Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxd.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!bellcore!petrus!scherzo!allegra!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr
From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Strange Side-effects of Responsibility and Determinism
Message-ID: <2040@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 4-Nov-85 22:30:09 EST
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.2040
Posted: Mon Nov  4 22:30:09 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 8-Nov-85 04:29:56 EST
References: <1975@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1988@pyuxd.UUCP> <2051@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week
Lines: 188

>>>at least from one point of view, a deterministic entity cannot responsible.
>>>On the other hand, responsibility still exists, although in a vastly
>>>different fashion, in a deterministic world.  In this case it is just as
>>>Rich says; it emanates from human feelings of guilt and pride.  It is the
>>>common principle behind the statements "it was my fault" and "I'm proud of
>>>my work", regardless of whether these feelings are "justified".
>>>Note, however, that this moves you into a curiously amoral
>>>grey area.  One talks about guilt as a motivating factor, and how to evoke
>>>it.  It ceases to become a symptom of a moral dilemma, and becomes instead
>>>a mere psychological tool.

>>You noticed!  But this is hardly an "amoral" area, for moralist are forever
>>concerned with the "need" for guilt and fear in certain moral systems, and
>>the requirement that moral systems induce such phenomena in order to be
>>effective (e.g., Dubuc on why morality should be religious in nature).  The
>>fact remains:  can we use something that we cannot justify as a reason for
>>"punishing" people?

> Sure.  Everything is now a conditioning stimulus, so the question is not "is
> it moral?" but "does it acheive the results I want?"  It's all a question of
> whether you resist the moral conditioning of others.

It sounds like you see something "wrong" in this.  The "results I want" are
in fact based on non-interference morality and respect for human freedom,
so I fail to see what your problem with this is.  And the fact remains that in
a society with such a moral structure, it is in your interest to live up to
such respect for other people.

>>>>[Rich asks whether mass murderers become what they are through choice or
>>>> conditioning.]

>>> Both.  One has to choose to learn, after all.  One thing which is
>>> characteristic of psychology is that its results (thus far) can only be
>>> stated in terms of statistical trends.  Correlations are almost invariably
>>> quite fuzzy.  Most children of violent homes do not grow up to be mass
>>> murderers; perhaps most do not murder at all.  The children of thieves are
>>> not invariably thieves.  There's clearly some process going on which often
>>> overrides the supposed conditioning.

>>Yes, OTHER conditioning, other opportunities.  Cause and effect is very
>>simple, but often the number and configuration of causes that produces an
>>effect is very complex (some assume that in such a case, the "supernatural"
>>is involved, or "acausality"...).  PLUS each person is different (even
>>child from parent), and the exact same circumstances may be reacted to
>>very differently by two people.  BOTH because of innate genetic differences
>>AND learned behavioral differences.

> A nice bit of speculation-- utterly ungrounded in experimentation.  Consider
> the hypothesis that these conditioning stimuli are fed into the mind/brain,
> which is a randomizing process, and that THIS is what produces the
> distributions.  One can of course mix the two, but a) it quite apparent that
> in our present state of knowledge either represents the data and b) the data
> rules out neither.  Personally, considering the omnipresence of apparently
> random behavior at every scale, especially at the cellular level, I tend to
> prefer the second.

There!  You've said it all.  APPARENTLY random behavior.  YOU (the great wisest
of guts, Winga!) cannot see the interweaving patterns of cause and effect,
so you ASSUME none.  THIS is the speculation!  THIS is the type of "reasoning"
that has gone on repeatedly throughout the ages by religious wishful thinking
types who, in the absence of knowledge, ASSUME their own desired conclusions.
Of course you "prefer" the second!  When you have some evidence to offer as to
how the brain operates so very differently from the rest of the world, be sure
to clue me in.  

>>> Once Clarence Darrow made the mistake of making this kind of argument in
>>> court, to which the judge replied that if you take away responsibility for
>>> the crime, you also take away responsibility for the punishment too
>>> (althoug, being wise and learned, he said much more pithily).

>>  Simply put, the very idea
>>behind having a system of justice in the first place is to administer fair
>>treatment.  If we have knowledge of what fair treatment is, it is up to
>>the system of justice to provide it, otherwise it is not performing its
>>function.  To deliberately not do this is exactly equivalent to a judge
>>allowing and supporting lynchings, because "it's in people's nature to do
>>it".  Darrow was absolutely right, but true justice would not have been
>>to set his client free, but to assist him in leading a non-criminal life.

> Well, first of all, in your ignorance of the whole story you have
> manufactured a lot of untruth.  In the original story, Darrow's defendant
> was plainly guilty.

