Does "ought" imply "can" - Free Will

[Kriminal99]

Uga I dont know what to tell you except that you and some others here (not owl) are extremely evasive in debates. No matter how simply someone debates your claims you pretend not to know what they said or are talking about. I do not believe this kind of passive aggressiveness is fooling anybody. Furthermore I don't really care. I use this type of enviornment to root out potential counterarguments to claims. If you evade or do anything other than directly counter my arguments you lose - I assume you are wrong or have nothing to say. If you think that my final audience will be ivory tower intellectuals who "Don't see my objections or how I related can, ought and free will" because it is not convenient or socially necessary for them to do so you are mistaken. Rather I will be amidst the ground level angry mob burning the tower to the ground. (Speaking metaphorically of course)

 

"only what can be done is done" is not part of the argument, in fact that is the exact opposite of free will, unless you are talking about the weak form of free will that only means you choose based on what you want, even though you do not choose your wants.... which is also compatable with determinism.

 

As for the rest of the response to objection 1, it is talking about people that are unable to specifically characterize their objections to the argument but have an intuition that there is something funny going on. I was able to characterize my objection and it is very specific - Can must include psychological inability to perform a task, to exclude this is to assume determinism is false. In general a proof is supposed to convince people, if it doesn't it might be a sign of stubborness but it might also be a sign that the proof has dodged something.

[ughaibu]

Premise 3. "if determinism is true, then whatever can be done, is done". This is a proof by contradiction.

By the way, I take it that you are now talking about strong determinism when you mention "determinism", and not the process of building predictive models.

 

If a person can do something, then they can do it, if they can not do it, then they can not do it. What do you find difficult about this?

[Kriminal99]

Premise 3. "if determinism is true, then whatever can be done, is done". This is a proof by contradiction.

By the way, I take it that you are now talking about strong determinism when you mention "determinism", and not the process of building predictive models.

 

If a person can do something, then they can do it, if they can not do it, then they can not do it. What do you find difficult about this?

 

If that is the sense you meant determinism was in the argument (as opposed to the final conclusion rejecting it) then the objection should be clear.

 

The argument claims to assume determinism to disprove it but it does no such thing because one of the premises assumes that the definition of "can" excludes psychological inability to perform tasks which is the direct opposite of determinism.

 

This one line is the whole issue. Please read it again VERY CAREFULLY:

 

The premises assume that the definition of can excludes psychological inability to perform tasks.

 

Besides I think this concept is disprovable, using the arguments I outline in post 30.

 

Specifics as to which is the offending premise depend on how you define other terms as I mentioned in the very first post.

 

Oh and I had never differentiated between determinism and the process of model building - you guys did. I was pointing out that determinism did not depend on a human beings ability to calculate everything with enough information. Such statements pertain to someone like god. Rather human beings may believe determinism has yet to be disproven because they are always able to build more and more complex models to describe their surroundings. When we fail to be able to do this, it will be a sign that determinism is false.

[owl]

I understand that you, being a person that believes in free will, would not agree with the belief that the person could not have taken the bus because he did not know the professor would want him do considering different professors have different beliefs regarding such. However my point is more that a determinist DOES believe that the person can have a psychological inability to perform a task that cannot be overcome. Therefore a proof of free will, where proof is taken to mean something that would force a determinist to accept by saying "Well if you believe X, and you believe Y then Z must also be true" cannot simply exclude any potential psychological inability to perform a task from their definition of "can" as a premise for their proof.

 

There are a few things to say about this.

 

(I) What is required of a good argument?

 

In evaluating an argument against determinism, one should not assume indeterminism and use that to justify the premises. But, by the same token, one can't assume determinism and use that to justify rejecting some of the premises. The reason is the same in both cases: if you do the former, then you can automatically refute determinism; and if you do the latter, you can automatically defend it. If you assume determinism, then you can always deduce that any argument against determinism is wrong. If the argument is valid, you can deduce that one of its premises must be false.

 

Next, should a good argument be convincing to an opponent? Not necessarily. In politics, religion, and philosophy, hardly any genuine opponent is ever convinced to change their mind. I could argue with the Pope until I was blue in the face, and no matter what I said, he would never admit that the Bible isn't God's word. That doesn't mean that I don't have any good arguments; it just means that the Pope is too committed to his beliefs to be moved by argumentation. No argument, however good, can force anyone to do anything. Instead, a good argument may be considered to be one such that, if you do not start out strongly committed to either position, and you're reasonable and open to being moved by arguments, then the argument could cause you to accept the conclusion.

