This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Compatibilism, which OP dismisses out of hand without really describing it, is the generally-accepted answer to this question.
It basically does the magic trick of saying 'we all agree that we have some intuitive notion of free will which is very very important, and a cultural narrative says it is at odds with determinism, but that just means randomness which is clearly wrong. We suggest a new definition for the term 'free will' which is compatible with determinism, and if that new definition resonates with your intuitions then you should just adopt it as what you mean when you talk about free will from now on'.
The definition is, basically, how much the actions and outcomes of an agent in a deterministic system are caused by its own nature and preferences, versus caused by external constraints and contingent factors of the system.
Basically, if you have the freedom inside a system to act mostly how you want and have steering power over your own future, you have free will. It doesn't matter that how you act and what you steer towards is deterministic; it is still your own nature which causally determines your own actions and outcomes, rather than some other outside force.
And, if you are restrained and restricted and forced into actions against your nature and futures that you would not choose, then you have very little free will. This is a system in which your own nature and preferences has very little causal impact on how the system evolves over time, you have very little input or control, and the argument is that that's what the felt experience of having your free will violated actually corresponds to.
I think it's a pretty good idea.
I think it's just true that the idea that free will is opposed to determinism is an accident of history, where humans have an innate sense of being in-control or not-in-control of themselves and their destiny, and some philosophers and religious scholars hijacked that innate sense and built a narrative about God's Plan vs human nature and the origin of sin/pain vs materialism and scientific realism vs etc etc.
But that innate sense didn't have to be channeled into that specific debate. If you put kids on a dessert island and let them grow up outside culture and queried them about that innate sense as an adult, they wouldn't say 'obviously this is about whether the universe is deterministic or not'.
So, given that we've demonstrated that the narrative about determinism it got attached to ends up being pretty incoherent and has no answer which satisfyingly aligns with our intuitions, I think it totally makes sense to just say 'so lets throw out the idea that our sense of 'free will' has anything to do with that question, and find a better definition that matches out intuitions better.'
And I think Compatibilism offers a good version of that.
More options
Context Copy link