Are we ultimately responsible for our actions?

[Ali]

How can it act as a deterrent if people don't have any choice about whether to commit the crime?

You are taking it too far. To a strawman extreme.

People do have choices, but decision is ultimately made based on the physics of what is available. Part of that are the rules that are in play.
Without rules people can be horrific in their actions, ever heard of the saying "absolute power corrupts". You can also look to what people do in times of war. Many stories from Vietnam of what soldiers got up to.

But when you put laws and repercussions into play then these influence the decision making process, they change the game and change the outcome. An unconstrained person makes one decision but with rules and repurcussions they make a different decision.

I'm not taking it too far!  I think people have choices too.  En_Route was arguing that free will is an illusion.  If we have no free will, we have no choices, right?

[En_Route]

How can it act as a deterrent if people don't have any choice about whether to commit the crime?

You are taking it too far. To a strawman extreme.

People do have choices, but decision is ultimately made based on the physics of what is available. Part of that are the rules that are in play.
Without rules people can be horrific in their actions, ever heard of the saying "absolute power corrupts". You can also look to what people do in times of war. Many stories from Vietnam of what soldiers got up to.

But when you put laws and repercussions into play then these influence the decision making process, they change the game and change the outcome. An unconstrained person makes one decision but with rules and repurcussions they make a different decision.

I'm not taking it too far!  I think people have choices too.  En_Route was arguing that free will is an illusion.  If we have no free will, we have no choices, right?

People make decisions and exercise choices all the time. The issue is whether or not they can be said to be ultimately responsible for them. If their actions rely on a chain of cause and effect then because nob ody can be the cause of themselves they are not responsible. If uncaused, their choices are random and unrelated to any responsible agent. In everyday life we treat people as responsible for their actions because that understanding is necessary for a functioning society. The rules based on this everyday convention will ideally change the environment in which people operate so as to influence their behaviour in socially beneficial ways.

[Melmoth]

I just think that upbringing and biology = predisposition, not "destiny."  I have a brain, and with it, I am able to think and make decisions.

I suppose we can't help that language - "I have a brain and with it..." - is innately dualist. But without accepting dualism you don't have a brain, you are a brain. If we're going to say that "you" are anything at all, it'd be that - a biological machine. All of the decisions you make, as well as the thoughts on which you base those decisions (or rationalise them after the fact, more realistically), are rolled out like clockwork according to automatic chemical processes.

It's interesting you talk about scales of choice though...

It's hard for me to swallow that when I'm standing in front of a counter at my local Mexican fast foodery, and I decide between the bean and cheese burrito and the seven layer burrito, my decision can be traced all the way back to when I was in utero.  And if I have free will to make throwaway decisions like "seven layer burrito" or "I think I'll wear my flats today instead of my heels" then why would I not have free will over my larger decisions as well?  Where do we draw the line?

Suppose we do have free will, then. If you can choose what burrito you want then why not have free reign over the larger things in life, like what to believe and what not to believe, what paradigm to view the world through, what is right and wrong and which one will you act upon? That still leaves you with the problem of choice itself, the external substance of choice that presents itself in the world around us, and whether or not it can have any meaning. I emphasis your own choice of words here: "throwaway."

I come to a crossroads where I can go north or south. Both paths look identical and I have no way of knowing what lies at the end of either one. Any decision I make is therefore throwaway, arbitrary, lacking any thoughtful justification. Since it is not a meaningful decision, whether I end up in heaven or hell has nothing to do with my own will - only random chance. Whether or not the burrito your ordered satisfies you is also down to random chance. You could just as easily have ordered anything else on the menu and it wouldn't matter, you say yourself that the decision is arbitrary.

Ok, I hear you say, but what if I do know. What if I have a map. This is all good and well but where did this map come from?

Extend this thinking to the greater things in life, for a moment. The paradigm through which you view the world is not imposed upon you by culture and upbringing, or by biology - you get to choose. So how do you justify a decision here? It's tempting to say you'd base it on your education and experience (and rightly so!) but unfortunately that falls under culture and upbringing - these are external factors that you have no control over. Remember, you have to decide what to believe and what not to believe, what is true and what isn't, with reasons to back up that decision, or else it is either meaningless or imposed upon you.

Now herein lies the real conundrum - that truth can only be weighed against itself. In other words, to assess the truth of something, you have to corroborate it with other truths that you have already established. If B contradicts A, then it is false. You, with your free will intact, must hold the deciding verdict on everything you believe - you therefore begin at a position of total, Soctratic agnosticism. You have nothing with which to assess new information, no way of gauging it's truth, no weigh of even weighing a probability.

Your starting point, the primal truths that you choose to base all other knowledge upon, must either be arbitrarily (meaninglessly) decided or imposed upon you by your environment. Everything else you believe and trust will unravel in a kaleidoscopic chain-reaction of facts weighed up against each other, with no meaningful basis.

The same goes for morality, of course. Moral truths, too, can only be weighed against each other. To say that you have any control over it starts you in the quick-sand of amorality, from which you have no escape without arbitrarily setting some values, or without allowing society to set them for you.

[Ali]

All right.  I give.  Melmoth, you have reasoned me into submission.     My brain just exploded, and my only retort is "Your MOM's a dualist."

[Stevil]

I'm not taking it too far!

You are if you are suggesting that people are arguing that actions cannot be influenced by law.

[Tank]

I'm not taking it too far!

You are if you are suggesting that people are arguing that actions cannot be influenced by law.

