Free Choice and Morality. Post #2
Morality Demands Free Choice
Some of you believe that morality is possible only if we have complete freedom of choice. Examples:
Gangadhar: “Without free will, no opportunity for choices between right and wrong exist. Creatures without free will cannot have ethics because they have no choice.”
Kate: “As Gangadhar said, without some acknowledgement of… free will, how could there be any ethics?
"It would be crazy then, to hold anyone responsible for their good or bad acts. It would make no sense to have prisons, or the educational system for that matter. Everything would be relative. Why not still have slavery? Why shouldn't Hitler rule the world? I know I'm oversimplifying here, but do you see what I mean?
"I just can't accept that point of view. But I'm curious to know what you think about that aspect of personal responsibility.”
Morality Does Not Demand Free Choice
Here’s how morality is understood when the main factor behind how we behave is viewed as our degree of awareness of self in relation to God – or, conversely, our level of ignorance concerning this matter. (If you’re a Buddhist or have Buddhist leanings, feel free to substitute “enlightenment” for “awareness of self in relation to God.”)
In brief:
That which is moral or ethical is that which does good. That which is immoral or unethical is that which does harm.
The less ignorant we are, the more we do good. The more ignorant we are, the more we do harm.
I think that those who view free choice as the quintessence of morality must still have some experience of moral ignorance vs. moral awareness as leading them to do harm vs. good. All of us remember past occasions of having done wrong where we learned something from the experience and wouldn’t do it again because of what we learned.
Whichever theory is correct, or more correct – whether we do good/harm from out of enlightenment/ignorance or from out of free choice -- does not make the good that we do better or the harm that we do worse. Acting well from out of diminished ignorance is a good thing. Acting well from out of free choice is a good thing, if that’s how it works.
Problems with Morality as Free Choice
However, one problem with the idea that we make perfectly free moral choices is that it makes it easy for our egos to get involved. We may compare ourselves to others. It makes it easy to congratulate ourselves about how good we are, or to pass judgment against others (or ourselves). Because those who choose evil knowing perfectly well what they do must be evil indeed. We might even conclude that Jesus may not forgive those who choose evil knowing what they do.
Passing judgment against others as free choosers of evil makes it easy to demonize them and want to punish them. The criminal justice system is a good example. It’s founded on the idea of punishment. We have a prison system where prisoners are allowed to rape and stab other prisoners, but who cares? They’re getting what they deserve.
Criminal Justice
And what we get is a high rate of recidivism – criminals who exit the system more angry and hate-filled than before they entered it. Why? Because the idea of “teaching a lesson” to an adult in the sense of punishing him is, frankly, idiotic. It’s psychologically incorrect. Punishment may have some use in instilling a rudimentary conscience in a young child. But inmates aren’t young children who view their prison guards and wardens as parental figures whose values and mores they’re primed to internalize.
As a practical matter, what the criminal justice system ought to do is A) protect society from criminals by locking them up, and B) provide for a prison life that’s as sane and simple as possible. Let’s call it a monastic model rather than a punishment model. Instead of enraging the angry, why not give them a simple and structured life that provides opportunities for psychological, spiritual, and educational growth? Why not encourage those with the capacity to become better persons to do so?
As far as the factors we’d consider for judging and sentencing criminals goes, nothing would change. As a practical matter, whether we view free choice as illusion or reality, some criminals do, for example, “premeditate” more than others. Whether their premeditation was freely chosen or whether it was set in motion and absolutely determined by the forces that came into play at the first instant of creation – who cares?
What matters is that premeditation suggests that the criminal is a greater danger to society than someone who, for example, commits a “crime of passion.” Similarly, a serial killer poses a greater risk to society than someone who murders once in the course of a drunken brawl.
The concept of “responsibility” therefore remains a sound way to judge criminals. Not because we must believe that they are ultimately and fully responsible as free choosers of the harm they do, but because factors like forethought, mental competency, and age, are indicators of how great a propensity the criminal has to commit a criminal act again. “Responsible” now simply means “went through a conscious, reflective, and deliberative thought-process prior to commission of the crime.” That type of thought process is stable, likely to be repeated, and makes a person who thinks that way a greater danger to society regardless of whether we ever resolve the question of whether such conscious and deliberative types of thought processes are freely chosen.
