The compatabilists don't address the issue. They redefine it, defuse it, dodge it.
I recommend Jay L. Garfield - Losing Ourselves. He doesn't try to salvage responsibility, but still comes out with a viable ethical structure.
This Sunday I have piece that dives into the source of a lot of false intuition: the Self Illusion. From an evolutionary point of view, it's inevitable that we intuit things so wrongly.
Really enjoyed this - especially the shift from arguing about free will to noticing that we’re often just defending different intuitions.
What I wonder is whether intuition itself is being treated as a kind of given, rather than as something that falls out of what is ironically, a mind-blowingly complex system. From a systems angle, we’d usually try to understand the machinery first and then see how behaviour and “choice” emerge, not the other way round which is often done in free will debates.
Which makes me wonder: do you think compatibilism survives partly because it offers a cognitively stable story in the face of overwhelming complexity, rather than because it best captures how agency actually works?
Yeah it’s a good question. Seems intuition is skipped over. The lightbulb went off reading Pereboom because he had this way of bringing determinism into stark relief with each case, and then saying in this humble, matter of fact way, “given the situation in this case, the person didn’t have enough freedom such that it would support the intuition that they could be held morally responsible.”
That word “intuition” kept popping up and it became obvious that the glue, or the last mile problem, the connector from metaphysics to deciding about moral deservedness can ONLY be an intuition. Also, there’s a weird bump in the way we say “can’t be held morally responsible,” because it’s meant to say it’s incoherent to SAY they are, but it always has that nagging double meaning of whether can be “held” morally responsible, and the answer is always, sure, they can be, because they act of HOLDING someone responsible is up to the holder. Just because you hold them as such, doesn’t mean they are as such. But then we say, they ARE NOT morally responsible, which pulls a little because technically they responsible also refers to who will be HELD responsible.
Idk. There’s something weird embedded in this word combos. I often say, “isn’t free in such a way that it would justify the reasoned intuition of basic desert moral responsibility.”
But really, what is “reasoned” intuition other than the intuition that an intuition is reasonable?
It’s a bit of a pickle.
So actually no, I don’t think Compatibilism is liked because it’s stable. I think it’s liked because it endorses how most of us feel about free will and moral deservedness. It’s comfortable. Business as usual. It draws a line between normal thinking and deep thinking and gives permission to live on the normal side. It does a good job making it seem like there’s nothing intrinsic to determinism that takes away deservedness. It redefines deservedness (in my opinion) while pretending that it was ALWAYS that definition, and any other conception was an unfortunate delusion to shake off.
It’s a bold, smart move. For those of us who zoom out and see the dominos falling, we have to answer to our own intuition. We have to decide for ourselves what moral desert means. Clearly the phrase worth wanting is an expression of values, not facts, it’s about emotions and aesthetics. I will always see the untethering of determinism with deservedness as UGLY. I will see it as reductive, myopic, and ugly. I suppose that’s ultimately an intuition, even though it feels clear as day.
Being a hard incompatibilist with integrity means arriving at a place where you understand compatibilism and see it for the stalemate it is, and not merely a “noble lie.”
Intuitions that take place when indifferent, when putting clarity above motivation and ideology, seems to me the more “pure” type of intuition. But that’s just an intuition, I think.
Free will being a vague term is a freshman observation. Usually any serious discussion under the moniker of free will debate quickly becomes normative philosophy around whether anyone can morally deserve blame or praise.
From there its a matter of deciding if we want to rethink how we deal with moral responsibility and moral deservedness, like, can we conserve deterrence and incentive, safety, practicality, all without holding onto folk intuitions, language and policies that imply moral blame and praise.
Like, how much of that is coherent, how much can we get rid of, do we even want to get rid of it, what are the intuitions that come from the metaphysics of determinism and randomness, etc.
So yeah, your point is smart and necessary, it’s just not new, nor is it a coffin nail in the topic.
It’s actually the table stakes.
It’s a day one comment.
Again, not a bad one! It’s lovely. It shows you might actually have a knack for this stuff.
We mean “free from” all the STUFF that makes the choices we make ultimately not our fault, from a moral deservedness sense. So, free from causality, genetics we didn’t choose, history we didn’t pick, “sourcehood,” randomness. If we can make a choice independent of all those aspects that we had nothing to do with, then maybe we’d have “free will.” But nobody thinks that’s coherent.
Well, you’re welcome to be yourself here, sir. You don’t have to live up to anything. Just have fun and keep it good faith if you can. Life is too short to waste time on insincere bullshit. Curious to know your thoughts on things, thanks for commenting.
The compatabilists don't address the issue. They redefine it, defuse it, dodge it.
