Robin, I don’t think “whose brain it is” is really a meaningful and coherent concept, but that is another topic.
My general point was that Eliezer seemed to be saying that certain things occurring in his brain are sufficient for us to say that he made a choice and is morally responsible for the choice. My example was intended to show that while that may be a necessary condition, it is not sufficient.
As for what I actually believe, I think that while the notions of choice and moral responsibility may have made sense in the context in which they arose (though I have strong doubts because that context is so thoroughly confused and riddled with inconsistencies), they don’t make sense outside of that context. Freewill and choice (in the west at least) mean what they mean by virtue of their place in a conceptual system that assumes a non-physical soul-mind is the ultimate agent that controls the body and that what the soul-mind does is not deterministic.
If we give up that notion of a non-physical, non-deterministic soul-mind as the agent, the controller of the body, the thing that ultimately makes choices and is morally responsible (here or in the afterlife), I think we must also give up concepts like choice and moral responsibility.
That is not to say that they won’t be replaced with better concepts, but those concepts will relate to the traditional concepts of choice and moral responsibility as heat relates to caloric.
Robin, I don’t think “whose brain it is” is really a meaningful and coherent concept, but that is another topic.
My general point was that Eliezer seemed to be saying that certain things occurring in his brain are sufficient for us to say that he made a choice and is morally responsible for the choice. My example was intended to show that while that may be a necessary condition, it is not sufficient.
As for what I actually believe, I think that while the notions of choice and moral responsibility may have made sense in the context in which they arose (though I have strong doubts because that context is so thoroughly confused and riddled with inconsistencies), they don’t make sense outside of that context. Freewill and choice (in the west at least) mean what they mean by virtue of their place in a conceptual system that assumes a non-physical soul-mind is the ultimate agent that controls the body and that what the soul-mind does is not deterministic.
If we give up that notion of a non-physical, non-deterministic soul-mind as the agent, the controller of the body, the thing that ultimately makes choices and is morally responsible (here or in the afterlife), I think we must also give up concepts like choice and moral responsibility.
That is not to say that they won’t be replaced with better concepts, but those concepts will relate to the traditional concepts of choice and moral responsibility as heat relates to caloric.