Category: Metaphysics

As science and philosophy explained the natural world in the Modern Era, the philosophical idea of strict determinism was embraced by thinkers like Thomas Hobbes. Strict determinism, as often presented, includes both metaphysical and epistemic aspects. In the context of metaphysics, it is the view that each event follows from previous events by necessity. In negative terms, it is a denial of both chance and free will. A variant of this is predestination, which is the notion that all events are planned and set by a supernatural agency (typically God).  The epistemic aspect is grounded in metaphysics: if each event follows from other events by necessity, if someone knew all the relevant facts about the state of a system at a time and had enough intellectual capacity (or processing power), they could correctly predict the future of that system. Philosophers and scientists who are metaphysical determinists typically claim that the world seems undetermined to us because of our epistemic failings. In short, we believe in choice or chance because we are unable to always predict what will occur. But, for the determinist, this is a matter of ignorance and not metaphysics. For those who believe in choice or chance, our inability to predict is taken as the result of a universe in which choice or chance is real. That is, we cannot always predict because the metaphysical nature of the universe makes (at least some of) it unpredictable. Because of choice or chance, what follows from one event is not (always) a matter of necessity.

An obvious problem for choosing between determinism and its alternatives is given our limited epistemic abilities, a deterministic universe seems the same to us as a non-deterministic universe. If the universe is deterministic, our limited epistemic abilities mean that we often make predictions that turn out to be wrong (and we are determined to do so). If the universe is not deterministic, our limited epistemic abilities and the non-deterministic nature of the universe mean that we often make errors in our predictions. As such, the fact that we make errors is consistent with both deterministic and non-deterministic universes.

It can be argued that as we get better at predicting we will have an improved understanding of the nature of the universe. However, until we reach omniscience, we will not know whether our errors are purely epistemic (events are unpredictable because we are not perfect predictors) or are the result of metaphysics (events are unpredictable because of choice or chance).

Interestingly, one feature of reality that often leads thinkers to reject strict determinism is chaos. For example, consider the motion of the planets in our solar system.  In the past, the motion of the planets was presented as a sign of the order of the universe—a clockwork solar system in God’s clockwork universe. While the planets might seem to move like clockwork, Newton realized the gravity of the planets affected each other but also realized that calculating the interactions was beyond his ability.  In the face of problems in his physics, Newton used God to fill in the gaps. With the development of computers, scientists modeled planetary motion and the generally accepted view is that they are not part of deterministic divine clock. To be less poetical, the view is that chaos seems to be a factor. For example, some scientists believe that the gas giant Jupiter’s gravity might change Mercury’s gravity enough that it collides with Venus or Earth. This suggests the solar system is not an orderly clockwork machine of perfect order. Because of this sort of thing (which occurs at all levels in the world) some thinkers take the universe to include chaos and infer from the lack of perfect order that strict determinism is false. While this is certainly tempting, the inference is not as solid as some might think.

It is, of course, reasonable to infer that the universe lacks a strict and eternal order from such things as the chaotic behavior of the planets. However, strict determinism is not the same thing as strict order. Strict order is a metaphysical notion that a system will work in the same way, without any variation or change, for as long as it exists. The idea of an eternally ordered clockwork universe is an excellent example of this sort of system: it works like a perfect clock, each part relentlessly following its path without deviation. While a deterministic system would certainly be consistent with such an orderly system, determinism is not the same thing as strict order. After all, to accept determinism is to accept that each event follows by necessity from previous events. This is consistent with a system that deterministically changes over time and changes in ways that seem chaotic.

Returning to the example of the solar system, suppose that Jupiter’s gravity will cause Mercury’s orbit to change enough so that it hits the earth. This is consistent with that event being necessarily determined by past events such that things could not have been different. To use an analogy, it is like a clockwork machine built with a defect that will inevitably break the machine. Things cannot be otherwise, yet to those ignorant of the defect, the machine will seem to fall into chaos. However, if one knew the defect and had the capacity to process the data, then this breakdown would be predictable. To use another analogy, it is like scripted performance of madness by an actor: it might seem chaotic, but the script determines it. That is, it merely seems chaotic because of our ignorance. As such, the appearance of chaos does not disprove strict determinism because determinism is not the same thing as unchanging.

 

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My experiences as a gamer have taught me lessons applicable to the real world (assuming it exists). One key skill for dealing with reality is the ability to model it. Roughly put, this is the ability to grasp how things work and make reasonably accurate predictions. This ability is useful: grasping how things work is a big step on the road to success.

Many games, such as Call of Cthulhu, D&D, Pathfinder and Star Fleet Battles use dice to model the vagaries of reality. For example, if your Call of Cthulhu character is trying to avoid being spotted by the cultists of Hastur as she spies on them, you would need to roll under your Sneak skill on percentile dice. As another example, if your D-7 battle cruiser were firing phasers and disruptors at a Kzinti strike cruiser, you would roll dice and consult various charts to see what happened in a game of Star Fleet Battles. Video games also include the digital equivalent of dice. For example, if you are playing World of Warcraft, the damage done by a spell or a weapon will be random(ish).

