Does moral responsibility require free will?

More Than Mortal · January 15, 2015, 11:37:55 AM

As most of you will probably know, I'm both a hard determinist and an ethical naturalist. Or, put simply, I don't believe in free will and, at the same time, I believe in objective moral standards. Now, of course, speaking of a person as he ought to be seems somewhat redundant if you consider people to be fundamentally determined.

It seems that determinism destroys any idea of moral responsibility, as even subtle changes in neurology can result in whether or not somebody is more likely to commit a violent crime. I'm having a bit of trouble formulating my response to this linguistically, but I'm fairly certain that you don't need an ontological or metaphysical conception of moral responsibility in order to have a practical one--insofar as one is necessary.

Dustin · January 15, 2015, 11:50:13 AM

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Verbatim · January 15, 2015, 11:53:24 AM

Frankly, as a determinist myself (one who is relatively unacquainted with its derivative forms), this mentality--the mentality of, "Well, everything is determined, so I guess I should be a moral nihilist" is toxic, and should be eschewed immediately.

Ultimately, yeah, everything is determined. That may SEEM to make your life futile--but the thing is... no, determinism is not the impetus for moral nihilism--it should be an impediment. The fact is, we don't know what the future is like--we can't predict our fate. We can't even predict the weather.

As a determinist, you have to realize that the only reason things are determined is, basically, because of Newton's laws of motion, yes? Taking those into account, that should inspire you to be the force that gets people to act like good, civilized, and productive human beings. You should be an advocate for good behavior. Determinism doesn't make good behavior futile--it makes it necessary.

I don't think it's redundant to speak of moralistic "oughts" in a deterministic universe--I think it's all the more reason to do so. Just because everything is "set in stone", as it were, doesn't mean we know the outcome. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to change undesirable outcomes. Because that's not determinism, that's defeatism.

They keyword is "try". Make an effort. Read your script. Do your duty.

More Than Mortal · January 15, 2015, 12:04:53 PM

Quote from: Verbatim on January 15, 2015, 11:53:24 AM

. . .

I don't disagree. I don't think a negation of moral responsibility necessarily entails some kind of moral nihilism.

I mean, we'd lock up hurricanes and earthquakes if we could.

Verbatim · January 15, 2015, 12:08:16 PM

Would you not lock up natural disasters if you could, or am I missing your point there?

More Than Mortal · January 15, 2015, 12:10:39 PM

Quote from: Verbatim on January 15, 2015, 12:08:16 PM

Would you not lock up natural disasters if you could, or am I missing your point there?

No, I'm saying the fact that we lack a "true" moral responsibility doesn't lead to a lack of morality. We would lock up hurricanes, earthquakes, dangerous bears (and so on) if we could purely as a matter of public safety. And we should continue doing so in the case of murderous psychopaths. We can quite forcefully and correctly say what we ought to do, even if people are at a disadvantage (or even completely incapable) of doing such things.

Dustin · January 15, 2015, 12:21:16 PM

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Verbatim · January 15, 2015, 12:24:04 PM

Quote from: Meta Cognition on January 15, 2015, 12:10:39 PM

Quote from: Verbatim on January 15, 2015, 12:08:16 PM
Would you not lock up natural disasters if you could, or am I missing your point there?
No, I'm saying the fact that we lack a "true" moral responsibility doesn't lead to a lack of morality. We would lock up hurricanes, earthquakes, dangerous bears (and so on) if we could purely as a matter of public safety. And we should continue doing so in the case of murderous psychopaths. We can quite forcefully and correctly say what we ought to do, even if people are at a disadvantage (or even completely incapable) of doing such things.

Okay, gotcha. It just sounded like to me that you were going down this more nihilistic path at first, and that would've been my sort of "moral obligation" to promptly dissuade you from that. lol

I mean, your title alone is enough to have suggested that, really. If moral responsibility required free will, you wouldn't see so many morally responsible determinists. The way I see it, determinism would be synonymous with nihilism, if that was the case.

This is also partly why I hate words like "moral" and "ethics". The words themselves, the concepts, are sort of incompatible with determinism--we just have all this matter that does a lot of stuff, and it can be either good stuff, or it can be bad stuff. Avoid the bad stuff. There's no real word for it. Does there need to be? "Responsibility" is a good word.

More Than Mortal · January 15, 2015, 12:26:50 PM

Quote from: Dustin xLilD on January 15, 2015, 12:21:16 PM

I'm under the impression that objective morality exists, but I don't believe morality is a product of human intelligence

It's a product of human complexity, and our ability to suffer--which is correlated with intelligence, I would think.

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I think it's a matter of (cultural) evolution.

Then it's not objective. It can't be objective if it's cultural.

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And if morality is based on evolution

It isn't.

More Than Mortal · January 15, 2015, 12:30:02 PM

Quote from: Verbatim on January 15, 2015, 12:24:04 PM

If moral responsibility required free will, you wouldn't see so many morally responsible determinists.

That's kind of my refutation of the whole idea.

I don't really believe that moral responsibility exists--in that I don't think a bear can be more 'immoral' than a murderous psychopath, or more 'moral' than a paediatric surgeon--but if you agree in some sort of objective moral standard, as I think anybody rational must, then it's clear that there are right and wrong ways to navigate such a space. This navigation necessarily creates some sort of practical moral responsibility, in that people ought to feel certain consequences for their actions for the sake of encouragement of dissuasion, even if we're all acting as part of this determined stream.

It's a matter, in essence, of acting morally within the determined stream.

Dustin · January 15, 2015, 12:31:29 PM

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More Than Mortal · January 15, 2015, 12:33:57 PM

Quote from: Dustin xLilD on January 15, 2015, 12:31:29 PM

Humans aren't the only species that can suffer. I mean, any animal that lives in a group essentially lives by rules to benefit the group a a whole.

Which is why a proper moral system is concerned with the well-being of conscious creates, proportionally. We're obviously more important than pigs, as pigs are more important than ants and ants are more important than rocks.

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Cultural meaning passed down information, not cultural as in Chinese festivals and Italian pizza.

I don't see how that's supposed to support your argument, though.