Likewise, nothing changes in our view of harmful individuals, institutions, and practices such as evil dictators and slavery. We oppose them as much as ever. Nothing concerning our values and morals becomes more “relative.”
Some of you believe that morality is possible only if we have complete freedom of choice. Examples:
Gangadhar: “Without free will, no opportunity for choices between right and wrong exist. Creatures without free will cannot have ethics because they have no choice.”
Kate: “As Gangadhar said, without some acknowledgement of… free will, how could there be any ethics?
"It would be crazy then, to hold anyone responsible for their good or bad acts. It would make no sense to have prisons, or the educational system for that matter. Everything would be relative. Why not still have slavery? Why shouldn't Hitler rule the world? I know I'm oversimplifying here, but do you see what I mean?
"I just can't accept that point of view. But I'm curious to know what you think about that aspect of personal responsibility.”
Morality Does Not Demand Free Choice
Here’s how morality is understood when the main factor behind how we behave is viewed as our degree of awareness of self in relation to God – or, conversely, our level of ignorance concerning this matter. (If you’re a Buddhist or have Buddhist leanings, feel free to substitute “enlightenment” for “awareness of self in relation to God.”)
In brief:
That which is moral or ethical is that which does good. That which is immoral or unethical is that which does harm.
The less ignorant we are, the more we do good. The more ignorant we are, the more we do harm.
I think that those who view free choice as the quintessence of morality must still have some experience of moral ignorance vs. moral awareness as leading them to do harm vs. good. All of us remember past occasions of having done wrong where we learned something from the experience and wouldn’t do it again because of what we learned.
Whichever theory is correct, or more correct – whether we do good/harm from out of enlightenment/ignorance or from out of free choice -- does not make the good that we do better or the harm that we do worse. Acting well from out of diminished ignorance is a good thing. Acting well from out of free choice is a good thing, if that’s how it works.
Problems with Morality as Free Choice
However, one problem with the idea that we make perfectly free moral choices is that it makes it easy for our egos to get involved. We may compare ourselves to others. It makes it easy to congratulate ourselves about how good we are, or to pass judgment against others (or ourselves). Because those who choose evil knowing perfectly well what they do must be evil indeed. We might even conclude that Jesus may not forgive those who choose evil knowing what they do.
Passing judgment against others as free choosers of evil makes it easy to demonize them and want to punish them. The criminal justice system is a good example. It’s founded on the idea of punishment. We have a prison system where prisoners are allowed to rape and stab other prisoners, but who cares? They’re getting what they deserve.
Criminal Justice
And what we get is a high rate of recidivism – criminals who exit the system more angry and hate-filled than before they entered it. Why? Because the idea of “teaching a lesson” to an adult in the sense of punishing him is, frankly, idiotic. It’s psychologically incorrect. Punishment may have some use in instilling a rudimentary conscience in a young child. But inmates aren’t young children who view their prison guards and wardens as parental figures whose values and mores they’re primed to internalize.
As a practical matter, what the criminal justice system ought to do is A) protect society from criminals by locking them up, and B) provide for a prison life that’s as sane and simple as possible. Let’s call it a monastic model rather than a punishment model. Instead of enraging the angry, why not give them a simple and structured life that provides opportunities for psychological, spiritual, and educational growth? Why not encourage those with the capacity to become better persons to do so?
As far as the factors we’d consider for judging and sentencing criminals goes, nothing would change. As a practical matter, whether we view free choice as illusion or reality, some criminals do, for example, “premeditate” more than others. Whether their premeditation was freely chosen or whether it was set in motion and absolutely determined by the forces that came into play at the first instant of creation – who cares?
What matters is that premeditation suggests that the criminal is a greater danger to society than someone who, for example, commits a “crime of passion.” Similarly, a serial killer poses a greater risk to society than someone who murders once in the course of a drunken brawl.
The concept of “responsibility” therefore remains a sound way to judge criminals. Not because we must believe that they are ultimately and fully responsible as free choosers of the harm they do, but because factors like forethought, mental competency, and age, are indicators of how great a propensity the criminal has to commit a criminal act again. “Responsible” now simply means “went through a conscious, reflective, and deliberative thought-process prior to commission of the crime.” That type of thought process is stable, likely to be repeated, and makes a person who thinks that way a greater danger to society regardless of whether we ever resolve the question of whether such conscious and deliberative types of thought processes are freely chosen.
