Lugh

I think Bulgar is drunk!

;-)

Parihaka

I'll be this guy but don't expect me to participate much, I'm just enjoying reading your stuff

Bulgaroctonus

I do not consume alcohol.

Mt1

To hell with all moral. But what is the hell?

Bulgaroctonus

Perhaps instead of "I think, therefore I am," Descartes statement should be "I think, therefore something is."

Praxus

Descartes statement in philosophy is called "primacy of consciousness"- consciousness creates reality. Then there is "primacy of reality", which is what I believe to be true. The latter means: "I am what I am, therefore I can think".

Bulgaroctonus

Hmm...interesting distinction. I don't believe that consciousness creates reality, that leads into Solipsism. "I am what I am, therefore I can think." I agree with this at first glance, although the word 'think,' needs a little clarification. I think a lot of people might interpret your statement as a support of free will. The only thing I am sure of is that something exists.

Praxus

That in and of itself does not imply that there is free will, but it doesn't exclude it, either.

THL

You can't. He's a real guy. Aren't you listening?

__________________
"To dream of the person you would like to be is to waste the person you are."-Sholem Asch

"I always turn to the sports page first, which records people's accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man's failures."-Earl Warren

"I didn't intend for this to take on a political tone. I'm just here for the drugs."-Nancy Reagan, when asked a political question at a "Just Say No" rally

"He no play-a da game, he no make-a da rules."-Earl Butz, on the Pope's attitude toward birth control

Bulgaroctonus

Ben Kenobi isn't real. He's the product of George Lucas' imagination. Show me where he exists. He is just as much a hero as all those other fellows are.

Bulgaroctonus

Main Post II (Free Will 2)

This is the second post in a series of systematic philosophical analyses. This post is largely a sequel to my first major post (henceforth Main Post I). This post is an intermediary post. That is, it is much more concise post then Free Will 3 will be.

In this post I will provide an argument taken directly from an online Philosophical Encyclopedia. This argument does the following:
1) Clears up some of the supposed inconcisistencies in my Free Will 1 posting.
2) Investigates the moral implications of 'no free will'
3) Provides an excerpt of Friedrich Nietzsche's ideas on the subject (Drawn from Beyond Good and Evil )

In the next post (probably to be released on 10/20/05) I will probably:
1) Talk about the Science of Free will
2) Include more quotes from philosophers and scientists.

From the Routledge Encylopedia of Free Will
http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/V014SECT3

Pessimism
One way of setting out the no-freedom theorists' argument is as follows.

(1) When you act, you do what you do, in the situation in which you find yourself, because of the way you are.

It seems to follow that

(2) To be truly or ultimately morally responsible for what you do, you must be truly or ultimately responsible for the way you are, at least in certain crucial mental respects. (Obviously you don't have to be responsible for the way you are in all respects. You don't have to be responsible for your height, age, sex, and so on. But it does seem that you have to be responsible for the way you are at least in certain mental respects. After all, it is your overall mental make-up that leads you to do what you do when you act.)

But

(3) You cannot be ultimately responsible for the way you are in any respect at all, so you cannot be ultimately morally responsible for what you do.

Why is that you cannot be ultimately responsible for the way you are? Because

(4) To be ultimately responsible for the way you are, you would have to have intentionally brought it about that you are the way you are, in a way that is impossible.

The impossibility is shown as follows. Suppose that

(5) You have somehow intentionally brought it about that you are the way you now are, in certain mental respects: suppose that you have intentionally brought it about that you have a certain mental nature N, and that you have brought this about in such a way that you can now be said to be ultimately responsible for having nature N. (The limiting case of this would be the case in which you had simply endorsed your existing mental nature N from a position of power to change it.)

For this to be true

(6) You must already have had a certain mental nature N-1 , in the light of which you intentionally brought it about that you now have nature N. (If you did not already have a certain mental nature, then you cannot have had any intentions or preferences, and even if you did change in some way, you cannot be held to be responsible for the way you now are.)

But then

(7) For it to be true that you and you alone are truly responsible for how you now are, you must be truly responsible for having had the nature N-1 in the light of which you intentionally brought it about that you now have nature N.

So

(8) You must have intentionally brought it about that you had that nature N-1. But in that case, you must have existed already with a prior nature, N-2, in the light of which you intentionally brought it about that you had the nature N-1 .

And so on. Here one is setting off on a potentially infinite regress. In order for one to be truly or ultimately responsible for how one is, in such a way that one can be truly morally responsible for what one does, something impossible has to be true: there has to be, and cannot be, a starting point in the series of acts of bringing it about that one has a certain nature - a starting point that constitutes an act of ultimate self- origination.

