I read the new book Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will by neurobiologist Robert M. Sapolsky where he outlines the biological basis for why we have no free will. I will discuss the main arguments of the book in a later post but here I want to outline what he says about an objection that believers in free will often raise, and that is that if we say that all our actions are determined by our genes, history, environment, and random factors, and that we did not freely choose to do them, then people who commit crimes should not be blamed and punished. He agrees that such people should not be blamed for what is after all outside their control and that retributive and punitive punishments, that form such a large part of our criminal justice system, have no place. But that does not mean that we simply do nothing.
He sets up his argument by recalling how things have changed so dramatically over time in the way that we respond to people with illnesses like epilepsy or schizophrenia that cause them to act in ways that are dangerous to themselves and to others. (Chapter 13, pages 300-340) In the past, it used to be thought that their actions were freely chosen ones and they were punished accordingly, often in horrendous ways. Not anymore. Now we realize that they are victims of illnesses that cause them to behave in those ways, and we have changed our response accordingly. As he says: “Once, having a seizure was steeped in the perceptions of agency, autonomy, and freely choosing to join Satan’s army. Now we effortlessly accept that none of those terms make sense. And the sky hasn’t fallen. I believe that most of us would agree that the world is a better place because sufferers of this disease are not burned at the stake.” (p. 316)
Sapolsky argues that there is no difference in terms of agency between the harmful acts of epileptics and schizophrenics and those of criminals. It is just that in the case of the first two, we no longer assign blame and punish them while in the last we do, because we still retain a belief in free will. But the way we have changed in our response to epileptics and schizophrenics provides us with a road map for how to treat criminals in the absence of a belief in free will, and that is by using the medical model to find ways to prevent them from being a source of danger to themselves and to others.
As outlined by the hard incompatibilist philosopher Derk Pereboom of Cornell University, it’s straight out of the medical quarantine model’s four tenets: (A) It is possible for someone to have a medical malady that makes them infectious, contagious, dangerous, or damaging to those around them. (B) It is not their fault. (C) To protect everyone else from them, as something akin to an act of collective self-defense, it is okay to harm them by constraining their freedom. (D) We should constrain the person the absolute minimal amount needed to protect everyone, and not an inch more. (p. 349)
…This medical quarantine model is a given in everyday life. If your kindergartener has a cough or fever, you’re expected to keep them home school until they’re better. If you’re a pilot, you can’t fly if you’re taking medication that makes you drowsy. If your elderly parent is sliding into dementia, they can’t drive anymore. (p. 350)
…The extension of this to criminology in Pereboom’s thinking is obvious: (A) Some people are dangerous because of problems with the likes of impulse control, propensity for violence, or incapacity for empathy. (B) If you truly accept that there is no free will, it’s not their fault—it’s the result of their genes, fetal life, hormone levels, the usual. (C) Nonetheless, the public needs to be protected from them until they can be rehabilitated, if possible, justifying the constraint of their freedom. (D) But their “quarantine” should be done in a way that constrains the least—do what’s needed to make them safe, and in all other ways, they’re free to be. The retributive justice system is built on backward-looking proportionality, where the more damage is caused, the more severe the punishment. A quarantine model of criminality shows forward-looking proportionality, where the more danger is posed in the future, the more constraints are needed.
Pereboom’s quarantine model has been extended by philosopher Gregg Caruso of the State University of New York, another leading incompatibilist. Public health scientists don’t just figure out that, say, the brains of migrant farmworkers’ kids are damaged by pesticide residues. They also have a moral imperative to work to prevent that from happening in the first place (say, by testifying in lawsuits against pesticide manufacturers). Caruso extends this thinking to criminology—yes, the person is dangerous because of causes that they couldn’t control, and we don’t know how to rehabilitate them, so let’s minimally constrain them to keep everyone safe. But let’s also address the root causes, typically putting us in the realm of social justice. Just as public health workers think about the social determinants of health, a public health—oriented quarantine model that replaces the criminal justice system requires attention to the social determinants of criminal behavior. In effect, it implies that while a criminal can be dangerous, the poverty, bias, systemic disadvantaging, and so on that produce criminals are more dangerous.(p. 351)
Convincing people that there is no free will is difficult. But even if they continue to believe in it, a justice system along the lines outlined by Pereboom and Caruso can still be adopted and would be much more humane than what he have now, especially in the US.