Likewise, nothing changes in our view of harmful individuals, institutions, and practices such as evil dictators and slavery. We oppose them as much as ever. Nothing concerning our values and morals becomes more “relative.”
posted by Paul @ 8:26 PM
28 Comments:
Most people who end up doing harm don't make a conscious choice to do harm, though. The choices they make are rooted in a sense that it's a good choice made for good reasons. And, of course, there's always the problem of which good and whose good we're to opt for. If one chooses what is always good for oneself, one just might ending up doing a lot of harm to others -- one usually does.
And it's not always so clear cut -- a choice for the greater good might do a great deal of harm along the way. Does the end justify the means? I don't think so. And you know what they say -- the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
So, it's complicated. It's never a choice between pure good and pure harm.
Morality might not demand free choice, but virtue does. We can enforce moraltiy -- we do it all the time -- it's illegal to murder it's illegal to steal, etc. -- but we can't bestow virute on the people whose only motivation not to kill or steal is fear of getting caught rather than an awareness of a higher good.
LIPSTICK-G: Good points. I'm trying to keep it simple by staying away from trying to define goodness because of course that's a huge topic in itself...
I think so too - that people who do harm tell themselves that what they do is justified, energizing, "fun," "cool" - "good" or "positive" in some sense, even if their sense and notion of what's positive, exciting and "good" to do is totally different from yours of mine. Our equation of "good" with moral action might be meaningless to them, something they don't really feel. A sociopath is an extreme example. All a sociopath knows is how to imitate ordinary social behavior. A sociopath doesn't really get it.
What you call "virtue" - doing good for internalized reasons rather than external pressure - doesn't demand free choice. Such internalization is at least as plausibly explained by such influences as how we were raised, learning experiences, perhaps a relatively high "spiritual IQ" - various factors that tend to foster increased spiritual and moral awareness.
Speaking personally, I've never had the experience of "freely choosing" to become more aware. It just dawns on me.
I totally agree about the criminal justice system- it makes so much more sense to try to protect society from criminals and try to put them in situations where their problems can be addressed. The system the way it exists today is disgusting. For example, when a pedophile is sentence to 20 years (or however many), and they finish those 20 years, they can tell the prison warden that they fully intend to commit that same crime again, and the warden still has to let that person go. It's sick. Putting criminals in a totally hostile environment is not going to make anything better. And yet you hear about many criminals finding god in prison. But who wouldn't want some sort of comfort when they live in a place where there pretty much are no laws, it's kill or be killed in there.
Regarding choice and being a good person- I feel like sometimes my instincts tell me to do things that are not good or moral or the right thing to do, so I choose to ignore those instincts and do the right thing. But what I strive for is getting to the point where my instincts are always to do the right thing. And when/if I ever get to that point, does that mean I'm giving up choice, or is choosing to follow my instincts and trusting that they are good enough of a choice to constitute free will? And for that matter, can instincts really be changed completely? I hope so.
Regarding whose choice is good, how can you really decide that following the morals and values that your parents instilled in you for example is the best course of action? I almost feel like in order to truly understand what could be the best possible course of action in any situation, you almost have to understand all of the surrounding situatations, and the global implications of any choice. Like, is it really a good choice to drive a car because it's bad for the environment as a whole, or buy plastics or use dishwashing detergent, or even taking medications that will eventually taint our drinking water. I think it's impossible to ALWAYS do what is the utmost "right" thing, the best we can do is try. Are our intentions enough or does it matter if we're not trying hard enough? Does choosing to throw up our hands and declare that effort too consuming and try to live our lives as a "normal" member of society make us bad people? Just a few things that I ponder.
I agree with what you said here under "Criminal Justice" you said:
"what the criminal justice system ought to do is A) protect society from criminals by locking them up, and B) provide for a prison life that’s as sane and simple as possible. Let’s call it a monastic model rather than a punishment model. Instead of enraging the angry, why not give them a simple and structured life that provides opportunities for psychological, spiritual, and educational growth? Why not encourage those with the capacity to become better persons to do so?
yes! yes! yes! why don't they do that!
but when someone knows they are doing BAD...like that Man in the movie "Silence of the lambs" i forgot the guys name! (sorry, old age here!) is there hope for people like that??? these are things i have oftened wondered about.
i really love reading your posts very educational and interesting!
