If the state’s dictates are reasonable, then, yes.
I too think the free will discussion is fruitless, unless someone can provide a satisfactory definition of free will? To me it’s an oxymoron. A free action can’t be willed and a willed one can’t be free. Is there a such thing as a nonrandom but nondeterministic event?
What fascinates me lately is the existence of qualia. Blue light has a range of numerical wavelengths, but my experience of the color blue seems to be separate from the quantitative realm and perhaps the physical realm. Physics can’t explain why my perception of blue corresponds to those wavelengths instead of different ones. In fact, the laws of electromagnetism don’t predict consciousness at all.
If there is a link between the quantitative and qualitative, then maybe it works both ways. Maybe some alien species does math by imagining colors/sounds/smells/etc. Maybe it’s super efficient compared to what we do!
Ok. But there’s a lot that’s not reasonable.
Philosophy of science course now required for postgraduate students in Russia.
https://twitter.com/SabinaLeonelli/status/1302865971896516608?s=19
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I watched the first 20 or so intro videos in this. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrxfgDEc2NxZtfxAT_G-Auyp1fz-lNdni
It’s a mini conference of famous philosopers and scientists (Carroll, Dawkins, Weinberg, Dennett, et al) discussing issues at the intersection of philosophy and science, including some comments on free will that range the gamut (including that its a waste of brain power to think about).
If people want to know how big boy/girl philosophers and scientists engage in discussion and what they talk about, this video/lecture is a good place to start.
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I’ve watched a few Yale courses on philosophy.
The one about Death with Shelly Kagan was interesting: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEA18FAF1AD9047B0
Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature was kind of tedious.
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Tediousness is the dirty secret of philosophy.
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Cross-posted from the meditatation thread:
It’s a documentary on David Bohm, whose ideas tied together spiritual concepts and theories in quantum physics.
70 minutes, available in full on YouTube. Seems appropriate here.
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This is all well and good and perhaps corresponds to what most people think philosophy is. However, it’s pretty much the opposite of what “professional” philosophers do (and one can quibble that philosophy is not just what professional philosophers do, but they are pretty much the only people familiar with the arc of philosophy over the past 2500 years). Hell, even I had to teach a course on the history of bullshit neo-platonist (which is only loosely related to Plato) magic and metaphysics from 200CE to 1400CE, mainly because it was a course developed by an influential prof that was relatively popular with undergrads, which the department offered to keep the numbers up so the faculty and grad students could do “real” philosophy.
“Baby logic” and “business ethics” are other things philosophy departments do to keep the lights on, allowing the business of philosophy to continue apace. (Most university departments have similar types of courses that put up numbers, allowing the real work to continue in upper division courses and graduate programs). Hell, I worked with a legit famous philosopher who would do the intro to logic course every year because she had to course “dialed in” and the subject never changes, allowing her to focus on her “real work.”
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This is why everyone hates moral philosophy professors.
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Not true, moral philosophy professors like other moral philosophy professors…except when they hate them.
It’s a joke from The Good Place.
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This is a random post that came across my twitter feed. I point to it only to support my argument that valuable brainpower is wasted on issues of free will.
https://twitter.com/GreggDCaruso/status/1303506847689846784?s=20
Here’s the Abstract:
This paper aims to defend deliberation-compatibilism against several objections, including a recent counterexample by Yishai Cohen that involves a deliberator who believes that whichever action she performs will be the result of deterministic manipulation. It begins by offering a Moorean-style proof of deliberation-compatibilism. It then turns to the leading argument for deliberation-incompatibilism, which is based on the presumed incompatibility of causal determinism and the ‘openness’ required for rational deliberation. The paper explains why this argument fails and develops a coherent account of how one can rationally deliberate and believe in causal determinism without inconsistency. The second half of the paper then takes up Cohen’s proposed counterexample and his Four-Case Deliberation Argument (FCDA) against deliberation-compatibilism, which is meant to mirror Derk Pereboom’s famous Four-Case Manipulation Argument. In response, the author defends a hard-line reply to FCDA but also argues that the notion of ‘sourcehood’ relevant to rational deliberation differs from that involved in free will.
methinks Dr. Caruso uses the term “famous” somewhat loosely.
Also, to reiterate, “Tediousness is the dirty secret of philosophy.”
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What is your objection? All the lingo? That’s true of every current subdiscipline of philosophy.
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The lingo only to a minor extent. It’s just clear that he’s put a ton of time, effort and thought into something that will convince no one of anything and, even if it convinced everyone, would make no practical difference. I don’t think this is at all universal for philosophy.
Like, do some serious logic, you may figure out how to make better circuits or reduce one area of math to another. “Solve” problems of representation, we may move another step forward to genuine AI. Win an ethical argument, maybe we reform the prison system, or voting, or abolish slavery. I don’t anticipate anything like that with regard to free will.
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Heyoo, shit on Derk’s four case argument and I’ll cut you
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Free will has plenty of implications for ethics. Retributive justice: yeah? or nah? is a big deal. The Methods of Ethics has a good chapter on this.
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I realize this in theory, but it has seemed to have little effect over the last 100 years on criminal justice law and argumentation, much less sentencing, where politics (ie, popular passion, coalitions, and simplistic “just so” heuristics) reigns. I’m not however, gonna fall into your clever trap of having me write coherently about free will and its importance or lack thereof.
Fun fact, did 8 years of philosophy, never took an ethics class.*
*Well, sorta did a two week environmental ethics class as part of a wilderness trip sponsored by the phil dept, and read like Kant and Lock and others on ethics as part of classes on their works. Actually, one of my most substantial ethics papers was an MCAT essay question evaluating an argument from Peter Singer about animal rights. Got an S/T (97% or so).
**Also, for my kant class there were like 6 essay topics regarding various complex questions relating to the Critique of Pure Reason or a fairly easy question regarding the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. I wrote about the Groundwork (concluding that Kant’s ethical system needs to assume a background ethical system to get off the ground.)
Can confirm this is the case for most academic disciplines. I think 0 or 1 is the modal number of citations for economics journal articles.
Yeah but it has little effect not because everybody has thought it through and agrees that free will doesn’t exist. I think it’s a fair guess that most judges believe it exists (the libertarian kind of free will), saying nothing of people serving on juries. If you could convince people that free will didn’t exist, maybe their views on punishment fundamentally change also.