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apologetics, Atheism, Christianity, epistemology, ethics, free will, government, law, philosophy, politics, religion
Do we have free will? I don’t have anything more to offer as far as evidence. But I do think it is clear that morality and our justice system is a complete flop if we don’t have free will. Most proponents of determinism agree that, if they are correct, we are not morally responsible/culpable for our actions. But they still might believe there is a right and wrong way to act. So, they don’t completely abandon hope of morality or a rational justice system.
In my opinion determinism allows only a crippled view of morality. It doesn’t matter what direction morality points us we are on a train going wherever we are going and we can’t get off anyway. Our hope for a rational justice system would also seem to rely on dumb luck. How might our meta-ethical views concerning determinism impact our criminal justice system?
Traditionally criminal laws were grounded on four different notions, vengeance, retribution, deterrence and/or rehabilitation. Retribution has replaced vengeance, although sometimes people fail to draw a distinction between the two. I am not aware of anyone who believes in hard determinism but still maintains we should keep retribution as a grounds for our criminal justice system. Retribution is the most important aspect of our criminal justice system but that will be the topic of another post. Here, let’s consider the claim that even if determinism is true we can still pass laws for deterrence or rehabilitation purposes.
For example, Sam Harris says if you are a determinist like him: “We could forget about retribution and concentrate entirely on mitigating harm. (And if punishing people proved important for either deterrence or rehabilitation, we could make prison as unpleasant as required.)”
https://samharris.org/life-without-free-will/
He like many determinists agree retribution is out. But he claims we can still hope to achieve two other goals of our criminal justice system – rehabilitation and deterrence. Deterrence is the idea that we can prevent people from committing crimes if they think undesirable things will happen to them as a result of those crimes. So we can pass laws with punishments that are unpleasant and thus we make it less likely people will commit crimes. Rehabilitation, at base, is the notion we can do things to criminals such that they will act in a way we want in the future.
So, if we accept determinism and still think deterence and rehabilitation are viable, we find ourselves saying we have no influence or control over our own behavior, but we do have influence and control over other people’s behavior. Traditional wisdom suggests the opposite. Common sense suggests we have more influence over our own actions than we do over other’s actions. Is it possible that we can have no influence over our own actions, yet we are still be able to influence other people’s actions? No, not in any meaningful sense.
I think this is an example of people not fully appreciating the far reaching implications of their position. If determinism is true then even saying “we could make prison as unpleasant as required” plays on an ambiguity and is not actually accurate. The ambiguity is in the term “could.” “Could” can mean: we have the option. Or “could” might mean: it is possible.
In Harris’s usage he seems to suggest “we have the option to make prison as unpleasant as required.” But of course, on determinism we have no options. We must do what we are going to do, and can’t do otherwise. So that meaning of the word “could” leads to a contradiction in his beliefs.
If he means just that “it is possible that we would make prison as unpleasant as required….” Then we might ask so what? It may be possible, but we have no influence over our actions so we have no way to make that possibility a reality.
Our very sense of self is obliterated by determinism. We are like ping pong balls in a lottery machine. Yes we “could” bounce into other balls causing them to jostle and become a winning number. In the sense of “could” that “it is possible” that happens. But, of course, those ping pong balls have no control over themselves so it is not an option they have.
It makes no sense to take the perspective of the ping pong ball. If we throw out free will then we throw out our whole notion of self. It is no longer even sensible or meaningful to think in terms of what we “can” or “could” do. We are just parts of a system that must act however we are going to act.
For those who are interested in the free will debates I highly recommend this set of lectures:
True and Reasonable 
I would add containment to the list of the purposes of punishment. Even if imprisoning murderers will neither make people less likely to commit murder nor make it more likely that imprisoned murderers will exhibit prosocial behavior in the future, we still need to prevent murderers from committing murder again. I never understood why Harris did not include containment as a function of punishment. Maybe his definition of deterrence includes containment.
Regarding the implications of determinism, even if I am just a collection of ping pong balls, I am still a collection of ping pong balls that is capable of experiencing happiness and suffering. That’s not as appealing as the religious view, but my abilities to experience happiness and to help others experience happiness are enough motivation to get out of bed in the morning. I should note that I may only want to help others experience happiness because doing so makes me happy.
Yes I think containment would at least be another contender. I thought of adding it but I don’t think it is usually listed as a traditional goal of our criminal justice system. I can’t say for sure why that is. But I am not sure I would mind adding it as a goal.
I think the word “capable” has the same ambiguity as the word “could.”
On hard determinism we are getting a train not of our choosing. That train may lead to Disneyland or it may lead to Folsom County Prison. We have no say whether any of this will make us happy or not. So if you want to say we are “capable” of happiness and suffering in the sense that it is possible we will be happy or suffer fine. But the same question arises: So what? By definition there is nothing we can do about any of it.
Also I wanted my analogy to be that you are one ping pong ball rather than a collection of ping pong balls. I may have worded that poorly.
“I think the word ‘capable’ has the same ambiguity as the word ‘could.’’
Agreed.
