But I take it from reading posts on LW that most people around these parts, following EY, are compatibilists about free will
EY isn’t a standard compatibilist about FW. He believes that determinism is compatible with the feeling of free will.
I believe in determinism and think (a la Sam Harris) that this means that my will is (at least in some important sense unfree) or (what amounts to the same thing) that I’m not morally responsible for my actions.
It’s not obvious that some degree of libertarian free will is the only thing that could explain moral responsibility. Harris explicitly that people, or at least people in the USA, are punished excessively because of a widespread belief in moral responsibility.
But he doesn’t believe in emptying the prisons. He seems to believe in punishing people less, more constructively, more humanely, etc. …like they do in some some European countries. But that is a middle of the road position...and compatibilism is a middling position.
First, how would a compatibilist explain why the mentally insane (or hypnotized etc.) are not morally responsible?
How would they say an avalanche or tornado is not morally responsible? For a compatibilist, agency and responsibility are the outcomes of a certain kind of complex mechanism that not every entity has … and which humans don’t necessarily have in a fully functioning form ,for instance, if they have brain tumours or other impairments.
Second, would a compatibilist think that a computer programmed with a chess-playing algorithm has free will or is responsible for its decisions? It evaluates a range of options and then makes a decision without external coercion. I think humans are basically just computers running algorithms programmed into us by natural selection. But I also think that the computer lacks responsibility in the sense I care about. If the computer lost a game, I don’t think it would make sense for me to get angry with the computer in much the same way that it wouldn’t make sense for me to get mad at my car for breaking down.
So you are asking exactly what the mechanism is? Ot arguing that you haven’t seen a convincing one?
Fourth, does it ever make sense to feel regret/remorse/guilt on a compatibilist view?
Maybe not. That could be a reason for thinking libertarian free will is the default concept.pp
I know, but that has problems of its own: there isn’t much practical difference between imprisonment-for -consequentialist- reasons and imprisonment-for-moralistic reasons, so there’s not much basis for a crusade.
EY isn’t a standard compatibilist about FW. He believes that determinism is compatible with the feeling of free will.
It’s not obvious that some degree of libertarian free will is the only thing that could explain moral responsibility. Harris explicitly that people, or at least people in the USA, are punished excessively because of a widespread belief in moral responsibility. But he doesn’t believe in emptying the prisons. He seems to believe in punishing people less, more constructively, more humanely, etc. …like they do in some some European countries. But that is a middle of the road position...and compatibilism is a middling position.
How would they say an avalanche or tornado is not morally responsible? For a compatibilist, agency and responsibility are the outcomes of a certain kind of complex mechanism that not every entity has … and which humans don’t necessarily have in a fully functioning form ,for instance, if they have brain tumours or other impairments.
So you are asking exactly what the mechanism is? Ot arguing that you haven’t seen a convincing one?
Maybe not. That could be a reason for thinking libertarian free will is the default concept.pp
I believe Harris’s view is that we are still justified in imprisoning people for consequentialist reasons, just not based on a “moral desert” theory.
I know, but that has problems of its own: there isn’t much practical difference between imprisonment-for -consequentialist- reasons and imprisonment-for-moralistic reasons, so there’s not much basis for a crusade.