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But don't we choose to respond to our increasing awareness of the divine? That goes back to choosing to submit our will, doesn't it?
We all have choices to make in life. Everything we do is a choice. Do I eat Cereal or eggs, wash clothes today or tomorrow.
Some people like Hannible Lector are born a "bad seed". They have no moral conscious and only do what makes them feel good, right or wrong. Most of us have an inner concious. We instinctly know the difference between right and wrong. Many of us have been taught by our parents. Some parents teach good lessons whereas others don't. I know of a family that taught their children how to steal in Wal-Mart. The mother just couldn't understand why her children were put in foster care.
Some of learn from our mistakes and other don't. Many times my son will make bad choices know full well that they are wrong, but not having the strength to do the right things. WE all will go before God on our judgement day and be judged. Christ has also told us "Judge not, lest ye be judged". Another famous line, "Let ye who has not sinned cast the first stone." We are not to judge, but it is not easy sometimes.
One things that you did not mention, was conquesces for our actions. There are natural conquences that come with every action. Sometimes we don't see all the conquesces in the beginning. Sometimes there are long term conquesces to our actions. Having a baby when you are not ready can have devasting conquences...We all make choices.
Well, this is a novel experience, Paul. I've never read a discussion of justice and punishment that I completely agreed with, before. Disorienting :-)
Certainly, Lucy, there are things that we're accustomed to describe as choices -- I describe them that way too, for convenience's sake -- I don't think either Paul or I would dispute that. We both say "I chose to eat cereal this morning," and we both believe it every bit as much as you do, when we say it. It's just that on a closer examination of what actually happens, we don't think that's really a very good description of what happens. Our behavior is very much conditioned -- by what we expect, what we perceive, and how we feel. We all know from experience that we're more likely to lose our tempers if we're tired and hungry, for instance. If we were making perfectly free choices that wouldn't be true. If you're like me, in fact, you know that there are some conditions so likely to make you lose your temper that it's irresponsible to allow them to arise. Practically speaking, I'm aware -- I believe just about everyone who's ever dieted knows this quite well -- that under certain conditions, I will always "choose" to eat food that's bad for me. You're saying I always have a choice -- my extensive experience of this is that it's not true. If I'm tired and hungry and my favorite food is right there and I'm convinced that no one's well-being but mine is in question, I will eat. Every time. Regardless of what I've resolved. Now you're telling me that I always have a choice, and I guess I can only say, -- well, prove it! The empirical evidence is on my side. (And my waist.) I think that the idea that I might choose something else, in identical conditions (both internal and external) is simply a fantasy. "Those who restrain their desires," said William Blake -- a very devout (if not very orthodox) Christian -- "do so because theirs are weak enough to be restrained."
MARISSA: Instincts, or how we feel at an immediate level, can definitely change. Remember that I'm speaking as someone old enough to be your second cousin...
TO ALL who are still talking about free will vs. determinism - I know, I know, I did bring it up...
All I can say is that if there's proof for either extreme - our will is totally free, or everything we feel, think, do and say is predetermined - let's have it!
And I'll just say again that my own gut feeling, for whatever it's worth, seems to be the same as most of yours - that we have some degree of choice, it certainly feels that way, (but feeling that way's no proof...). But it's sure not perfectly free, there are influences; and I'll add again that in my own experience, whatever degree of free will I may have has never been the engine or prime mover in my development.
NOBODY: You kind of look like Kathy...
Yeah, me too - the way it is now is insane, counterproductive all around.
So how do YOU know for sure that another person knows they are doing bad? Because of what they say? And are you suggesting that such knowledge would amount to free choice to do evil? If so, see above to "ALL" re. free choice.
I've never gotten into a long conversation with a murderer about their views on right and wrong, morality, etc. I'm just guessing I'd find something lacking in their appreciation and understanding of this subject as compared to mine or yours. I think it would be apt to have less depth, passion, conviction - that it would be a pretty superficial understanding.
I could be wrong. Any criminologists out there?
EDEN, thank you.
LIPSTICK-G: See my comment to ALL above, but I'd add that you're zoning in more closely on what the role of will has felt like to me personally. The awareness comes as it comes, I don't choose it; but there have been one or two points in my life where I felt I was doing things to assent to what I'd come to realize. It felt that way, but the feeling of having a choice doesn't prove you have one. The action and the feeling could have been inevitable and determined, at least for all I know.