There is a more concise way of putting the point: in order to be truly morally responsible for what one does, it seems that one would have to be the ultimate cause or origin of oneself, or at least of some crucial part of one's mental nature. One would have to be causa sui, in the old terminology. But nothing can be truly or ultimately causa sui in any respect at all. Even if the property of being causa sui is allowed to belong (unintelligibly) to God, it cannot plausibly be supposed to be possessed by ordinary finite human beings. 'The causa sui is the best self-contradiction that has been conceived so far', as Nietzsche remarked in Beyond Good and Evil :

it is a sort of rape and perversion of logic. But the extravagant pride of man has managed to entangle itself profoundly and frightfully with just this nonsense. The desire for 'freedom of the will' in the superlative metaphysical sense, which still holds sway, unfortunately, in the minds of the half-educated; the desire to bear the entire and ultimate responsibility for one's actions oneself, and to absolve God, the world, ancestors, chance, and society involves nothing less than to be precisely this causa sui and, with more than Baron Münchhausen's audacity, to pull oneself up into existence by the hair, out of the swamps of nothingness.

(1886: §21)
In fact, nearly all of those who believe in strong free will do so without any conscious thought that it requires ultimate self-origination. Nevertheless, this is the only thing that could actually ground the kind of strong free will that is regularly believed in, and it does seem that one way in which the belief in strong free will manifests itself is in the very vague and (necessarily) unexamined belief that many have that they are somehow or other radically responsible for their general mental nature, or at least for certain crucial aspects of it.

The pessimists' argument may seem contrived, but essentially the same argument can be given in a more natural form as follows. (i) It is undeniable that one is the way one is, initially, as a result of heredity and early experience. (ii) It is undeniable that these are things for which one cannot be held to be in any way responsible (this might not be true if there were reincarnation, but reincarnation would just shift the problem backwards). (iii) One cannot at any later stage of one's life hope to accede to true or ultimate responsibility for the way one is by trying to change the way one already is as a result of one's heredity and previous experience. For one may well try to change oneself, but (iv) both the particular way in which one is moved to try to change oneself, and the degree of success in one's attempt at change, will be determined by how one already is as a result of heredity and previous experience. And (v) any further changes that one can bring about only after one has brought about certain initial changes will in turn be determined, via the initial changes, by heredity and previous experience. (vi) This may not be the whole story, for it may be that some changes in the way one is are traceable to the influence of indeterministic or random factors. But (vii) it is foolish to suppose that indeterministic or random factors, for which one is ex hypothesi in no way responsible, can in themselves contribute to one's being truly or ultimately responsible for how one is.

The claim, then, is not that people cannot change the way they are. They can, in certain respects (which tend to be exaggerated by North Americans and underestimated, perhaps, by members of many other cultures). The claim is only that people cannot be supposed to change themselves in such a way as to be or become truly or ultimately responsible for the way they are, and hence for their actions. One can put the point by saying that the way you are is, ultimately, in every last detail, a matter of luck - good or bad.

THL

He has human skin and hair...that makes him real

Don't forget this is a philisophy thread and hasn't it already been discussed that none of us actually "exist"?

Lugh

What, Henry David is chopped liver?

Sheesh!

Monk

I wasn't referring to my Quantum Entanglement post but to this one,
Philosophy

I should have been more clear. Why are you losing your temper, i am not losing mine.
And that statement that I haven't pointed out any errors in your logic or flaws, where do you get off saying that? Read all my posts so far, I have pointed out several inconsistencies. To my last post on our previous debate you stopped answering and started making your own assertions about free will. Take it easy buddy. I thought we were enjoying ourselves.

__________________
"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those others that have been tried from time to time. "

"Although prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it be postponed."

Sir Winston Churchill

Monk

First you made utilitarian statements and then denied you were utilitarian. then you claimed Nihlism, now thats denied too. So what is your belief system then, do you have one? I am getting tired of this now. Step up to the plate.



1) How does it not advance my argument? According to you free will doesn't exist therefore morality is an illusion to give meaning to your life, is that not what you said? Cant keep going back on your words. So when I have established the existence of freewill throughout our previous debate you go back to square one again? Did you not concede "Self-interest", which is why I asked you to go back to Post 67 and reply, for Monsieur Bulgar I have nailed you.
2) Another statement which I disagree with, Morality can be enforced even where there is lack of free will. What do you think our legal system does then? Do you think all criminals have a change of heart? In certain situations morality can be enforced.




Fine, we will be pulling ourselves up with the help of our shoe laces all our life.



I told you I am not a student of science. So I know this point only conceptually and not in depth therefore I am reading up on it to make a clear statement. If you want me to give you half baked nonsense just let me know.