I think I agree with perhaps some of the overal point, but I’m not sure.
How does one apply this whole idea to the notion of “Alien reaches into already existing person’s brain and tweaks their minds/inclinations just enough to make the person later on do something bad that they otherwise would have done good.”
Yes, obviously the alien did somthing bad. But then do we hold the person who did the bad thing morally responsible to? I guess one could say “well, the person who did the bad thing isn’t the same person after the alien did the tweak”, and that particular new person, which the alien instantiated by doing the tweak, is morally responsible for the bad decision… but that seems itself like a bit of a strech. On the other hand, if we are chucking out the notions of punishment/justice/etc, and just keeping responsibility, maybe it can all be made to work.
Alternately. maybe we need a tweak in the notion or moral responsibility, so that morality remains, but moral responsibility, as such, isn’t as strong a concept. “Make good things happen and bad things not happen. ‘moral responsibility’ is just bookkeeping after the fact to figure out who to applaud or boo.”
I’m not sure about that position, but it seems like it could simply some of the reasoning here. Maybe.
I think I agree with perhaps some of the overal point, but I’m not sure.
How does one apply this whole idea to the notion of “Alien reaches into already existing person’s brain and tweaks their minds/inclinations just enough to make the person later on do something bad that they otherwise would have done good.”
Yes, obviously the alien did somthing bad. But then do we hold the person who did the bad thing morally responsible to? I guess one could say “well, the person who did the bad thing isn’t the same person after the alien did the tweak”, and that particular new person, which the alien instantiated by doing the tweak, is morally responsible for the bad decision… but that seems itself like a bit of a strech. On the other hand, if we are chucking out the notions of punishment/justice/etc, and just keeping responsibility, maybe it can all be made to work.
Alternately. maybe we need a tweak in the notion or moral responsibility, so that morality remains, but moral responsibility, as such, isn’t as strong a concept. “Make good things happen and bad things not happen. ‘moral responsibility’ is just bookkeeping after the fact to figure out who to applaud or boo.”
I’m not sure about that position, but it seems like it could simply some of the reasoning here. Maybe.