Consider the statement “This mess is your fault.” We typically interpret such a statement to endow the actor with freedom of choice, which he has exercised badly. Furthermore, we typically characterize the nature of morality as requiring that freedom. But that interpretation should be taken figuratively. If taken literally, it is superfluous. It is more correct to interpret the statement like “The glitch is in you.” This sense of the original statement reflects the determinism in the process of choosing. Matters of reward and punishment are not affected. That they should be is a misguided intuition, because they are choices too, to be interpreted similarly.
(‘Glitch’ is defined as whatever causes the actor to produce undesirable results. The judgement of what is undesirable is wholly outside the scope of this topic. Conflating this with primate social status is not only incoherent, but irrelevant.)
Consider the statement “This mess is your fault.” We typically interpret such a statement to endow the actor with freedom of choice, which he has exercised badly. Furthermore, we typically characterize the nature of morality as requiring that freedom. But that interpretation should be taken figuratively. If taken literally, it is superfluous. It is more correct to interpret the statement like “The glitch is in you.” This sense of the original statement reflects the determinism in the process of choosing. Matters of reward and punishment are not affected. That they should be is a misguided intuition, because they are choices too, to be interpreted similarly.
(‘Glitch’ is defined as whatever causes the actor to produce undesirable results. The judgement of what is undesirable is wholly outside the scope of this topic. Conflating this with primate social status is not only incoherent, but irrelevant.)