Determinism

peacegirl · February 26, 2015, 5:34pm

iambiguous:

From “Whither Morality in a Hard Determinist World?”
by Nick Trakakis

[b]

One might contend that even if there is little or no evidence that we are free and morally responsible, the consequences of denying moral responsibility are so grave that we should continue living under the (perhaps false) impression that we were free in the sense required for moral responsibility. This line of thought goes as far back as Kant, and has been vigorously defended in more recent times by Saul Smilansky. According to Smilansky, libertarian free will does not exist, but once we remove it from our picture of reality, our fundamental values, practices and attitudes – such as the belief in our potential for blameworthiness according to what we do, our appreciation of achievement in ourselves and others, the sense of value and meaning in our lives, and so on – would be placed under great risk, if not largely destroyed.

[/b]

I have always found reasoning of this sort to be rather peculiar.

If, in a hard determined world, everything that we think is only as we must/can think then thinking like this would merely be part and parcel of that as well. We can no more freely remove determinism from our thoughts then we can freely insert it.

Either we have some capacity to freely choose our thoughts or we don’t. This “let’s pretend that we do have free will even though we know that we do not” approach is simply bizarre to me.

I always come back to, “what the hell am I missing here”?

So, what am I missing?

I don’t know who you are addressing this to, but I will take a stab at it. I think all he was saying here is that in order to hold people accountable, we must pretend that will is free in order to blame and punish. He seems to have a similar train of thought to you in that if will is not free, we can’t take blame or credit for our actions, which would take away all meaning. I don’t subscribe to that dismal conclusion at all.

iambiguous · February 26, 2015, 5:53pm

Actually his argument revolves more around this:

[b]

[/b]

Here: sorites.org/Issue_19/trakakis.htm

He goes on:

[b]

The question, however, remains as to what people with a psychology like ours would likely do once they discovered that libertarian free will is merely an illusion. Smilansky’s answer seems to be that the illusion of free will fulfills such important emotional needs in people that it is unlikely that many people would be able to accept the harsh reality with regard to free will. But surely some people will hit upon the truth and will be brave enough to accept it – Smilansky himself is a case in point. Would these brave souls be required to engage in some sort of self-deception in order to carry on with their daily lives? It is not clear, in other words, how someone in Smilansky’s shoes, who is fully aware of the illusory character of free will, can (without discounting this awareness) continue thinking of himself and others as free and morally responsible agents.

[/b]

Now, my reaction here tends to revolve around the assumption that in a hard determined world any of our reactions here can and must be simply as they are. And they are as they are simply because they could not have been any other way.

If we “hit upon the truth” that is because we could not not have hit upon it. If we construe those who admit to the implications of hard determinism as being “brave” that is only because we were determined to do so as mere components of matter unfolding as all components of matter must: fully in accordance and in sync with the laws of matter.

In any event, moral repsonsibility [as we have come to understand it in a world with some measure of free will] would still remain an illusion.

More later from his argument.

iambiguous · February 26, 2015, 5:53pm

dupe

iambiguous · February 26, 2015, 6:12pm

Nick Trakakis:

[b]

[/b]

This is yet another factor that will muddy the water here.

And it does so because the “developments in twentieth-century physics” pertain largely to the world of quantum mechanics. Which is just another way of noting that the “laws of matter” may not be nearly as “deterministic” as some supposed. After all, if the laws of matter are somehow intertwined with the role of those observing the interaction of matter, what does that tell us about what we can [or, perhaps, cannot] know about the laws themselves?

Which, from my frame of mind, is just another layer to be added in/to the gap between what we think we know about these things here and now and all that will need to be known in order to grasp the reality of human will objectively.

peacegirl · February 26, 2015, 7:51pm

iambiguous:

peacegirl:

I don’t know who you are addressing this to, but I will take a stab at it. I think all he was saying here is that in order to hold people accountable, we must pretend that will is free in order to blame and punish. He seems to have a similar train of thought to you in that if will is not free, we can’t take blame or credit for our actions, which would take away all meaning. I don’t subscribe to that dismal conclusion at all.

