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Sean Cidy
Sabine Hossenfelder
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Comments by "Sean Cidy" (@seancidy6008) on "You don't have free will, but don't worry." video.
Hitler was culpable under the legal/forensic concept of responsibility. But what choice did Hitler have, given his objectives could not be achieved any other way and he felt compelled to attain them?
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You have to be quite intelligent to disbelieve in free will though. And the intelligent, because they can better foresee the negative consequences to themselves of harming others, are oft times more moral in their behaviour. So I would be careful about who I tried to convince they had no free will. The average person's belief in free will does the heavy lifting to keep them out of trouble.
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@batukhan1 As Sabine says, there are great advantages for benevolent cooperation, and consequences for harming others. That is what usually stops those malevolently inclined from acting on their desires. Were that not so animals would be not be amenable to discipline .
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"And yes, you do need free will to act responsibly and live a good life. It's well researched that people with certain trait/characteristic/behavior will be more successful as well as the opposite." But a truly free will would not be deciding for whatever option was likely to lead to ongoing success, which includes not suffering retribution for harming others. A free will would not come into play unless there was no possible personal costs for doing bad things to others in order to get scarce goods, or benefit in being peaceful. If the aim is to flourish, then clever and careful calculation must motivate being nice to others in almost every situation. For instance, one can say Putin was obtuse and wayward to think his foolhardy invasion of Ukraine would go well. But he surely did think about the benefits and weigh them against the risks, and those consideration, imperfect though they were, led to his decision. So only someone who does not care one way or the other about something can have free will in relation to it.
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@nguyenvu8262 If you have an objective in mind you calculate which course of action will achieve it.
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@nguyenvu8262 We calculate our action with an objective in mind, down here among the filth and worms on earth as mortals with instinctual desires and fears many if not mainly subliminal ones. No decision a human takes is explicated with all considerations going into it out in the open to be consciously cognated. There is always an unconscious standing order background imposing an objective, of reproductive success ultimately. We do not choose to these animal instincts. Nor do we choose our DNA, whether we are clever or possesses exceptional self control, the family were are born into, whether the people we whose paths we cross are good or bad to us, or if we have to work to earn a decent living. How can we be responsible for the decisions we take when the constraints inherent in our thought processes and worldly circumstances that are the ingredients of any decision are _not_of our choosing?
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@nguyenvu8262 No, just that they are wired to try .
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"Yes we're wet robots that only act according to our programing. Yeah come on we all know that's not true intuitively." We know that because we instinctively believe it, in terms of reproductive success it is likely to be advantageous. But that having some belief in free will ultimately works to reproduce and spread the DNA of believers does not mean the belief is true. It could be a widespread belief among human beings because it is an evolutionarily advantageous illusion.
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