Materialism and Free Will

[Silicon]

Easier to disprove a lack of freewill:

In a materialistic viewpoint, since we do not presuppose a soul, then brain is the same as identity or self.

For there not to be freewill, there must be a non-brain object or process making that decision, since brain and self are the same thing.

Barring any evidence of a non-brain process making decisions, we must conclude that there is no lack of free will.

So under this argument, in order for there to be a lack of free will, you must show either that a soul exists and cannot control the brain, or that a force or process outside the brain guides our decisions, and the brain passively watches the result. Neither can be shown, so parsimony brings us back to the idea that we make our own decisions.

 

[c4ts]

Without Franko around I'm actually learning things from this thread. Whoa.

 

[Silicon]

On freewill and morality under materialism.


Since the moral upshot of a deterministic model in the brain is that your brain is what makes your decisions for you, we reach a small (false) problem with morality.

If you can blame your materialistic brain for making bad decisions, you can blame them on your input. There is a (false) moral loophole here, under the idea that the brain is somehow a machine that cannot come up with a choice that isn't a product of all the input it has had up to that time.

Again, this is applying a theist idea of destiny to a materialistic model, where it shouldn't apply at all.

In the materialist model of the brain, you could argue that a person has no moral culpability for drunk driving, for instance, because it was your brain which has this weakness for alcohol, so it's not your fault.

This is an incorrect conclusion.

Even under a deterministic materialist model, we MUST punish the wrongdoers, and hold them to high moral standards, EXACTLY BECAUSE that provides the person and the rest of society PRECICELY the input that they will need for their brains to make moral choices in the future.

Consequence is EXACTLY the heart of moral instruction. So the more you argue in favor of a purely deterministic brain, actually the MORE you should argue for moral culpability, not less.

 

[phildonnia]

...
Even under a deterministic materialist model, we MUST punish the wrongdoers, and hold them to high moral standards, EXACTLY BECAUSE that provides the person and the rest of society PRECICELY the input that they will need for their brains to make moral choices in the future.

Alternatively, you can say, "It's not your fault that you broke the law, so you'll understand when society is fatalistically compelled to throw your butt in the clink."