[MD] Moral Responsibility without free will

[Steven Peterson]

Hi Ian,

On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 4:30 PM, Ian Glendinning
<ian.glendinning at gmail.com> wrote:
> Steve I checked out the 2011 Eagleman book, on-line Google books and
> Amazon text, and a number of reviews.
>
> Seems to include many references I've read or recognize ...
>
> Is your case simply that even consciousness and conscious will are
> largely the products of subsconscious patterns.
> (That's a given, I've said several times - the reason I prefer
> Dennett's free-wont.)
> And that "we" - the conscious we doing the deciding - are also
> products of all those patterns .... etc. Meme machine and all that ?
>
> The conscious / intentional action part may be only .0001% of the
> activity, but it's still a crucial part of our mental activity - one
> that makes a difference to the kind of responsibility we have for
> actions.


Steve:
I agree. Note that responsibility is linked to intentions but if we
(even just for the sake of argument) hold those intentions as products
of unconscious processes outside of one's control, then there is no
link to free will.



Ian:
> Is there a part of Eagleman (or your own argument) that explains why
> this conscious intentional part should not be treated any differently
> to unintended parts ?


Steve:
They _should_ be treated differently because it makes a difference as
far as what treatments are likely to work. It is a matter of
modifiability of behavior rather than whether or not one has control
on some deep level. It also is a matter of to what extent a behavior
is characteristic of the sorts of behaviors someone is likely to
exhibit in the future. Eagleman proposes such a forward-looking
approach to punishment and rehabilitation over retributive approach
which doesn't make sense once we drop the notion of free will (or even
just recognize that if we have it, it is very small).