Actually his argument revolves more around this:

[b]

There are, however, a growing number of dissenters who maintain that the consequences for morality, given hard determinism, are not as dire as is ordinarily feared. Indeed, some have gone on to argue that hard determinism offers us a purer' or higher’ form of morality than would otherwise be available.

[/b]

Here: sorites.org/Issue_19/trakakis.htm

He goes on:

[b]

The question, however, remains as to what people with a psychology like ours would likely do once they discovered that libertarian free will is merely an illusion. Smilansky’s answer seems to be that the illusion of free will fulfills such important emotional needs in people that it is unlikely that many people would be able to accept the harsh reality with regard to free will. But surely some people will hit upon the truth and will be brave enough to accept it – Smilansky himself is a case in point. Would these brave souls be required to engage in some sort of self-deception in order to carry on with their daily lives? It is not clear, in other words, how someone in Smilansky’s shoes, who is fully aware of the illusory character of free will, can (without discounting this awareness) continue thinking of himself and others as free and morally responsible agents.

[/b]

Now, my reaction here tends to revolve around the assumption that in a hard determined world any of our reactions here can and must be simply as they are. And they are as they are simply because they could not have been any other way.

If we “hit upon the truth” that is because we could not not have hit upon it. If we construe those who admit to the implications of hard determinism as being “brave” that is only because we were determined to do so as mere components of matter unfolding as all components of matter must: fully in accordance and in sync with the laws of matter.

In any event, moral repsonsibility [as we have come to understand it in a world with some measure of free will] would still remain an illusion.

More later from his argument.

That is one side of Lessans’ equation (you are missing the other side). It states that we are not responsible for our actions and why, if we are to extend the reasoning long enough, we will see that not blaming is actually better than blaming insofar as achieving what punishment could not. Punishment deters some people, but it won’t deter people who want something badly enough even if it hurts others. This law of our nature does just that; it prevents the desire to hurt others not because it’s morally wrong but because our conscience will not allow actions that may hurt others when those actions cannot be justified. One of the ways in which we can justify our actions is if we know that we will be blamed if caught. This is what allows us to come up with reasonable excuses. This, in turn, eases our conscience to do the very thing that threats of blame and punishment are trying to prevent. But if we’re not being blamed how can we come up with excuses or rationalizations when we know we already excused? This is key because the minute a person is questioned about his behavior it offers him an opportunity to shift his responsibility (not in a moral sense but in an actual sense if he performed the behavior) to someone or something else as the cause which affords him the rationalization he needs in order to follow through with the undesirable behavior.

iambiguous · February 26, 2015, 9:19pm

peacegirl:

That is one side of Lessans’ equation (you are missing the other side). It states that we are not responsible for our actions and why, if we are to extend the reasoning long enough, we will see that not blaming is actually better than blaming insofar as achieving what punishment could not. Punishment deters some people, but it won’t deter people who want something badly enough even if it hurts others. This law of our nature does just that; it prevents the desire to hurt others not because it’s morally wrong but because our conscience will not allow actions that may hurt others when those actions cannot be justified. One of the ways in which we can justify our actions is if we know that we will be blamed if caught. This is what allows us to come up with reasonable excuses. This, in turn, eases our conscience to do the very thing that threats of blame and punishment are trying to prevent. But if we’re not being blamed how can we come up with excuses or rationalizations when we know we already excused? This is key because the minute a person is questioned about his behavior it offers him an opportunity to shift his responsibility (not in a moral sense but in an actual sense if he performed the behavior) to someone or something else as the cause which affords him the rationalization he needs in order to follow through with the undesirable behavior.

Okay, you have typed these word. I am reading them.

If you could not not have typed them and I could not not have reacted to them such that I am now compelled to type these words in response, what real difference does it make which of our arguments is closest to the objective truth?

Nothing that we think, feel or do can ever be other than what is true objectively. Why? Because it is the only thing that we could ever have thought, felt and done period.

And if a woman is never blamed and punished for aborting her unborn baby in the new world how can this produce a world in which fewer women will choose abortion?

The objective truth here is always what must happen.

