Subject: Re: A Compatibilism Primer

From: [email-masked] (ASP-Disc)
Date: Thu, 9 Feb 1995 23:07:16 -0500

From: Bryan Douglas Caplan <[email-masked]>

Well, Brock is free to use "compatibilism" however he likes, but
isn't the standard definition simply "the view that free will and
determinism are compatible"?  (Coupled perhaps with the view that
both exist?)  
One problem with his definition is that it appears to imply that 
a moral subjectivist could not be a compatibilist, because as
such as believes that moral judgment (in the sense of a judgment
about real, existing things) is impossible.  But I would warrant
a guess that almost all compatibilists are not moral realists.

I am rather puzzled by Brock's reply to my counter-example.  Of
course the non-paralyzed guy lacks the desire to save his daughter,
whereas the paralyzed guy has it.  And so to common sense it appears
that the former is blamable and the latter is not.  But the whole
point is that on further analysis we learn that it is not the 
non-paralyzed guy's fault that he lacks the desire, because (by
assumption) his desires are determined by physical laws over which
he has no control.

Try another thought experiment.  The non-paralyzed guy gets drugged
so that he hates all life madly.  And he fails to save his daughter.
Is he blamable?  What if the drug messed up his brain so much that
he couldn't want to save her?  Is he blamable?  He lacks the desire,
but it isn't his fault that he lacks it.  Now if determinism is
true, then _everyone_ who lacks the desire is just like our drugged-
out example -- it is physically impossible for them to act other
than they do.  How can they be blamed for that?
   --Bryan