Norway is a good example. In July 2011 neo-Nazi Anders Brevik killed 77 people, including 69 teenagers on an island attending a left-leaning camp, because of his delusions about how the Christian European people were being destroyed by immigrants who were being let in by leftist politicians. (p. 379-382) (Brevik’s views are disturbingly similar to those of serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) who recently invoked the language of Hitler, categorizing his political opponents as ‘vermin’ and warning that immigrants from Asia, Africa, and South America were “poisoning the blood of our country”.) And yet Brevik was given the maximum sentence of just 21 years and his prison quarters consist of “a three-room living space, computer, TV, PlayStation, treadmill, and kitchen… and he was accepted by the University of Oslo to matriculate remotely as, unironically, a political science student.” (p. 379)
This was even though the judges decided that Brevik was sane and thus had free will, could have chosen to do otherwise, and was responsible for his actions. (p.382). But the sentence and treatment was largely consistent with the quarantine model advocated by Pereboom and Caruso in the case of an absence of free will.
Sapolsky had an online debate with geneticist and neuroscientist Kevin Mitchell, a free will compatibilist, that discussed these issues in a thoughtful way.
Trivial but (to me) amusing answer to the headline written before I’ve read a word of this actual blogpost.
“It would exactly like what we’ve got… because how could it not? It’s not like we’ve got any choice what our criminal justice system looks like, is it?”
Further answer, having read the post:
The criminal justice system will reflect the level of civilisation of the society it serves. The most enlightened will, as at present, eschew retribution as uncivilised, will prize deterrence and rehabilitation insofar as they can be proven to work, and will value the security of the non-criminals over the right to freedom of the criminals, and will thus lock them up anyway where appropriate (i.e. in the case of acquisitive or violent criminals with direct victims, i.e. NOT drug dealers, sex workers and so on). The worthless shithole barbarian societies will, as at present, prize retribution above all, and will thus endorse and use death penalties, despite the proven fallibility of the process of trial and sentencing.
So more or less as I said -- it’ll look just like it does now, because how could it be otherwise?
Just finishing this one up myself. A great read. Also recommend his Behave -- The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. A bit more dense and less conversational (why must his prodigious footnotes be typeset so small?) but should be required reading for all who still cling to the faith of “free-will”.
Dennis @#3,
I thought that he overdid the number of footnotes, some of which were merely asides that could have been dispensed with or inserted into the main text. I found it distracting to constantly shift from the main text to the footnotes and back again.
Ah, this silly topic again.
So, a bit of snark:
Q: What would a criminal justice system in the absence of free will look like?
A: If free will actually is absent, it will look just like it looks right now.
@#1 & @#5,
Why should it be just like it looks now and not like (say) a hundred or five hundred years in the past? Or that it will stay the same for the future?
Determinism (and the lack of free will) does not mean that the universe has only one historical trajectory and is entirely predictable. There are contingent events that make it unpredictable but these events are random and not directed by free will.
Mano, the point is that anyone who actually believes there is no such thing as free will must accept that, there being no free will, every single system that has ever existed in whatever location on the planet at whatever time is what results when there is no free will.
A bit philosophical, perhaps, but a necessary truth given that premise.
But you could just as easily say that every single system that has ever existed in whatever location on the planet at whatever time is what results when there is
nofree will. It seems like you are saying nothing more than “It is what it is” and could not be anything else. But lack of free will is not synonymous with classical Laplacian determinism and predictability.To be fair, I get the point is what sort of system could be set up in the absence of the concept of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea which is kinda foundational.
