I think a better definition would be "the thing that makes people responsible for their choices." The really hard problem of free will is explaining how on earth people could be responsible for their actions if these actions aren't freely chosen. (Or of explaining what it means for something to be freely chosen if they are indeed freely chosen.) The issue of determinism vs. non-determinism is a complete red herring, IMHO. A belief in free will is not just a belief in non-determinism, or a rejection of physicalism.
You can stop thinking in terms of "responsibility" and start thinking in terms of "incentives." i.e. you can still send a criminal to jail even though they didn't decide to be a criminal, if jail time is more likely to discourage other criminals.
If you don't have free will, you still respond to stimuli. So instead of punishing someone for willful action, you subject them to stimuli.
But I don't want to stop thinking in terms of responsibility.
I just can't view other people as black boxes who "respond to stimuli", because that's incompatible with any kind of moral or human outlook on the world. After all, I don't think of myself as a black box who responds to stimuli. And how can I be a truly moral person if I think others are fundamentally different from me?
Byrneseyeview is presenting an overly simplistic view. It is true that we respond to stimuli, but fortunately we don't respond only to stimuli but also to our internal states (thoughts, feelings, memories, and yes even moral judgments). As a result, I don't think that physicalism is incompatible with morality (even if it is incompatible with traditional concepts of free will) because you can still interpret someone's actions in the context of their mental state--just like the legal system currently does.
It doesn't really change the issue, as far as I can see. I don't think of myself as being nothing more than a very complex machine. The fact that people have mental states doesn't imply that they're responsible for the outcomes of the interaction of those states with the outside world.
Sorry for the double post above. I was replying right as noprocrast kicked and was not able to delete the extra one :-\
I have a couple responses regarding complex machines and responsibility. Firstly, as to whether or not we are complex machines, the fact that you don't want to think of yourself as a black box or a very complex machine is somewhat tangential to the issue. If we both agree that there is some sort of objective reality outside of ourselves than either we are complex machines (materialism) or not (dualism? please forgive me if I am putting words in your mouth) and the way we feel about it does not change that fact (whatever it actually is). My point here is just to be cautious about accepting or rejecting a hypothesis just because of the way it feels.
But as for responsibility, even if we were to suppose that we were "merely" complex machines, I see no reason why we cannot still be pragmatic and assign responsibility based on the ways people act, and what their states were that led up to their actions. Contemplating root causes beyond that level is problematic no matter how you view the universe--is there a devil that causes one to sin or does it depend on the initial state of the universe?
In my personal opinion, the only domains that materialism remains poor at explaining are free will and qualia. For free will I can hand-wave and assert that free will is an illusion which our brain provides us with because it has some sort of evolutionary advantage, perhaps in helping us decipher when actions arise from within the individual or from within the environment. For qualia I yet have no explanation. :)
> I see no reason why we cannot still be pragmatic and assign responsibility based on the ways people act, and what their states were that led up to their actions
We can do that, but it's arguably treating people as means rather than ends. As I said, I don't view myself as merely a bundle of state, and it therefore seems somewhat immoral to treat others as if they were just bundles of state. It's kind of fundamental to a moral view of the world to believe that you are no more or less a person than any other person. So unless I can really persuade myself that I myself am just an automaton of some sort, I'm not sure I can deny free will and nonetheless maintain a satisfactory moral outlook.
It's kind of fundamental to a moral view of the world to believe that you are no more or less a person than any other person.
It would definitely be weird for one to have free will and everyone else not to, and I am certainly not making that claim. However, if you believe that one can behave morally with respect to dolphins, cockroaches or the environment--and most people would agree that some or all of the members of that set are mere bundles of state and/or lack free will--then it seems that one should be able to act morally with respect to a bundle of state person, too.
Byrneseyeview is presenting an overly simplistic view. It's true that we do respond to stimuli, but fortunately we don't respond only to stimuli but also to our internal states (thoughts, feelings, memories, and even moral judgments). As a result, I don't think that physicalism is incompatible with morality (even if it is incompatible with free will) because you can still interpret someone's actions in the context of their mental state--just like the legal system currently does.