And if the “law of our nature” is such that “it prevents the desire to hurt others not because it’s morally wrong but because our conscience will not allow actions that may hurt others when those actions cannot be justified” than how do you explain all of the choices that millions upon millions of human beings make in the here and the now that do result in the hurting of others.

And many make these choices precisely because they are convinced that if everyone else made the same choices we would live in a just world. But those who make the opposite choices are convinced of the very same thing.

And what does it mean to “come up with reasonable excuses” when any excuses that we do come up with are only the excuses that we ever could come up with?

Pec_of_Uliar · February 27, 2015, 4:05am

Your loss.

Because it’s empirically, demonstrably wrong. It’s easily shown to be wrong, and I’m sure that others have explained this to you before.

I do know for a fact that his claims about light and sight are false.

No surprise there, this is standard stuff in logic. You’ll note, though, that I was not addressing your argument, but that of Iambiguous, which, as I repeatedly pointed out, was a different topic.

Your loss. You still have not said what, if anything, is wrong with my formalization of the argument. If the formalization is correct, it will help you. It will make it much easier for you to make your argument. Of course, even if the formal construction is correct, you still need to show the argument is valid (conclusion follows from premises) and sound (all premises are in fact true). What is odd is that you keep asking people to explain the two-sided equation to you, which itself is a request for a formalization. I just formalized your two-sided equation. Is it right or wrong?

As mentioned, this kind of formalization is standard stuff in philosophy. If your argument can’t be reduced to a formalization that can be tested for soundness and validity, that’s a sure sign the argument is incoherent. Coherent arguments without exception can be formalized.

Pec_of_Uliar · February 27, 2015, 4:13am

I notice that this thread started in 2009, and you’ve been on other boards running this argument. Have you made any progress?

If you present a formal argument, people can come to grips with it. One can present formal arguments about anything in philosophy; it’s a standard method. One doesn’t have to read the collected works of Hume, or any philosopher, to distill their ideas down to premises and a conclusion. These are not empty simplifications, as you seem to think. This would help you in particular, as much of the first two chapters you insist that everyone read consists mostly of irrelevant blather, I’m sorry to say. That doesn’t mean the author hasn’t come up with something: it just means he didn’t present it very well. He could have presented his argument in a few pages; it’s not that hard to understand, and so far as I can tell, I have accurately distilled his fundamental argument.

Pec_of_Uliar · February 27, 2015, 4:21am

That’s fine, especially since it’s largely off-topic, but I merely note that this is not a matter of opinion, about which people can disagree because their opinions may differ. You’re making a logical error.

iambiguous · February 27, 2015, 4:32am

If by that you mean I refuse to accept your logic, well, I here that a lot from the objectivist ilk here. Again, let’s just agree to disagree and move on.

Pec_of_Uliar · February 27, 2015, 5:00am

Logic is logic, and this has nothing to do with the ravings of Objectivists. This involves a branch of logic called modal logic. So we’re not agreeing to disagree. Your argument has a logical flaw. I’ll state it one more time:

You’re confusing two ideas that must be kept distinct. It is true that I will not do, other than what God foreknows, in virtue of God’s omniscience. After all, if I did other than what God foreknew, God would not be omniscient, would he?

The fallacy lies in the jumping to the conclusion, from the above, that I cannot do, other than what I in fact do.

But I CAN do, other than what I do. It’s just that, if I do y instead of x, God will foreknow y; and if I do x instead of y, God will foreknow x.

I can do x or y: That is free will, or free choice, assuming free will or free choice is not impugned for some other reason.

In the possible worlds (modal) heuristic, there are two possible worlds:

I do x and God foreknows x.
I do y and God foreknows y.

There are two non-possible worlds:

I do x and God foreknows y.
I do y and God foreknows x.

The latter two worlds are impossible because of God’s omniscience. But the former two worlds are possible, and clearly show that I can do either x or y: free will.

The sticking point in arguments like this is the uncomfortable notion that I can freely do an act, even though the outcome of the act is known in advance by God. But I CAN freely do the act, or choose; it’s just whatever I do or choose, God will foreknow. That’s why the Ministry’s example of the father the cookie was not very good, though it was close. The father “knows” in a loose sense what his son will do; and the son does it freely, even if the father knows it. Of course, in the example, the father could still be wrong. The difference between the father, and the alleged God, is that God cannot be wrong. But the act is still free.