 

(II) Would a determinist accept OIC?

 

For the reasons just given, I think that's the wrong question to ask. But I also think you'd be mistaken to think that a determinist would reject OIC. A determinist, once he saw my argument, would reject one or the other of my premises. He would probably reject either OIC, or "We should believe only what is true." Some of them would reject the first; more would probably reject the second.

 

But again, that's not relevant. Virtually anyone who wasn't just assuming determinism would accept each of these premises. Even a determinist would probably accept either premise provided that he didn't yet see that it was going to be used in an argument against determinism. That shows that the premises do not beg the question. Rather, it is the determinist who begs the question by saying that the premises of an argument against determinism should be rejected solely on the grounds that determinism is true. It's not legitimate to respond to an argument by saying, "Well, if you assume that I'm right, then this argument against me is wrong."

 

(III) Is the argument against determinism good?

 

I think that my argument is good, according to reasonable standards that would allow some philosophical arguments to count as good. I didn't use indeterminism or the free will thesis to justify any of the premises of the argument; in that sense, I did not "assume" indeterminism. Each of the premises initially seems highly plausible, if considered on its own without begging the question as in the above description. Each of them is regularly accepted, almost universally, in every other context in which they would come up.

 

Finally, we come to

 

(IV) "Can" and know-how

 

Consider the following example. Supposedly, an 18 year old college student could wake up and drive to Mexico City by himself instead of going to class one day. Forgetting for a moment that there is no reason why he would ever do this, consider that he does not know how to get there. It seems using your definition of can, he CAN do this without getting directions...

 

No, I wouldn't say that. I'm not sure why you believe I would say that. I agree that if you don't know how to do something, then, at least normally, you can't do it. Here's another example: "I can't open this combination lock, because I don't know the combination. Bob would be able to open it; he knows the combination."

 

However, the example you gave originally was not one where someone didn't know how to do something. You said the student didn't know that he was expected to take the bus, not that he didn't know how to take the bus (which would be very odd).

 

(V) "Can" and willingness

 

Can you see that people that grow up in a country and have all their friends and family there and do not hear much about a given foriegn country would not likely drive there on a random weekday because there is nothing there such people would want? If so I would claim that he does not control what he wants but rather it is determined by these experiences.

 

I agree that such people would not likely drive to a foreign country. But I think they can do so. "can" and "is willing to" are different. Consider ordinary exchanges like the following: "I can't do that." "You can't--or you won't?" We commonly recognize this distinction. The distinction implies that it's possible that a person can do something but is unwilling to do it.

 

Now, again, you might say, "Assuming determinism is true, whenever a person doesn't do something, they can't do it." Or "Assuming determinism, whenever a person is unwilling to do something, they can't do it." But that is begging the question, as discussed above.

 

To argue without begging the question, we must start from our ordinary ways of thinking and talking, prior to philosophical theorizing and prior to thinking about determinism. If you then want to reject the common sense distinction between ability and willingness, you'd have to give an independent reason for that.

 

(VI) "Can" and brain states

 

If somewhere in the brain a psychological inability to perform a task is realized physicaly then a psychological inability to perform a task WOULD BE a physical inability. - If you believe that everything that happens could only have happened that way given the state of the universe prior. So this is another reason for a determinist to reject a definition of can that excludes psychological inability.

 

Again, I think this is begging the question, for reasons discussed above.

[ughaibu]

Kriminal99: I've been through the article again and I can not find the sentence "the premises assume that the definition of can excludes psychological inability to perform tasks". If this sentence originates with you, I'm no better informed as to your objection than I was at the time of post 1.

There are various actions that a person can do, this is true even for determinists, and that a person can do an action requires that there are no constraints preventing them from so doing. Whether these constraints are physical or psychological has no bearing on the matter, there are 'can' actions and there are 'can not' actions.

