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Free Will, Materialism and Dualism

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Drawing from René Descartes' (1596-1650) in &q...
Drawing from René Descartes’ (1596-1650) in “meditations métaphysiques” explaining the function of the pineal gland. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

During the Modern era, philosophers such as Descartes and Locke developed the notions of material substance and immaterial substance. Material substance, or matter, was primarily defined as being extended and spatially located. Descartes, and other thinkers, also took the view that material substance could not think. Immaterial substance was taken to lack extension and to not possess a spatial location. Most importantly, immaterial substance was regarded as having thought as its defining attribute.  While these philosophers are long dead, the influence of their concepts lives on in philosophy and science.

In philosophy, people still draw the classic distinction between dualists and materialists. A dualist holds that a living person consists of a material body and an immaterial mind. The materialist denies the existence of the immaterial mind and accepts only matter. There are also phenomenonalists who contend that all that exists is mental. Materialism of this sort is popular both in contemporary philosophy and science. Dualism is still popular with the general population in that many people believe in a non-material soul that is distinct from the body.

Because of the history of dualism, free will is often linked to the immaterial mind. As such, it is no surprise that people who reject the immaterial mind engage in the following reasoning: an immaterial mind is necessary for free will. There is no immaterial mind. So, there is no free will.

Looked at positively, materialists tend to regard their materialism as entailing a lack of free will. Thomas Hobbes, a materialist from the Modern era, accepted determinism as part of his materialism. Taking the materialist path, the argument against free will is that if the mind is material, then there is no free will. The mind is material, so there is no free will.

Interestingly enough, those who accepted the immaterial mind tended to believe that only an immaterial substance could think—so they inferred the existence of such a mind on the grounds that they thought. Materialists most often accept the mind, but cast it in physical terms. That is, people do think and feel, they just do not do so via the mysterious quivering of immaterial ectoplasm. Some materialists go so far as to reject the mind—perhaps ending up in behaviorism or eliminative materialism.

Julien La Metrie was one rather forward looking materialist.  In 1747 he published his work Man the Machine. In this work he claims that philosophers should be like engineers who analyze the mind. Unlike many of the thinkers of his time, he seemed to understand the implications of mechanism, namely that it seemed to entail determinism and reductionism. A few centuries later, this sort of view is rather popular in the sciences and philosophy: since materialism is true and humans are biological mechanisms, there is no free will and the mind can be reduced (explained entirely in terms of) its physical operations (or functions).

One interesting mistake that seems to drive this view is the often uncritical assumption that materialism entails the impossibility of free will. As noted above, this rests on the notion that free will requires an immaterial mind. This is, perhaps, because such a mind is said to be exempt from the laws that run the material universe.

One part of the mistake is a failure to realize that being incorporeal is not a sufficient condition for free will. One of Hume’s many interesting insights was that if immaterial substance exists, then it would be like material substance. When discussing the possibility of immortality, he claims that nature uses substance like clay: shaping it into various forms, then reshaping the matter into new forms so that the same matter can successively make up the bodies of living creatures.  By analogy, an immaterial substance could successively make up the minds of living creatures—the substance would not be created or destroyed, it would merely change form. If his reasoning holds, it would seem that if material substance is not free, then immaterial substance would also not be free. Leibniz, who believed that reality was entirely mental (composed of monads) accepted a form of determinism. This determinism, though it has some problems, seems entirely consistent with his immaterialism (that everything is mental). This should hardly be surprising, since being immaterial does not entail that something has free will—the two are rather distinct attributes.

Another part of the mistake is the uncritical assumption that materialism entails a lack of freedom. Naturally, if matter is defined as being deterministic and lacking in freedom, then materialism would (by begging the question) entail a lack of freedom. Likewise, if matter is defined (as many thinkers did) as being incapable of thought, then it would follow (by begging the question) that no material being could think. Just as it should not be assumed that matter cannot think, it should also not be assumed that a material being must lack free will. Looked at another way, it should not be assumed that being incorporeal is a necessary condition for free will.