Finally, as mentioned, this argument is a subset of the general Problem of Future Contingents. There is a lot of literature out there on this subject, whole books in fact, so if you are interested in looking into it further, I can give you links. I assure you I’m not talking out of my hat.

The other basic sticking point is the idea that free will requires I do OTHER than what God foreknows; but free will does not require this. All that is required is that I can choose x or y. If I can do that, it is logically irrelevant whether God knows in advance what I will choose.

Pec_of_Uliar · February 27, 2015, 5:23am

If you’re interested:

Foreknowledge and Free Will, the Internet Encylopedia of Philosophy

The intro (bold mine):

Suppose it were known, by someone else, what you are going to choose to do tomorrow. Wouldn’t that entail that tomorrow you must do what it was known in advance that you would do? In spite of your deliberating and planning, in the end, all is futile: you must choose exactly as it was earlier known that you would. The supposed exercise of your free will is ultimately an illusion.

Historically, the tension between foreknowledge and the exercise of free will was addressed in a religious context. According to orthodox views in the West, God was claimed to be omniscient (and hence in possession of perfect foreknowledge) and yet God was supposed to have given humankind free will. Attempts to solve the apparent contradiction often involved attributing to God special properties, for example, being “outside” of time.

However, the trouble with such solutions is that they are generally unsatisfactory on their own terms. Even more serious is the fact that they leave untouched the problem posed not by God’s foreknowledge but that of any human being. Do human beings have foreknowledge? Certainly, of at least some events and behaviors. Thus we have a secular counterpart of the original problem. A human being’s foreknowledge, exactly as would God’s, of another’s choices would seem to preclude the exercise of human free will.

In this article, various ways of trying to solve the problem—for example, by putting constraints on the truth-conditions for statements, or by “tightening” the conditions necessary for knowledge—are examined and shown not to work. Ultimately the alleged incompatibility of foreknowledge and free will is shown to rest on a subtle logical error. When the error, a modal fallacy, is recognized and remedied, the problem evaporates.

Sauwelios · February 27, 2015, 7:40am

Pec, I think what the article says is nonsense. Look:

[size=95]Ordinary grammar beguiles us and misleads us. It makes us believe that if α is true, then it is impossible for β to be false. But it is possible for β to be false. β is a contingent proposition. Recall the principle of the fixity of modal status. Even if the falsity of β is guaranteed by the truth of some other proposition (in this case α), β does not ‘become’ impossible: it ‘remains’ contingent, and thereby possible.

Whatever impossibility there is lies in jointly asserting α and denying β. (See (1b) above.) The proposition “it is false that β” does not ‘become’ impossible if one asserts α. [http://www.iep.utm.edu/foreknow/#H6][/size]

First it says: “Ordinary grammar […] makes us believe that if α is true, then it is impossible for β to be false. But it is possible for β to be false.” Yes, and? It did not say ordinary grammar makes us believe that it’s impossible for β to be false; it said ordinary grammar makes us believe that if α is true, then it is impossible for β to be false. “English prose is a poor tool for expressing fine logical distinctions” indeed, when it’s this sloppily written…

Then it says: “Whatever impossibility there is lies in jointly asserting α and denying β. (See (1b) above.) The proposition ‘it is false that β’ does not ‘become’ impossible if one asserts α.” Indeed, the proposition–or rather that which is proposed by it–does not become impossible by any mere assertion or denial. In fact, it’s perfectly well possible to jointly assert α and deny β: “Diane planted only six rosebushes, yet she planted more than seven rosebushes.”

peacegirl · February 27, 2015, 11:32am

iambiguous:

peacegirl:

That is one side of Lessans’ equation (you are missing the other side). It states that we are not responsible for our actions and why, if we are to extend the reasoning long enough, we will see that not blaming is actually better than blaming insofar as achieving what punishment could not. Punishment deters some people, but it won’t deter people who want something badly enough even if it hurts others. This law of our nature does just that; it prevents the desire to hurt others not because it’s morally wrong but because our conscience will not allow actions that may hurt others when those actions cannot be justified. One of the ways in which we can justify our actions is if we know that we will be blamed if caught. This is what allows us to come up with reasonable excuses. This, in turn, eases our conscience to do the very thing that threats of blame and punishment are trying to prevent. But if we’re not being blamed how can we come up with excuses or rationalizations when we know we already excused? This is key because the minute a person is questioned about his behavior it offers him an opportunity to shift his responsibility (not in a moral sense but in an actual sense if he performed the behavior) to someone or something else as the cause which affords him the rationalization he needs in order to follow through with the undesirable behavior.

