A Compatibilist Definition of Santa Claus
In the course of debating free will I came across the question “Why a compatibilist definition of ‘free will’ but no compatibilist definition of ‘Santa Claus’ or ‘leprechauns.’” At first I thought it was somewhat of a silly question, but then I gave it some deeper consideration.
We create constructs to explain empirical observations. “Santa Claus” is one such construct and arguably there is a compatabilist definition of Santa Claus (I don’t mean the potentially historical Saint Nicholas).
Santa Claus is a construct used mostly by young children to explain the empirical appearance of gifts under a tree on the morning of December 25th. In some sense Santa Claus is not real because there is no fat man in a red suit navigating chimneys on Christmas Eve.
Of course, as any postmodernist can tell you no empirical object lives up to its ideal definition including tables, chairs, and computer monitors. These are all just piles of atoms that sometimes have the properties of these idealized objects. So in some sense tables, chairs, and computer monitors are not real either.
But gifts do appear under the tree. Something “real” is causing this empirical phenomenon. We could call that thing Santa Claus. In this case Santa Claus is the spirit of giving created by decades of tradition in Western European countries and places influenced by them.
And that is perhaps an actual compatabilist definition of Santa Claus. It is a construct that explains the empirical phenomena that were associated with Santa Claus.
Similarly, we may point to something like aurora borealis. “Aurora borealis” literally means “Northern Dawn.” We know now that aurora borealis is not a northerly rising of the sun nor the emanation of divine power nor other older explanations of why there are lights in the sky of the North. Is it proper to say there is no “Aurora Borealis” because magnetic particles creating streams of plasma when interacting with the atmosphere is not the sun rising in the North?
I don’t think so.
We could call anything anything, but the term “Santa Claus” is not normally used by children to refer to “whatever happens to be causing the phenomenon of presents appearing under the tree”. Rather, it’s used by children (and adults who lie to them) to refer to a particular, specific, and false explanation for that phenomenon.
Therefore, if a child asks me if Santa Claus is real, the meaning of that question is not determined by other possible definitions I could theoretically assign to “Santa Claus”. The meaning of the question is determined by the child’s intended meaning, since the child asked the question. And if I say yes, because in my mind I’m imagining this novel definition for the term, then I have lied to that child. There is an unfortunate tradition, almost as old as this lie itself, for inventing rationalizations for the lie in which we adults convince ourselves that it is not really a lie after all, to ease our conscience about it.
Note that the issue is not one of literalism, as in your Aurora Borealis example. Like you say, everyone today knows today that the term Aurora Borealis is not intended to refer to an actual dawn, so there is no lie in using it. But if someone did think it meant that, and I knew this, and they asked me if it exists, then I would be lying to say yes.
In this case the analogy would be that compatibilists are parents explaining to confused children that the “Santa Claus” which is delivering presents to their school friends is in fact the generosity of those children’s parents. Perhaps some more religious parents would be defining Santa Claus or Free Will with reference to more fantastical elements such as a man in a red suit or an extradimensional ethereal substance which somehow telekinetically manipulates our bodies.
What purpose is the new definition of the term “Santa Claus” serving here other than to confuse?
Words take on meaning mainly in two ways: either through natural evolution of usage, or deliberate choice of definition. When we do the latter, we should do it to enable clarity, precision, and distinction of concepts, not to muddy the waters between things which are true and things which are false.
The child can engage his friends in conversations about what gifts Santa Claus brought him.
Is the child being clear with his friends that by Santa Claus he means something very different than they do? If not then he is lying to his friends.
The degree to which his definition is “very different” is not clear. Definitions vary at least slightly from person to person all the time but we don’t make long semantic declarations in normal conversation unless it serves some specific functional purpose.
I disagree. I think it’s clear that hardly any children use this novel definition of Santa Claus. But if you’re right, then it’s imperative to make it clear before employing your own definition which would serve to mislead.
But this is not a slight difference, it’s a huge and unusual difference in a commonly used term. The functional purpose here is to avoid lying.
We do not have to meticulously caveat that when we discuss the concept of “night” we are not talking about the phenomenon of the Sun moving away from our position on the Earth disc to a point where mountains cast our current position in shadow but rather the phenomenon of the Earth rotating away from facing our current position towards the Sun in order to avoid “lying” to any Flat-Earth believers who are listening. In fact I don’t think discussions arranging a meeting with a group of Flat Earthers “tomorrow night” would require any such caveats or explanations nor incur any case of “lying,” despite what are presumably somewhat different conceptions of what “night” is. Such minor differences are for the purposes of such a conversation basically completely negligible.
Again, I’m not talking about minor differences. Children care an awful lot about whether Santa Claus as usually defined exists. This is not small.