[b]From: “Moral Responsibility in a Deterministic Universe”
by Ray Bradford
Dennett goes on to say that our unadulterated inclinations have a bias toward short-term rewards at the expense of larger benefits down the road. This makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint of survival, since long-term benefits prove meaningless to a dead organism. Yet, as we have found with the prisoner’s dilemma, it is advantageous to us as organisms to pass up these smaller short-term gains for more sizable long-term ones–and convince others of our ability to do so. Thus, we have problems of both self-control and convincing our peers of our capacity for self-control, and it is from these grounds that moral responsibility emerges as the pinnacle of the arms race. [/b]
But just as with the choices that are being made regarding the dilemma faced by the prisoners, are not the choices that we make regarding the dilemma embedded in short-term vs. long term benefits, also embedded merely in the illusion of free choice?
Is not the evolution of life on earth just another inherent manifestation of the laws of nature? And of the necessity built right into it? How different really is that from the evolution of planet earth itself? In other words, before the advent of life. Is not the only distinction here that life has evolved to the point of mind – minds able to grasp that per the inherent laws of matter there really is no distinction to be made between the evolution of matter before and after the creation of life?
Yes, minds become conscious of the choices that they make…whereas before minds matter was consciuous of nothing at all. But the choices that they make would still seem only as they ever could be in the only possible reality there ever could be because reality is matter and matter unfolds only as it must.
This pivotal point for Dennett reflects the fact that our long-term reward consists of a sterling reputation of “moral” character that we must sacrifice short-term benefits’ “temptation” to obtain. What we consider morally responsible behavior emerges as a self-control mechanism, since demonstrating self-control at individual points of temptation proves difficult with our bias toward myopic self-interest. Thus, we essentially co-opt our emotions into “moral responsibility” to control our own behavior with “broad brushstrokes.”
But what can it even mean to speak of this in terms of “self-control” in a wholly determined world? Thus the need to speak of “moral” character rather than of moral character. We are tempted only in that we cannnot not be tempted.
All of the strokes [however broad] would seem to be at one with the mechanism that is the design unfurling itself like clockwork. One tick at a time.