Does ethics or morality exist within the view of hard determinism? If we dont have free will, how can our "choise" to act morally be objectively judged as right or wrong. Is it possible to regard a human being as morally superior to an animal given that we dont have free will?

Solution: we have a somewhat free will.

We do not have free will. What we have however is wisdom that is accumulating in the hands of complexity and which allows for better decisions with its input. Wisdom is what determines ethics. For example over time you learn that killing others is a bad thing and cheating, stealing etc is also bad. However it is not always bad and to be able to know the difference demands stronger wisdom. Living is how this wisdom is created. This (together with QM randomness and chaos) is why its not all futile and meaningless in the sense of "fate"/"written" etc.

We do not have hard determinism either the way things seem for now. See Quantum Mechanics for why.

Our wisdom is a product of our influences and as such can not be regarded as free will.
If our ethic system is based on our experiences and our interpretations of these one can still argue that the interpretations are completely predicable based on the sum of the interpretors influences.

No. See also all my posts in free will related threads (the past 1-2 years) because its a lengthy argument with examples to show that because of the natural randomness of QM and chaos theory there is no predictability and no fate in fact even in the sense of us being unable to predict it due to complicated details, the real hard truth is that its not even in principle predictable due to the randomness of the process of elementary interactions that are quantum mechanical.


It is possible that the system converges to somewhat predictable wisdom inevitably ie yes we would have found a way to know General Relativity even without Einstein or that there are infinite number of primes without Euclid (or whoever gave him the idea), that the earth is not flat even without ancient Greeks, that killing each other over stupid low value local advantages is not game theoretically optimal etc. But the way we would have found out all those things and many more would be different and the net collection of wisdom would be different in general even if it would have some common themes.

For example the way you arrive at some particular theme of wisdom determines what other wisdom you generated in the process ie to chase detecting Higgs particles at CERN you develop among many other things; strong magnets, super computers and computing algorithms that can be used now also elsewhere, but if some random breakthrough in accelerating particles techniques had taken place differently past 10 years we would have had a different kind of CERN and different algorithms and challenges today etc. So in principle the paths are different if you could reproduce them one after another in similar to earth systems. I can then argue for instance that the whatever breakthrough itself is so chaotically depending on singular unpredictable events that i can trace it all down to a single QM experiment, even if i ignored all else behaving similarly unpredictably and called them deterministic - except for that one thing. That one random thing - a particle decay say or a spin measurement result- eg affected - produced a sound in a Geiger counter that forever changed the thought process of some guy - whether that guy read a random email that inspired him - eg the Geiger sound reminded that guy the you got mail sound - or if there was no decay - went out to dinner instead that night as he was planning. I could be talking of course in terms of information rather than wisdom to be more formal but i use wisdom as its easier to then relate to ethics. Obviously wisdom is information eventually.

Bottom line a very advanced civilization will have a lot in common with us at some basic level (if it existed or if we create one and let it go on its own and compared future states of both) but it wont be entirely predictable.

Basically your argument breaks down the moment a particle decays. If the time it happens is random and cannot be predicted with accuracy because the theory itself is not deterministic in that elementary level, the decay itself has changed the entire history of the universe. Now imagine trillions and trillions of such interactions all over the place per second and you get the picture about how totally unpredictable it all is even if it still will be possible to predict that a very crude statistically large system will behave almost classically and deterministically to be in principle able to describe it for some time ahead (ie a pendulum or a ball thrown etc colliding with another ball but not an electron interacting with another electron!)

You are thinking about it sideways. First, it seems ridiculous to judge human notions of right and wrong as "objective."

Second, does enjoyment of a nice chicken sandwich exist within the view of hard determinism? If you don't have free will, how can you "choose" whether or not it is enjoyable. Is it possible to regard a human being as being superior to an animal in determining whether a particular sandwich is tasty given that we don't have free will?

If you accept hard determinism, you reject moral responsibility*, so it wouldn't make any sense to think that a human being is morally superior to an animal if moral superiority flows from the capacity of being morally responsible for one's actions. But that's not necessarily the only way one can view 'moral superiority' (could we not say we are 'morally superior' just because on the whole we tend to be nicer than animals?), and even if that is the right way to view moral superiority, it doesn't follow that there is no morality or possible system of ethics. Morality is about what is good and bad, or about what should or should not happen, and whether these claims have any basis in reality. This tends to have little to do with whether people are free.

