compatibilist free will and coercion?
Secondly, I think you are just looking at the other side of the coin of free will. You could define free will as the concept/test that's useful for justice. So in effect you are just using it's definition even if you don't want to use the word.
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>We can pretend that free will exists and attribute our justice system to that but we don't need the idea of free will to have the justice system that we already have.
Let's go back to the example above of someone being coerced into committing a crime. Using present day technology how would a justice system determine what to do without referring to the coercive element or the concept of compatibilist free will.
Anyway I just wanted to note, I like your train of thought, I recently had some very similar lines of thought.
>If anything, the idea of free will can remove our empathy. If free will exists then maybe people are choosing to be evil. But if free will doesn't exist then we can have compassion for the people who are unfortunately burdened with having no choice but to do evil acts.
I think most studies suggest the opposite, that reduce belief in free will results in people being more immoral and racist. I expect that also people would be less compassionate, since why be compassionate to someone inherently "bad"?
>These three studies suggest that endorsement of the belief in free will can lead to decreased ethnic/racial prejudice compared to denial of the belief in free will. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0091572#s1>
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>For example, weakening free will belief led participants to behave less morally and responsibly (Baumeister et al., 2009; Protzko et al., 2016; Vohs & Schooler, 2008)
From https://www.ethicalpsychology.com/search?q=free+will
>A study suggests that when people are encouraged to believe their behavior is predetermined by genes or by environment they may be more likely to cheat. The report, in the January issue of Psychological Science, describes two studies by Kathleen D. Vohs of the University of Minnesota and Jonathan W. Schooler of the University of British Columbia.
[deleted] t1_j9b5vba wrote
It feels like there is something undescribable that causes people to do one thing or another and we're calling it free will but I might as well call it brain chemistry under incompatiblist determinism and the result is the same. Why do we have to call it "free will"? except to say that this naming might be convenient.
I'll check out those studies!
InTheEndEntropyWins t1_j9b7k34 wrote
Edit:2
>we're calling it free will but I might as well call it brain chemistry under incompatiblist determinism
I think you just have two different ways of describing the same thing. One is an emergent descriptions compared to the other. e.g. You could say that humans could be described simply as physics, but higher emergent descriptions using biology are more useful.
Free will is just a higher emergent concept above brain chemistry. Different sides of the same coin
Orig:
>Why do we have to call it "free will"? except to say that this naming might be convenient.
Isn't literally every word/definition just "convenient" naming conventions?
Studies show that most people have compatibilist intuitions, and most professional philosophers are outright compatibilists.
Most lay people, professional philosophers and criminal justice systems, call it "free will".
So it seems like society just calls it "free will". I don't think "should" or "have to" really comes into play.
You don't "have to" call it free will, but it just makes sense to call it free will, since it lines up to what people really mean by the term.
Edit: Some more studies you might be interested in
People have incoherent ideas around free will, but when properly probed the majority have compatibilist intutions.
>https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-moore-48/
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>In the past decade, a number of empirical researchers have suggested that laypeople have compatibilist intuitions… In one of the first studies, Nahmias et al. (2006) asked participants to imagine that, in the next century, humans build a supercomputer able to accurately predict future human behavior on the basis of the current state of the world. Participants were then asked to imagine that, in this future, an agent has robbed a bank, as the supercomputer had predicted before he was even born. In this case, 76% of participants answered that this agent acted of his own free will, and 83% answered that he was morally blameworthy. These results suggest that most participants have compatibilist intuitions, since most answered that this agent could act freely and be morally responsible, despite living in a deterministic universe.
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>https://philpapers.org/archive/ANDWCI-3.pdf
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>Our results highlight some inconsistencies of lay beliefs in the general public, by showing explicit agreement with libertarian concepts of free will (especially in the US) and simultaneously showing behavior that is more consistent with compatibilist theories. If participants behaved in a way that was consistent with their libertarian beliefs, we would have expected a negative relation between free will and determinism, but instead we saw a positive relation that is hard to reconcile with libertarian views
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>https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0221617
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>Then when it comes to philosophy professors most are outright compatibilists.
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>[https://survey2020.philpeople.org/survey/results/all)
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