(I venture to say that the very concept of criminality and of criminal justice would need a radical redefinition to serve such a system)
I’m already positive that we have no free will, but I don’t understand the obsession with that idea being revelatory. Any actions are situational, and changes to situations changes the entire world. The same as a machine, I am configured to behave in a precisely definable way given appropriate inputs, but those inputs include not only the thinking capability of what I am and what I can detect right now, but my entire memory, which sits affected by everything I have ever interacted with in any way, including everything I have seen, heard, eaten, read, sensed, and any previous thoughts that I have had on any subjects. Who’s to say what little things might have changed the way I now behave? Tiny random effects in the world can cascade to, according to the butterfly effect, change everything.
But knowing this does not cry out for reforms to the criminal justice system. Why should Anders Brevik now be treated as a machine simply because there was no free will behind his actions? You cannot say that punishment never acts as a deterrent, nor that victims and those who care for them do not find consolation in it, nor even that without free will there is no value in retribution, a concept that has evolved over ages to be in all humans. You can argue that there are better ways to deal with crime than retributively, but free will is the least part of it.
file thirteen @#10,
I think that why lack of free will necessitates reforms in the criminal justice system is because if we think that the actions of a criminal are driven by the same kind of brain functions as the actions of (say) a schizophrenic over which they have no control, then it does not make sense that we now treat schizophrenics more humanely (because we do not think that they freely chose their actions) while we still punish prisoners harshly (because we think that they did and are thus more culpable and deserving of punishment). We should treat them both similarly but we currently don’t.
Mano #11:
I think you are mistaken to assert that criminals do not deserve more punishment than schizophrenics because they are no more “culpable”. To extend your argument to its logical conclusion would be to remove many words from the lexicon such as “culpable”, “decide”, “choose”, and their derivatives. The difference as I see it is that even without free will, non-schizophrenics are able to perform in the way that humanity calls “rational”, while schizophrenics may be intermittently unable to by virtue of a disease (or defect or whatever you wish to call it). If “culpable” remains a word, I do believe criminals are more so than schizophrenics.
(that isn’t to say that in the past schizophrenia would never have been treated as criminal behaviour. In the absence of knowledge of the condition, schizophrenics would be subjected to whatever society deemed as consequences for their behaviour. This is somewhat similar to doctors taking action when they don’t know the disease that afflicts a patient: they treat the symptoms)
Criminal justice does require that the concept of rationality still exists. If there is rationality, people can choose “rationally” to take whatever action they choose to, and if they choose not to, they suffer consequences. So be it. But if the are acting “rationally”, then jail might act as a deterrent. And if they go ahead anyway? The deterrent is still there for others, and seeing the consequences for one may strengthen it.
Nowadays there are drugs you can take for schizophrenia to alleviate it. But other aberrant behaviours without a medically known cause are more difficult to treat. Admitting the absence of free will, would you advocate for enforced medication of criminals to reduce their criminal behaviour? I doubt you would, but I suspect you’ll have difficulty reconciling that stance with your argument. But I don’t believe that the absence of free will changes things.
In the future, medical discoveries may lead us to be able to treat diseases that we don’t currently know we have, improving our quality of life and reducing the likelihood of what we call criminal behaviour, some of which we treat harshly now. Wonderful! But what’s that got to do with free will?
Once more into the breach!
Mano, there are other reasons to reduce the burden of criminal punishment. Studies on recidivism rates show that community work programs show greater integration and hence reduced chance of repeat criminality, giving us more or less the same sort of system of punishment you argue for. As far as I can tell, the ‘no free will’ model of responsibility makes no real difference to the world that is no already suggested by some other line of reasoning.
file thirteen @#12 and Holms @#13.
file thirteen asks: “Admitting the absence of free will, would you advocate for enforced medication of criminals to reduce their criminal behavior?”
My answer is “Not at all”. The quarantine model outlined in the original post does not call for such actions. It calls for physically restricting their freedom in the minimal ways possible to prevent them from causing harm to themselves or others.
I agree that there are many other reasons for treating criminals more humanely than we do now. That debate is ongoing. But currently retribution, and even satisfying the desire for revenge on the part of the victims and their families, is seen as a valid part of the criminal justice process in many countries and localities. That is why we still have the death penalty whose primary justification is retribution, that the person’s actions are so heinous that they deserve to die. We currently argue against that on moral grounds. But in the absence of free will, the argument against such retributive punishments is also a scientific one that argues that such harsh treatment is as unjustifiable as punishing a schizophrenic or epileptic for any harm that they did, because all of them are due to actions over which they did not exercise any control.