Being a gamer, it is natural for me to look at reality as also being random—after all, if a random model (gaming system) fits aspects of reality, that suggests the model has some things right. As such, I tend to think of this as being a random universe in which God (or whatever) plays dice with us.

Naturally, I do not know if the universe is random (contains elements of chance). After all, we tend to attribute chance to the unpredictable, but this unpredictability might be a matter of ignorance rather than chance. The fact that we do not know what will happen does not entail that it is a matter of chance.

People also seem to believe in chance because they think things could have been differently: the roll might have been a 1 rather than a 20 or Sam might have won the lottery. However, even if things could have been different it does not follow that chance is real. After all, chance is not the only thing that could make a difference. Also, there is the question of proving that things could have been different.  This would seem to be impossible: while it might be believed that conditions could be recreated perfectly, one factor that can never be duplicated is time. Recreating an event will always be a recreation. If the die comes up 20 on the first roll and 1 on the second, this does not show that it could have been a 1 the first time. It shiows that it was 20 the first time and 1 the second.

If someone had a TARDIS and could pop back in time to witness the roll again and if the time traveler saw a different outcome this time, then this might be evidence of chance. Or evidence that the time traveler changed the event.

Even traveling to a possible or parallel world would not be of help. If our TARDIS malfunctions and pops us into a world like our own right before the parallel me rolled the die and we see it come up 1 rather than 20, this just shows that he rolled a 1. It tells us nothing about whether my roll of 20 could have been a 1.

Of course, the other side of the coin is that I can never know that the world is non-random: aside from some sort of special knowledge about the working of the universe, a random universe and a non-random universe would seem the same. Whether my die roll is random or not, all I get is the result—I do not perceive either chance or determinism. However, I go with a random universe because, to be honest, I am a gamer who is hooked on dice.

If the universe is deterministic, then I am determined to do what I do. If the universe is random, then chance is a factor. However, a purely random universe would not permit actual decision-making: it would be determined by chance. In games, there is apparently the added element of choice—I chose for my character to try to attack the dragon and then roll dice to determine the result. As such, I also add choice to my random universe. I admit I have no idea what choice might be or how it works.

Obviously, there is no way to prove that choice occurs—as with chance versus determinism, without knowing the brute fact about choice there is no way to know whether the universe allows for choice. I go with a choice universe for the following reason: If there is no choice, then I go with choice because I have no choice. So, I am determined (or chanced) to be wrong. I could not choose otherwise. If there is choice, then I am right. So, choosing choice seems the best choice. So, I believe in a random universe with choice—mainly because of gaming. So, what about the lessons from this?

One important lesson is that decisions are made in uncertainty: because of chance, the results of any choice cannot be known with certainty. In a game, I do not know if the sword strike will finish the dragon. In life, I do not know if an investment will pay off. In general, this uncertainty can be reduced, and this shows the importance of knowing odds and consequences: such knowledge is critical to making good decisions in a game and in life. So, know as much as you can for a better tomorrow.

Another important lesson is that things can always go wrong. Or well. In a game, there might be a 1 in 100 chance that a character will be spotted by cultists. But it could happen. In life, there might be a 1 in a 1,000 chance of a doctor taking precautions catching Ebola from a patient. But it could happen. Because of this, the possibility of failure must always be considered, and it is wise to take steps to minimize the chances of failure and the consequences.

Keeping in mind the role of chance also helps a person be more understanding, sympathetic and forgiving. After all, if things can fail or go wrong because of chance, then it makes sense to be more forgiving and understanding of failure—at least when the failure can be attributed in part to chance. It also helps when it comes to praising success: knowing that chance plays a role in success is also important. For example, people often assume that the success of those they like is deserved because it must be the result of hard work, virtue and so on. However, if chance plays a significant role in success, then that should be considered when praising people, condemning them, and making decisions. Naturally, the role of chance in success and failure should be considered when planning and creating policies. Unfortunately, people often take the view that both success and failure are mainly a matter of choice—for example, that the rich must deserve their riches, and the poor must deserve their poverty. However, an understanding of chance would help our understanding of success and failure and would, hopefully, influence the decisions we make.  There is an old saying “there, but for the grace of God, go I.” One could also say “there, but for the luck of the die, go I.”

 

 

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When I was a young kid I played games like Monopoly, Chutes & ladders and Candy Land. When I was an older kid, I was introduced to Dungeons & Dragons and this was a gateway game to complex games like Call of Cthulhu, Battletech, Star Fleet Battles, Gamma World, and video games of all sorts. I am still a gamer—a bags of many-sided dice and exotic gaming mice dwell within my house.

Over the years, I have learned many lessons from gaming. One of these is to keep rolling. This is, not surprisingly, like the classic advice of “keep trying” and the idea is basically the same. However, there is some philosophy behind “keep rolling.”