What, obviously enough, seems to have driven the error is the conflation of the incorporeal with freedom and the material with determinism (or lack of freedom). Behind this is, also obviously enough, the assumption that the incorporeal is exempt from the laws that impose harsh determinism on matter. But, if it is accepted that a purely material being can think (thus denying the assumption that only the immaterial can think) it would seem to be acceptable to consider that such a being could also be free (thus denying the assumption that only the immaterial can be free).

 

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Baristas Bare Breasts for Bucks

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A cup of Espresso and coffee beans.
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Sorry, couldn’t resist using that post title. I ran across a rather odd article that related how five “bikini baristas” were charged with prostitution.

While the ladies did not have sex in their espresso stand, they would allow customers to touch their butts and breasts for money. Under the local law, this counts as prostitution. While such behavior can be seen as clearly sexual, I’m not sure if I would consider it to be prostitution. Perhaps it would be useful to have some sort of spectrum of prostitution so as to classify actions based on the degree of activity involved. After all, it seems a bit unreasonable to consider what the ladies did to fall into the same category as actually having sex. Perhaps Bill Clinton could be brought in as an expert on what counts as sex and what does not and various degrees of prostitution could be properly defined. Naturally, Elliot Spitzer should be brought in as an expert on prostitution.

The ladies also ran something of an impromptu strip club and would charge customers extra to prepare their drinks in the nude. This apparently does not count as prostitution, but as lewd behavior.

What I find most interesting about this case is the following: “During a two-month investigation, detectives said they saw the women lick whipped cream off each other and pose naked for pictures at the Grab-n-Go Espresso stand on Broadway.” I’m willing to bet that the detectives competed with each other to get that particular stakeout assignment. One can only imagine why it took two months to investigate the case…

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Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

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:en:United States :en:Congressman :en:Marty Me...
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The Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy is an amazing bit of doublethink. One one hand, any homosexual who is honest about his/her orientation cannot serve in the US military. On the other hand, any homosexual who is discrete about his/her orientation and says nothing, can freely serve. So, the policy essentially says that it is okay for homosexuals to serve, provided no one says anything. That is, of course, rather weird.

A friend of mine recently presented his view of the matter. His approach was rather interesting and he looked at it in terms of practicality and human sexuality. He began by noting that the military does permit men and women to serve together, but still keeps the two sexes separate in many ways. Men and women do not share the same barracks areas and they do not shower together. The reasons for this separation is rather obvious: social norms about the mixing of the sexes and also the problems that would arise if young men were showering with and bunking with young women. In other words, it is a sex thing.

Homosexuals thus short circuit the system. Since a homosexual is attracted to his/her own sex, s/he will be bunked with and shower with the sex /she prefers. Allowing this would, of course, be on par with allowing straight men and women to shower and bunk together. As my friend contended, until human beings are able to deal with their sexuality, this will always be a problem. If men and women (well, mostly men) had an adequate handle on their sexuality, then men and women could freely mix. This would also permit homosexuals to be mixed in as well-after all, if men and women can be naked in the showers with each other with no problem, then homosexuals would be fine as well.

Sex is, of course, the problem. As noted above, the military handles the sex thing between men and women by keeping the two sexes separated in various ways. Thus suggests one rather awkward and jury rigged approach to the problem: gay soldiers could be separated out from the straight soldiers in the same sort of way. For example, there would be straight male showers and barracks, straight female showers and barracks, gay male showers and barracks, and gay female barracks and showers.  Of course, there are many problems with this approach. One obvious problem is that while the men who like women will be separated from the women who like men and the men who like men will be with the men (likewise for the women who like women). Naturally, putting the gay women with the straight men and the gay men with the straight women would not work well.

My own view is this. Since the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy went into effect, we know that a significant number of homosexuals have served in the military-mainly because some of them did tell. The main concern that people have expressed about allowing gays in the military is that doing so will create all sorts of dire problems. However, these problems do not seem to have ever manifested themselves. As such, homosexuals do not seem to be any more problematic than heterosexuals (and there have been plenty of problems between heterosexual males and females in the military). Thus, there seems to be little compelling reason to keep up the weird policy of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

Of course, some people would argue that if gay soldiers told, then this would cause all sorts of dire problems. Many of these arguments are, of course, virtually identical to the arguments given against racially integrating the armed forces. Integration worked out well and there seems to be no reason why allowing gays to serve openly would be beyond the ability of the military to handle. After all, our soldiers are professionals and citizens of a democracy that endorses equal rights for all.

