PHIL 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Incompatibilism, Compatibilism

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14 Dec 2016

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Morality

● Suppose there is a person who believes there is doing the right thing and the wrong

thing, and there are moral obligations

● Certain actions are blameworthy, some are justifiable

● No cheating - suppose someone cheated, they violated the moral maxim

● If you blame someone for cheating, you believe in free will

● If you say to someone - you shouldn’t have cheated - you are presupposing they could

have done otherwise at a previous point in time

● How can I blame you for cheating if you could not have done otherwise?

● Pg. 395

● Morality presupposes free will

What is free will?

● Reply 1: You have free will if you could have done otherwise if you could do otherwise

than you did. An alternative course of action than the one you took. To be able to decide

between alternative courses of action.

● Reply 2 (Hume): To do what you will to do. An action that is preceded by volition/an act

of will.

● Pg. 413

● You don’t have to be free with regard to everything in order to have free will. Ex. staying

up without ever sleeping. Ever. - this is impossible and out of our power. Or Dying. We

do not have freedom with regard to that.

Determinism

● Hume’s Definition

○ Pg. 407

○ Matter acted upon by laws of nature

○ Events or effects are the result of the laws of nature acting on matter.

● Modern Definition

○ The future is uniquely determined by the past

○ There is one way the future can go, and it is already determined by how the past

happened

Can we have determinism and free will at the same time?

● Is free will compatible with Determinism?

● Compatibilism (Hume); You can consistently have D and FW

● Incompatibilism; You cannot consistently have D and FW

Hume

● Pg. 408

● Free will vs. voluntary action

● If you can establish a constant conjunction between voluntary action and the operations

of the mind you will have established determinism in human behavior

● The same events follow from the same causes

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Document Summary

Suppose there is a person who believes there is doing the right thing and the wrong thing, and there are moral obligations. Certain actions are blameworthy, some are justifiable. No cheating - suppose someone cheated, they violated the moral maxim. If you blame someone for cheating, you believe in free will. If you say to someone - you shouldn"t have cheated - you are presupposing they could have done otherwise at a previous point in time. Reply 1: you have free will if you could have done otherwise if you could do otherwise than you did. An alternative course of action than the one you took. To be able to decide between alternative courses of action. Reply 2 (hume): to do what you will to do. An action that is preceded by volition/an act of will. You don"t have to be free with regard to everything in order to have free will. This is impossible and out of our power.

Related Questions

Brief and detail

If relativism is true, can you ever judge something as being morally wrong? Consider some really horrible actions, genocide, murder, slavery, torture or add your own. If you feel a relativist could say that these things are actually wrong, what gives them this ability? If they can't, why not?

Agree or disagree

Similarly to what I said in the first discussion on what morality means to us, I think everyone has their own set of moral principles and obligations. So I do think that relativism is true, to a point however. I used Adolf Hitler and the Nazi empire as an example in the first discussion so I will use that here. Hitler knew in his brain that what he was doing was good for his nation and arguably the world. Now, as a modern day society we can agree that was wrong. For him, it was good. In his own mind, he is right. But it is relative to the person. Generally speaking we all have similar notions of what is right and what is wrong. Most people would say that going out of your way to help someone else is a morally good principle. Selflessness in society is seen a good thing by the vast majority of people. When I say that relativism is good to a point, I mean that there is a general basis in society that deems actions as good or bad. And since most of us would all agree that hitlers actions were bad, then we say that he had bad moral principles, even though to him, they were good. It’s a little confusing even for me to put into words. Basically, if you actions are generally viewed in society as good, then you have good moral principles even if they vary from person to person. No one will have the exact same moral standards, but generally they all are very similar in society. So relativism is true until the point where the majority of society would deem your actions and wrong. I hope this makes sense.

Agree or disagree

If relativism is true, I don't think judging something as morally wrong is possible. Because the definition of ethical relativism is the moral standard only being correctly relative to each person/society, this means that the moral standard is created by you and/or the society you identify with and therefore eliminate the existence of an absolute moral principle. Since the moral standard is different for every individual, we cannot say that someone is morally wrong. If relativism is applied, that is. If a relativist were to say that they could judge someone as morally wrong, then that would contradict the main component of being a relativist. That every moral argument of yours is correct, therefore everyone else's is also correct. Quite problematic but that is my understanding on the matter

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PHIL 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Incompatibilism, Compatibilism

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