Posted on 01/17/2019 9:28:03 AM PST by Heartlander
Jerry Coyne is an atheist evolutionary biologist who denies libertarian free will. He believes that we are “biological automatons,” made of, and governed solely by, molecules, and incapable of contracausal free will. He believes that we cannot make choices that are not caused wholly by the matter in our brains and bodies. He denies the immateriality of the will.
His reasons for this denial are unsound, in my view. But that is not the focus of my post. It is the consequences of free will denial that are so profoundly troubling. Coyne correctly draws out these consequences:
There are ramifications for the justice system. I firmly believe that if we grasped that nobody, including criminals, has a “choice” in whether or not to do something, like mugging someone, we would structure the justice system differently, concentrating less on retribution and more on keeping baddies out of society, trying to reform them, and using punishment as a deterrent to improve society.
He’s right — the consequences of free will denial for our justice system are profound. But he needs to consider the ramifications on a deeper level.
Our current justice system is dependent on the acknowledgement that man can choose good or evil, in a real sense. We may be influenced by our neurotransmitters, genes, etc., but in most situations we have the genuine ability to choose good or evil. The law then is not merely or even primarily a deterrent. It is first and foremost retribution. Retribution in law is not bad. In fact, it is the cornerstone of a legal system that respects the full humanity — the genuine freedom — of citizens. If we freely choose evil, in the sense that we could have chosen otherwise, we deserve retributive punishment. A murderer deserves to be incarcerated, because he has chosen to do evil. We can choose good and evil, and are held responsible for the choice. Retributive justice is a system fit for free and responsible people.
If we deny free will, there is no justice in retribution. There is no justice in punishing a man for an act he could not elide. There is no justice in sanctioning a meat robot for being a meat robot, any more than we apply “justice” in the eradication of mosquitoes or rats.
In a justice system that denies free will, the only justification for punishment is deterrence, as Coyne appropriately notes. But he seems not to understand the danger a justice system based wholly on deterrence poses to humanity. Such a system is no longer a “justice” system at all; there is nothing just about punishing men for doing what they could not choose or avoid. The sole purpose of a criminal justice system in a society that denies free will is management of behavior. And management need not be merely reactive. In fact, efficient management is proactive. Management of deterministic behavior is most effective if it is preemptive.
In Coyne’s deterministic justice system, identification and interdiction of miscreants is the most effective, and if fact, the most sensible approach. Incarceration for “pre-crimes” is not unjust in a system without justice. Interdiction is efficient, in fact. Why wait for a murderer to murder before you lock him up? And a free will denier like Coyne can’t plausibly argue that such preemptive incarceration would be “unjust,” if there is no such thing as guilt or innocence anyway.
Without free will, there is no guilt and there is no innocence. There are merely animals to be managed, behavior to be modified. A society without free will is a society without responsibility or human dignity. A society without recognition of free will is a totalitarian hell predicated on behavioral interdiction. Where there is no guilt, there can be no innocence.
“If you do not assume the law of non-contradiction, you have nothing to argue about. If you do not assume the principles of sound reason, you have nothing to argue with. If you do not assume libertarian free will, you have no one to argue against. If you do not assume morality to be an objective commodity, you have no reason to argue in the first place. If you do not assume mind is primary, there is no “you” to make any argument at all.”
- William J Murray
Brownian Motion. We are all free to do what we want, until you bump up against the boundary conditions for events set by Abba Father YHWH.
He has to deny science because there is no determining between truth and falsity if everything is determined. We just get determined answer, not truthful answers.
He has to deny science because there is no determining between truth and falsity if everything is determined. We just get determined answer, not truthful answers.
= = =
So this is why having a copy of the exam ahead of time works.
Love those Fraternity files of past exams.
“An interesting psychological profile of Martin Luther and how his pessimism led him to seek a way out in the idea of being saved by Faith alone.
"God predetermining or forcing a soul to voluntarily sin, seems very much like God making square circles. Certainly, the mere reassertion of a self-contradicting God-provocateur is not much of an answer to the difficulty which he himself has justly raised against his determinism."
Witches use such fancy words anymore.
One of Harvard’s Laws goes something like “...under controlled conditions - temp, pressure, humidity, etc. - the organism will do as it damn well pleases.”
Well, Coyne may be an automaton, but I’m certainly not. I would challenge him to prove otherwise. Apart from that, the idea of an automaton without a designer would seem to come from a curiously incurious mind.
So how does this guy explain music, poetry, a sense of humor?
In his world..there ain’t no “this guy”.the guy is denying his own reason...it is self refuting and therefore untenable. Ultimately he lives and thinks as if he is above it. Totally blind human.self deluded...needs a life threatening event to.show how much he believes he is an automaton.
;-)
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