Make a set C of all the actions (Aa, Ab, Ac. . . Ax) that a person can do, and a set O of all the actions (Aa, Ab, Ac. . . Ay) that a person ought to do, what is required by 'ought implies can' is that O is a subset of C. In your determinist world you can even let y equal x without invalidating 'ought implies can'.

[owl]

I want to add to my last message: In case this wasn't clear, I would not exclude psychological inability from the things that make it so one "can't" perform an action. I think a person might be unable to perform an action because they've been hypnotized, or they have a psychological disorder, or something of that sort. I just don't think that a person is rendered psychologically incapable of doing A merely by the fact that they don't want to do it.

[Kriminal99]

There are a few things to say about this.

 

What makes a good proof?

 

Well I was under the impression that if you write something with the title proof, it should have premises that your opponent would accept and result in a conclusion that would convince your opponent. Perhaps this does not actually occur very often, but it seems nevertheless the idea of a proof is to prove to someone that might otherwise disagree that something is true. Maybe the whole exercise helps each side to characterize their differences in beliefs.

 

If this is the case, then it does seem to me that a person can reject an argument based on contraversial premises as long as the title of the argument says "Proof" in it. However I agree that this does not preclude arguing for the premises, or for anything else that does not carry the label proof.

 

Determinist vs OIC

 

I can not speak for every determinist or every brand of determinism, but OIC is something that I and probably many other determinists would reject outright due to contradiction of fundamental determinist beliefs. It is not something where I had to look hard for an out after reading your argument. OIC is the complete opposite of what is so true and appealing about determinism. The idea that some self righteous fool who is probably more at fault for a problem than you are can tell you that you should have done something different. Or perhaps instead some joker is telling you that you should have acted according to his potentially backwards beleifs before you even knew what they were. Anyone who has ever been caught completely unaware that they were doing something "wrong" knows that OIC is completely false.

 

I feel at the very heart of determinism is the idea that it is 100% wrong for anyone to tell another person that they should have done something differently in the past... Not that a person cannot say what they think you should do in the future, but that is a different story.

 

And furthermore I feel like everyone knows this subconsiously - My argument for this is as follows: If someone tells you once calmly "You should have done X" then you are likely to accept it - I propose interpreted as a statement as to what you should do in the future. If someone tells you "YOU IGNORANT FOOL, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING WHY DIDNT YOU DO X GOD YOU ARE SO STUPID" or even just makes the first statement twice you will not accept it and instead you might even become angry. I propose the reason for this is because subconsiously everyone knows that it is fallacious to tell people what they should have done.

 

Plausibility is subjective

 

If you do not allow a determinist to say that "a person couldn't have done X because he could not have done it, didn't know that he should, or had no reason to" then you have simply assumed determinism is false.

 

Limiting can to physical ability is assuming free will. This is necessary to support "ought implies can". Therefore the argument or actually the "proof" indirectly assumes free will to prove free will.

 

Of equal importance is the idea that a person who believes in a premise cannot determine its plausability to third parties. To claim that people that reject your premise only do it because they are stubborn is speculation. I reject the premise because it is wrong.

 

I will say though that the ought implies can principle is very ambiguous because of it's dependence on how you define all involved terms. Therefore it would not be surprising if someone waited till you made your complete argument before starting to debate it.

 

Can and know how

 

I would think that you would say that, because knowing how to do something and knowing that you are supposed to do something are not seperable in the way that you attempt to seperate them. I believe this was established in the whole argument I sent to you by email regarding the student not knowing he should take the bus. I will rehash a similar argument here:

 

You say a professor would be crazy to expect a person with broken legs to try and come to school. It is important to recognize that neither the teacher nor the student in this case could know that it would be impossible for the student to find a way to get to school - rather it is believed that such effort would not be expected of a student in this scenario.

 

But where is the line between hardships he should overcome to get to class and hardships that should cause him to give up? This depends entirely on the arbitrary beliefs of the given professor.

 

Consider a student that has never had a professor that would expect a student to come to class if his car broke down. Maybe even most of his professors said at the beginning of class "If your car breaks down and you can't make it to class one day, just get notes from a classmate". To make the point clearer, there are no busses in his college town, only expensive taxis.

 

Then one day a professor tells him "You should have taken a taxi to class". The professor's statement is not so rediculous that we can just label it absurd. But on the other hand no student would pay for a taxi when they could just get the notes from a classmate AND this student had never heard of a professor that expected a student to take a taxi to class if his car broke down.