“On hard determinism we are getting a train not of our choosing. That train may lead to Disneyland or it may lead to Folsom County Prison. We have no say whether any of this will make us happy or not. So if you want to say we are “capable” of happiness and suffering in the sense that it is possible we will be happy or suffer fine. But the same question arises: So what? By definition there is nothing we can do about any of it.”
Right, I just meant it is possible that we will be happy and possible that we will suffer.
I have the type of personality where I can be happy without believing in free will. But I can imagine that other people would be distressed by the thought that we don’t have free will. Thus, I don’t try to spread hard determinism, although I will admit that I don’t believe in free will if the topic comes up. I deleted the post in which I defend hard determinism.
“Also I wanted my analogy to be that you are one ping pong ball rather than a collection of ping pong balls. I may have worded that poorly.”
OK, I had thought of it as each ping pong ball represents one of your cells or one of your neurons.
I think we may agree on this. Just to be clear I am not saying believing in a lack of free will is distressing for me or anyone else. I am saying on determinism we have no control over where we end up or whether we are happy or sad. So even if the train takes you to Disneyland you still may be sad, and if you go to Folsom Prison you might still be happy. Our disposition is just another thing we have no control over if Determinism is true.
Although I am not saying whether belief in determinism makes us happy or sad, I think HD is likely inconsistent with people’s other beliefs. I do think Sam Harris meant to say we “could” make the punishments worse in the sense that we have the ability to control that. But that is inconsistent with HD. But he didn’t realize it because HD is inconsistent with common sense at a very deep level.
You said:
“Regarding the implications of determinism, even if I am just a collection of ping pong balls, I am still a collection of ping pong balls that is capable of experiencing happiness and suffering. That’s not as appealing as the religious view, but my abilities to experience happiness and to help others experience happiness are enough motivation to get out of bed in the morning. I should note that I may only want to help others experience happiness because doing so makes me happy.”
I am not sure what would be so motivating about knowing we may live a life of suffering or happiness and we have no control over how it turns out. Yes it is motivating if you only mention that we possibly will live a life of happiness but you left out the other option. It is sort of like saying I am motivated to play a game where, if I flip a coin and get heads I get $100, but if it is tails I lose $100. It seems you are saying “yes it is motivating because if I get heads I win $100!”
Each individual ping pong ball represents us as individual people colliding/interacting with each other in ways we can’t control. Sure it may move them to be a winning number but it could just as easily bump them away from it.
“Although I am not saying whether belief in determinism makes us happy or sad, I think HD is likely inconsistent with people’s other beliefs. I do think Sam Harris meant to say we “could” make the punishments worse in the sense that we have the ability to control that. But that is inconsistent with HD. But he didn’t realize it because HD is inconsistent with common sense at a very deep level.”
HD is definitely inconsistent with most people’s intuitions.
I don’t think Sam Harris is very intelligent. I think his argument for objective moral realism could be used to teach people about the fallacy of begging the question.
“I am not sure what would be so motivating about knowing we may live a life of suffering or happiness and we have no control over how it turns out. Yes it is motivating if you only mention that we possibly will live a life of happiness but you left out the other option. It is sort of like saying I am motivated to play a game where, if I flip a coin and get heads I get $100, but if it is tails I lose $100. It seems you are saying ‘yes it is motivating because if I get heads I win $100!’”
I think it’s more like a game where I flip four coins. If any of them are heads, I get $100, but I if all of them are tails I lose $100. I would say I am far more likely to have an enjoyable life than to have an unenjoyable life. I think we’re in agreement that life on the whole is good.
“Each individual ping pong ball represents us as individual people colliding/interacting with each other in ways we can’t control. Sure it may move them to be a winning number but it could just as easily bump them away from it.”
OK, I like your intended analogy better than my interpretation of it.
Yes we agree life is good.
In Harris’s defense other people make the same arguments that I quoted him making. Namely that retribution does not work on determinism but deterrence and rehabilitation would still be viable goals.
I guess I have to ask: How would you describe non-determinative cognition? Isn’t that an oxymoron?
Even if you toss a coin, the choice to toss a coin and the properties of the flip explain the outcome. I have not seen a coherent case made for volition apropos of nothing.
All of this free will dispute is based on a misapprehension of supervenience and explanatory reduction – namely that such explanations could somehow be predictive.
I am not accusing you of setting up that straw man either. You are just beating up on him some more.
Good Question. I agree our understanding of how free will works can be problematic.
But I think our will can be an ultimate cause or at least be an ultimate influence. As a Christian people will say, yes but you did not choose your will God gave it to you. This is why I originally thought similar to Origen that something about us must pre-exists God’s creation of us. This is what God is judging and is the source of our will.
But it may be God can create in us a will that has an ultimate influence in some of our decisions.
Consider God before creation. Did he have free will to create the universe? Or was he forced to? What would have forced him to? It seems to me we can say he freely chose to make creation. His act of creation was an operation of his free will. So it seems it would be possible for God.
Is it impossible he put something like that in us? Some aspect of ourselves that is capable of causing but is not itself caused by anything but ourself, such that we are morally responsible for what we will? It seems to me that if we can imagine God has that quality we can at least consider it possible that he could give us that quality when he creates us.
I’m not sure I entirely thought this through yet. It is perhaps more of a start than a finish to the argument.