Most of the games I have played feature actual or virtual dice (that is, randomness) used to determine how things go in the game. As a simple example, the dice rolls in Monopoly determine how far your piece moves. In more complicated games like Pathfinder or Destiny the dice (or random number generators) govern such things as attacks, damage, saving throws, loot, non-player character reactions and, in short, much of what happens in the game. For most of these games, the core mechanics are built around what is supposed to be a random system. For example, in games like D&D when your character attacks the dragon with her great sword, a roll of a 20-sided die determines whether you hit or not. If you do hit, then you roll more dice to determine your damage.

Having played these sorts of games for years, I can think very well in terms of chance and randomness when planning tactics and strategies within such games. On the one hand, a lucky roll can result in victory in the face of overwhelming odds. On the other hand, a bad roll can seize defeat from the jaws of victory. But, in general, success is more likely if one does not give up and keeps on rolling.

This lesson translates  easily and obviously to life. There are, of course, many models and theories of how the real world works. Some theories present the world as deterministic—all that happens occurs as it must and things cannot be otherwise. Others present a pre-determined world (or pre-destined): all that happens occurs as it has been ordained and cannot be otherwise. Still other models present a random universe.

As a gamer, I favor the random universe model: God does play dice and He often rolls them hard. The reason I believe this is that the dice/random model of gaming seems to work when applied to the actual world—as such, my belief is mostly pragmatic. Since games are supposed to model parts of reality, it is hardly surprising that there is a match up. Based on my own experience, the world does seem to work rather like a game: success and failure seem to involve an abundance of chance.

As a philosopher, I recognize this could be a matter of epistemology: the apparent chance could be the result of our ignorance rather than randomness. To use the obvious analogy, the game master might not be rolling dice behind her screen at all and what happens might be determined or pre-determined. Unlike in a game, the rule system for reality is not readily accessible: it is guessed at by what we observe and we learn the game of life by playing.

That said, the dice model seems to fit experience best: I try to do something and succeed or fail with a degree of apparent randomness. Because I believe that randomness is a factor, I consider that my failure to reach a goal could be partially due to chance. So, if I want to achieve that goal, I roll again. And again. Until I succeed or decide that the game is not worth the roll. Not being a fool, I do consider that success might be impossible—but I do not infer that from one or even a few bad rolls. This approach to life has served me well and will no doubt do so until it finally kills me.

 

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One of the many annoying decision theory puzzles is Newcomb’s Paradox. The paradox was created by William Newcomb of the University of California’s Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. The dread philosopher Robert Nozick published a paper on it in 1969, and it was popularized in Martin Gardner’s 1972 Scientific American column.

The paradox involves a game controlled by the Predictor, a being that is supposed to be a master of predictions. Like many entities with one ominous name, the Predictor’s capabilities vary with each telling of their tale. The power ranged from having an exceptional chance of success to being infallible. The basis of the power also varies. In science-fiction variants, it can be a psychic, a super alien, or a brain scanning machine. In the fantasy versions, the Predictor is a supernatural entity, such as a deity. In Nozick’s telling of the tale, the predictions are “almost certainly” correct, and he stipulates that “what you actually decide to do is not part of the explanation of why he made the prediction he made”.

Once the player confronts the Predictor, the game is played as follows. The Predictor points to two boxes. Box A is clear and contains $1,000.  Box B is opaque. The player has two options: just take box B or take both boxes. The Predictor then explains to the player the rules of its game: the Predictor has already predicted what the player will do. If the Predictor has predicted that the player will take just B, B will contain $1,000,000. This should probably be adjusted for inflation from the original paper. If the Predictor has predicted that the player will take both boxes, box B will be empty, so the player only gets $1,000. In Nozick’s version, if the player chooses randomly, then box B will be empty. The Predictor does not inform the player of its prediction, but box B is either empty or filled with cash before the player picks. The game begins and ends when the player makers her choice.

There is a standard chart  that shows the possible results. This paradox is seen as a paradox because the two standard solutions conflict. The first standard solution is that the best choice is to take both boxes. If the Predicator has predicted the player will take both boxes, the player gets $1,000. If the Predicator has predicted (wrongly) that the player will take B, she gets $1,001,000. If the player takes just B, then she risks getting $0 (if the Predicator predicted wrong).

The second standard solution is that the best choice is to take B. Given the assumption that the Predicator is either infallible or almost certainly right, then if the player decides to take both boxes, she will get $1,000.  If the player elects to take just B, then she will get $1,000,000. Since $1,000,000 is more than $1,000, the rational choice is to take B.

Gamers of the sort who play Pathfinder, D&D and other such role-playing games know how to properly solve this paradox. The Predictor has at least $1,001,000 on hand (probably more, since it will apparently play the game with anyone) and is worth experience points (everything is worth XP). The description just specifies its predictive abilities for the game and no combat abilities are mentioned. So, the solution is to beat down the Predictor, loot it and divide up the money and experience points. It is kind of a jerk when it comes to this game, so there is not much of a moral concern here.