Okay, you have typed these word. I am reading them.

If you could not not have typed them and I could not not have reacted to them such that I am now compelled to type these words in response, what real difference does it make which of our arguments is closest to the objective truth?

Nothing that we think, feel or do can ever be other than what is true objectively. Why? Because it is the only thing that we could ever have thought, felt and done period.

And if a woman is never blamed and punished for aborting her unborn baby in the new world how can this produce a world in which fewer women will choose abortion?

The objective truth here is always what must happen.

Only when the environment supports her having a baby instead of aborting it will it produce what everyone would hope for. Blame and punishment do nothing to prevent a woman from aborting if she feels it is the best choice possible, but when she is happily married and has financial stability, her desiring to abort as the preferable choice would be gone.

Aside from abortions, most of the world is convinced that if we stop murdering each other it will be a better world, so there is no conflict in values here. You are picking a few conflicting values that you believe will ruin any chances for a better world. You are not looking at what most people are not in conflict with. Most people want to see war, crime, hatred, and poverty come to an end.

That is true but when I say reasonable, the person who was caught doing something “wrong” wants to make the mitigating circumstances believable in the hope that he will not get a harsh punishment.

peacegirl · February 27, 2015, 11:36am

Pec of Uliar:

peacegirl:

Pec of Uliar:

Remove that stuff, and focus on his discussion of free will and determinism.

I would never do that.

Your loss.

And who are you to state with such dogmatism that he was wrong?

Because it’s empirically, demonstrably wrong. It’s easily shown to be wrong, and I’m sure that others have explained this to you before.

You really don’t know that.

I do know for a fact that his claims about light and sight are false.

You sound very similar to someone I already had a discussion with regarding necessity and contingency.

No surprise there, this is standard stuff in logic. You’ll note, though, that I was not addressing your argument, but that of Iambiguous, which, as I repeatedly pointed out, was a different topic.

I cannot formalize these concepts in a way that reduces them to nothing more than a shell of his explanation, just because people don’t want to take the time to read the text in full.

Your loss. You still have not said what, if anything, is wrong with my formalization of the argument. If the formalization is correct, it will help you. It will make it much easier for you to make your argument. Of course, even if the formal construction is correct, you still need to show the argument is valid (conclusion follows from premises) and sound (all premises are in fact true). What is odd is that you keep asking people to explain the two-sided equation to you, which itself is a request for a formalization. I just formalized your two-sided equation. Is it right or wrong?

As mentioned, this kind of formalization is standard stuff in philosophy. If your argument can’t be reduced to a formalization that can be tested for soundness and validity, that’s a sure sign the argument is incoherent. Coherent arguments without exception can be formalized.

I still want to know where you were introduced to the book. Which forum? And what is your username in the other forum? Why are you hiding this?

iambiguous · February 27, 2015, 5:16pm

Nick Trakakis:

Here is another tricky proposition: “random events”.

What does it mean for something to be truly “random” here? Does it mean that out of the blue something “just happens” – it happens such that it cannot be linked to any causal laws of matter?

This doesn’t seem reasonable at all to me.

But here [eventually] we get around to the evolution of matter into the mysterious marvel that is human consciousness.

Prior to self-conscious matter, is it even possible to imagine matter interacting in an entirely random fashion? I don’t see how. Whatever precipitated the big bang precipitated a universe that seems to be wholly in alignment with mathematics and the laws of physics. Or seems to be depending on the extent to which quantum physics is relevant here.

Still, the human mind is matter like no other. But even here what unfrolds is never really “random”.

