RoR: Forum

Tell the pope not to worry. Ted has just been dispatched to defend him! ;-)

Post 1

Sunday, April 11, 2010 - 12:07pm

Now that was funny, Bill!

Post 2

Sunday, April 11, 2010 - 1:54pm

Yes - sanctioned that one, Bill ... ;-)

Post 3

Sunday, April 11, 2010 - 2:07pm

I will be quite happy to discuss whether people should be arrested for having written legal briefs, which seems to be Dawkins' position, if you read the article. If you boys just want to make smears, though, you have shown you can do it without me.

Post 4

Monday, April 12, 2010 - 9:34am

The Pope, whether you agree with him or not, has certainly NOT committed any crimes against humanity.

Dawkins is an a**hole if he does this - just like that code pink woman who tried to "arrest" Rove. Meanwhile, the architect of the Darfur genocide is going to win re-election.

Post 5

Monday, April 12, 2010 - 8:58pm

Well this is strange, is Dawkins trying to say he's seen the light and now believes there is an objective morality after all?

Or maybe he just thinks the Pope is a computer that is malfunctioning that just needs a fix?

An excerpt from Richard Dawkins "Let's all stop beating Basil's car"

Retribution as a moral principle is incompatible with a scientific view of human behaviour. As scientists, we believe that human brains, though they may not work in the same way as man-made computers, are as surely governed by the laws of physics. When a computer malfunctions, we do not punish it. We track down the problem and fix it, usually by replacing a damaged component, either in hardware or software.

... Isn't the murderer or the rapist just a machine with a defective component?

But wait, it gets worse...

Concepts like blame and responsibility are bandied about freely where human wrongdoers are concerned....But doesn't a truly scientific, mechanistic view of the nervous system make nonsense of the very idea of responsibility, whether diminished or not? Any crime, however heinous, is in principle to be blamed on antecedent conditions acting through the accused's physiology, heredity and environment. Don't judicial hearings to decide questions of blame or diminished responsibility make as little sense for a faulty man as for a Fawlty car?

...Why do we vent such visceral hatred on child murderers, or on thuggish vandals, when we should simply regard them as faulty units that need fixing or replacing?

http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_9.html

This was probably the most disgusting thing I've read from Dawkins. He's a brilliant evolutionary biologist, but he's philosophically confused. While I don't know much about the accusations made against the Pope, what little I've heard has certainly troubled me and it appears the Pope was more interested in keeping his church's public relations intact rather than hold his own priest's responsible.

Maybe Dawkins has changed his mind since he wrote this article, but I wonder why all of a sudden Dawkins wants to hold the Pope responsible for his actions? Has Dawkins repudiated this terrible article he wrote? Or maybe he thinks the UK court system can simply "fix" the Pope?

Post 6

Monday, April 12, 2010 - 9:51pm

I love Dawkin's evolutionary theory, but he clearly wandered off into the land of the idiots with his hard determinism. Does he think the court will constitute an antecedent condition for future deciders... But wait, how did he "choose" to do that? The funny thing is that he is taking his position on pure faith - not much different from the theists he energetically disputes.

Post 7

Tuesday, April 13, 2010 - 5:55pm

Excellent post, John. I didn't know these things about Dawkins. Wow!

The man contradicts himself in the very act of espousing his mechanistic determinism, for he writes: "Any crime, however heinous, is in principle to be blamed on antecedent conditions acting through the accused's physiology, heredity and environment."

But if antecedent conditions determine one's behavior, then (as Steve suggests) couldn't the antecedent condition of punishment be among the factors determining a criminal's decision to abstain from crime and to behave virtuously? And wouldn't it then be important to decide whether or not the accused did in fact commit the crime? for if a crime can be blamed on antecedent conditions, it can also be blamed on the criminal himself, since his choice to commit the crime is itself an antecedent condition.

Yet, Dawkins asks, "Don't judicial hearings to decide questions of blame or diminished responsibility make as little sense for a faulty man as for a Fawlty [sic] car?" No, because they help to determine whether or not the crime was caused by the accused's own choice. If it was, then the accused is responsible for it. Dawkins is simply not following his own reasoning to its logical conclusion.

Finally, Dawkins contradicts himself in a more fundamental way by assuming control over the choices that lead to his conclusion, for if he has no such control, then he cannot claim that his conclusion is valid. But if he has control over the choices that led to his conclusion, then on what grounds does he deny that the criminal had control over the choices that lead to his crime?

I've always thought that Dawkins was a pretty good philosopher, especially when discussing religion and related issues. But he has certainly come up short on this issue.

- Bill

(Edited by William Dwyer on 4/13, 5:59pm)

Post 8

Tuesday, April 13, 2010 - 6:35pm

Maybe in the case John quoted above, Dawkins was proposing answers to moral questions given hard determinism. Maybe Dawkins was not revealing exactly what his thoughts are on the question "What ought an entity do?".