LUCY: Sounds like you lean toward the view that our choices are totally free, without influence? I may be misinterpreting. Like I stated in the post, it's hard for me to imagine anyone getting through life without noticing this or that strong influence on one decision or another that they made.
DALE: Glad to hear another person agree on the criminal justice point. I think many of us go through life not caring about this issue much because we figure we'd never end up in prison. Similarly, people with good health aren't likely to be tuned into how our health "care" system treats, say, the chronically ill, people with rare diseases, or the poor. "It can't happen to me..." Yeah, right...
Sounds like you're a strict determinist. If I had to choose one or the other - total free choice or strict determinism - I'd go for the latter.
But two things lead me to be less than fully convinced that it's all determined. The first, no proof, only a feeling, at two periods in my life, that there was a decisional component to what I was going through. But our decision-making processes could themselves conceivably be determined by any number of the kind of factors you mention.
The second is that you can't replicate the experiment. Someone made a shrewd argument last post in favor of determinism that went like this (in my words):
You "choose" to do something. There is the entire history of the universe and of your life leading up to that point. So if you could go back in time and have all those variables again be exactly the same, how could you possibly do anything different?
But I realized that all this amounts to is another way of stating, "I believe in strict determinism." It doesn't prove anything. The very question being asked is: "Is there more than one possibility in front of us at every moment in time?" If there is, then with all variables lined up the same way, there's more than one way to go. If there isn't, then having all the variables lined up one way means only one possible outcome.
And there's no way to have a redo that would definitively answer the question.
Many good points here, Paul, and your commenters have great insight and care. I just wanted to address the treatment of prisoners, as you have touched on that.
I think it is to the advantage of society to promote a program for prisoners that helps them to better understand their relationship to God, and to themselves and society. Sometimes in the rush of the everyday, we forget how interconnected everything is, how central our connection to God is for creating an ordered life.
I've seen on the Public Television Station about the wonderful transforming power of the spiritual approach when used with prisoners. When they live a more spiritualized life, with prayer and meditation, they calm down and live more productive lives. They are less violent. This is an area of 'human caring' that is yet to be explored. And, it is beneficial, as it would make these men come out of prison a 'transformed' soul.
BONITA: So far, everyone posting seems to agree with the idea that it does us no good to allow inmates to be mistreated.
It seems so obvious that you've gotta figure money's involved. While I haven't followed this issue closely in recent years, I do know there's been a trend toward "privatizing" prisons, like everything else. So I assume there's a significant vested interest in maintaining the system we've got.
Plus, I've listened to enough talk radio to know a large if not majority of the US public very much likes the idea of "punishing" people who do bad things.
Vengeance accomplishes nothing, but it feels good enough to enough of us that we've institutionalized it.
Hi Paul,
I belong to an online Art group which includes a daily link to a site worth checking out .
Today's link was to Meditation Tip for the Day and i clicked on the blog by DOshan.
Low and behold there you were in the comment section.
It is a small blogosphere we are in.
I so appreciate all of your kind words. It has been one of the most difficult experiences of my life.
N a m a s t e ,
MB
I don't think I'm a determinist at all, actually, Paul, strict or otherwise. I just think that our usual understanding of it is almost completely backwards.
The moments we think of as moments of decision -- the real knock-down drag-out conflicts of the will -- are actually not the moments of freedom. The world has narrowed down to two possibilities, and we're wavering between the two -- to yell or not to yell, to eat or not to eat -- in either case our minds are quite filled up with reactivity and predetermined response. Whether I eat that dish of ice cream or not, I'm enslaved either to hunger or to resisting it.
I locate freedom entirely elsewhere -- in the playfulness of a puppy's tug-of-war, or the quietness of meditation when my mind is vividly aware of things without wanting to bend them to my will or tailor my perception to fit my prejudice. Maybe that's to bend the meaning of "free choice" so far as to render it meaningless -- it has nothing (immediate) to do with action.
Paul, if I'm understanding you correctly, you're making a distinction between harmful acts (like murder) done by a morally nuetral person ... and ... bad acts (like murder) done by a thusly bad person.
