Some bloggers have recently hashed over the old dilemma about free will vs. determinism. If the future evolution of physical systems is determined by their past circumstances, they ask, and if the human brain is a physical system, then human behavior is -- at least in theory -- predetermined and predictable. And if so, do people really have free will? And can we honestly hold people responsible for their actions?
The premises are inescapable. The entirely mechanistic features of the known laws of nature are unlikely to be undermined by future discoveries. Skeptics invoke quantum fluctuation and chaos as ways out of the conclusion, but these are no help here. Both are just ways to introduce randomness into clockwork processes that average out in statistical aggregates. I don't think anyone is cheered by the idea that their decisions are mostly predetermined but might be slightly random as well.
Likewise Cartesian dualism is entirely untenable. There is no immaterial soul, no ghost in the machine. The mind is the brain and the brain is the mind and that's just all there is. Trying to rescue salutary free will is wishing for magic.
The conclusion is therefore equally inescapable: human behavior unfolds from the prior state of the brain and the environment. To the extent that the evolving state of the universe is deterministic, future human behavior is deterministic. But so what?
As human beings we don't know the state of the atoms that make up our brains, and we know even less how those states translate into actions. The problems we face are completely the opposite. We have far too little information going into decisions and often agonize over possible outcomes we can't begin to predict. Action coming out of that kind of indecision might feel like salutary free will, but that's a subjective question and I don't want to address that right now. Instead I want to address the second question: should we hold people morally accountable for their actions if they have no ability to act other than they did in any given circumstance?
Imagine a world populated by perfectly rational actors. These are not people, but are instead thinking beings with no free will who know they have no free will. They will always act to maximize their own personal benefit and, as they are all identical, they know that all their neighbors will act for themselves in the same way. Facing any decision they weigh all the evidence against everything they know and they pick the choice most likely to benefit them the most. They have human bodies, senses and limbs, but a limitless capacity for analysis and no ability to choose other than that which benefits them.
It's objectively true that cooperation is better than brute individualism. These are creative beings (that's compatible with determinism -- just look at evolution) and will eventually figure out that it's better for them personally to be part of a group than to continue to kill anyone that gets near them. (Or at least the cooperative ones will out-compete the solitary ones.) So there will develop some kind of steady state in which these rational actors -- call them Ayns -- can coexist. A kind of society.
What happens when the rational self-interest of members of this society conflict? Suppose Ayn0147 is doing quite well making baskets in exchange for membership in the group, but new member Ayn8802 intends to start making baskets as well. It's quite possible that the best, most rational response would be to kill the competition. So Ayn0147 kills Any8802 and threatens to do the same to anyone who tries to make baskets. Because that's what she determined was the rational thing to do.
As you see, although they are perfectly rational, they are nonetheless constrained by their senses. That means that they suffer -- like us -- from information asymmetry. Some of them know things that others of them don't know. They all realize, if they didn't before, that any of them might be killed by a rival without being aware of the danger beforehand. The rational action, it seems to me, is to form an anti-murder collective. Since all members of the group wish to live, and they are in constant social contact with other members of the group, they create a new rule. No murder within the group. If one group member kills another, the entire group will use their superior numbers to kill or expell the murderer.
They decide to adopt this rule because they know it will change the calculation in a way that serves each individual's best interests. Given a severe consequence for murder, killing becomes a much less attractive option. Any Ayn facing a tough decision will have to take the new rule into account, and although murder is still quite possible the potential downside will mean that other choices will generally be better for that individual's self-interest, and thus for the self-interest of all the members of the group.
By pre-stating their intentions, the group has changed the incentives. Murder may still be the rational action in some conflicts, but it will have to be done secretly.
Of course they all know this, so when murders happen it's important for the group to find and punish the culprit. This makes it even less likely for future Ayns to conclude that murder is the best of all possible options. Being highly rational they can examine forensic evidence and determine who performed the act with great accuracy.
But there's a new problem. The rule against murder is too simple; it can be exploited for fraud. It's quite possible for a fully rational Ayn, with only asymmetric access to information, to be manipulated into committing murder for what would seem like rational reasons. Highly rational beings would be good at framing others for crimes, assuming they determined that was the best course of action given what they knew. So what happens in that case? Are the Ayn willing to allow their mutual protection pact to be abused in that way?
Of course not; that wouldn't be rational. So the rule should be modified. The group's judicial body have to consider not only the outcome of an Ayn's decision, but the reasons for it as well. Perhaps Ayn4146 committed murder, but that doesn't have to be the end of the story. His analysis of the evidence indicated that murder was the best -- and therefore inevitable -- course of action. And yet because the evidence he used had been doctored by Ayn1105, his conclusion could not be faulted. He should therefore not be punished.
Even if the source of the deception could not be identified, or if there was no active deception at all, then the self-interest of the group would still be to reject summary judgment in those cases. All things being equal, rational beings would configure their social environment to prevent decisions to murder -- about which they have no control -- to lead to incorrect punishment.
This is a simple thought experiment, and I may be wrong about what it might mean in many details, and yet I think that it shows that it makes sense to develop a judicial system that takes intention into account regardless of any model of free will. We attribute free will to our neighbors, but that's not really a philosophical position. It derives from living in a community of rational beings with asymmetric access to information.
In terms of crime and punishment there is no difference between a world with free will and one without. Treating people as if they are responsible for their actions is necessary, one way or the other.
- jack*
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