Difference between revisions of "User:Woozle/Free Will"
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From this, we can derive one fact about "free will" in the sense that Harris means it: its absence means that cognition is not just deterministic, but "clockwork". | From this, we can derive one fact about "free will" in the sense that Harris means it: its absence means that cognition is not just deterministic, but "clockwork". | ||
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===Hayes and Komisarjevsky=== | ===Hayes and Komisarjevsky=== | ||
| − | I see at least a couple of logical flaws in the discussion of the two murderers | + | I see at least a couple of logical flaws in the discussion of the two murderers. My position on this matter is not one that is (yet) part of the cultural mainstream, but I believe it follows rationally (and compassionately) from what we now know about crime. |
<blockquote>Upon hearing about crimes of this kind, most of us naturally feel that men like Hayes and Komisarjevsky should be held morally responsible for their actions.</blockquote> | <blockquote>Upon hearing about crimes of this kind, most of us naturally feel that men like Hayes and Komisarjevsky should be held morally responsible for their actions.</blockquote> | ||
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* K "claims to have been stunned by his own behavior in the Petit home: He was a career burglar, not a murderer, and he had not consciously intended to kill anyone." | * K "claims to have been stunned by his own behavior in the Petit home: He was a career burglar, not a murderer, and he had not consciously intended to kill anyone." | ||
| − | My attitude towards any criminal (by which I mean someone who commits crime not for some | + | My attitude towards any criminal (by which I mean someone who commits crime not for some reasonable good end, or accidentally, but instead deliberately, for personal gain, and in excess of their basic needs) -- murderers and killers included -- is that they did not ''choose'' to have a temperament which predisposes them to such activity. '''This is not to say that they should be forgiven and set free''', which is the usual [[straw-man]] given as the [[false dilemma|only alternative]] to traditional punitive measures. Clearly society needs to be protected from such people -- and if anyone's freedom is to suffer as a result of this need, it should be the perpetrator, not everyone else. '''This is the only useful purpose that prisons currently serve.''' |
| − | Further: to the extent that we have any (affordable) | + | Further: to the extent that we have any (affordable) methods of reducing the "criminal" aspect of any criminal's personality, those methods should be offered to the criminal -- with the possibility of eventual release if they are successful -- on a voluntary basis, as an alternative to indefinite detention. (For most criminals, I suspect that simply having their basic needs met would negate most of their criminal tendency.) |
| − | + | "Such details might begin to give us pause.", says Harris, but then adds: | |
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| + | <blockquote>Whatever their conscious motives, these men cannot know why they are as they are. Nor can we account for why we are not like them.</blockquote> | ||
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| + | This is a naked assertion, without any evidence. Certainly through studying the brain -- as Harris himself describes in his book ''[[The Moral Landscape]]'', if I understand that book's thesis correctly -- we can gain an understanding of what particular features lead to various types of criminal behavior. We have already begun to do this, and progress in brain science is accelerating rapidly. Saying "we can't account" for their behavior is absurd. | ||
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| + | Even without brain science, however, we can make some accounting of how we are different, or why we behave differently, from many criminals: | ||
| + | * Much crime is situational: an individual got into a bad situation with a loan shark, desperately needs a lot of money very quickly, and can't appeal to the law for succor without severe negative consequences. | ||
| + | * Some criminals, conversely, are criminals because they lack a sense of empathy, and therefore have no compunction against harming others as long as they can get away with it. While the cruelty with which they treat other people makes it difficult to feel any direct sympathy for them, we may recognize on an intellectual level that they have other positive attributes (as I understand it, many psychopathic killers are otherwise quite competent people -- often even warm, personable, and friendly whenever this helps them to get what they want) which are wasted if the criminal is either executed or imprisoned in a way that prevents them from using their skills. | ||
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| + | Harris then makes a circular argument: | ||
| + | <blockquote>I have to admit that if I were to trade places with one of these men, atom for atom, I would be him: There is no extra part of me that could decide to see the world differently or to resist the impulse to victimize other people.</blockquote> | ||
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| + | Sure -- if you were that other person exactly, then there wouldn't be any part of you that was different from them. How is this a meaningful statement? | ||
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| + | Wouldn't it be more useful to ask "if I had the exact personality of one of those men but knew everything that I know now about psychology and neurology, would I behave differently?" I think the answer would be "yes", although exactly ''what'' would be different is a separate discussion. The point is that we are not helpless in the face of these mental differences. We can, at the very least, ask questions and do thought-experiments. Given more resources, we can do real-world experiments with situations and pharmaceuticals and re-education, and perform brain-scans and other evaluations to figure out what is going on and how we can affect it. | ||
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| + | Harris's subsequent arguments are based on the assumption that we feel no sympathy towards these criminals -- as I have just stated that I ''do'', in a very particular way -- except in the unusual case of clear brain damage of some kind (such as a tumor). I argue, however, that a [[functional defect]] is a functional defect ''whether or not'' you can identify its physical source. If we define "defect" as "that which causes someone to be unable to engage successfully with society", then clearly criminals have a mental "defect" in the same sense that mentally retarded people, or people with autism or epilepsy, have a "defect". (There may rightly be some objection to my use of the word "defect" to describe autistics or epileptics; I'm using it in a very specific way that does ''not'', or at least is not intended to, [[defective/label|devalue anyone]] regardless of what "defects" they may have. Please read the next paragraph before reacting.) | ||
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| + | The '''difference''' between (a) "hard-wired" criminals and (b) epileptics, autistics, etc. is that the "defects" of the latter do not pose a serious danger to others merely by their existence, while the "defect" of criminality clearly ''does''. (I'll note that epileptics may pose a threat if they have a seizure while operating heavy machinery -- which is why we generally don't let epileptics have drivers' licenses unless they have their condition under control. The idea of selectively preventing behaviorally-caused harm due to brain "defects" is not a new one.) | ||
{{draft}} | {{draft}} | ||