It might be claimed that the Predictor could not be defeated because of its predictive powers. However, knowing what someone is going to do and being able to do something about it are two different things. This is illustrated by the film Billy Jack:

 

[Billy Jack is surrounded by Posner’s thugs]

Mr. Posner: You really think those Green Beret Karate tricks are gonna help you against all these boys?

Billy Jack: Well, it doesn’t look to me like I really have any choice now, does it?

Mr. Posner: [laughing] That’s right, you don’t.

Billy Jack: You know what I think I’m gonna do then? Just for the hell of it?

Mr. Posner: Tell me.

Billy Jack: I’m gonna take this right foot, and I’m gonna whop you on that side of your face…

[points to Posner’s right cheek]

Billy Jack: …and you wanna know something? There’s not a damn thing you’re gonna be able to do about it.

Mr. Posner: Really?

Billy Jack: Really.

[kicks Posner’s right cheek, sending him to the ground]

 

So, unless the Predictor also has exceptional combat abilities, the rational solution is the classic “shoot and loot” or “stab and grab.” Problem solved.

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One classic philosophical dispute is the battle over innate ideas. An innate idea, as the name suggests, is not acquired by experience but is somehow “built into” the mind. Philosophers who accept innate ideas differ about their nature and content.  Leibniz, for example, sees God as the creator innate ideas that exist within the monads. Other thinkers forgo metaphysics, such as those who think humans have an innate concept of beauty that is the product of evolution.

Over the centuries, philosophers have argued for and against innate ideas. For example, some take Plato’s Meno as an early argument for innate ideas. In the Meno, Socrates claims to show that Meno’s servant knows geometry, despite the (alleged) fact that he never learned geometry in this life. Other philosophers have argued that there must be innate ideas for the mind to “process” information coming in from the senses. To use a modern analogy, just as a smart phone needs software to enable the camera to function, the brain needs innate ideas in to process the sensory data coming in via the optic nerve.

Other philosophers, such as John Locke, have reject innate ideas in general. Others have been critical of specific forms of innate ideas—the idea that God is the cause of innate ideas is, as might be suspected, not very popular among those who attribute them to evolution.

Interestingly, there is some contemporary evidence for innate ideas. In his August 2014 Scientific American article “Accidental Genius”, Darold A. Treffert presents something akin to a 21st century version of the Meno. Investigating the matter of “accidental geniuses” (people who become savants as the result of an accident, such as a brain injury), researchers claimed they could create “instant savants” by the use using brain stimulation. These instant savants were able to solve a mathematical puzzle they could not solve without the stimulation. Treffert asserted that this ability to solve the puzzle was since they “’know things’ innately they were never taught.” To provide additional support, Treffert gave the example of a savant sculptor, Clemons, who “had no formal training in art but knew instinctively how to produce an armature, the frame for the sculpture, to enable his pieces to show horse in motion.” Treffert goes on to explicitly reject the “blank slate” notion (which was made famous by John Locke) in favor of the notion that the “brain might come loaded with a set of innate predispositions for processing what it sees or for understanding the ‘rules’ of music art or mathematics.” While this explanation is certainly appealing, it is well worth considering alternative explanations.

One established objection to this sort of argument is the like that used against past life experiences. When someone claims to have had a past life based on knowing things they would not normally know, the obvious reply is they learned through perfectly mundane means. In the case of alleged innate ideas, one reply is that the person gained the knowledge through experience. This is not to claim that such claims are intentional deceptions. They might not recall the experience that provided the knowledge. For example, the instant savants who solved the puzzle probably had previous puzzle experience and the sculptor might have seen armatures.

Another objection is that an idea might appear innate but instead is a new idea that did not originate directly from a specific experience. For example, consider a person who developed a genius for sculpture after a head injury. The person might have an innate idea that allowed them to produce the armature. An alternative explanation is that they faced a problem and solved it without any appeal to innate knowledge. The solution turned out to be an armature, because that is solved the problem. To use an analogy, someone faced with the problem of driving a nail might re-invent the hammer, but this does not entail that the idea of a hammer is innate. Rather, a hammer is what would work and it is what a person would tend to make.

As has always been the case in the debate over innate ideas, the key question is whether the phenomena in question can be explained best by innate ideas or without them. As a Cartesian, I am fond of innate ideas but always consider alternative explanations.

 

 

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Years ago, one-time `presidential candidate Mitt Romney was criticized for saying corporations are people. The guy who beat him, Obama, called corporation that used inversion unpatriotic. One might argue that criticizing corporations for being unpatriotic is to accept that they are people.

In the United States, corporations are legally persons—and the Supreme Court is devoted to granting them all the advantageous and convenient rights of actual people. The court, because it is not constrained by logic, ignores that it is illegal to own persons in the United States. I have argued elsewhere that corporations are not people and should not have that legal status—so I will not repeat those arguments here. However, I will address the issue of whether a corporation can be called unpatriotic without being committed corporate personhood.