At one time, animals were punished for causing damage or injury. We do not do that anymore because we now think that they did not freely choose to act in that way. The extension to how we deal with human behavior is straightforward.
@Mano Singham
Motivated reasoning. Why would you need a criminal justice system at all (in the absence of free will)? Your honor I would like the Covid-19 virus be tried for its crimes!
And as far as the quarantine system goes , why do all such discussions bend in the direction of mercy ? If we are just an aggregation of particles playing out our parts (which would necessarily imply that things we define like happiness , pleasure , pain are , at their root , illusionary) then why not the other way ? Why not eliminate all threats however minor? What is the value of life if it is just playing out a role (Not advocating for it , nor is my argument that we should believe in free will so that our lives have purpose , only that it seems that people who take a hard stance against free will seem to mostly stop before the hard implications of their beliefs, content instead to advocate for status quo with minor changes)
Mano #14:
But in the absence of free will, the argument against such retributive punishments is also a scientific one that argues that such harsh treatment is as unjustifiable as punishing a schizophrenic or epileptic for any harm that they did, because all of them are due to actions over which they did not exercise any control.
Another word to remove from the lexicon, control. Don’t blame me for arguing Mano, I have no choice in the matter.
the person’s actions are so heinous that they deserve to die. We currently argue against that on moral grounds.
I’m primarily opposed to the death penalty because, mistakes, misuse, slippery slope. But if you also advocate excluding moral arguments arguments against it, why then if the law was changed to permit the death penalty only in cases of heinous crimes where there was unequivocally no doubt, rather than merely reasonable doubt, what argument against it remains? I could easily accept the execution of Brevik in coldly clinical terms, for both the good of society and to reduce the state’s burden of his keep.
Now make an argument against that, but be sure not to make it a moral one.
file thirteen @#16,
I do not see what the use of words such as ‘control’, ‘decide’, and ‘choose’ has to do with anything. They are just words expressing ideas that originate in free will and we could find and use circumlocutions for them if we want to. It is the underlying ideas that are important. Most of the time, in everyday life, the lack of free will does not really change anything. It is mainly in the area of punishment and criminal justice that we need to be circumspect because the consequences are so great.
Also, why should moral arguments not apply? In my #14, I did not say that we should exclude moral arguments. I explicitly said that the absence of free will adds a scientific argument to the moral one, not that it replaces it. Moral arguments are still valid. How does killing someone work for “the good of society”? Killing someone to save the state money is a morally reprehensible argument.
Deepak Shetty @#15,
You ask “Why would you need a justice system at all (in the absence of free will)?” It is to decide if people pose a threat to themselves or to society, not to decide if they are bad people who deserve to be punished.
We are not bending in the direction of mercy, we are merely applying the same standard to those whom we label as criminals that we use to treat people whose actions we have now decided they are not responsible for. You seem to be suggesting that if we apply the same standard, that standard should be the harshest one possible, including death, but that conclusion does not follow. Are you arguing that schizophrenics and epileptics also should be put to death because they have the potential to harm others? The standard we apply will reflect our values and the idea of quarantine with minimal restraints to ensure safety reflects humane values. The way to deal with threats is to quarantine the people who pose a threat until they are no longer deemed to be a threat, not to kill everyone who poses even a minor threat.
I am also not sure how you conclude that if we have no free will, then life has no value. It seems to be similar to those who argue that we need a god or a purposeful universe to give our lives meaning. Value and meaning are things we give to our lives, not things that need to be imposed from outside.
Mano #17:
The consequences of criminal justice law are great. But the argument that the absence of free will provides scientific evidence for the humane treatment of criminals seems entirely specious. I cannot see how the assertion that criminals should not be punished “because there is no free will” is in any way scientific.
