Eliezer: why do you say John-1 (the “coward”) is morally responsible if under your scenario it was physically impossible for him to act as John-2 did given his initial physical conditions? (If it were not impossible, then his actions wouldn’t have been fully determined by his initial physical condition.)
To possibly confuse matters a little more, here’s a thought experiment that occurred to me for some reason. I’d be curious to hear what anybody who says that determinism does not undermine moral responsibility, or who makes the even stronger claim that there is absolutely no conflict between determinism and moral responsibility, has to say about the following:
You wake up in front of a schoolhouse, where you’ve just taken a nap, and discover that your body has been encased in thick metal armor that has actuators at all the joints and is covered in sensors (nobody else did it; this just happens to be the one in a google^^^google chance of this spontaneously happening—so there’s nobody else to “blame”). You are not strong enough to move the armor or break free, but the sensors and actuators are wired up to your brain such that the sensors send their data to certain parts of your brain that you have no conscious awareness of, and the actuators respond to signals from some (perhaps the same) part of your brain whose happenings you are also not conscious of.
The schoolhouse is burning, cherubic youth are screaming, and you could probably save a child or two. But of course, you are not physically capable of doing anything except going along for the ride and doing whatever the armor does based on the firings in your brain that you have no control over or awareness of.
Let’s say that the armor turns and runs. Are you—the person inside—morally responsible?
If under normal circumstances one’s actions were totally predetermined, does one have any more ability to choose than the individual in the armor does? If not, how do you assert that the John-1 would be morally responsible but armored John-A1 would not be morally responsible?
I’m not sure what I think about determinism and moral responsibility, but I have a difficult time understanding how these two topics could have no relation to each other, as some people in this thread seem to believe.
Eliezer: why do you say John-1 (the “coward”) is morally responsible if under your scenario it was physically impossible for him to act as John-2 did given his initial physical conditions? (If it were not impossible, then his actions wouldn’t have been fully determined by his initial physical condition.)
To possibly confuse matters a little more, here’s a thought experiment that occurred to me for some reason. I’d be curious to hear what anybody who says that determinism does not undermine moral responsibility, or who makes the even stronger claim that there is absolutely no conflict between determinism and moral responsibility, has to say about the following:
You wake up in front of a schoolhouse, where you’ve just taken a nap, and discover that your body has been encased in thick metal armor that has actuators at all the joints and is covered in sensors (nobody else did it; this just happens to be the one in a google^^^google chance of this spontaneously happening—so there’s nobody else to “blame”). You are not strong enough to move the armor or break free, but the sensors and actuators are wired up to your brain such that the sensors send their data to certain parts of your brain that you have no conscious awareness of, and the actuators respond to signals from some (perhaps the same) part of your brain whose happenings you are also not conscious of.
The schoolhouse is burning, cherubic youth are screaming, and you could probably save a child or two. But of course, you are not physically capable of doing anything except going along for the ride and doing whatever the armor does based on the firings in your brain that you have no control over or awareness of.
Let’s say that the armor turns and runs. Are you—the person inside—morally responsible?
If under normal circumstances one’s actions were totally predetermined, does one have any more ability to choose than the individual in the armor does? If not, how do you assert that the John-1 would be morally responsible but armored John-A1 would not be morally responsible?
I’m not sure what I think about determinism and moral responsibility, but I have a difficult time understanding how these two topics could have no relation to each other, as some people in this thread seem to believe.