What’s missing, as usual, is any reference to social or group level norms or standards. Duties to other people aren’t supernatural, and aren’t the inevitable result of neural functioning either—not everyone is responsible. You have to learn them from other people , and their attitudes of praise and blame are how they get imprinted into brains, when they are. If you, eg., drop litter , you feel a twinge of guilt , which has a physical basis in the brain , but only because you were shamed for it in the past—if you had been raised by wolves, you wouldn’t have the reaction.
All of which is compatible with determinism .. just not with extreme reductionism. Obligations, duties, promises, responsibilities, etc, are social constructs that neither descend from the heavens nor ascend from fundamental physics. They are useful, so they need to be invented if attending already exist.
“You have to learn them from other people , and their attitudes praise and blame are how they get imprinted into brains, when they are.”
By my lights, this skirts the issue too. Yudkowsky described the deterministic nature of adhering to moral norms. You’re talking about where moral norms come from. But the moral responsibility question is, do we in any sense have control over (and culpability for) our moral actions?
There is clearly something sane, sober adult humans have that toddlers , and drunks dont. Self control doesn’t have to be based on fundamental physics. There is a science of control systems that doesn’t require the system being controlled to be indeterministic
The point is similar to compatibilism: compatibilism allows something like free will, but as more if a human construct and less of a metaphysical absolute.. This approach, sometimes called semicompatibilism, takes a similar attitude to moral responsibility.
The contrary claim.would be that if we discovered that the world is deterministic,it will would imply no one has ever been morally responsible, and presumably should not have imprisoned or otherwise punished.
There is a science of control systems that doesn’t require the system being controlled to be indeterministic
Indeterministic is a loaded word. Certainly we don’t believe our actions to be random, but I maintain that the question before compatibilists/semicompatibilists (which I hoped this post would address but IMO doesn’t) is why seeing free will as a human construct is meaningful. For example:
Am I suggesting that if an alien had created Lenin, knowing that Lenin would enslave millions, then Lenin would still be a jerk? Yes, that’s exactly what I’m suggesting. The alien would be a bigger jerk.
So if I create an AI that steals money, I am the greater jerk but the AI is also a jerk?
It seems to me that if you create an agent and put the agent into an environment where X will happen, you have exonerated the agent in regard to X. Maybe this just means I’m not a compatibilist, but I still don’t see a good argument here for compatibilism/semicompatibilism.
In what way? I would have thought “random” is more loaded.
Certainly we don’t believe our actions to be random,
We see them as (up to a point) responsible and controlled, irrespective of fundamental determinism.
but I maintain that the question before compatibilists/semicompatibilists (which I hoped this post would address but IMO doesn’t) is why seeing free will as a human construct is meaningful.
I didn’t say free will was a construct. I suggested moral responsibility was.
Of course that is meaningful—that is a rather low bar—the question is whether it is sufficient.
So if I create an AI that steals money, I am the greater jerk but the AI is also a jerk?
That doesn’t address the argument from usefulness. It is still useful to modify the AI into being a non stealing AI.
Whether an entity has libertarian freewill is another question , that isn’t just a matter of social construction, because libertarian free will depends on (in)determinism , which is a fact about the world. But whether LFW is the only possible justification for behaving as if MR exists is also a separate question.
We can be less confused about the issue by treating usefulness and truth as separate issues, and by treating compatibilist free will and libertarian free will as separate issues. There doesn’t have to be a single answer to “is free will a social construct?” .
What’s missing, as usual, is any reference to social or group level norms or standards. Duties to other people aren’t supernatural, and aren’t the inevitable result of neural functioning either—not everyone is responsible. You have to learn them from other people , and their attitudes of praise and blame are how they get imprinted into brains, when they are. If you, eg., drop litter , you feel a twinge of guilt , which has a physical basis in the brain , but only because you were shamed for it in the past—if you had been raised by wolves, you wouldn’t have the reaction.
All of which is compatible with determinism .. just not with extreme reductionism. Obligations, duties, promises, responsibilities, etc, are social constructs that neither descend from the heavens nor ascend from fundamental physics. They are useful, so they need to be invented if attending already exist.
“You have to learn them from other people , and their attitudes praise and blame are how they get imprinted into brains, when they are.”
By my lights, this skirts the issue too. Yudkowsky described the deterministic nature of adhering to moral norms. You’re talking about where moral norms come from. But the moral responsibility question is, do we in any sense have control over (and culpability for) our moral actions?
There is clearly something sane, sober adult humans have that toddlers , and drunks dont. Self control doesn’t have to be based on fundamental physics. There is a science of control systems that doesn’t require the system being controlled to be indeterministic
The point is similar to compatibilism: compatibilism allows something like free will, but as more if a human construct and less of a metaphysical absolute.. This approach, sometimes called semicompatibilism, takes a similar attitude to moral responsibility.
The contrary claim.would be that if we discovered that the world is deterministic,it will would imply no one has ever been morally responsible, and presumably should not have imprisoned or otherwise punished.
Indeterministic is a loaded word. Certainly we don’t believe our actions to be random, but I maintain that the question before compatibilists/semicompatibilists (which I hoped this post would address but IMO doesn’t) is why seeing free will as a human construct is meaningful. For example:
So if I create an AI that steals money, I am the greater jerk but the AI is also a jerk?
It seems to me that if you create an agent and put the agent into an environment where X will happen, you have exonerated the agent in regard to X. Maybe this just means I’m not a compatibilist, but I still don’t see a good argument here for compatibilism/semicompatibilism.
In what way? I would have thought “random” is more loaded.
We see them as (up to a point) responsible and controlled, irrespective of fundamental determinism.
I didn’t say free will was a construct. I suggested moral responsibility was.
Of course that is meaningful—that is a rather low bar—the question is whether it is sufficient.
That doesn’t address the argument from usefulness. It is still useful to modify the AI into being a non stealing AI.
Whether an entity has libertarian freewill is another question , that isn’t just a matter of social construction, because libertarian free will depends on (in)determinism , which is a fact about the world. But whether LFW is the only possible justification for behaving as if MR exists is also a separate question.
We can be less confused about the issue by treating usefulness and truth as separate issues, and by treating compatibilist free will and libertarian free will as separate issues. There doesn’t have to be a single answer to “is free will a social construct?” .