 

It should be clear here that the student would never have actually taken a taxi to class. He is just as unable to complete this task as the person who does not know a lock combo is unable to open the lock.

 

Can and willingness

 

Although people sometimes say they can't do something they are simply unwilling to do (Example: I can't give you my 5 dollars cause then I have no money for lunch) I think the distinction between can't and won't exists informally but not in the context we are talking about. Here is what I mean:

 

Suppose you told the student to drive to Mexico in the scenario I mentioned. Would he say "I can't drive to Mexico because I have no reason to even think about it"? He would not say that because it makes no sense - you just gave him a reason to consider driving to Mexico. Namely that you told him to. Instead he would probably ask "Why?" If you said that he should have driven to mexico yesterday, he would probalby look at you like you were nuts.

 

Language is functional... part of responding to someone is gauging their intentions and designing a response that addresses them. The student asking "Why?" is not an indication that he would be easily convinced to drive to mexico. Rather he is attempting to address the other person's concerns.

 

In fact even given determinism an inability to perform a task because you had no reason to would never be addressed outside of a discussion about free will or a discussion about who's fault something was. The reason is the instant it is talked about it has been brought to your attention for you to consider.

 

If a person doesn't want to do X, the person tells you why they don't want to do X rather than telling you that they cannot do it because they do not believe they should. This is because it is known that if a person wants you to do X and you do not want to do X they will either try to convince you or accept that your reason for not doing X is better than their reason for doing X. Your answer is designed to address their motives.

 

Returning to the above counterexample where a person says they cannot give 5 dollars since they would not have lunch money, the reason this statement might sound more sensible is because the person making the statement assumes that the person with which he/she is communicating would not expect them to give 5 dollars and subsequently go hungry at lunch time. Thus they are free to use "can't" instead of "won't" and still address their friend's motives.

 

Also to address the "is not likely to drive to mexico" part (as opposed to is incapable of driving to Mexico), it is important to recognize that my model is simplified because it is possible that a student might deterministically decide to drive to Mexico because he saw a movie when he was 3 that took place in Mexico and had a cute girl in it and his girlfriend just dumped him or something completely off the wall (<- ironic phrase indicating deterministic randomness) like that.

 

So in conclusion, yesterday the student couldn't have driven to Mexico because he had no reason to, whereas today or tommorow the student will not drive to Mexico because he has no reason to.

 

One must be VERY CAREFUL when trying to use informal language to make conclusions about things like determinism.

[ughaibu]

In the first section of post 41 you appear to be saying that 'ought' can not be applied to past events as they are no longer potential, thus they have neither 'can' nor 'can not' status, and that in such case, when "ought" is used, it applies to a future event. That's all very well, but as those future events are potential they do have either 'can' or 'can not' status. So, there is no contravention of 'ought implies can' and I still dont understand how this is meant to be an objection, further to which, this was already pointed out on the previous thread.

In the latter section of post 41, you seem to be discussing situations in which ought is inapplicable, and you appear to be claiming that unwillingness equals inability, this just isn't true, determinism or not. Instead of these lengthy posts based on analogies, could you try directly explaining how 'ought' functions without a 'can', as I find your present style impenetrable.

[Kriminal99]

In the first section of post 41 you appear to be saying that 'ought' can not be applied to past events as they are no longer potential, thus they have neither 'can' nor 'can not' status, and that in such case, when "ought" is used, it applies to a future event. That's all very well, but as those future events are potential they do have either 'can' or 'can not' status. So, there is no contravention of 'ought implies can' and I still dont understand how this is meant to be an objection, further to which, this was already pointed out on the previous thread.

In the latter section of post 41, you seem to be discussing situations in which ought is inapplicable, and you appear to be claiming that unwillingness equals inability, this just isn't true, determinism or not. Instead of these lengthy posts based on analogies, could you try directly explaining how 'ought' functions without a 'can', as I find your present style impenetrable.

 

Maybe because that post was directed at owl.