I recommend Jay L. Garfield - Losing Ourselves. He doesn't try to salvage responsibility, but still comes out with a viable ethical structure.
This Sunday I have piece that dives into the source of a lot of false intuition: the Self Illusion. From an evolutionary point of view, it's inevitable that we intuit things so wrongly.
Really enjoyed this - especially the shift from arguing about free will to noticing that we’re often just defending different intuitions.
What I wonder is whether intuition itself is being treated as a kind of given, rather than as something that falls out of what is ironically, a mind-blowingly complex system. From a systems angle, we’d usually try to understand the machinery first and then see how behaviour and “choice” emerge, not the other way round which is often done in free will debates.
Which makes me wonder: do you think compatibilism survives partly because it offers a cognitively stable story in the face of overwhelming complexity, rather than because it best captures how agency actually works?
Yeah it’s a good question. Seems intuition is skipped over. The lightbulb went off reading Pereboom because he had this way of bringing determinism into stark relief with each case, and then saying in this humble, matter of fact way, “given the situation in this case, the person didn’t have enough freedom such that it would support the intuition that they could be held morally responsible.”
That word “intuition” kept popping up and it became obvious that the glue, or the last mile problem, the connector from metaphysics to deciding about moral deservedness can ONLY be an intuition. Also, there’s a weird bump in the way we say “can’t be held morally responsible,” because it’s meant to say it’s incoherent to SAY they are, but it always has that nagging double meaning of whether can be “held” morally responsible, and the answer is always, sure, they can be, because they act of HOLDING someone responsible is up to the holder. Just because you hold them as such, doesn’t mean they are as such. But then we say, they ARE NOT morally responsible, which pulls a little because technically they responsible also refers to who will be HELD responsible.
Idk. There’s something weird embedded in this word combos. I often say, “isn’t free in such a way that it would justify the reasoned intuition of basic desert moral responsibility.”
But really, what is “reasoned” intuition other than the intuition that an intuition is reasonable?
It’s a bit of a pickle.
So actually no, I don’t think Compatibilism is liked because it’s stable. I think it’s liked because it endorses how most of us feel about free will and moral deservedness. It’s comfortable. Business as usual. It draws a line between normal thinking and deep thinking and gives permission to live on the normal side. It does a good job making it seem like there’s nothing intrinsic to determinism that takes away deservedness. It redefines deservedness (in my opinion) while pretending that it was ALWAYS that definition, and any other conception was an unfortunate delusion to shake off.
It’s a bold, smart move. For those of us who zoom out and see the dominos falling, we have to answer to our own intuition. We have to decide for ourselves what moral desert means. Clearly the phrase worth wanting is an expression of values, not facts, it’s about emotions and aesthetics. I will always see the untethering of determinism with deservedness as UGLY. I will see it as reductive, myopic, and ugly. I suppose that’s ultimately an intuition, even though it feels clear as day.
Being a hard incompatibilist with integrity means arriving at a place where you understand compatibilism and see it for the stalemate it is, and not merely a “noble lie.”
Intuitions that take place when indifferent, when putting clarity above motivation and ideology, seems to me the more “pure” type of intuition. But that’s just an intuition, I think.
Free will being a vague term is a freshman observation. Usually any serious discussion under the moniker of free will debate quickly becomes normative philosophy around whether anyone can morally deserve blame or praise.
From there its a matter of deciding if we want to rethink how we deal with moral responsibility and moral deservedness, like, can we conserve deterrence and incentive, safety, practicality, all without holding onto folk intuitions, language and policies that imply moral blame and praise.
Like, how much of that is coherent, how much can we get rid of, do we even want to get rid of it, what are the intuitions that come from the metaphysics of determinism and randomness, etc.
So yeah, your point is smart and necessary, it’s just not new, nor is it a coffin nail in the topic.
It’s actually the table stakes.
It’s a day one comment.
Again, not a bad one! It’s lovely. It shows you might actually have a knack for this stuff.
We mean “free from” all the STUFF that makes the choices we make ultimately not our fault, from a moral deservedness sense. So, free from causality, genetics we didn’t choose, history we didn’t pick, “sourcehood,” randomness. If we can make a choice independent of all those aspects that we had nothing to do with, then maybe we’d have “free will.” But nobody thinks that’s coherent.
That’s what it means.
An affable, status-flexing asshole. Welcome. You’re going to be fun.
Well, you’re welcome to be yourself here, sir. You don’t have to live up to anything. Just have fun and keep it good faith if you can. Life is too short to waste time on insincere bullshit. Curious to know your thoughts on things, thanks for commenting.