And given your premise that everyone is doing the best they can at any given time, there will be no bad people because those doing the harmful acts will not have the required evil intent.
It seems like you want to get rid of the moral judgement on peoples' actions, but isn't this just a semantic distinction? Isn't the harmful act and the bad act the same, the spiritually diminished perp and the evil one the same, pragmatically speaking?
PS - about your example of a child molester ... yes, many child abusers were themselves abused and they may have compelling reasons to want to molest a child. But many people who are abused as children do not abuse others in turn. I'd say that the average child abuser knows that abusing a child is considered wrong in the eyes of society. And also knows that his act will harm the child. He then makes a decision that his desires are more important then the harm he's going to cause and that he will benefit himself at the expense of the other ... I'd call that morally bankrupt decision (badness).
I agree with Crystal on this one, as you know.
I think our criminal justice system is corrupt and could be a lot better than it is, however, I think that's a red herring. Just because I belive there is such a thing as free will doesn't mean I believe in cruel treatment of prisoners.
I do wonder though, if someone were a strict determinist, how they could justify keeping anyone in prison? It seems like the very concepts of "right" "wrong" or even "healthy" "unhealthy" would seem meaningless if you *really* looked at things that way.
But anyway, to get back to Crystal's point: What about those people who could have done the "wrong" thing, but didn't? I think they used some force inside: "willpower", effort, sacrifice, whatever you want to call it, to stop themselves from doing something they wanted to do, because they knew to do it would harm another person?
I've had that experience, haven't you?
If we philosophically take away the agency of humans, sayng that our acts are determined by outside forces alone, without any internal freedom, aren't we diminishing our idea of what humans are? And aren't we making any ideas of right or wrong kind of meaningless?
I would personally, prefer to view the world as a place where our actions have real consequences and we are responsible for those actions: good or bad.
My personal experience tells me that this is the way it is. I'm aware that (as you said) my feeling about my personal experience could be misleading. It's interesting to think about. I'm not saying that that we aren't influenced by outside forces, but that we also have an "inside force" that we have some control over. I feel I do, and say you do too, but you seem to question it and discount it more that I do, I guess. You've caused me to question it more too. But in the end, it still seems to be there.
MARYBETH: Good to hear from you, I'm going to have to catch up on your blog next time I do my "blog rounds," what with looking less often while you were away.
Yeah, I've been surprised by how often I run into "people I know" on new blogs too.
DALE: I know what you're talking about, because I've also felt most free when I've felt most receptive and responsive to something greater than myself - and not when I'm turning decisions over in my mind. Like you say, that's probably a related but different topic.
CRYSTAL: No, I’m not making that distinction - between morally neutral/bad persons and also their respectively harmful/bad actions.
I’m just saying that bad action = harmful action. The only distinction I’d draw is that it sometimes happens that a well intentioned act causes harm or that an action arising from ill-will accidentally causes good. But the preponderance of the time, it doesn’t work that way, otherwise nobody would care about developing morals, positive intentions, and values. They would serve no purpose.
Right – I tend to think that no one has evil intent, and I would specify this in the following sense: I reject the idea that people who do even terribly harmful things choose evil because they love evil and hate good with a full and conscious appreciation for what each is. I think that those who "choose evil" have very little appreciation for what goodness is and how well it feels to be that way. If they did, if they really knew, experientially, about love, and faith, and concern for the wider world, and the inner peace that comes with being on-track in one’s life with these things, then I can’t possibly comprehend why they would choose to be murderers, rapists, or child-molesters instead.
What I’d like to get rid of is judging people; not recognizing harmful actions as harmful actions.
As to child molesters, I’m aware of the harm they do, having been an elementary school counselor for 23 years. Without being able to know exactly what goes on in perpetrators’ minds, I do much doubt that they freely choose to become child molesters because of how fully and deeply they know that it’s wrong, and because they want to do something so very wrong so very badly that they freely decide to become child molesters.
My guess, from having had to learn a bit about pedophilia and from having known one pedophile quite well, is that the process works something like this:
A person finds themselves sexually attracted to children. I am positive they don’t choose this sexual orientation any more than others choose theirs. And it is, in fact, a sexual orientation – unwell, sick, but a sexual orientation nonetheless. That’s why it’s basically impossible to get pedophiles to stop feeling attraction for kids. Treatment doesn’t work any better than treatment for homosexuality. I suspect it would also be pretty tough to cure people of heterosexuality, unless heterosexuals freely choose their sexual orientations. (Personally, I can’t remember that magic moment in my own life!)