On the side of corporate personhood, it could be argued that being unpatriotic (or patriotic) requires the intentional and emotional mental states that only a person could possess. As such, if a corporation is unpatriotic, then it is a person.

This sort of language argument has been used by philosophers such as Socrates and John Locke. In arguing for universals, Socrates (or Plato) would proceed from how one talks to accept an ontological commitment. In discussing personal identity, Locke took the fact that people use expressions such as a person not being themselves as evidence that someone in a normal state of mind can be a different person from someone in an abnormal state: “human laws not punishing the mad man for the sober man’s actions, nor the sober man for what the mad man did, thereby making them two persons: which is somewhat explained by our way of speaking in English, when we say such an one is not himself, or is beside himself; in which phrases it is insinuated, as if those who now, or at least first used them, thought that self was changed, the selfsame person was no longer in that man….”

One counter is that when someone refers to a corporation as being unpatriotic (or patriotic), they need not commit to the corporation itself being a person. Rather, the person can be taken as using a shorthand expression in place of asserting that the people who decide to implement corporate policy and make it happen are acting in what is seen as an unpatriotic way. To use an analogy, if someone claims a sports team is enthusiastic, the she is not committed to the team being a person—an entity over and above the players, coaches, etc. Rather, she is just using conversational shorthand to refer to the members of the team.  If such conversational shorthand expressed a commitment to personhood, then people would be routinely expressing commitments to a vast number of entities—thus dramatically swelling the ontology of persons. This seems both odd and unnecessary. Given the injunction of Occam’s razor, due care should be used when moving from how people speak to an ontological commitment. In the case of corporations and other groups, it would seem to suffice to attribute the mental states to the people that make them up rather than adding another entity to the matter. As such, the appeal to language argument for corporate personhood fails.

Thus, someone can claim that a corporation is unpatriotic (or patriotic) without being committed to corporate personhood. Just like a person can talk about team spirit without being committed to team personhood.

 

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It waits somewhen in the dark infinity of time. Perhaps the past. Perhaps the future. Perhaps now. The worst thing.

Whenever something bad happens to me, such as that full quadriceps tendon tear, people helpfully remark “it could have been worse.” After that tendon tear, I wrote an essay on the worst thing focused on possibility and necessity. This is the issue of whether it could be worse. While the tendon tear was the worst thing to happen to me (as of this writing), bad things do happen and people tell me things could have been worse. Logically, there can only be one worst thing or, perhaps, there could be a tie for worst. What would be the worst thing? That which nothing worse can be conceived.

I am confident there must be such a thing (or things). Just as there must be a tallest building, there must be the worst thing. But, of course, this would not be much of an essay if I did not argue for my claim.

Conveniently, arguing for the worst thing is like arguing for the existence of a perfect thing. This is usually God. Thomas Aquinas used his Five Ways to argue for the existence of God and most of these arguments rely on a combination of an infinite regress and a reduction to absurdity. For example, Aquinas argued from the fact that things move to the need for an unmoved mover on the grounds that an infinite regress would arise if everything had to be moved by something else. A regress argument with a reduction to absurdity will serve quite nicely in arguing for the worst thing.

Take any thing. To avoid the usual boring philosophical approach of calling this thing X, I’ll call this thing Don. If Don is the worst thing, then the worst thing exists. If Don is not the worst thing, then there must be another thing that is worse than Don. That thing, which I will call J.D., is either the worst thing or not. If J.D.  is the worst thing, then the worst thing exists and is J.D. If it is not J.D, there must be something worse than J.D. This cannot go on to infinity so there must be a thing that is worse than all other things—the worst thing. I’ll call it Elon.

The obvious counter is to throw down the infinity gauntlet: if there is an infinite number of things, there will not be a worst thing. After all, for any thing, there will be an infinite number of other things. As Leibniz claimed, the infinite number cannot be said to be even or odd, therefore in an infinite universe a thing could not be said to be worst.

One might be inclined to reject the infinity gauntlet—after all, even if there were an infinite number of things, each thing would stand in a relation to all other things and there would thus still be a worst thing.

Another obvious counter is to assert that there could be two or more things that are equally bad—that is, identical in their badness. This would be the tie situation mentioned earlier. In the case of a tie, there would not be a single worst thing.  A counter to this is to steal from Leibniz again and argue that there could not be two identical things—they would need to differ in some way that would make one worse than the other. This could be countered by asserting that the two might be different, yet equally bad. In this case, the response would be to follow the model used in arguing for the best thing (God) and assert that the worst thing would be worst in every possible respect and hence anything equally as bad would be identical and thus there would be one worst thing, not two. I suppose that this would have some consolation value—it would certainly be a scarier universe that had multiple worst things rather than just one.

Of course, this just shows that there is something that is worse than all other things that happen to be—which leaves open the possibility that it is not the worst thing in another sense of the term. So now I will Oversimplified, the ontological argument begins with the claim that God is that which nothing greater can be conceived. If God only existed as an idea in the mind, a greater can be conceived, namely God existing for real. Thus, God must exist.