I never said he wasn't.  Darrow's defense was that he did indeed do the dirty
deed, but that he was not responsible for engaging in the action and thus
not worthy of punishment.  Your stating that I am "ignorant" of the story is
a fatuous rhetorical falsehood.

> This wild nonsense about lynching is just a fabrication having nothing to do
> with the matter.

Whenever I hear someone claim "that has nothing to do with the matter", a light
goes on in my head asking "Why is this person saying that?"  Frankly, it
has everything to do with the matter.  The judge's conclusion was that, just
as the defendant was (according to Darrow) not responsible for his actions,
the jury (and the justice system) were not responsible for engaging in actions
of punishment that THEY were conditioned to do, so who was he to stop this
"natural order".  By that reasoning, lynching should not be stopped either,
if it should occur.  If the goal of a justice system is to administer fair
justice, then this judge was ill qualified to sit on a bench for making a
statement like that.

> The argument is "You have no moral argument against me, because I was
> conditioned;" and the only possible reply is "we are conditioned too, and so
> YOU have no moral argument either."

The only possible reply that YOU see.  I just gave another reply, related
to what the notion of system of justice is all about.

> There simply is no way for you to absolve the criminal without at the same
> time absolving the judge, regardless of whether the judge is acting rightly
> or wrongly.  There is a consistent iconsistency in Rich's position here, as
> though we who are educated (or however priveleged) have free will, and can
> be held responsible, whereas those such as criminals or the masses he lords
> it over lack free will.  I thought there was no free will up here either,
> according to Rich's system.

There isn't, but again it can be shown that those who think rationally
and without presumptions are free of such presumptions clouding their
thinking.  That is exactly what a judge is supposed to be and do.  The goal
of a system of justice is to perform that function in that sort of
rational fashion.  If this weren't the case, why the need for a justice
system at all; why not just let the people exercise mob justice at will?

>>> But to return to the first point: there is almost
>>> invariably an inconsistency in this sort of argument; Rich acts as if we
>>> are free when we apply reasoning (what ever that is) and not free when, for
>>> instance, we do something conditioned.  Under Rich's assumptions, reasoning
>>> is just another conditioning force (and a poor one at that, by his own
>>> admission).

>>1) When did I admit that reasoning is a poor conditioning force?

> Because it fails to work so often! :-)  (You have asserted that we don't
> listen to you, haven't you Rich?)

I never said that either.  Your putting words in my mouth in this repeated
way smells real bad.  YTes, in fact, you don't listen, and you don't listen
to ANY form of reason that might contradict your precious presumptions, but
of course that's another matter entirely.  I asked "when did I admit" this,
and you responded with a statement I never made.

>>2) When did I say anything about being "free" when applying reason but not
>>   free otherwise?

> One gets the opinion that we should listen to your arguments, even though
> you are forced to believe in them by your previous conditioning.  Is there
> really any reason why we should take that as truth?  (THere's a trap in that
> sentence, by the way.)

There are "traps" in so many things you say, Charles.  One always has the
ability to reason.  If you are unwilling to see certain reasoning, perhaps
due to blockage owing to stakes in certain belief systems, argument/debate
on the topic forces the presumptions to come out.  Of course, you are
still "free" to continuing believing what you like even in light of
said reasoning, because those beliefs are so important to you that you
fell you must at all cost.

> [Concerning parents and children, and manipulation as the true nature of
>  argument]
> 
>>"This week"?  One can't swear off something one doesn't engage in, Charles.

> Oh, but you do.  The argument you are making is a conditioning stimulus, and
> therefore represents a conscious effort on your part to manipulate my mind.

What I have professed repugnance toward is manipulation that does NOT
involve facts and reasoning, but rather deliberate emotional rhetoric,
such as the proselytizing of small children that you have espoused and
condoned.  The "argument I am making" involves reasoning, thinking, NOT
manipulative rhetoric.  Stating facts to another person is NOT manipulating
their mind.  (Except perhaps to YOUR way of thinking...)

>>  You're absolutely right, we have no
>>choice but to do whatever we do.  That goes for parents, too.  So no
>>"blame" or "punishment" is in order.  Does this mean we have a vicious
>>cycle?  Possibly.  But vicious cycles have been broken before, through
>>dissemination of better information and learning, especially when it comes
>>to learning about parenting.

> It's the same cycle.  Information and learning are, again, manipulative
> stimuli for the purpose of altering the minds of others.

Now I see why you support proselytizing and other vile mindsets.  You see
no difference between crass manipulation without evidential support, using
every dirty rhetorical trick in the book, and reasoned argument.
-- 
"Mrs. Peel, we're needed..."			Rich Rosen 	ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr