[MD] Morality and Prudence

[Ham Priday]

Hi again, Joe --


On Saturday, 8/27/11 7:50 PM, Joseph Maurer" <jhmau at comcast.net> wrote:

> Hi Ham and all,
>
> I will ask a couple of questions.  Does the acceptance of a
> principle of evolution create a free-will?

No.  Evolution has nothing to do with free will, whether as an intellectual 
"principle" or a
process of nature.  The only relevance I can see is its association with 
"causality", which has wrongly been used to support the idea that human 
preferences and decisions are determined by previous causes, and that free 
will is therefore a myth.  Daniel Dennett and other philosophers have 
effectively argued that intent is a voluntary expression of the individual 
self which is not controlled by natural causes.

"On the contrary," says Dennett, " it's only when you understand life from 
an evolutionary point of view that you understand what our freedom really 
is.  You realize that it's real.  It's different and better than the freedom 
of  other animals, but it's evolved.  What you_want_ is freedom, and freedom 
and determinism are entirely compatible.  In fact, we have more freedom if 
determinism is true than if it isn't.  Because if determinism is true, then 
there's less randomness.  There's less unpredictability.

"To have freedom, you need the capacity to make reliable judgments about 
what's going to happen next, so you can base your action on it.   If the 
effect of our genes on our likely history of disease were chaotic, let alone 
random, that would mean that there'd be nothing we could do about it.  It 
would be like Russian roulette.  You would just sit and wait.  But if there 
are reliable patterns -- if there's a degree of determinism -- then we can 
take steps to protect ourselves."  [The complete interview from which these 
statements are extracted is accessible at
http://reason.com/archives/2003/05/01/pulling-our-own-strings.]

> Does the morality of good, bad, indifferent, adhering in the
> manifestation of free will, highlight a reality of sentient behavior?

I'm not sure what you mean by "highlight a reality".  Good, bad, or 
indifferent are subjective judgments derived from Value which is a uniquely 
human sensibility.  They also identify gradations of Morality as it applies 
to specific cultural or social mores.  Apart from the fact that experience 
is sequential in time, the process of evolution does not control or 
influence our preferences.  It's my belief that Value is man's affinity (or 
"love") for the essence or source of his reality.  It is relative, rather 
than "universal", in that it's proprietary to the individuated self.  How we 
differentiate Value experientially varies for each person, so it's unlikely 
that any two individuals will have identical preferences or desires.

Although my views do not necessarily reflect the MoQ, I'll be happy to 
elaborate on them should you have any additional questions.

Always nice to hear from you, Joe.

Valuistically speaking,
Ham