For the cautious, we could always have some gays agree to come out and serve openly. Then we could watch for any dire consequences. If these do not arise, then more people can gradually come out of the closet. If that continues to be fine, then the process can be stepped up. Folks who are against gays being in the military should be fine with this approach. After all, this would give them the chance to have solid empirical evidence for their views. The only reason to be against such a test would be the fear that their views are actually unfounded and are mere prejudice-rather than being legitimate concerns about how gays would harm the military.

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Craigslist Red Light District Going Dark (Maybe)

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Craigslist has yielded to pressure from a multistate attorney general task force and is supposed to be cleaning up its “red light district.” This part of Craigslist was previously titled “erotic services” and was well known as a place where sexual services could be purchased. Naturally, those posting services had to be somewhat circumspect and generally used abbreviations (“bj” for “blow job”, for example) and some other “commodity” in place of money (“skittles” instead of dollars, for example). So, a prostitute might list that she will provide a bj for 50 skittles. Of course, this did not really fool anyone-it merely allowed people to willingly turn a blind eye towards what was really going on. The same sort of thing is done when people advertise many “escort” and “massage” services.

So, how is Craigslist going to clean up what might be called the best little whorehouse on the internet? Step one of the plan is to replace “erotic services” with the “adult services.” Of course, “adult” seems almost worse than “erotic.” After all, the euphemism for a pornographic movie is “adult film“-which can be bought in an adult bookstore. Obviously, changing the name does not really change the reality. So, on to the more robust steps.

Advertisements posted in the “adult services” section must be from legal adult service providers. Naturally, these never have any connection to selling sexual services, so everything will be fine. Of course, this does help cover Craiglists’ butt legally.  Most importantly, each ad is also supposed to undergo a manual review, presumably making sure that no one is trading “bjs” for “skittles.” Each ad will also cost $10, thus detering whores and gigolos who can’t scrape together ten skittles.

While it could be argued that the folks at craigslist are not responsible for what the people who post ads really offer (like sex for money), they certainly seem to have an obligation to keep their listings clear of services that are clearly illegal. After all, knowingly helping to enable criminal activity certainly seems something that would also be illegal. Since many of the ads in Craigslist were rather blatant, they cannot use the defense of plausible ignorance of what was being offered.

There is also the moral issue, which is distinct from the legal issue. On one hand, prostitution is often regarded as immoral. Some argue this point on religious grounds or because they have a general opposition to sex. Other people argue that it is immoral because it is oppressive, harmful and degrading. Assuming that prostitution is immoral, then it would be wrong of the folks at Craigslist to knowingly assist people in such immoral activities. While they might not know the content of specific ads, they certainly do know the sort of stuff that was posted. As such, they would be tainted a bit with the immorality of these activities.

On the other hand, a free market ethics would endorse people selling whatever it is they wish to sell to customers who wish to purchase it. So, if we let the market decide, then prostitution would be acceptable.  Of course, such unlimited free market approaches would be a path towards madness and evil, so we would probably want to limit it a bit. For example, perhaps prostitution would be acceptable if the prostitutes are not coerced and are renting out their bodies of their own free will. In any case, the free market seems to have a significant demand for sexual services.

One last question is a practical one: will the changes work? Assuming that the folks at Craigslist do what they say they will do, then the answer would be “yes, mostly.” The manual screenings will catch any obvious attempts to sell sex illegally and probably many that are not so obvious. Of course, it would be unreasonable to expect Craigslist’s system to work perfectly. It is also unreasonable to think that this will have a significant, lasting impact on prostitution. While Craigslist did make it easier, I am confident that prostitutes and customers will find other ways to hook up. In fact, I would not be surprised if some clever person came up with a new listing service (“skittleslist” perhaps?) to provide a new place to hang that red light.

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