As regards your confusion over why I said words like “choose” are meaningless if you offer “lack of free will” as a basis for being out of control of your actions, I consider that follows as plain as day. You said that criminals should be treated humanely, not punished, because their actions are out of their control. Leaving aside the many other good reasons for doing so, I put it to you simply that if their actions are out of their control then so are all actions, and you render the word “control” meaningless. Please explain what I’m missing here.
file thirteen @18,
It is not that “the absence of free will provides scientific evidence for the humane treatment of criminals” but that the neurobiological understanding of how our brain works is scientific and it is that scientific understanding that leads to the conclusion that there is no free will. The lack of free will is then used to argue against retributive punishments and for the humane treatment of criminals.
All our actions are indeed out of our control, if ‘control’ means that we somehow ‘will’ an action and could have willed something other than what we did. Hence the word ‘control (like ‘choose’ and ‘decide’) is indeed meaningless in this context, though it may have uses in other contexts.
@Mano Singham
I suppose you mean a different word -- because isnt it the point that we dont decide ?
But that is based on the principle of we can choose!. If we can’t choose , we could as well say get rid of all harmful creatures. You are comparing a justice system predicated on the fact that we could choose to appeal for consistency in the treatment of people- but your fundamental assumption is different.
Like I said , im not advocating for harsher punishments since I do not know if we have some limited choice or none at all and Im happy to reserve judgement till we do know. Im stating that if you truly believed what you are stating (no choice at all) then the harshest punishment for everyone is the same as mercy for everyone -- you aren’t doing the choosing after all -- its the laws that govern our decision , that do not have awareness or consciousness per your own beliefs -- they have no morality or care for our wellbeing.
Again , what are you doing that has value , if you had no choice in the matter , if it is pre ordained ?. Any good you did , just some random law like gravity. Any feelings you have just some random law of physics.
If there was a God , the value of my life is unchanged. If i have no choice in my thoughts and action then yes I dont see how I could think life has meaning. Everything I did for my family for e.g. was not really me , its some lifeless , law -- whetehr someone took care of their family or didnt is all the same.Again that doesnt make free will true , its just that you dont follow through with the implications of your position.
Mano #19:
So it was just the argument against free will that you meant was scientific. I’m fine with that. I’m still troubled by your previous assertion that the argument against such retributive punishments is also a scientific one, a statement that I believe is completely wrong and misleading, but you seem to be backing away from it now.
file thirteen @#19,
No I am not backing away from it. If the argument against free will is scientific, then any consequences that necessarily follow from it also have a scientific basis. That does not replace the moral argument, it supplements it.
Deepak Shetty @#20,
First of all, the lack of free will does not mean that everything is pre-ordained, a point that I have made repeatedly.
Secondly, it is true that we are governed by the impersonal laws of biology and physics and chemistry. Those laws do not make value judgments, which is what I think you are saying when you say that we could just as easily have harsh systems as merciful ones. But that does not mean that people cannot and do not make value judgments. It is that those judgments are not freely made but are due to their their biology, history, and interaction with external factors.
The lack of free will does not mean that there can be no change. We have seen immense changes in the way we treat illnesses and criminals and animals. How did that come about in the absence of free will? Sapolsky spends entire chapters tracing in detail how attitudes towards schizophrenia, epilepsy, leprosy, and autism have changed over time, from punitive to humane, because of the events in the lives of people. It happened incrementally, with people being influenced by events in their lives and this causing them to influence others and so on. Some event that occurs in the life of someone, such as having a schizophrenic member of their family making them see the issue in a new way, and that may result in changes in their brains causing them to think of it as an illness and not as freely chosen anti-social behavior and they begin advocating for the elimination of punishment for the acts of schizophrenics. Their advocacy may influence others to support them and if it reaches a critical mass, then we have change.
It can go the other way too. We can have people who, because of their own brain structure, react differently to some event in their lives (such as because a driver had a fit and crashed their car and killed a loved one) and feel that harsher punishments are called for epileptics.
Our brains are the product of personal history, genes, environment and that will result in people reacting differently even to the same external stimuli and have their brains evolve in different directions. Some will seek more merciful solutions, others will seek harsh ones. Which ones win out will depend on a lot of other contingent environmental factors such as the culture they live in. It is not predictable but it is deterministic.
