Comments on: The Death of Free Will and the Rise of Cheating http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2009/02/28/the-death-of-free-will-and-the-rise-of-cheating/ Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:36:04 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Emergent Culture – The Delusions, the Deluders and “the Truth” http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2009/02/28/the-death-of-free-will-and-the-rise-of-cheating/#comment-15358 Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:47:37 +0000 http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/?p=5661#comment-15358 [...] [...]

]]> By: Jim Balter http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2009/02/28/the-death-of-free-will-and-the-rise-of-cheating/#comment-14387 Wed, 25 Mar 2009 06:06:39 +0000 http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/?p=5661#comment-14387 After all, ought one to be advocating for the so-called “death of free will” if doing so might make it more likely that people will cheat or steal?

What, one has a choice?

(Hint: incompatibilism is based on a category mistake. Selves have choices, but selves are elements of a non-deterministic explanatory framework. If that makes no sense to you, then you don’t understand empirical epistemology.)

]]> By: Ken Stange http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2009/02/28/the-death-of-free-will-and-the-rise-of-cheating/#comment-14304 Wed, 11 Mar 2009 14:25:51 +0000 http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/?p=5661#comment-14304 Well, if one wants broad empirical evidence (albeit correlational) consider the following. Which group of people is far more likely to believe in free will, and which more likely to agree with Crick. Religious fundamentalists or scientists. Which group has a better track record for behaving morally and responsibly?

]]> By: czrpb http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2009/02/28/the-death-of-free-will-and-the-rise-of-cheating/#comment-14259 Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:48:49 +0000 http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/?p=5661#comment-14259 … for the sake of argument … seems to make the answer tautological for those people — ie. nearly everyone — who are not “The Truth at all Costs!” types.

If you are asking: If the lack of belief in free-will leads to bad consequences, should we advocate for it? Then, hmm, duh, no! I am a Consequentialist in the Utilitarian vein so obviously for me the “truth” does not override the consequences to people.

So, while, perhaps, our best/only empirical evidence so far (though Tom Clark would probably disagree! grin!) is that advocating against free-will is “bad” for/to people, I am not gonna stop! I consider — admittedly without evidence — that I have just poorly explained the position (as I understand it).

]]> By: Neuroskeptic http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2009/02/28/the-death-of-free-will-and-the-rise-of-cheating/#comment-14238 Sun, 01 Mar 2009 13:25:43 +0000 http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/?p=5661#comment-14238 It’s always hard to know how much faith to put in experimental findings like these but it certainly does raise the question – or rather re-raise it, since it’s an old question indeed. One lazy afternoon in the library a while back I found a book from about 1800 enthusiastically promoting Phrenology and arguing that, contrary to popular belief, it was entirely in accordance with Christian teaching, & reassuring readers that it wouldn’t undermine people’s belief in free will & hence lead to atheism and anarchy…

]]> By: thwood3 http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2009/02/28/the-death-of-free-will-and-the-rise-of-cheating/#comment-14237 Sun, 01 Mar 2009 06:59:34 +0000 http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/?p=5661#comment-14237 I broadly agree with Crick’s characterization but I think it leaves room for revised concepts of free will, determinism, and responsibility. Of course mind does not necessitate soul and libertarian free will seems unwarranted, yet there is something to consciousness that makes a difference to goal directed behavior and attempting to comply with social and moral norms. Thinking of shaping your behavior to meet obligations or to conform to norms potentiates that behavior (or so the empirical results would seem to indicate). Even if it is not naively the case that our conscious thought directly wills our behavior, the fact that conscious awareness does potentiate it (somehow) tells us that consciousness matters and that we do have some kind of will like power that is realized through conscious awareness. I don’t pretend to understand the mechanisms behind this influence but surely, if anything, we can conclude at least that consciousness makes some kind of difference and that the stark no-free-will-whatsoever version of incompatibilism is wrong. In other words we are still responsible because we know that knowing we are responsible makes us more likely to be responsible.

Vohs and Schooler’s results show that how we think about free will matters to how responsibly we act. This result can be rephrased that how we think about responsibility matters to how responsibly we act. Absence of “free-will” is a bit of a trojan horse that allows certain bad assumptions to be made about responsibility.

]]> By: Nate http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2009/02/28/the-death-of-free-will-and-the-rise-of-cheating/#comment-14236 Sat, 28 Feb 2009 23:11:56 +0000 http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/?p=5661#comment-14236 I remember seeing this study too, and thinking that maybe the practical case against believing in free will wasn’t as clear-cut as I’d thought. But there are a couple points in mitigation.

First, the subjects of the study were presumably being exposed to detailed deterministic ideas for the first time, and were working within a mental framework already built around the idea of “moral responsibility.” It seems reasonable that over time, people will adapt their concepts of personal morality to a deterministic world without much increase in actions that cause real harm to others.

Second, the long-term benefits of widespread determinism (which probably don’t need elaboration for readers of this blog!) would vastly outweigh even a permanent marginal increase in cheating behavior.

Those things said, it’s certainly another facet of the issue to consider.

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