One can, however, can come to a consensus on general behaviors that successfully answer the question "If an entity is to continue existing, then what ought the entity do?" This works for both "determinism" and "free will".

Post 9

Tuesday, April 13, 2010 - 10:05pm

One can, however, can come to a consensus on general behaviors that successfully answer the question "If an entity is to continue existing, then what ought the entity do?" This works for both "determinism" and "free will".

Dean, it doesn't work for Dawkins' brand of determinism, because you can't prescribe behavior for an entity that is not responsible for its own behavior.

Post 10

Wednesday, April 14, 2010 - 7:50am

William Dwyer,

He has proposed that determinism implies no accountability. I agree that if he holds this proposition to heart, then he is contradicting himself by saying that the pope should be held accountable.

But I'd like to prove that his proposition is false. It doesn't follow that if reality is deterministic that you shouldn't hold others accountable for their actions. On the other hand, if you don't have any goals, then there is no reason to hold others accountable.

====

Think about this statement:
"Entities should not be held accountable since they could not have done anything different."

Notice the "should" in the front. The statement itself is a moral claim. How can you assert a "should"?

One cannot assert a "should" statement without an if clause that states the goal. Should comes from: If some state or process of reality is to exist, then an entity should perform a particular set of actions. When we have commonly established a set of goals, then we say things with the goal implied. We say "An entity should perform a particular set of actions." The goal is not frequently stated (implied) because it becomes repetitive to say it all the time. Objectivists have goals that are similar to other Objectivists.

====

Back to the statement:
"Entities should not be held accountable since they could not have done anything different."

What is the goal that is implied in this statement? Dawkins has made a mistake in that he left out the if clause of the moral statement. He has left out the goal. Please let me know if you can think of some goal that actually is implied, but correct me if I'm wrong, but I'll assume he meant that there is no goal. So we could reword the statement to include this implied "no goal":

"If an entity does not have a goal, then there is no reason to make other entities held accountable since others could not have done anything different in a deterministic reality."

That was a run on sentence. The sentence doesn't make sense. If we are to make the sentence make sense, then the "since" should be replaced with a period.

"If an entity does not have a goal, then there is no reason to make other entities held accountable. Others could not have done anything different in a deterministic reality."

====

Or how about non sensual this statement:
"If an entity is to continue existing, then the entity should protect and nourish itself. Except-- it should not protect itself from others that steal or kill. This is because the entities that steal or kill could not have done anything different in a deterministic reality."

That doesn't make sense. Its like saying that our goal is to live, but we shouldn't protect ourselves from the cold wind or fire... because cold wind and fire could not have chosen to do anything different.

Even if entities that steal or kill could not have done anything different, if an entity is to continue existing, then the entity should protect and nourish itself.

====

It doesn't follow from determinism that you can't create a moral statement such as "If the goal is x then y actions should be performed". Hence it doesn't follow that if reality is deterministic that you shouldn't punish entities. On the other hand, if you don't have any goals, then there is no reason to hold others accountable.
(Edited by Dean Michael Gores on 4/14, 7:55am)

Post 11

Wednesday, April 14, 2010 - 10:02am

Dean,

What Dawkins is saying is that, given hard determinism, there is no moral accountability -- that we can't blame the criminal for his crime, since it was a product not of his own choosing but rather of antecedent causes such as his heredity and environment. Your statement that we can still have accountability given hard determinism is true, if by "accountability" you simply mean the attribution of a causal relationship -- the recognition of the positive or negative consequences ensuing from a particular course of action.

There is admittedly a sense in which one can say that if the spider is to live, it "ought" to kill its prey, but we don't hold the spider morally accountable if it fails to do so, for the spider has no choice in the matter. Dawkins would say the same for a criminal, viz., the criminal really had no choice in whether or not to commit the crime; he was determined by his heredity and environment in much the same way that the spider is determined by its heredity and environment.

- Bill

Post 12

Wednesday, April 14, 2010 - 10:45am

Dawkins writes, "When a computer malfunctions, we do not punish it. We track down the problem and fix it, usually by replacing a damaged component, either in hardware or software.

... Isn't the murderer or the rapist just a machine with a defective component?"

Yes, but the only way to fix a computer, or 'fix' society or 'fix' a murderer is to understand its nature. To 'fix' society you need to enforce objective laws based upon individual rights.