In the case of the worst thing, it would be that which nothing worse can be conceived. If it only existed as an idea in the mind, a worse thing can be conceived, namely the worst thing existing for real, perhaps in your basement or the White House. Thus, the worst thing must exist.

Another variant on the ontological argument can also be used here. One variation is that since God is perfect, He must exist. This is because if He did not exist, He would not be perfect. But He is, so He must. In the case of the worst thing, the worst thing must exist because it is the worst. This is because if it did not exist, it would not be the worst. But it is, so it does. This worst thing would be the truly worst thing (just as God is supposed to be the best thing).

This approach does, of course, inherit the usual difficulties of an ontological argument as pointed out by Gaunilo and Kant (that existence is not a quality). It would certainly be better for the universe if there is no worst thing, but that is just wishful thinking.

 

 

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Years ago, Azim Shariff and Kathleen Vohs had their article, “What Happens to a Society That Does Not Believe in Free Will”, published in Scientific American. This article considers the causal impact of disbelief in free will with a specific focus on law and ethics.

Philosophers have long addressed the general problem of free will as well as the specific connection between free will and ethics. Not surprisingly, studies conducted to determine the impact of disbelief in free will have the results that philosophers have long predicted.

One impact is that when people have doubts about free will they tend to have less support for retributive punishment. Retributive punishment, as the name indicates, is punishment aimed at making a person suffer for their misdeeds. Doubt in free will did not negatively impact a person’s support for punishment aimed at deterrence or rehabilitation.

While the authors did consider a reason for this, namely that those who doubt free will would regard wrongdoers as like harmful natural phenomenon that need to be dealt with rather than subject to vengeance, this view also matches a common view about moral accountability. To be specific, moral accountability is generally held to be proportional to the control a person has over events. To illustrate, consider the difference between these two cases. In the first case, Sally is speeding, texting, and sipping her latte. She doesn’t see the crossing guard frantically waving his sign and runs over the children in the crosswalk. In case two, Jane is driving the speed limit and children suddenly run directly in front of her car. She brakes and swerves immediately, but she hits a child. Intuitively, Sally acted in a way that was morally wrong—she should have been going the speed limit, and she should have been paying attention. Jane, though she hit the children, did not act wrongly, she could not have avoided the children and hence is not morally responsible.

For those who doubt free will, every case is like Jane’s: for the determinist, every action is determined and a person could not have chosen to do other than they did. On this view, while Jane’s accident seems unavoidable, so was Sally’s: Sally could not have done other than she did. As such, Sally is no more morally accountable than Jane. For someone who believes this, inflicting retributive punishment on Sally would be no more reasonable than seeking vengeance against Jane.

 However, it would seem to make sense to punish Sally to deter others and to rehabilitate Sally so she will drive the speed limit and pay attention in the future. Of course, if there is no free will, then we would not chose to punish Sally, she would not chose to behave better and people would not decide to learn from her lesson. Events would happen as determined—she would be punished or not. She would do it again or not. Other people would do the same thing or not. Naturally enough, to speak of what we should decide to do in regard to punishments would seem to assume that we can chose—that is, that we have some degree of free will.

A second impact that Shariff and Vohs noted was that a person who doubts free will tends to behave worse than a person who does not have such a skeptical view. One area where behavior worsens is that such skepticism seems to incline people to be more willing to harm others. Another area is that such skepticism also inclines others to lie or cheat. In general, the impact seems to be that such skepticism reduces a person’s willingness (or capacity) to resist impulsive reactions in favor of greater restraint and better behavior.

Once again, this makes sense. Going back to the examples of Sally and Jane, Sally (unless she is a moral monster) would feel remorse and guilt for hurting the children. Jane, though she would surely feel bad, should not feel moral guilt. This would certainly be reasonable: a person who hurts others should feel guilty if she could have done otherwise but should not feel moral guilt if she could not have done otherwise (although she certainly should feel sympathy). If someone doubts free will, then she will see her own actions as being out of her control: she is not choosing to lie, or cheat or hurt others—these events are just happening. People might be hurt, but this is like a tree falling on them, it just happens. Interestingly, these studies show that people are consistent in applying the implications of their skepticism to moral (and legal) accountability.

One important point is to consider what view we should have regarding free will. I take a practical view of this matter and believe in free will. As I see it, if I am right, then I am…right. If I am wrong, then I could not believe otherwise. So, choosing to believe I can choose is the rational choice: I am right or I am not at fault for being wrong.

I agree with Kant that we cannot prove that we have free will. He believed that the best science of his day was deterministic and that the matter of free will was beyond our epistemic abilities. While science has marched on since Kant, free will is still unprovable. After all, deterministic, random and free-will universes would all seem the same to the people in them. Crudely put, there are no observations that would establish or disprove metaphysical free will. There are, of course, observations that can indicate that we are not free in certain respects—but completely disproving (or proving) free will is beyond our abilities—as Kant contended.