To address the point you made in your last paragraph, in the absence of free will, just as people do not deserve to be blamed, shamed, and suffer retributive punishments for their bad acts, people do not deserve praise for their good acts either. When you say “Everything I did for my family for e.g. was not really me , its some lifeless , law — whether someone took care of their family or didn’t is all the same”, you are correct that that is an implication of my position and I accept it. I do not know why you think I rejected it. I am saying that you do not deserve praise for doing so because you had no control over it.
I didnt say it was , nor does it make a difference.
I thought we agreed, that for hard determinists, that it is some impersonal law of physics + chemistry + biology that make those judgements and not what is commonly understood as “person”. Impersonal, inanimate laws could not have a concept of value and cannot make value judgements. You can’t have your cake and eat it too (see Brexit)
No one denies that. It is directed change v/s change that is done by some impersonal laws with no motive or direction beyond the anthropic principle or beyond some evolutionary benefits. If there is no choice , its obvious that the criminal justice system should not exist in its current form -- what are we judging ? what are we deliberating ? It would be like doctors or disease -- evolutionary forces direct us to survive , atleast till we reproduce and a committee could just say what they think gives us the best chance to do that. What else is needed ?
Again , not our brains , some combination of impersonal laws.
I somehow find it hard to believe that this is what you tell your lvoed ones , your family. Whatever you did , it wasnt you, just some undiscovered law of physics that was truly responsible! But ok, perhaps you do say that .Its not a matter of praise -- it is just how conversations would go would hard determinists who act like they believe it.
Final question : In a universe where choice exists , what would it look like ?
If the argument against free will is scientific, then any consequences that necessarily follow from it also have a scientific basis.
And conversely, assertions don’t necessarily follow from it, like your one, don’t. Getting tired of you equivocating.
…assertions *that don’t…
F13, also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettier_problem
#14 Mano
The (left-leaning) agency camp says laws must state punishments so as to provide clear guidance and disincentive against unwanted behaviours. The no agency camp also says laws must state punishments, but this time it is to stack the influences operating on a person such that more of them are forced away from the unwanted behaviours. Either way, laws state punishments.
The agency camp says punishments must be proportional to the crime for reasons of ethics. The no agency camp says punishments must be proportional to the crime because people are blameless. Either way, punishments are proportional.
The agency camp says work and training programs are good because they make it more likely the inmate will find work and reintegrate with society once released, reducing recidivism. The no agency camp says work and training programs are good because they …flip inputs in the program controlling the inmate, towards towards work and reintegration… reducing recidivism. Either way, work and training programs.
The agency camp says good behaviour in prison can be rewarded with earlier release from prison as an incentive for the inmate to reform their behaviour and show character development. The no agency camp says early release can be the carrot that rewires the robot brain, or some shit, such that they have no choice but to be better behaved from now on. Either way, early release for good behaviour.
The agency camp says people can choose based on known information, the no agency says they can’t but adds some mumbo jumbo about stacking influences and tipping points -- anything but admitting the possibility of choice -- and then goes ahead and makes everything the same anyway. The entire discussion is navel gazing waffle from people who seem to have a great deal of time on their hands and not much to fill it with.
Joining late to the thread as yet another no-free-willer. I would like to make the point that there is no need for free will in order to say we make choices and decisions. Algorithms make choices and decisions all the time. Of all the videos available in youtube, one is chosen by the algorithm to be the top of the list it recommends to you, based on various inputs about you, your past behavior, and behaviors of people similar to you, plus likely some level of randomness. Our choices are similar, the outcome of inputs from the present environment, inputs from past environments as they were processed in our respective brains, plus randomness. The main difference between a human person and algorithms we currently have is that people also have consciousness, which is another process that has some glimpses into our decision-making process and makes up a story about why we chose the way we did (but can be shown at least in some instances to be completely and utterly false). The only correct answer to the question ‘why did you do that?’ is ‘I don’t know, it seemed/felt like a good idea at the time’. Anything else is self-delusion. Unfortunately in the current legal and medical system such answers won’t get you very far, so we have to attempt to make sense of what our consciousness babbles.