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I think a better definition would be "the thing that makes people responsible for their choices." The really hard problem of free will is explaining how on earth people could be responsible for their actions if these actions aren't freely chosen. (Or of explaining what it means for something to be freely chosen if they are indeed freely chosen.) The issue of determinism vs. non-determinism is a complete red herring, IMHO. A belief in free will is not just a belief in non-determinism, or a rejection of physicalism.
You can stop thinking in terms of "responsibility" and start thinking in terms of "incentives." i.e. you can still send a criminal to jail even though they didn't decide to be a criminal, if jail time is more likely to discourage other criminals.
If you don't have free will, you still respond to stimuli. So instead of punishing someone for willful action, you subject them to stimuli.
But I don't want to stop thinking in terms of responsibility.
I just can't view other people as black boxes who "respond to stimuli", because that's incompatible with any kind of moral or human outlook on the world. After all, I don't think of myself as a black box who responds to stimuli. And how can I be a truly moral person if I think others are fundamentally different from me?
Byrneseyeview is presenting an overly simplistic view. It is true that we respond to stimuli, but fortunately we don't respond only to stimuli but also to our internal states (thoughts, feelings, memories, and yes even moral judgments). As a result, I don't think that physicalism is incompatible with morality (even if it is incompatible with traditional concepts of free will) because you can still interpret someone's actions in the context of their mental state--just like the legal system currently does.
It doesn't really change the issue, as far as I can see. I don't think of myself as being nothing more than a very complex machine. The fact that people have mental states doesn't imply that they're responsible for the outcomes of the interaction of those states with the outside world.
Sorry for the double post above. I was replying right as noprocrast kicked and was not able to delete the extra one :-\
I have a couple responses regarding complex machines and responsibility. Firstly, as to whether or not we are complex machines, the fact that you don't want to think of yourself as a black box or a very complex machine is somewhat tangential to the issue. If we both agree that there is some sort of objective reality outside of ourselves than either we are complex machines (materialism) or not (dualism? please forgive me if I am putting words in your mouth) and the way we feel about it does not change that fact (whatever it actually is). My point here is just to be cautious about accepting or rejecting a hypothesis just because of the way it feels.
But as for responsibility, even if we were to suppose that we were "merely" complex machines, I see no reason why we cannot still be pragmatic and assign responsibility based on the ways people act, and what their states were that led up to their actions. Contemplating root causes beyond that level is problematic no matter how you view the universe--is there a devil that causes one to sin or does it depend on the initial state of the universe?
In my personal opinion, the only domains that materialism remains poor at explaining are free will and qualia. For free will I can hand-wave and assert that free will is an illusion which our brain provides us with because it has some sort of evolutionary advantage, perhaps in helping us decipher when actions arise from within the individual or from within the environment. For qualia I yet have no explanation. :)
> I see no reason why we cannot still be pragmatic and assign responsibility based on the ways people act, and what their states were that led up to their actions
We can do that, but it's arguably treating people as means rather than ends. As I said, I don't view myself as merely a bundle of state, and it therefore seems somewhat immoral to treat others as if they were just bundles of state. It's kind of fundamental to a moral view of the world to believe that you are no more or less a person than any other person. So unless I can really persuade myself that I myself am just an automaton of some sort, I'm not sure I can deny free will and nonetheless maintain a satisfactory moral outlook.
It's kind of fundamental to a moral view of the world to believe that you are no more or less a person than any other person.
It would definitely be weird for one to have free will and everyone else not to, and I am certainly not making that claim. However, if you believe that one can behave morally with respect to dolphins, cockroaches or the environment--and most people would agree that some or all of the members of that set are mere bundles of state and/or lack free will--then it seems that one should be able to act morally with respect to a bundle of state person, too.
Does anyone here not experience qualia? What is that like?
Byrneseyeview is presenting an overly simplistic view. It's true that we do respond to stimuli, but fortunately we don't respond only to stimuli but also to our internal states (thoughts, feelings, memories, and even moral judgments). As a result, I don't think that physicalism is incompatible with morality (even if it is incompatible with free will) because you can still interpret someone's actions in the context of their mental state--just like the legal system currently does.