Agreed, but freedom without moral responsibility is not moral freedom.
You're right that I should have been more explicit in making the connection,
though.
> Freedom with respect to what? Your phrasing may be misleading: "determined
> without remainder by factors completely beyond our control." If you had
> said, "determined without remainder by what we are at the time of acting,"
> it would have a less misleading flavor. The way you state it makes it seem
> that there might be factors outside ourselves somehow forcing us along a
> particular path of behavior, whereas I would say that we simply
> do what our
> strongest motives would have us do at the time of acting.
I see nothing misleading in my phrasing, which -I- see as more illuminating
than your suggested phrasing (which seems to me simply to omit the issues I
raise). E.g., quantum mechanically/probabilistically, if scientism is
correct and combining it with contemporary physics, our superposed actions
are completely determined by the state of the universe before our birth and
the laws of nature, neither of which are under our control. And collapsing
the probabilistic wave functions to concrete actions (rather than
superpositions of numerous actions) is purely random, on the most common
interp of QM -- again, nothing over which we have any control. Hence, it
follows that we have no control over our actions, which seems absurd to me.
(This also hints that materialism is eliminative wrt consciousness and free
human agency -- indeed, in a -deep- but not superficial sense, there are no
persons -- but those require additional premises.)
> Would you RATHER do something ELSE? Suppose you have long held the
> principle, both in belief and in action, that stealing is wrong?
> Do you WANT
> to be free, in a metaphysical sense, to violate this principle, even at
> times when you don't want to, when you still think it's wrong to
> do so, and
> you know you have nothing to gain from it?
These are interesting, classic questions, but seem to me to duck the issue.
Lacking crude, obvious, external coercion is necessary but hardly sufficient
for freedom. And remember, the issue isn't -merely- whether we are able to
act deterministically from our desires, but whether we can ever freely do
otherwise, e.g., freely resist our desires.
Let me point out something before we get off on tangents here: I am not
claiming to be able to -prove- that we are free in the ordinary, strong
sense of the term. I'm simply pointing out that (1) materialism entails
that we are not free in this sense, and relatedly, (2) materialism entails
that we are not morally responsible in the ordinary sense of the term. We
could not have done otherwise (given the state of the universe before our
birth, the laws of nature, and the random resolution of quantum
superpositions -- all of which are completely beyond our control).
(Note that, on the materialistic view, our actions are completely
determined by factors beyond our control -with no need to discuss desires in
particular or conscious states generally.-)
I will not deny that materialists can come up with new definitions of
"freedom", "moral responsibility", and so forth, but I do claim that these
do not well capture our moral and experiential intuitions. (Typically, they
look only at a portion of the problem, and then say there is no problem, or
that the problem is on the other view, not theirs.) I, and many atheists,
think the more cogent materialist response is to frankly reject ordinary
notions of freedom and responsibility, saying they're part of folk
metaphysics and psychology, the demon- or mind-haunted world,
ghost-in-the-machine thinking, etc. etc.
(I actually admire for their courage and consistency the many atheists who
do, very forthrightly and aggressively, reject as absurd and unscientific
moral freedom and responsibility. I think they're wrong, but I think they
have the courage of their convictions, and I agree only their view accepts
hard science as the last word on these matters. I similarly admire the
eliminative materialists. I think they're wrong about reality, but
courageous and perspicacious about materialism.)
> John
> > With traditional materialistic (v., say, theological)
> determinism, you can
> > add that all of our action is ultimately completely
> non-rational, as well.
> >
> > (Of course, one can re-define "free" and "rational" to fit materialism,
> but
> > this just shows the flexibility of language, not the strength of
> > materialism.)
>
> <snip>
> Chris
> > > since, regardless of whether the mind is
> > > matter-based or based on something else, the same questions arise
> > > as to how
> > > it functions. If there actually exists something that is non-matter in
> the
> > > sense of being neither dependent on matter nor on whatever basic
> substance
> > > matter is based on or made of, then, it, too, must exhibit the same
> basic
> > > causal laws as does anything else: What it IS logically specifies what
> it
> > > DOES, because, ultimately, what it does simply IS what it is.
> >
> John
> > This seems to me like a series of implausible assertions with no reasons
> > given to believe them.
>
> Chris
> It's just the principle of causation: The law of identity applied
> to change.
So you are building determinism and perhaps mechanism into the notion of
causation? No such thing as indeterministic or free-agent causation? I
agree that these latter are mysterious from a mechanistic perspective (not
so much to common sense), but better a mechanistic-mystery than a
contradiction or, I think, rejecting morality and freedom.
> The only way anything exhibits its identity is via causal relations. If an
> alleged metal cube behaved EXACTLY like a metal sphere, it would BE a
> sphere.
May I take it you're either an eliminativist, behaviorist, or functionalist
wrt both metal spheres and minds?
> If you wish to proclaim that there are exceptions to it (and therefore to
> the law of identity), you have the burden of proof (*IF* you can
> still prove
> anything without assuming the law of identity! :-) ).
I guess I don't see how "the law of identity" (by which do you mean simply
that everything is identical with itself, or what?) leads to any pernicious
conclusions, so I don't yet feel any particular burden.
I should mention one other thing I forgot to bring up originally: in
addition to modifying definitions of "freedom", "responsibility",
"consciousness", etc. to fit with materialism, it's also entirely possible,
and I think far more plausible, but not (yet) on hard scientific grounds, to
modify "materialism" to fit with freedom, responsibility, and consciousness.
(Indeed, many thoughtful Christians are materialists with respect even to
people along these lines. And many non-Christian materialists are also very
open to this. It's a different sort of materialism than traditional
materialism, though.)
Also, I obviously got the impression that your determinism was based on and
included with materialism; if I'm wrong about this, I'll refocus my comments
next time. (Most deterministic atheists are materialists, in my
experience.)
Finally, I think this discussion is importantly but indirectly related to
creation, evolution, and Christianity. If it ever gets too indirect, we
should probably move off this list. Fellow readers: let us know! We aim to
please! :^>
Thanks for the very intelligent and thought-provoking comments, Chris. :^>
John