Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site spar.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!decwrl!spar!baba From: baba@spar.UUCP (Baba ROM DOS) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Materialist Moral Philosophy & Brain Death Message-ID: <618@spar.UUCP> Date: Fri, 25-Oct-85 03:44:07 EDT Article-I.D.: spar.618 Posted: Fri Oct 25 03:44:07 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 26-Oct-85 06:54:43 EDT References: <1663@pyuxd.UUCP> <1820@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1907@pyuxd.UUCP> <609@spar.UUCP> <1951@pyuxd.UUCP> Organization: The Institute of Impure Science Lines: 81 >> What's the rosenist definition of "responsibility"? Does it require >> a soul or something? Responsibility is accountability, a measure of >> participation in a causal chain. Don't you believe in causality? [BABA] > > Responsibility has come to mean two things. First, as > Baba says, there is the "measure of participation in a causal chain". > X is responsible for Y if X caused Y to happen. But then Baba adds in > "accountability", which really has nothing to do with THIS definition of > responsibility. [Rich Rosen] Personal accountability and causality are very much related, if you think about it. Can we not describe personal accountablity as the participation of a *mind* in a causal chain? > If perchance we were able to create > a sentient machine, and we conditioned/programmed it to kill someone, would > the machine be "responsible" for the death of the person? NOT just in that > first sense of "participation in a causal chain", but in the second sense > of taking the blame for what occurred? How can you impose blame on a > non-self-determining entity? Quite simply. It makes *no* difference from a descriptive point of view, nor from a practical/ethical point of view, whether a person's decision is predetermined or not. All that matters is that the decision was made. Consider for a moment two of your "sentient" machines. One of them is programmed to stomp on puppies, and takes out a prize pekingese. The other has a sensor failure and treads fatally on a miniature poodle. Which machine needs reprogramming (punishment)? Which one can reasonably be otherwise expected to do the same thing again? > Of course, you get some people who work > backwards from a desired conclusion: well, humans ARE self-determining > entities, otherwise how could we blame/credit ourselves and others for the > things that are done... Well, who are these people? I for one find the notion that the assignment of credit/blame is an end in itself to be pretty weird. It's just a philosophical tool that one uses when organizing the activities of human beings, including one's self. It provides a predictor for future behavior as well as an indication of the appropriateness of reward/punishment. And it is useful whether humans are self-determining or not. > This notion permeates a good deal of western law: > you do something wrong, YOU are a bad person who should be punished. That > may not be the hallmark of "sadistic disciplinarians", but it hardly sounds > like the actions of rational people to me. If you seriously think that the reward/punishment of credit/blame is irrational, you ought never to be trusted to raise a child. Or a dog, for that matter. >Yes, I go around killing people, and I don't want to be blamed for it. >Whatever the truth of the matter (I haven't killed or maimed in years...), >the facts are this: we have human beings whose experiences lead them to >become what they grow up to be. To tag them with "responsibility" when >they do something wrong (i.e., punishment) strikes me as extremely shortsighted >and vacuous. To assert that human beings are incapable of learning new behavior patterns (or unlearning old ones) beyond some tender age strikes me as obviously and demonstrably false. > If we smoke in front of our kids, if we show violence and anger >as acceptable behaviors, if we act dishonestly or hatefully when we serve >as examples to our children, they are still "responsible" for what they do >as adults, right? Absolutely. That's what adulthood is all about. If our parents botch their job, it just means that it is going to be harder. The assignment of credit/blame and reward/punishment by social institutions is done in part to guide those who weren't properly oriented as children. (Another part is to be an enticement/deterrent.) > If you want to believe the latter idea about people, then the ball is in > your court to show how such thinking contrary to experience and learning > can (and does) occur. But that's not the point. The point is that experience and learning are not static! Baba