Kant had a practical solution: he argued that although free will cannot be proven, it is necessary for ethics. So, if we want to have ethics (which we do), then we need to accept the existence of free will on moral grounds. The experiments described by Shariff and Vohs seem to support Kant: when people doubt free will, this has an impact on their ethics.

One aspect of this can be seen as positive—determining the extent to which people are in control of their actions is an important part of determining what is and is not just punishment. After all, we should not want to inflict retribution on people who could not have done otherwise or, at the very least, we would want relevant circumstances to temper retribution with justice.  It also makes more sense to focus on deterrence and rehabilitation more than retribution. However just, retribution merely adds more suffering to the world while deterrence and rehabilitation reduce it.

The second aspect of this is negative—skepticism about free will seems to cause people to think that they have a license to do ill, thus leading to worse behavior. That is clearly undesirable. This provides an interesting and important challenge: balancing our view of determinism and freedom to avoid both unjust punishment and becoming unjust. This, of course, assumes that we have a choice. If we do not, we will just do what we do and giving advice is pointless. As I jokingly tell my students, a determinist giving advice about what we should do is like someone yelling advice to a person falling to certain death—they can yell about what to do, but it won’t matter.

 

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As I tell my students, the metaphysical question of personal identity has important moral implications. One scenario I use is a human in a persistent vegetative state. I say “human” rather than “person”, because the human body might no longer be a person. For a metaphysical dualist,  if a person is her soul and the soul has abandoned the shell, then the person is gone.

 If the human is still a person, then it seems reasonable to believe they have a different moral status than a body that that was once a person (or once served as the body of a person). This is not to say that a non-person human would have no moral status—I do not want to be misinterpreted as holding that view. Rather, my view is that personhood is a relevant factor in the morality of how an entity should be treated.

Imagine a human in that vegetative state. While the body is kept alive, people do not talk to the body and no attempt is made to entertain the body, such as playing music or audiobooks. If there is no person present or if there is a person present who cannot sense anything, then this would seem morally acceptable—after all it would make no difference whether people talked to the body or not.

There is also the moral question of whether such a body should be kept alive—after all, if the person is gone, there would not seem to be a compelling reason to keep an empty shell alive. To use an extreme example, it would seem wrong to keep a headless body alive just because it can be kept alive. If the body is no longer a person (or no longer hosts a person), then this would be analogous to keeping a headless body alive.

But, if despite appearances, there is still a person present who is aware of what is going on around them, then the matter is morally different. In this case, the person has been isolated—which is very bad for a person. They have, in effect, been sentenced to solitary confinement.

In terms of keeping the body alive, if there is a person present, then the situation would be morally different. After all, the moral status of a person is different from that of a body of merely living flesh. The moral challenge, then, is deciding what to do.

One option is, obviously enough, to treat all seemingly vegetative (as opposed to clearly brain dead) bodies as if the person was still present. That is, the body would be accorded with the moral status of a person and treated as such.

This is a morally safe option—it would presumably be better if some non-persons get treated as persons rather than risk persons being treated as non-persons. That said, it would still seem both useful and important to know.

One reason to know is purely practical: if people know that a person is present, then they would presumably be more inclined to take the effort to treat the person as a person. So, for example, if the family and medical staff knew that Bill is still Bill and not just an empty shell, they would, one would hope, tend to be more diligent in treating Bill as a person.

Another reason to know is both practical and moral: scenarios arise in which hard choices must be made, knowing whether a person is present is critical. That said, given that one might not know for sure that the body is not a person anymore it could be correct to keep treating the alleged shell as a person even when it seems likely that they are not. This brings up the obvious practical problem: how to tell when a person is present.

Most of the time we judge there is a person present based on appearance, using the assumption that a human is a person. Of course, there might be non-human people and there might be biological humans that are not people (living headless bodies, for example). A somewhat more sophisticated approach is to use Descartes’s test: things that use true language are people. Descartes, being a smart person, did not limit language to speaking or writing—he included making signs of the sort used to communicate with the deaf. In a practical sense, getting an intelligent response to an inquiry can be seen as a sign that a person is present. Or that the LLM is working well.

In the case of a body in an apparent vegetative state, applying this test is a challenge as this state is marked by an inability to show awareness. In some cases, the apparent vegetative state is exactly what it appears to be. In other cases, a person might be in “locked-in-syndrome.” The person is conscious but can be mistaken for being minimally conscious or in a vegetative state. Since the person cannot, typically, respond by giving an external sign some other means is necessary.

One breakthrough in this area is due to Adrian M. Owen. He found that if a person is asked to visualize certain activities (playing tennis, for example), doing so will trigger different areas of the brain and this activity can be detected. So, a person can ask a question such as “did you go to college at Michigan State?” and request that the person visualize playing tennis for “yes” or visualize walking around her house for “no.” This method provides a way of determining that the person is still present with a reasonable degree of confidence. Naturally, a failure to respond would not prove that a person is not present, the person could still remain, yet be unable (or unwilling) to hear or respond.