Instead, what we think and feel and do seem to be intertwined both in the immutable laws of matter and in the more problematic [existential] implications of dasein. We are clearly predisposed by the past to make the particular choices that we do in the present. But it’s not like things just pop into our head in a wholly random manner. It is simply that the complex intertwining of nature and nurture make it extremely difficult at times to pin these things down. Let alone to pin them down objectively.

iambiguous · February 27, 2015, 6:11pm

You’re relatively new here. So allow me please to note the distinction that I make between Objectivists and objectivists.

Objectivists [with a capital O] are those who embrace the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Objectivists [with a small o] are those who insist that they have acquired the one and only objective truth [about anything] and if others here don’t embrace their argument [their definitions, their deductions] then they are perforce, necessarily wrong.

And then I make a further distinction between those things which seemingly are true objectively for all of us [i.e. we all make choices] and those things which seem embedded instead [by each of us as individuals] in subjective narratives [i.e. I make my choices freely, I do not make my choices freely].

But in particular I focus on those discussions that revolve around human identity and conflicting value judgments.

Yes, we’re certainly on the same page here.

Well, this seems similar [to me] to the argument that some religionists make that God’s omniscience is rooted in Him knowing everything that we will do – even though He does not know what we will do until we choose to do it. But then we get into an “epistemological” debate about what truly and objectively constitutes “omniscient” knowledge. Why not root it in God knowing everything we will do before we do it? Why necessarily after we do it?

God can know that Mary will choose an abortion before she chooses an abortion. Or God can only know that Mary will choose an abortion after she chose it.

But how in the world would philosophers or religionists be able to determine which it is other than by merely making certain assumptions about what constitutes “God’s omniscience” here and then believing that this is true objectively “in their heads”?

Going back to the Ministry’s argument above:

I have a five year old son. If I were to leave a chocolate chip cookie on the table about a hour before dinner time and my son was to walk by and see it, I know that he would pick up the cookie and eat it. I did not force him to make that decision. In fact, I don’t even have to be in the room at all. I think I know my son well enough, though, to tell you that if I come back into the kitchen the cookie will be gone. His act was made completely free of my influence, but I knew what his actions would be.

I’m sorry but I don’t see how this adequately deals with the points I raised above:

[b]How could the act be made completely free of his influence when he put the cookie on the table?

And suppose the boy had the stomach flu and left the cookie sitting on the table. Or suppose the boy had been struck by a car and killed because he chose to visit a friend an hour before dinner and was not even around to see the cookie?

Do these events unfold only as they must unfold or is there an element of genuine free choice involved?[/b]

I will be the first to admit that this might be entirely logical. Technically. But it is simply not the sort of logic I am [yet] able to wrap my head around.

I don’t deny that Mary can choose to abort or not to abort her baby. I don’t deny that the boy can choose to eat or not to eat the cookie. But what does that really mean [re free will] when either through the immutable laws of matter or through an omniscient God everything – everything – can only unfold out of necessity as it must unfold in order to be in sync with what peacegirl calls the “design”?

Or what the religionists would call “God’s Will”.

Pec_of_Uliar · February 27, 2015, 6:46pm

No, I’m saying something stronger. I’m saying God can know what we will do, before we do it, and this does not mean that we can fail to do, other than what we do. This is what I am trying to show.

Forget about God.

Aristotle wondered whether, today, there can be true propositions about future contingent events. His worry was that if there can be such propositions, then fatalism prevails: Nothing is contingent, and everything must unfold in some pre-determined way. (fatalism is not the same as determinism, but put that aside.)

Posit that it is possible for there to be true propositions today, about events that happen tomorrow.

Today it is true, that tomorrow there will be a sea battle.

My question to you is: if it is true today, that tomorrow there will be a sea battle, does it logically follow that tomorrow, there must be a sea battle?