The sex drive is powerful. Most people can’t handle celibacy.
The pedophile is a person who makes use of the same sorts of abilities we all have when there’s something we want to do very badly, even when we suspect or know that it’s wrong: rationalizing, making excuses, kidding ourselves in all kinds of ways (e.g., it’s not really hurting the kid), telling ourselves it won’t happen again…)
Am I saying pedophilia isn’t wrong, or that we shouldn’t protect children from them? Absolutely not. An important aspect of my career was protecting children from pedophiles. Am I refraining from calling pedophiles original sources of the harm they do, glad free choosers of the misery, risk, and hardship they cause to themselves as well as others? Yes.
Why is it that some people who were abused as kids grow up to become pedophiles and others don’t? Darned if I know. But free choice seems an unlikely answer.
KATE: But I think I hadn't quite made my position clear to Crystal at the time you sent this comment about agreeing with her/disagreeing with me. Please see my reply immediately above this comment...
I never stated nor implied that believing in free will means being personally in favor of cruel treatment of inmates. What I said is that, at a societal level, our punishment-based model of criminal justice conduces to ill treatment of prisoners.
As I mentioned in the post, the justification for locking up criminals is simple: to keep them from harming the rest of us.
You ask: "What about those people who could have done the 'wrong' thing, but didn't? I think they used some force inside: 'willpower', effort, sacrifice, whatever you want to call it, to stop themselves from doing something they wanted to do, because they knew to do it would harm another person?
I've had that experience, haven't you?"
Yes, I have. I answered this question in the post - here it is again. To be clear, the "conscious, reflective, and deliberative thought-processes" I refer to include willpower.
"The concept of “responsibility” therefore remains a sound way to judge criminals. Not because we must believe that they are ultimately and fully responsible as free choosers of the harm they do, but because factors like forethought, mental competency, and age, are indicators of how great a propensity the criminal has to commit a criminal act again. “Responsible” now simply means “went through a conscious, reflective, and deliberative thought-process prior to commission of the crime.” That type of thought process is stable, likely to be repeated, and makes a person who thinks that way a greater danger to society regardless of whether we ever resolve the question of whether such conscious and deliberative types of thought processes are freely chosen."
In brief: If some of us have strong willpower, did we freely choose to have strong willpower? Willpower is the ability to deny or postpone gratification. From what I've seen, like any human ability, some have this gift in greater abundance than others.
None of this takes away "the agency of humans." We do act. We do play a role, a big one, in what happens on this planet and what happens to each other. As agents, one of the things we can do is strive to educate and enlighten each other so that less harm is done in the world.
To me, it seems more useful than claiming personal virtue based on the idea of having free choice and judging others as evil persons based on this same idea.
I don't know what other use the idea has. As I've explained, with or without this notion, we'd discriminate good from harmful behavior, lock up criminals to protect society, strive to do the best we can in life...
I also see our actions as having consequences and view responsibility as important - see that same quote from the post above.
I don't have any feeling of having perfectly free choice. I do have the feeling of having a degree of choice even though I can't prove it and don't see how anyone can.
But again: I don't see what real-world difference it makes.
Just one more comment :-)
Actually, many people can and do practice celebacy ... numerous Catholic priests, nuns, and people who just don't have access to a sexual partner for one reason or another. The fact that pedophilia may be a sexual orientation doesn't mean one is compelled to participate in it. I wouldn't compare it to homosexuality - homosexuality is NOT an aberation nor an illness nor a deviance, in my opinion - is an attraction to another consenting adult and no one is harmed.
CRYSTAL: We can point without end, in the sexual realm or in any realm, to people who are similar in some respects but far from identical, and with similar but not identical backgrounds, who end up making different choices. But the observation that this is the case has no bearing on the question, which is whether such choices are made in complete freedom and with an equal level of moral awareness.
And per my previous remarks, I see an awful lot to suggest that this is not the case.
I agree that homosexuality isn't a deviance and doesn't do harm.
Actually, I agree with you.
Morality and freedom of choice are not necessarily related at all.
How would you define morality and how do you distinguish it from virtue?
