Free will an absurdity
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Hobbes supported the death penalty whilst being a Necessarian and denying free will. He supported it on the grounds of deterrence, which we know does not work.
Knowing that the fear of execution does not deter murderers, necessarians cannot now support the death penalty.
Punishment can have no part in a knowledgeable and mature (socialist) society, only restraint. If you disagree, please say why punishment would be valid in a classless society.Actually Hobbes was what in modern parlance a compatibilist
– the universe is deterministic but freedom could still exist since freedom for him is the ability to do what one wants in the absence of impedimentshttps://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/#FreeAccoClasComp
TM – You seem to be ‘putting the cart before the horse’ here – before we consider the punishment or restraint of those who act profoundly anti-socially we first have to consider if they’re ‘victims’ of their environment or take individual responsibility for them. I speak of the here and now rather than of what may pertain within a socialist society. If we have no will to decide what our actions will be how can we be blamed for them? Do you not consider this a dilemma?
Freedom to do what one wants. You are missing the point, and Hobbes would agree with me. Read his letter against free will.
You may do what you want to do should there be no impediment, but you are not free to want. You are not free to will. Your want has been produced. Your will has yielded to the strongest motive weighing upon you, even if its farthest antecedents are not known to you.No, Wez, i see no dilemma.
Malefactors are produced by the chain of antecedents within them; so are benefactors.
By responsibility, you want them to feel culpable. You want them to repent. We are again in religious, penitential, territory.
If they do feel ashamed, that too is within them, as is if they do not. Uf they are rendered powerless to do more harm, that should suffice. Some will be open to education and shame; others will not.
You want physical laws to accord wirh what you view as moral. Fair enough You and i agree war is immoral. Hence we strive to persuade the wills of others toward socialist revolution. That is our morality, but both we and the proponents of war are being nonsensical to graft our opposing moralities on the universe. We have to recognise that there is social philosophy and there is natural philosophy, and we only matter to us. So if we want the chain of cause and effect to go a certain way for us, then we strive to push it in that direction. This is what you would term our moral agency. But it is itself the result of personal and social antecedents, which push you in one way and another another way, because your experiences and reactions have made you a thinker in this way, and him in that way.TM – So when you have done something ‘immoral’ do you not feel guilt? Do you not hold yourself to account for your actions? Or do you blame your dysfunctional family for what you did? Surely a moral compass together with taking responsibility for your actions is a prerequisite of maturity. I’m reminded of the many stories you hear from friends concerning traffic accidents – it’s always the other guy’s fault. Your statement concerning ‘grafting our morality onto the universe’ overlooks the fact that we are part of that universe – we do not live outside of it so it follows that our ideas have their origins within it.
Societies have different codes of morality.
The morality of capitalism expects the poor unemployed to feel shame. Most people will say you should be ashamed not to fight in a war.
In ancient Sparta the thief was honoured and the victim of theft punished. It was moral to expose infants who were weak and leave them to die.
As socialists we would expect one another to have a socialist morality.
In countries which have the death penalty, your neighbour may consider leading the police to an escapee from death row to be a moral and responsible thing to do. As a socialist, however, you would consider sheltering him to be the moral and responsible thing to do.Many other socialists do not share my morality when it comes to other animals. They may, like me, consider trophy hunting to be immoral, yet they would rather the lion die than the hunter. I would consider it my moral duty to kill the hunter and save the lion.
Morality is a social construct. The religious want the universe to be interested in the contemporary values of humans. They call it God and raise this anthropoid puppet of their desires to ruler of the cosmos.
‘Societies have different codes of morality.’
True but they also share a great deal. I notice you didn’t answer my question – do you take moral responsibility for your actions?Yes. But not because i have “free will.”
If you look at the materialist philosophers who debunked free will, you will notice that they tended to be the most principled of people.
Whereas the free-willies (clerics, judges, hangmen, fire & brimstone preachers etc ) have been the cruellest and most vicious.Do you take moral responsibility for your actions? TM ‘Yes’.
A determinist and denier of free will would have to answer ‘no’ because he believes he has no control of his actions since they are all predetermined. I agree that many ‘free-willies’ are unprincipled hypocrites and I too am a determinist but I do recognize the paradox of our position in this respect and although I have read a great deal on the subject nobody seems to be able to resolve it satisfactorily – for me.Our personalities are the result of successive antecedents throughout our lives. Our ideas and hence our moral views too. I am not someone misusing Necessarianism to justify harmful actions. One’s sense of good actions is as determined for you and me as is the harmful person’s indifference for him.
Are you saying because we avoid doing harm we must have free will? Otherwise we wouldn’t care?
No. Causation creates both caring people and unpleasant people.
You would have to prove that all those who deny the existence of will standing outside of and independent from cause and effect are conscienceless villains.
In fact, we are less prone to play the blame game and try to look at the possible reasons behind things which we find reprehensible.Those whose thought processes prioritise blame and culpability over analysis of the mind and society say to me (the leftist ones, that is), “We’ve got to kill the capitalists!” Conspiracists see everything in terms of free will: secret conclaves of arch-villains controlling destiny.
Free will is an innately Christian, shallow and unscientific way of viewing the world, in playground scenarios involving “goodies” and “baddies”, wherein confused and frustrated, and ignorant people all point at one another: “He started it, Miss!”
” Do you take moral responsibility for your actions? TM ‘Yes’.
A determinist and denier of free will would have to answer ‘no’ because he believes he has no control of his actions since they are all predetermined. ”So, Wez, you do not take responsibility for your actions, since you have said you reject free will too!😄
It isn’t Necessarian ideas that cause most of the harmful behaviour in today’s world, both murderous and suicidal. It’s capitalism.
“Hobbes supported the death penalty whilst being a Necessarian and denying free will. He supported it on the grounds of deterrence, which we know does not work.”
We know it did not work in the case of those who committed murder, we do not know if it worked in the case of those who did not.
I am not making a case for punishment, however there is an argument that punishment is not there for those being punished, it is there for those who observe the punishment!
In any case, it is often said that general disapproval from the communinity will be enough to deter anti social behaviour in a Socialist society, is being disapproved of just a mild form of punishment.
” Do you take moral responsibility for your actions? TM ‘Yes’.
A determinist and denier of free will would have to answer ‘no’ because he believes he has no control of his actions since they are all predetermined. ”So, Wez, you do not take responsibility for your actions, since you have said you reject free will too!
TM – That’s rather below you as you fail to quote me in full. In the next sentence I go on to say that I recognize the contradiction between taking moral responsibility for my actions and my belief in determinism. You do not recognize that problem – or perhaps you choose not to?
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