Or do the sea battlers have a choice whether to have a battle or not?

iambiguous · February 27, 2015, 8:45pm

peacegirl:

iambiguous:

peacegirl:

That is one side of Lessans’ equation (you are missing the other side). It states that we are not responsible for our actions and why, if we are to extend the reasoning long enough, we will see that not blaming is actually better than blaming insofar as achieving what punishment could not. Punishment deters some people, but it won’t deter people who want something badly enough even if it hurts others. This law of our nature does just that; it prevents the desire to hurt others not because it’s morally wrong but because our conscience will not allow actions that may hurt others when those actions cannot be justified. One of the ways in which we can justify our actions is if we know that we will be blamed if caught. This is what allows us to come up with reasonable excuses. This, in turn, eases our conscience to do the very thing that threats of blame and punishment are trying to prevent. But if we’re not being blamed how can we come up with excuses or rationalizations when we know we already excused? This is key because the minute a person is questioned about his behavior it offers him an opportunity to shift his responsibility (not in a moral sense but in an actual sense if he performed the behavior) to someone or something else as the cause which affords him the rationalization he needs in order to follow through with the undesirable behavior.

Okay, you have typed these word. I am reading them.

If you could not not have typed them and I could not not have reacted to them such that I am now compelled to type these words in response, what real difference does it make which of our arguments is closest to the objective truth?

Nothing that we think, feel or do can ever be other than what is true objectively. Why? Because it is the only thing that we could ever have thought, felt and done period.

And if a woman is never blamed and punished for aborting her unborn baby in the new world how can this produce a world in which fewer women will choose abortion?

The objective truth here is always what must happen.

Only when the environment supports her having a baby instead of aborting it will it produce what everyone would hope for. Blame and punishment do nothing to prevent a woman from aborting if she feels it is the best choice possible, but when she is happily married and has financial stability, her desiring to abort as the preferable choice would be gone.

Why focus on the environment here at all when whatever the environment is [either now or in the new world] it is only what it ever can be?

And I suspect that if you live in a political jurisdiction where obtaining an abortion is the legal equivalent of capital murder, that might be incentive enough not to obtain one. Or maybe having the child is deemed to be so dissatisfying to you that you will risk the back alley route.

And yet we will still be stuck with those who insist that financial stability for all is only possible in a socialist political economy. What is their option then, not to sign the “universal conscience” contract, not to become citizens of the new world utopia?

What about executions? What about those who are killed in the course of starting and then sustaining wars revolving precisely around which political economy will prevail, must prevail, should prevail? And around who will have the wealth and the power to enforce a set of laws that favor some segments of the population over others? And around those who will profit from sustaining a war economy?

These conflicting goods, in my view, go away only in your head here. I have yet to come upon substantive arguments that convince me that we can actually achieve this ideal “new world” such that blame and punishment become moot.

And that is before we get to the part about the narcissists who steal and rape and murder etc., simply because, from their point of view, morality revolves entirely around self-satisfaction, around self-gratification.

Or those who do all manner of hurtful things to others because they claim that it is in “the will of God”.

But, again and again: What any of us want is only what we must want. If we do something “wrong” or punish another for doing something “wrong”, that is reasonable because how can doing only what it is necessary to do not be reasonable – not be reasonable?

The part that always eludes me…

peacegirl · February 28, 2015, 1:26pm

peacegirl:

iambiguous:

peacegirl:

That is one side of Lessans’ equation (you are missing the other side). It states that we are not responsible for our actions and why, if we are to extend the reasoning long enough, we will see that not blaming is actually better than blaming insofar as achieving what punishment could not. Punishment deters some people, but it won’t deter people who want something badly enough even if it hurts others. This law of our nature does just that; it prevents the desire to hurt others not because it’s morally wrong but because our conscience will not allow actions that may hurt others when those actions cannot be justified. One of the ways in which we can justify our actions is if we know that we will be blamed if caught. This is what allows us to come up with reasonable excuses. This, in turn, eases our conscience to do the very thing that threats of blame and punishment are trying to prevent. But if we’re not being blamed how can we come up with excuses or rationalizations when we know we already excused? This is key because the minute a person is questioned about his behavior it offers him an opportunity to shift his responsibility (not in a moral sense but in an actual sense if he performed the behavior) to someone or something else as the cause which affords him the rationalization he needs in order to follow through with the undesirable behavior.

Okay, you have typed these word. I am reading them.