Now, this leaves the question of people training themselves to change their reactions to inputs, whether external or internal (ie what their brain produces based on past events). My spouse, as a long-time meditator, has been able to arrive at a state where emotions are identified as they arise, but are not acted on, but instead allowed to pass and dissipate. Does my spouse now have some level of free will? Or is this simply an algorithm with a software upgrade?
It would look exactly as it is because the people deciding would have as much free will as the criminals do.
I hate this argument so much because it I so pointless. I we have no free will, nothing would be any different, the people deciding are just as much constrained by their history and environment as any criminal. It literally doesn’t matter. If you (Mano) are correct, congrats nothing changes, if you are wrong, congrats nothing changes. There are so many more productive questions to ask, like what policies would make the world more like one wants it to be.
Holms @#28,
Your point that “The no agency camp says punishments must be proportional to the crime because people are blameless” is in fact opposite to what free-will skeptics say, and is indeed the fundamental difference between the quarantine model and the retributive model that leads to different recommendations for how to deal with wrongdoing. As I quote Sapolsky in the post:
Jacob @#30,
There have been immense changes in the way we treat damaging actions of schizophrenics and epileptics (to name just two) because we now realize that it was brain wiring that made them do what they did, not willful intent. If we viewed all actions the same way, then there would be a difference in how we treat criminal behavior and other anti-social acts. The fact that we now live at a time after that change took place makes that major change invisible to us but should not shield us from its implications.
Although I did not address it in this post, elimination of free will would also result in a big difference in our attitudes towards blame and praise generally, as Greg Caruso argues.
I disagree with those who say that there would be no difference in the legal system. Because if those who set up the legal system are aware of our lack of free will that would be an input to their thought process that they currently do not have. The awareness of the absence of free will is what makes the difference, not merely the absence itself.
Mano:
Ah yes, the basic problem with consequentionalist ethics: one has to predict future events and actions.
(And damn close to “the ends justify the means”, for that matter. “It’s for the best”)
Thing is, one can in fact know what has happened, but one can only speculate about what may happen, especially in the realm of human behaviour.
And, obviously, the less predictable someone’s behaviour is, the more one has to allow for that unpredictability.
Not a good recipe.
So, since the danger someone will pose some time in the future is the discriminant, in this proposed model, not what that someone did in the past, that makes it a rather speculative affair, at best (as opposed to an investigable affair), and otherwise a rather subjective affair (someone’s judgement must apply, even if it’s a look-up table or even algorithmic).
—
anat:
I refer you to my #9.
#31 Mano
I’d also point out to you that the ‘retributive model’ really only applies to the conservative approach to treatment of criminals; I said early on that I was representing the case for the left-leaning camp, which is more concerned about punishment as a disincentive and then recidivism reduction after conviction. But I also find your correction of me illustrative of my own point in #28: even though I got your explanation totally wrong on that example, it remains immaterial to the outcome. The justice system built by lefties that accept agency and lefties that reject it looks identical. Either way, punishments are proportional.
I think comment #1 takes the cake on this thread.
Mano @ 31 “There have been immense changes in the way we treat damaging actions of schizophrenics and epileptics (to name just two) because we now realize that it was brain wiring that made them do what they did, not willful intent. If we viewed all actions the same way, then there would be a difference in how we treat criminal”
No, that does not follow. we have medication to reduce schizophrenic and epileptic behavior. In the absence of treatment for any particular criminal behavior you could as easily say that in the absence of free will a person’s past criminal behavior is evidence of an unacceptably high propensity for criminal behavior and there fore more draconian measures are warranted. If there are treatment options, there is no need to answer the question of free will, we just ask what gets us closer to the society we want. Again the question of free will, independent of its answeribility, is mearly a distraction from more useful questions.
Physics (study of Matter).
Metaphysics (Knowledge, Action, Consciousness, Meaning, Belief, Emotion, Free Will, Perception, Existence, Morality, God Concept, etc..).
Mathematics/Logic. Mathematics and Logic have no basis in Matter. Yet Physics uses instruments that do not materially exist.
