Re: Varieties of compatibilism 1 (to be continued)


Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:

If that were the claim, it wouldn't be disproved by that. Science and
what it depends on is different from what scientists believe, or, at
least, can be. Somebody can do good science whilst believing that the
moon is made of green cheese.

blue cheese?

In that case none of us should care at all what scientists believe. But
we do.



I think if determinism is true then there is a deep sense in which your
morality will be no different in principle from the ping-pong game that
Skinner taught pigeons to play.
>
In principle at what level? Surely not at the level of understanding of
people and pigeons, we know that it isn't so without any consideration
of determinism - so why should determinism alter that?

This echoes a point I made early on. We all know that science and
knowledge depends on the excercise of judgement and we are happy that
science exists. We know that morality exists too. The metaphysics came
afterwards, and makes extravagant claims (well through inferences drawn
from that metaphysics) that such things as reason and morality are not
possible. So our capacity to be moral and excercise reason is then
concluded to be an illusion. I say, have said several times, bugger the
metaphysics. If that is the conclusion drawn from some metaphysical
theory then that metaphysical theory is wrong, not our everyday
experience.

>
That's quite an impressive claim, that 'causality exists only in our
heads'. I'd agree that 'causality', the idea, or understanding of
causality does, but you're claiming that, in the real world, if people
didn't exist, there'd be no causality.

Perhaps you should read Kant. Perhaps it is worth your while afterall.
Then you can read Michotte and Piaget, and numerous others who have
researched the matter.


I don't wish to argue that it doesn't 'seem' anything - clearly, to you,
it does 'seem'. I'm arguing for what is, or is not, the case, not what
seems to be.

And you have some direct access to the universe that allows you to take
the super-ordinate category of causality and directly observe causality
as it happens? Superman!

Lance

.

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