If you could not not have typed them and I could not not have reacted to them such that I am now compelled to type these words in response, what real difference does it make which of our arguments is closest to the objective truth?

It doesn’t make a difference insofar as responsibility goes, but it does make a difference in the final outcome. This IS why the two-sided equation needs to be carefully analyzed because you are only dealing with the first half. It’s incomplete.

iambiguous:

Nothing that we think, feel or do can ever be other than what is true objectively. Why? Because it is the only thing that we could ever have thought, felt and done period.

No one is arguing with this.

iambiguous:

if a woman is never blamed and punished for aborting her unborn baby in the new world how can this produce a world in which fewer women will choose abortion?

The objective truth here is always what must happen.

Only if her preferences change. When the environment supports her having a baby instead of aborting it will it produce what everyone would hope for. Blame and punishment do nothing to prevent a woman from aborting if she feels it is the best choice possible, but when she is happily married and has financial stability, her desiring to abort as the preferable choice would be gone.

Because the decision among the majority to create a no blame environment based on science will cause a paradigm shift never before seen in the history of man. God is tricky.

Again, who is arguing with this?

There IS no force. If someone doesn’t want a guaranteed income never to go down then he doesn’t have to sign an agreement not to blame or tell anyone what to do. Those ARE the preconditions.

iambiguous:

And if the “law of our nature” is such that “it prevents the desire to hurt others not because it’s morally wrong but because our conscience will not allow actions that may hurt others when those actions cannot be justified” than how do you explain all of the choices that millions upon millions of human beings make in the here and the now that do result in the hurting of others.

iambiguous:

And many make these choices precisely because they are convinced that if everyone else made the same choices we would live in a just world. But those who make the opposite choices are convinced of the very same thing.

Only until this knowledge is confirmed valid and sound.

peacegirl:

Aside from abortions, most of the world is convinced that if we stop murdering each other it will be a better world, so there is no conflict in values here.

iambiguous:

What about executions? What about those who are killed in the course of starting and then sustaining wars revolving precisely around which political economy will prevail, must prevail, should prevail? And around who will have the wealth and the power to enforce a set of laws that favor some segments of the population over others? And around those who will profit from sustaining a war economy?

You are projecting into the future based on your present knowledge. We are talking about a new world based on accurate principles which cannot be denied because they are immutable, and the fact that we are mindful of this is what allows us to change the environment all the while being controlled by deterministic laws. You are not hearing me because of your skepticism. If you get it, great. If not, I’m really sorry, but this has nothing whatsoever to do with the validity and soundness of this discovery.

iambiguous:

These conflicting goods, in my view, go away only in your head here. I have yet to come upon substantive arguments that convince me that we can actually achieve this ideal “new world” such that blame and punishment become moot.

And that is before we get to the part about the narcissists who steal and rape and murder etc., simply because, from their point of view, morality revolves entirely around self-satisfaction, around self-gratification.

Or those who do all manner of hurtful things to others because they claim that it is in “the will of God”.

You are so caught up in your defense that you have not heard a word I said. A person cannot use this excuse as a justification when no one is holding him responsible. If he can’t justify his actions he can no longer find greater satisfaction in doing the things that heretofore he was able to do. You don’t get this because you are so convinced he was wrong that you just can’t believe that this knowledge solves all these problems. That’s understandable but there has to come a time that you will stop asking questions and start studying the solution.

iambiguous:

And what does it mean to “come up with reasonable excuses” when any excuses that we do come up with are only the excuses that we ever could come up with?

peacegirl:

That is true but when I say reasonable, the person who was caught doing something “wrong” wants to make the mitigating circumstances believable in the hope that he will not get a harsh punishment.

iambiguous:

But, again and again: What any of us want is only what we must want. If we do something “wrong” or punish another for doing something “wrong”, that is reasonable because how can doing only what it is necessary to do not be reasonable – not be reasonable?

The part that always eludes me…

But we’re not punishing anymore, which is also part and parcel of what must be IF people see the value in NOT BLAMING. We are not on a trajectory that will lead us toward something that we ourselves have not chosen. The designer (whether you call it God, Om, or the Source) does not have this kind of power.