That's a bit of a quote mine there. Ali continued to say, "I think people have choices too." which would include not doing something because it's against the law.

[Melmoth]

All right.  I give.  Melmoth, you have reasoned me into submission.      My brain just exploded, and my only retort is "Your MOM's a dualist."  

Hahaha! Might even be true, I've never been able to get much sense out of her.

"Mum, a lady on the internet says you're a dualist. Is that true?"

"The internet's FACE"

"But-"

"Is it's MUM."

"I see. I shall relay your message."

[Stevil]

I'm not taking it too far!

You are if you are suggesting that people are arguing that actions cannot be influenced by law.

That's a bit of a quote mine there. Ali continued to say, "I think people have choices too." which would include not doing something because it's against the law.

Not a quote mine, not taking Ali's words out of context. She has been consistently stating that people have choice. She argued "How can it act as a deterrent if people don't have any choice about whether to commit the crime?"
Which I stated was taking it too far, into a strawman argument, because no-one is arguing that actions cannot be influenced by law.

I think I have acted honestly here in quoting her relevant response "I'm not taking it too far!"

[Tank]

I'm not taking it too far!

You are if you are suggesting that people are arguing that actions cannot be influenced by law.

That's a bit of a quote mine there. Ali continued to say, "I think people have choices too." which would include not doing something because it's against the law.

Not a quote mine, not taking Ali's words out of context. She has been consistently stating that people have choice. She argued "How can it act as a deterrent if people don't have any choice about whether to commit the crime?"
Which I stated was taking it too far, into a strawman argument, because no-one is arguing that actions cannot be influenced by law.

I think I have acted honestly here in quoting her relevant response "I'm not taking it too far!"

Hmmmm, I'm not sure that Ali wasn't actually agreeing with you about the law influence.

[Ali]

I'm not taking it too far!

You are if you are suggesting that people are arguing that actions cannot be influenced by law.

That's a bit of a quote mine there. Ali continued to say, "I think people have choices too." which would include not doing something because it's against the law.

Not a quote mine, not taking Ali's words out of context. She has been consistently stating that people have choice. She argued "How can it act as a deterrent if people don't have any choice about whether to commit the crime?"
Which I stated was taking it too far, into a strawman argument, because no-one is arguing that actions cannot be influenced by law.

I think I have acted honestly here in quoting her relevant response "I'm not taking it too far!"

In fairness, I wasn't trying to argue a strawman, I just misunderstood En_Route's position.  I thought he was stating that we don't have choices, which is why I said that.  Now I think he's saying that we do have choices, but we can't be held responsible if we make bad ones.

[Stevil]

In fairness, I wasn't trying to argue a strawman, I just misunderstood En_Route's position.  I thought he was stating that we don't have choices, which is why I said that.  Now I think he's saying that we do have choices, but we can't be held responsible if we make bad ones.

I think most disagreements boil down to strawman, it is truly difficult to understand both sides of an argument.

I think this particular discussion is about the decision making process and whether it is purely physical or whether there is an element of metaphysical, a self abstract from the physical constraints.

If you could recreate the exact same physical conditions would you get the exact same decision being made, regardless of whether the metaphysical self is "Ali", "En_Route", "Stevil", etc.

If you believe that the metaphysical self provides input into the decision making process, then what would this self add to the equation? Its own set of morality which is distinct from the physical experiences this "self" has had?

[The Magic Pudding]

In fairness, I wasn't trying to argue a strawman, I just misunderstood En_Route's position.  I thought he was stating that we don't have choices, which is why I said that.  Now I think he's saying that we do have choices, but we can't be held responsible if we make bad ones.

The thread title says ultimately responsible.
The ultimate word makes a big difference.
The dog is responsible for biting a granny,
a boy is responsible for unlocking the gate,
parents are responsible for not teaching him better...

[Sandra Craft]

In fairness, I wasn't trying to argue a strawman, I just misunderstood En_Route's position.  I thought he was stating that we don't have choices, which is why I said that.  Now I think he's saying that we do have choices, but we can't be held responsible if we make bad ones.

Which I would still disagree with, but I'm way out of my depth in philosophical discussions.

[Ali]

In fairness, I wasn't trying to argue a strawman, I just misunderstood En_Route's position.  I thought he was stating that we don't have choices, which is why I said that.  Now I think he's saying that we do have choices, but we can't be held responsible if we make bad ones.

Which I would still disagree with, but I'm way out of my depth in philosophical discussions.

You and me both, sister!  I think I'm going to limit my activities to the Laid Back Lounge.   

[Davin]

It is yet unproven either way. As far as I've seen evidence wise, it's currently unfalsefiable, so I find it useless to discuss this as if it were true one way or the other. On thing that I can see standing in the way of predeterminism is the uncertainty principle, while that doesn't help out free will, it does certainly exclude a determinable outcome. Which I think will also lead to never being able to falsify determinism or free will.

In any of these cases, I think that we are ultimately responsible to ourselves for our actions, anything else is unreasonable. If I were to blame my environment and genes for everything and not have to correct my own behavior, then who does correct my behavior? All the things that lead to my current behavior have already happened and no one can unhappen them, and the chain of happenings that lead to how I currently am, goes all the way back to things that cannot be held responsible (due to being dead for billions of years), so the only reasonable thing to hold responsible for behavior is the actor that is making the actions. We can have an understanding for where the actor came from and still hold them responsible for their current actions whether they be good, neutral or bad.