Consider this question, which society is best, the one in which Brian gets two chicken sandwiches for lunch, or the one in which he gets one and a hungry coworker gets the other; what does answering such a question have to do with free will?

I would highly recommend this paper by Pereboom about hard determinism. It's pretty long as it contains an argument for hard determinism, but there's also some stuff at the end (sections V - VII, VI in particular) that addresses the OP.

* I'm sure there's some jerk out there who accepts hard determinism and still goes around saying he believes in moral responsibility, whilst knowing that this almost definitionally makes him not a hard determinist.

The first one is clearly preferable.

In the second one, I have a coworker which implies that I am a worker. That is clearly some sort of evil and nasty society.

I was obviously talking about a different Brian who eats chicken sandwiches.

There is only one Brian.

The concept of free will is like a large, beautiful bird that flies nosily about in the forest; people are naturally attracted to it and give the free will bird much more attention and attributes than it actually deserves.


Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself. - Bertrand Russell

I know I've posted the above quote before.

And my singular good friend Brian is a chicken sandwich. Hold the mayo.

AFAIK serious physicists no longer try to defend the concept of strict determinism. So debates about it and morality seem moot.

Probably better for me to say "So debates about it and moral responsibility seem unnecessary."

Just because there is no personal responsibility, people behaving immorally should still go to jail. Not to be held accountable for their behavior (over which they had no choice) but to discourage others from engaging in such behavior.

Likewise, just because there is no personal responsibility, people's innovative and creative accomplishments should still be celebrated. Not for their own praise but to encourage others to engage in similar behavior.

Knowledge of lacking free will makes little difference to the way people ought to behave.

I may be off the beaten track but how about this:

(1) When you don't like yourself, it's unlikely others will like you either.

(2) By having some moral guidelines to live by you can begin to like who you are.

(3) As such, people's morality is defined by the extent to which they can behave in a manner conducive to loving oneself and having an appreciation of oneself.

(4) If behaving morally came with no psychological rewards, it would be difficult to justify on a purely intellectual basis: for examples refer to 'sociopaths'.

VeeDDzz`- Russell: 1-0

what does "free will" mean?

It's basically a BS statement. If you really have a will, it's free. Otherwise it's not a will. Begs the question.

Is there a will? Is there freedom? Much better.

So I shouldn't have paid for mine?!?

I'm now in France. I no longer have the intellectual capacity to engage in SMP threads as my brain is being sapped of all intelligence. When I reach the haven of Denmark, I will recover and again be able to dazzle all with my natural acumen. Or so I think. At least I will be free.

You don't "choose" whether a chicken sandwich is enjoyable or not. You either find it enjoyable or you don't.

[QUOTE=VeeDDzz`;45006181]

False. I'm living testimony of that. Living by moral guidelines set by others one is left with the feeling "I am what others tell me I am" and never myself. Basically any moral guidelines lead to moral duties and it is conflicting when the thought arises "I don't want act this way" but I must because you are literally doing it out of a sense of duty to others and never for yourself. The problem is external forces imposing on the individual through social settings, rules and laws that the individual never once agreed to, it is only assumed that they do. When an individual questions these rules they get told "oh that's just the way it is around here". I found in me that it causes a split on the outside I am as normal as normal can be (I follow the rules. Get paid. Eat to live.) but on the inside going crazy because I don't want to do it societies way.

The Gadarene Swine Fallacy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYfW7LJ4nDE

[QUOTE=Robin Agrees;45087353] They don't need to be society's more traditional moral guidelines. Any moral guidelines will do. For example, I hold integrity (consistency between words and deeds) as a moral value very highly, same with internal locus of control and need for achievement. All three of these are rather selfish/individualistic values, and they're hardly altruistic, but my moral code is different to the average Joe. And it's not even for some sense of emotional solace per-se, but primarily out of intellectual/rational reasons. And I definitely like myself more with these values than without them because I feel like I'm in on a secret very few people know about.

Moreover, others like me more because these moral values bring me power and people like people with power.

Then your statement makes no sense or at least the word morals doesn't mean anything in this conversation. Basically you could say "I live the way I want to live and I feel good about it" to me that statement is more clear and nothing to do with morals. In other words one just acts and not calling it a moral action.