[MD] Free Will

[david buchanan]

Hey Matt:
Yes, Dennett is probably best described as a compatibilist. And I have been saying that freedom and constraint are both real so I agree with you and Dennett on that. But determinism and the causal chains that the idea rests upon would deny any freedom. I mean, causal relations are law-like and the determinist is a determinist precisely because he extends these causal relations into the realm of human action, into the realm of moral reasoning. And when you do that, people cannot be held responsible for their actions because they were caused by forces external to their will. 
And so I was struck by the claim that being " caught up in causal chains", as you put it, "is not destructive of moral reasoning because moral reasoning is something that occurs partly _because_ of causal chains.  Moral reasoning _needs_ causal chains.  And if that's the case, why on earth would determinism destroy moral reasoning?"
I'm using the standard definition of determinism, by the way. Determinism is not compatible with moral responsibility precisely because of our actions are determined by causes. It is "the doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will. Some philosophers have taken determinism to imply that individual human beings have no free will and cannot be held morally responsible for their actions." That's why I asked the question: How does "causality" work in moral reasoning? That's why I said that trying save moral reasoning within a deterministic view seems to stretch things well beyond the breaking point.

Matt explained:
All I mean by "causal chain" is the relation that holds when we track _what_ is responsible for the occurrence of another _what_.  Such an abstract notion of cause can be used to track all kinds of phenomena, not just physical.  And, like Kant, I don't see how the world as we experience it could be made sense of with out it.  For moral reasoning to occur, for us to be able to blame or laud certain actions for their occurrence, it seems to me that we need to be able to track back the action to an actor ("actor" itself having the wide sense of "whatever picks out the thing responsible for the action"). I don't see any reason why we shouldn't call the "line" that we track backwards and forwards on a "line of causation."  And all I meant to say was that such lines are a necessary precondition for moral reasoning to begin: you need to trace out lines of causal responsibility before you can judge the moral responsibility of various agents who've been tracked back to (you, the guy with the gun, your mother who raised you right, the government who provided a good education, etc.).


dmb says:
Well, if the relation between events is described as "causal" then the effect is said to follow from the cause in a law-like way. If A causes B, then B is determined by A and B always follows A. In that sense, the phrase "causal responsibility" is contradictory because causality precludes responsibility. As I understand it, Determinism is the view that reality is a perfect chain of causality including everything from the big bang to this sentence. There is no room for freedom or responsibility in such a chain. On this view, freedom is an illusion. 
But we can certainly describe the relations between human actions and their consequences in less law-like ways, in terms other than cause and effect. We can say the bullet was the efficient cause of a death and we can identify the person who pulled the trigger but moral responsibility is going to be decided by non-law-like factors like the shooter's motives and intentions. This is where moral reasoning comes in and at this point the relations between events are much more complicated than cause and effect relations. Maybe the shooter made a mistake or maybe she was justified and right to kill or maybe it was an accident or maybe she is a professional who did it for money. And these various circumstances are acknowledge in the law so that there are degrees of responsibility ranging from involuntary manslaughter to premeditated murder. We praise soldiers and cops for doing exactly what enemies and criminals do and the whole difference is one of motives and intentions. 
It's not a terrible word and I'm sure judges and lawyers use it all the time but in the context of this debate, where determinism rests on the notion of causality, it seems like morality and causality are diametrically opposed.