One moral issue this method can help address is that of terminating life support. “Pulling the plug” on what might be a person without consent is morally problematic. If a person is still present and can be reached by Owen’s method, then this would allow the person to agree to or request that they be taken off life support. Naturally, there would be practical questions about the accuracy of the method, but this is distinct from the more abstract ethical issue.

It must be noted that the consent of the person would not automatically make termination morally acceptable—after all, there are moral objections to letting a person die in this manner even when the person is clearly conscious. Once it is established that the method adequately shows consent (or lack of consent), the broader moral issue of the right to die would need to be addressed.

 

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Way back in 2014 popular astrophysicist and Cosmos host Neil deGrasse Tyson did a Nerdist Podcast in which he seemed critical and dismissive of philosophy. There was a response from the defenders of philosophy and some critics went so far as to accuse him of being a philistine. While philosophy’s most ancient enemy is poetry (according to Plato), science is usually up for a good fight.

Tyson presents a not unreasonable view of contemporary philosophy, namely that “asking deep questions” can cause a “pointless delay in your progress” in engaging “this whole big world of unknowns out there.” To avoid such pointless delays, Tyson advised scientists to respond to such questioners by saying, “I’m moving on, I’m leaving you behind, and you can’t even cross the street because you’re distracted by deep questions you’ve asked of yourself. I don’t have time for that.”

While I wrote about this back in 2014, it is wise to revisit my views on the matter.

The idea that a scientist might see philosophy as useless (or worse) is consistent with my own experiences in academics. Since 2014, STEM has risen and the humanities have been under constant attack. As one example, as of Fall 2026 Florida A&M University will no longer have a distinct philosophy (and religion) major. I will still be teaching philosophy, but in a new combined program made up of philosophy, history, religion, and African-American studies.  We are, of course, lucky that we are still permitted to even exist. To be fair and balanced, a case can be made against philosophy. And the concern that the deep questioning of philosophy can cause pointless delays has merit and is well worth considering. After all, if philosophy is useless or even detrimental, then this would be worth knowing.

The main bite of this criticism is that philosophical questioning is detrimental to progress: a scientist who gets caught in these deep questions, it seems, would be like a kayaker caught in a strong eddy: they would be spinning around rather than zipping down the river. This concern also has practical merit. To use an analogy outside of science, consider a committee meeting aimed at determining the curriculum for state schools. This committee has an objective to achieve and asking questions is a reasonable way to begin. But imagine that people start raising deep questions about the meaning of terms such as “humanities” or “science” and become too interested in the semantics. This sidetracking will create a needlessly long meeting and little or no progress. After all, the goal is to determine the curriculum, and deep questions will only slow down progress towards this practical goal. Likewise, if a scientist is endeavoring to sort out the nature of the cosmos, deep questions can be a similar trap: she will be asking ever deeper questions rather than gathering data and doing math to answer her shallower questions.

Philosophy, as Socrates showed with his Socratic method, can endlessly generate deep questions. Questions such as “what is the nature of the universe?”, “what is time?”, “what is space?”, “what is good?”, “what’s for lunch?”, and so on. Also, as Socrates showed, for each answer given, philosophy can generate more questions. It is also often claimed that this shows that philosophy has no answers as every alleged answer can be questioned and only raises more questions. Thus, philosophy seems to be bad for scientists.

A key assumption is that science is different from philosophy in a key way—while it raises questions, proper science focuses on questions that can be answered or, at the very least, it gets down to the business of answering them and (eventually) abandons a question if it turns out to be a distracting deep question. Thus, science provides answers and makes progress. This, obviously enough, ties into another stock attack on philosophy: philosophy makes no progress and is useless.

One obvious reason philosophy is seen as not making progress and as useless is that when enough progress is made on a deep question, it often becomes a matter for science rather than philosophy. For example, ancient Greek philosophers, such as Democritus, speculated about the composition of the universe and its size.  These were considered deep philosophical questions. Even Newton considered himself a natural philosopher. He has, of course, been claimed by the scientists (many of whom conveniently overlook the role of God in his theories). These questions are now claimed by physicists, such as Tyson, who now see them as scientific rather than philosophical questions.

Thus, it is unfair to claim that philosophy does not solve problems or make progress. When philosophy makes progress in an area, that area often becomes a science and is no longer considered philosophy. However, progress is impossible without the deep questions and the work done by philosophers before the field was claimed to be a science.

At this point, some might grudgingly concede that philosophy did make some valuable contributions in the past, but philosophy is now an eddy rather than the current of progress.

Philosophy has been here before—back in the days of Socrates the Sophists contended that philosophical speculation was valueless and that people should focus on getting things done—that is, achieving success. Fortunately for contemporary science, philosophy survived and philosophers kept asking those deep questions that seemed so valueless then.

While some might see philosophy as a curious relic of the past, it is worth considering that some of the deep, distracting philosophical questions are well worth pursuing. Much as how Democritus’ deep philosophical questions led to the astrophysics that a fellow named Neil loves so much.

 

 

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