It's well-accepted that criminal law, as opposed to all other kinds of law, carries a sense of morally blameworthiness with it. To punish is simply carrying out a moral obligation in seeing the moral law come to completion. There is no expectation that the punishment will accomplish any purpose or consequence. Punishment is not something we "ought" to do; it's just something that "is." As such, it's a kind of suffering, strife, or struggle that the offender must go through.
A more salient issue is how much support can a victim expect from the criminal justice system?
And dear Paul,you explained beautifully about the criminal justice in this post..
aul, As I have been reading this morning, I went in to the kitchen and made a cup of tea to start my morning. I had decided that I would make some oatmeal w/cinnimon for breakfast. As I picked up my cup of tea I saw a package of pop tarts. Yummm They looked good. I made the choice to eat the pop tarts. Was it a good choice? Not really. It's not going to kill me, it will satisfy my taste buds. My will power was not strong enough to say, "No Lucy, not the pop tarts." So here I sit eating poptarts and drinking green tea. The point is that I choice to eat the pop tarts over the better choice of oatmeal.
Now I know that sometimes there are circumstances where a good choice is not to be, like going for a walk in pouring down rain. Some days the weather is a determining factor. If I were a prisoner of war, I certainly didn't choose that. No not at all. If I were in an auto accident and were maimed for life because of some drunk who crossed the center line, I didn't choose that. Sometimes choices are beyond our control, but most of the time we can make a choice.
I know that there are some sicko's out there that are so weak that they can't make a good choice. I still think that we make many daily choices, some good and some bad. What ever, we pay the conquesces. By eating that pop tart I probably won't loose much weight this week, I'll probably gain. But you know what? I made the choice...
BARBARA: Thoughful question. I try to answer it in my book manuscript that looks unlikely to be read. No "marketing platform," and to self publish, even just with the idea of having a small number of people read it, ruins any future chances with a lot of publishers because the limited number of copies people can usually sell on their own "proves" the book won't do well. (It needs to sell something like 5000 copies the first year, from what I've read, to impress publishers.)
It's irritating to say the least, because the manuscript was my life's work. I spent 25 years on it! I've left it in my will to my younger sister and then a much younger relative, so maybe someday...
GANGADHAR: Like you say, punishement just is - when you take someone's freedom away, and put them in a simple but humane setting. You can't escape the fact that this is punishement.
By going beyond this, I see not only no benefit, but the undesirable effect of cranking out criminals more full of hate and unwellness than before they entered the criminal justice system.
Victim support - I agree, just as important. Glad you liked the post.
LUCY: Simply reasserting that you believe in free choice isn't an argument in favor of it. I've already explained as well as I know how in my reply to your previous comment. But your remark,
"I know that there are some sicko's out there that are so weak that they can't make a good choice,"
- this illustrates the danger of an extreme free choice position that I've mentioned in the posts. It's a way of building up our egos. We can congratulate ourselves that we totally own the good things we chose in perfect freedom thanks to how virtuous we are. At the same time, we get to despise human beings who don't measure up to our own performance, disregarding or minimizing influences on them. This also helps us feel good about ourselves in an egotistical manner.
In traditional religious terminology, it encourages us to pass judgment...
Paul, I am not trying to pass judgement on anyone. God makes the ultimate judgement on each and every soul. Judge not lest ye be judged. You are talking about the grey area between good and bad choices, or that is what it seems to me. Maybe we just understand things differently.
Paul, about your manuscript ... I spent a couple of years writing a novel, sent out query letters to agents, got rejected by all but one, who tried to sell it but couldn't and let me go after 4 months ... daunting. But I do have a friend who published her cookbook through a self-publishing house and it did well enough to be profitable ... you can even buy it on Amazon - link
LUCY: Thanks for this comment. I started to reply, but realized it had turned into a post - so I'll answer next post, likely later today or tomorrow...
CRYSTAL: That's good to know. That makes a second favorable anecdote on self publishing that I hear, not counting the ones the PODS cite, which, of course, mention their success stories.
At the same time, the research I've done indicates that it usually doesn't work - i.e., the author typically sells a couple hundred copies to family and friends, and any would-be future publishers see this in a negative light.
I don't know what the best thing is to do at this point. Thanks for the input and the link - and of course I'm wondering what your book was about and what you're planning to do...
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