 

they are no longer potential? Huh? No what I am saying is that it is fallacious to assign truth values to statements such as someone should have done something that is practically used for persuasive purposes. It is fallacious for past events because the person did not have a reason to do what you think they should have done. In the present tense (Ex: uga should believe in determinism right now) it is fallacious because any EFFECTIVE statement as to WHY a person should do something must be made after the statement that they should do it. In the future tense it is fallacious in the sense that either you convince the person (in which case they should and do) or you do not convince them (in which case they should not and do not)- rather instead you should be giving a reason to the person in question to do what you think they should do.

 

To apply it directly to the "free will argument" it is saying that he should believe in determinism. He doesn't even understand determinism, so how could he possibly believe in it? Does this mean that Premise 1 is false because he should not believe in it? Or would you rather define "Should" to mean that he should be convinced to believe in determinism in which case premise 2 is false? (He should believe in determinism = Owl, consider these deterministic arguments or Lets convince Owl that determinism is true) It is up to you.

 

Unwillingness = inability when you define unwillingness such that if you do something grudgingly then you are actually willing to do it all things considered. I'm not even sure which part of my post you were talkign about with this.

[ughaibu]

Yes, I covered all that, as far as I can see. But, I'll wait till you edit your post.

And will you please define your idiosyncratic concept of determinism that nobody but you understands.

[Kriminal99]

Yes, I covered all that, as far as I can see. But, I'll wait till you edit your post.

And will you please define your idiosyncratic concept of determinism that nobody but you understands.

 

Riiigghhht... you covered what exactly? And determinism is already well defined if not well understood. Perhaps the best explanation to give someone like you is that if the entire state of the universe was X at a given point, and Y was the subsequent resulting state, then if put back to X, y would result again and again. The statement that if you were god (had all knowledge and infinite processing power) you could predict events applies to this. All deterministic ideas apply to it.

[ughaibu]

What do you mean "in the future tense it is fallacious in the sense that it should never be made"?

You ought to aclimatise to the social nature of this forum and stop editing your posts after replies have been posted. This is a valid use of "ought" applied to a future action.

[ughaibu]

About the processing power of god, I refer you again to the question of NP-completeness. You didn't deal with this and other points, already on the other thread.

[Kriminal99]

What do you mean "in the future tense it is fallacious in the sense that it should never be made"?

You ought to aclimatise to the social nature of this forum and stop editing your posts after replies have been posted. This is a valid use of "ought" applied to a future action.

 

Sorry I just edited that again for clarity - maybe you could tell what I mean now. To use this example, you say I ought to not edit posts after replies. It makes no sense to label that statement true or false objectively. If you convince me that you are correct, then I will stop doing it. If you do not convince me, I would not and should not stop doing it.

 

In this case, I reason that it is possible for people to reply immediately to obvious typos or careless mistakes with the purposeful passive aggressive intention of trying to make you look bad (not that you have done this) and therefore it is only right to edit posts after you make them. Issues like this also depend on a desire to determine "who is the winner" in a debate which is also counterproductive.

 

Processing power of GOD - UGA IT'S GOD. He may not exist but he is not worried about np completeness because he has infinite processing power. And btw I made perfectly clear that I think the paper on NP completeness was full of absurd claims. You never responded to that and yet keep bringing it up as is typically what you do...

 

When someone makes a hypothetical situation it is important to remember that it is just that - hypothetical. If a determinist says "If you had enough processing power and knew the state of everything" They mean IF. It may not be possible to actually do that, but IF you could their statement is correct. The situation was already impossible long before QM concerns. How on earth would someone know the state of everything at any given point of time? By the time he found out what position in space your daughter was in, the position of your wife was in would have changed.

[ughaibu]

On the question of application of truth tables to conditionals, I'll defer to the expert and await Owl's contribution. Should that be unforthcoming or should I disagree with the prevailing view, I'll address the matter.

[ughaibu]

You have yet again modified your post. This is an appalling breach of etiquette, you know that I'm online and that I'm replying to you.

[Kriminal99]

Why? Perhaps you should recognize that it takes me more than one draft to reply to posts... You can edit your posts after I do if they no longer apply, or else you can just rest assured that it is clear that you may have responded to something that has since been altered. I am not trying to decieve anyone or make you look bad. Also you should take into account that by the time I respond to you an additional response that I must respond to has been added. On other forums there are rules against "double posting" I never saw if anyone mentioned it is a no no here or not.