Yes, the tools of physics (call it “science”) can be applied to Metaphysics but can the “scientific” Knowledge of Metaphysics ever be complete? When and how one knows that completeness is acheived (if ever)?
But in Mathematics there is a number of “impossibility” theorems and thus complete knowledge of mathematics is impossible. Some problems in Math are proven to be undecidable. One can say the same for Physics (study of matter via our 5 senses).
What is the scientific basis for morality? What is the scientific definition of morality? Mano writes that Science can complement Morality but he evades the question of what is the essense of Morality if said essence does not have a scientific basis, does not have a materialistic basis.
An individual has no free will. 10 individuals have no free will. Thus society has no free will. If a society executes a petty criminal, well, that is too bad. That is the way of Life.
Nature is not benevolent. Violence is common in Nature. Orcas playing “football” with seals for pleasure. Lions killing cubs before mating with the mother lionesses. Etc., etc., etc..
Mano writes: “…Killing someone to save the state money is a morally reprehensible argument…” Why? Mano seems upset but the emotion of being upset has no scientific basis, no materialistic basis. A point cannot be proven rationally and objectively by sentimentality. Vegetation, Animals are killed all the time to save the state money. Vegetation, Animals do not have free will. Well, the PETA people and devout Hindus are upset about the killing of animals.
An adult murderer has no free will and is executed. Mano is upset.
An unborn child has no free will and is aborted. Mano is not upset. Mano is quite a pro-abortionist. Mano will state that the pregnant mother has no free will so if the baby is aborted, well, that is too bad. That is the way of Life. 99% of abortions are done for economic reasons. “I cannot afford a baby!!!” Mano is not upset that abortions are done for economic reasons.
Hubris, Arrogance are great temptations in Science. Scientists do not have free will so if they fall into Hubris and Arrogance, well, that is too bad. That is the way of Life.
Hubris, Arrogance. The Ancients understood them too well. The story of Icarus. I am sure Mano know relevant Ancient Indian writings. The biblical story of Eden: eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge (of Good and Evil) takes you into a more perilous world. Advances in Science and Technology take you into a more perilous world, not so much a “better” world (however you define “better”). Do not seek moral advice from scientists, especially theoretical scientists. Mano is a theoretician, not an experimentalist. Experimentalists are less arrogant than theoreticians. Pragmatism and acceptance of failure are embedded in the ethos of experimentalists.
What is (are) the purpose(s) of morality? A basic purpose of morality is the survival of society to the next generation. All societies (primitive or otherwize) condemn murder of their own members. Kill someone of your tribe, that is murder. Kill someone from another tribe, well, that is too bad. That is the way of Life. As societies evolve and take on a more cosmopolitan view then murdering any human of any society is condemned. A foreign society can come about and take revenge on your society.
But what about members of your own society who are damaging, destroying your society? Some societies choose imprisonment, execution, corporal punishment, monetary fines, property confiscation, enslavement, banishment, ostracization, even rehabilitation. What to do with those resistant to rehabilitation? Said delinquents have no free will so they can only be resistant to any kind of rehabilitation. For many, Science cannot reverse all resistance to rehabilitation. What to do? Incarceration? So unfair to the criminals for they have no free will!!! Many societies lasted centuries, even millennia that practiced the execution of violent criminals. Execution of violent criminals may be bad for the individual but beneficial to society. Execution of violent criminals came about from a pragmatic point of view.
Mano pushes the notion that a better world will come from the acceptance of the non-existence of free will because this acceptance will bring about a more humane treatment of the so called “criminal” element. Permit me a slight diversion. Yellowstone Park. A while back wolves were exterminated in the Park. Overpopulation of deer wrecked the Park ecosystem. Re-introduction of wolves culled the deer population and the Park ecosystem was repaired. Some suggest that instead of incarceration or “rehabilitation” one should set the criminals free to do what their nature drives them to do. Wolves have no free will. Criminals have no free will. There are many people too weak, too stupid to defend themselves; said people are trashing the Planet ecosystem. Secret thought in the minds of the Global Elite: the human race needs to be culled.