Re: A Big Question

RationalRodge <RationalFaith@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

On Jul 22, 3:25 am, Haines Brown <bro...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
I'm sorry, but apparently I haven't been clear. You say, "of course we
have free will." But my original question was intended to probe the
implications for personal responsibility if we do NOT have free will,
if what we call "free will" is just an illusion.

You pose what I guess is called a counterfactual. If I have no free
will, how can I be morally responsible? Why not simply conclude we are
not?

There are those who would argue that our decisions are controlled by
"God's plan" or were baked into the universe at the moment of the Big
Bang.

Well, even those who suggest there is an omnipotent god don't suggest we
have no free will, do they? After all, what was the Garden of Eden all
about? How are we to work out our salvation? It would help if you cited
an author that suggests we have no free will, for that offers a real
target to criticize.

If a person says that free will is an illusion, does that
automatically mean that personal responsibility is also an illusion?
As I put it in my original question: "Are free will and personal
responsibility inextricably linked, or can one exist without the
other?"

But you raise a hypothetical, not a question of your own, and this
complicates things. Who says free will is an illusion, and why? As for
free will and personal responsibility being linked, I can imagine (with
a bit of a stretch) having each by itself: a) Robinson Crusoe on his
island lives, at least we can posit, without social norms and therefore
lives amorally. There is no ill he can do. b) If a social group with
which I am closely linked in some way does something morally bad despite
my not agreeing to it, don't I carry the onus unless I do something to
distance myself from that group? For example, if you happen to think
Bush is terribly wrong to have attacked Iran, can you smugly say, "Well,
I didn't vote for him"? Of course not, for in the eyes of the world,
you are linked to his policies, especially if being an American brings
you advantages.

Also, you went into some detail about the degrees of responsibility as
if that was the heart of my post. I meant to pose a simpler, more
basic question: Is there any responsibility at all?

Yes I did probe the issues because I was not entirely clear where you
stood. Thanks for the clarification that shows we have much common
ground.

But now comes a different question. The fact of responsibility is quite
different from moral responsibility. The latter entails social norms, I
believe. What is a moral act in one society may be immoral in
another. However, responsibility can have nothing to do with morality. I
open the gate; someone asks, Who is responsible for opening the gate,
perhaps suggesting that whoever opened it should should be rewarded or
responsible for closing it. There may be a moral compunction implied by
the question, but possibly merely opening a gate need not be moral or
immoral in itself.

Without checking my dictionary, off the top of my head, responsibility
can mean a) attribution (it is I who fumbled the pass, b) accountability
(I disappointed my team by fumbling the pass) c) moral accountability (I
fumbled the pass because I was distracted by a pretty chearleader).

But I hope we don't get bogged down in the past history of our
exchange. I'm eager to know more about your views on whether or not
personal responsibility requires at least some degree of free will.

Simply put, yes. Short of serious brain damage, I assume we all have a
free will to act, and action entails responsibility in one or more of
the senses I just defined.

--

Haines Brown, KB1GRM



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