To 'fix' a murderer, you need to hold them accountable for their actions. Like a computer, sometimes fixing something isn't economic or possible and the decision is to discard it. If we had a way to 'fix' a murder, we would be trying it. We measure the rate of recidivism and base punishments, in part, on the past success (almost nil) or failures. So, we try. And the correct premise that the murderer must fix himself while society's institutions can only attempt to pressure them in the most persuasive fashion.
-------------------

Michael was onto to a strong argument where he began referring to "should" - you can't use that word in the fashion Dawkins was without implying choice. Dawkins has the misguided sense of reality only belonging to the world of 'is' - he sees nothing in physics that asks him to go beyond 'is' and venture into 'should' - and he blinds himself to his own nature.

Where Dawkins writes, "Why do we vent such visceral hatred on child murderers, or on thuggish vandals, when we should simply regard them as faulty units that need fixing or replacing?", he reveals that self-made blindness in a striking fashion. As a human he has to be in touch with emotions and grasp at some level that you can not deeply value something (like children) and not feel anger, horror, fear, loathing, etc., when presented with the idea of child murders. So he is ignoring the nature of things in front of him. Then look at where he uses the word "should" - which implies the existence of a choice. That is where the hard determinist is always caught in a contradiction of their own making. I can say that a hard determinist 'should' examine this contradiction and correct their premise because I know that this a choice and humans can choose. They cannot say that I should choose to examine my premises, given that they don't think humans can choose.

Post 13

Wednesday, April 14, 2010 - 9:46pm

Dawkins is straining with his comparisons between people and computers. If a computer is broken, you can replace the defective component with one or more new factory components, and it will function fine. People, not so much.

Computers don't have any agency. They do whatever they are programmed to do, as filtered through the hardware. People decide what to do.

And, the point of imprisonment serves several functions that work with people but not computers. First, locking someone up guarantees, at a minimum, that for the period of incarceration they will not be able to harm civilians (other than prison guards and the harm to taxpayers forced to pay for their imprisonment). Second, as people age they tend to engage in less criminal activity on average, so by the time they get released they are on average less inclined to malfunction. Finally, at least some portion of people incarcerated find the experience so unsettling that they decide to do whatever it takes to not go back (with varying degrees of success).

So, even if you temporarily accept for the sake of argument the hard determinism that Dawkins seems to be going with here, the notion that people are essentially really complex machines that do whatever their genome interacting with the environment compels them to do, locking criminals up will STILL protect innocent civilians from the potential future acts of crime that criminals would be likely to commit if not locked up.

Post 14

Thursday, April 15, 2010 - 12:17am

Steve and Jim, good posts.

Jim, one could also say that punishment, in addition to being a deterrent to the criminal himself, can also serve as a deterrent to other potential criminals.

Btw, a better analogy for Dawkins' brand of argument is not between human beings and computers, but between human beings and animals. We certainly don't "blame" animals for bad behavior, but we do sometimes discipline or punish them for it, just as we sometimes reward them for good behavior.

If one wants a deterministic analogy, comparing human beings to animals is far more accurate than comparing them to an inanimate object, like a computer. Of course, it would still ignore choice, but it would at least acknowledge the effectiveness of negative or positive reinforcement.

- Bill
(Edited by William Dwyer on 4/15, 12:37am)

Post 15

Thursday, April 15, 2010 - 8:24am

Bill, good post. Agree with your points, though I approach them from a different POV.

As a biology major in college, I would slightly rephrase what you said. Humans are not just LIKE animals, we ARE animals. We are one of many species of animals. The main difference between us and other species -- our intelligence -- is a matter of degree, not of kind.

Our brains are a kind of biological computer, a form of wetware instead of hardware. We are not unique in having this wetware, but rather we are unique in the degree of complexity and capability of this wetware (though some have argued that dolphins approach us in this regard).

So, regarding your point here: "If one wants a deterministic analogy, comparing human beings to animals is far more accurate than comparing them to an inanimate object, like a computer." -- actually, it's not a choice between one or the other, because we're essentially both. Dawkins seems to be arguing that people are essentially animals that carry the most potent and advanced biological computers around in their heads. And, while one might argue with Dawkins about the hard determinism he attributes to these biological machines we use, he is off base in thinking that people can be fixed the way a computer can be fixed, because the components of brains can't be swapped out at all. At best, you can try to "reprogram" the "hardware".

Post 16

Thursday, April 15, 2010 - 10:34am

Jim,

I agree that human beings are animals -- rational animals. By "animals" I meant the non-rational kind. I do, however, disagree that we as rational animals have the same "kind" of intelligence as they do; our intelligence is different in kind from theirs.

To illustrate the distinction between difference in degree and difference in kind, my intelligence is different in degree from that of, say, Ayn Rand's, but not different in kind, because we are both rational animals. She was simply more intelligent. But my intelligence IS different in kind from that of, say, a dog or cat, because the latter is non-rational, i.e, not capable of abstract, conceptual reasoning.

- Bill
(Edited by William Dwyer on 4/15, 10:36am)

Post 17

Thursday, April 15, 2010 - 10:55pm