Laird
Number of posts: 332
Age: 28
Location: Wilmington, DE (the first STATE, lol)
Registration date: 2007-12-28
 | | Subject: Re: Free will, again Sat Jul 26, 2008 6:11 pm | |
| You have responsibility because you're part of the chain of events that leads up to the event? How is that any different from a piece of debris breaking your roof? That piece of debris is also part of the chain of events that leads to your roof being broken. | Stewart wrote: | | Or don't think of responsibility at all. It's not a real thing. Even if the universe is non-deterministic, there's still not such a thing as responsibility. |
I think I'm with you on this one. Again. I was coming to that conclusion anyways. It makes me feel better about being such a failure. 
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| | Subject: Re: Free will, again Sat Jul 26, 2008 6:18 pm | |
| | Laird wrote: | You have responsibility because you're part of the chain of events that leads up to the event? How is that any different from a piece of debris breaking your roof? That piece of debris is also part of the chain of events that leads to your roof being broken.
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If this was directed at me, I'm not sure that it disagrees with anything I said. The fact is that human beings are concerned with the judging and assessing other people's actions, and tend to prefer there be some sort of consistent framework which they can refer to.
Causal responsibility is precisely the same for humans as it is for anything, of course, but a fact is that some human action is chosen and directed by reason and preferences. This is important to other people. An interest in understanding and relying upon this fact in arguments (for example, legal ones) requires absolutely no 'moral' support; it's a means to an end. But that doesn't mean it's totally arbitrary or baseless, simply that it does not allow one to make the sort of 'moral' statements people would like to. |
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