A Case for Hard Determinism (ROUND 2)
scent of the day: EO No. 5, by Ensar Oud
EO Number 5 is very good and is likely the most elegant among the closest-resembling zero-flower smoky fragrances. I do enjoy the very mentholated vanilla in the beginning. The whole, especially in the beginning, where the subtle mesquite wood and umami brine are most potent and the whole conveys a deeply autumnal character, comes off like a put-together—tuxedoed, weddingfied (yes, even without the typical tempering of flowers)—cross between Cochise and Vicki Lynn, but with the mesquite and the umami toned way down and, instead, the resinous greenness and bitter-pithy citrus (both centered around a pinene-limonene olibanum) turned up enough to bring it close to its other liatrix-like woody-smoky cousin: Black Changho.
As for this autumnal character—yes, Ensar likes his Havenhollow-style liatrix. I have seen that more and more. We see it in Black Changho and Moshpit Pavarotti, as well as Abu Maydan, among various others. For better or worse (better if you want to be smelling like the northeastern forests of the first Thanksgiving), he doses liatrix (or some haybale cousin of it, like immortelle) more mildly, of course, than what we get in Havenhollow, since his goal is not to connote pumpkin patches and haunted hayrides.
EO 5 does give some of that Choya Nahk that we get in Pavarotti and Vicki Lynn. No seashell animalics are listed here, so that slight hint of umami, nothing like the intensity of Vicki Lynn, is likely just a function of the dirty ambergris. Its biblical incense-smoky side does not have the same lasting power as either, though. And that is okay. It focuses much more on a vanillified oud: a resinous-mineralic Kelantan oud that leans green with a faint camphor brightness.
In concert with the whole, the oud comes off both varnishy and matchsticky and as such reminiscent of Oud Taiwan. One of the unique factors here, though, is how the whole is given a gin clarity due to juniper, which brings it in the crisp direction of Rake and Ruin. I think that this juniper especially, but definitely because of the oceanic ambergris and the mineralic Kelantan and the sensation of charred pine sap, makes this color here more green-blue (Legend of Zelda emerald) than the burnt-rubber black-green of Oud Taiwan. Yes, a dark-brown overlay, almost like a vanilla twig, but with a dark-brown overlay—almost like one of those Zelda emeralds was smeared with the guts of a vanilla sprig.
Overall, it seems closest to Black Changho, dialing back the density of the earthiness (replacing the mulchy patchouli with sweet-truffley Tibetan musk) in favor of leather animalics like smoked-pelt castoreum and greased-pelt muskrat. These animalics, just like the oudy smoke, are all given that Ensar chef’s-kiss touch: all aggression and skank merely suggested. Ensar, even in his wildest Private Blends, always gives us someone niqabed, never tits out—let alone spread-eagle and speculumned like we get in some Prins or Elkhaldis. Yes, even his wildest Private Blends are slutty only via the eyes—never any genitalia.
The way this is so elegant without any flowers, and yet so oudy, I feel it is a benchmark of high-risk balance. It did not take the easy route of displaying balance. It took the cliff-diving degree of difficulty: loads of animalics and the same burning campfire elements of Oud Taiwan, and still achieving a minimal splash upon landing. I could see it having been called “Aquilaria Blossom,” and the image would be of an infected aquilaria tree the color of vanilla-sprig guts, as bare and minimal as what we might find in a haunted forest of gnarled roots and branches—that forest blown by a clean and dry sea breeze (saline contact-cleaner solution over stone) that riles up not only the scent of deer-musk markings but the incense (austere, flinty, in the way of CdC Kyoto) of some unseen savage messiah (a cross between Istvan and Aqualung).
*Let us workshop this essay in defense of Hard Determinism, the view that (a) determinism is true and that (b) human free will is incompatible with determinism. (Dedicated to my cousin Randy, RIP.)
A Case for Hard Determinism
Dedicated to my cousin, Randy (RIP)
1. Introductory Remarks
The classic doctrine according to which humans lack moral freedom, the sort of freedom required for moral responsibility, is Hard Determinism (HD). HD claims that at least some form of Determinism incompatible with human moral freedom is true. HD, in other words, consists of two views: (1) that some form of Determinism is true and (2) that human moral freedom (human free will) is ruled out by the form of Determinism in question.
The burden of proof seems to fall on advocates of HD, rejecting as they do some rather basic intuitions. Most of us cannot help but believe, after all, that at least sometimes we act freely, that at least sometimes what we do is genuinely up to us—up to us, that is, by not being entirely a function of factors beyond our ultimate control. Most of us cannot help but believe, relatedly, that at least sometimes we can be morally responsible, that at least sometimes we can be genuinely deserving of praise or blame—deserving of praise or blame, that is, for the sake of justice rather than merely for the sake of pragmatic consequences (such as to protect society or to shape future behavior). HD, however, rejects both of these cherished beliefs.
The offense cannot be overstated. According to HD, no human—or any other finite creature—is morally responsible for any aspect of their lives: their behaviors or feelings or thoughts or appearances or so on. This includes even their most heinous actions: stomping an infant skull into liverwurst pulp, say—and yes, even when performed deliberately and fully sober as a neurotypical adult with a full grasp of moral concepts and a deep reflection on the consequence of those actions. No human is ever morally responsible, according to HD, because Determinism of at least some form is true and human moral freedom, the sort of freedom required for moral responsibility, is incompatible with the form of Determinism in question.
Consider the following two arguments for HD. These arguments correspond to the two most invasive and comprehensive forms of determinism: Chronological Determinism, the view that all of what is going on at any point in time settles or fixes all of what comes next, and Absolute Necessitarianism, the view that things could be no other way than how they show themselves to be since they are necessitated ultimately by what is self-necessitated (if they are not self-necessitated themselves).
HCD Argument
1. Chronological Determinism is true. (Determinist Premise)
2. If Chronological Determinism is true, then humans lack moral freedom. (Incompatibilist Premise)
Therefore, humans lack moral freedom.
HAN Argument
1. Absolute Necessitarianism is true. (Determinist Premise)
2. If Absolute Necessitarianism is true, then humans lack moral freedom. (Incompatibilist Premise)
Therefore, humans lack moral freedom.
These arguments are obviously valid, which means it is logically impossible for their conclusions to be false on the assumption that the premises are true. In order to defend HD, then, I need to defend both premises of each argument. That is what I will do in this post, which draws upon my paper “A Rationalist Defense of Determinism” (and, to a lesser extent, “A Cosmo-Ontological Case for God”).
2. Why the Determinist Premises are True
In earlier posts I have defended both Chronological Determinism (premise one of the HCD Argument) and Absolute Necessitarianism (premise one of the HAN Argument). You should perhaps revisit those posts before proceeding. For at least a refresher, however, I will give a quick defense of these positions.
Chronological Determinism, which is the form of Determinism that contemporary metaphysicians typically have in mind in the debates concerning free will and moral responsibility, is the view that the past guarantees the future (such that from any moment in time there is only one total way that things can play out from that moment on: the way they end up playing out). Consider the following loose argument for Chronological Determinism, which bypasses details and controversies I go into elsewhere.
First, clearly the entirety of what is going on at any given moment (the entirety, that is, of everything physical or spiritual or supernatural or eternal or whatever else there might be at that moment) all by itself brings about the entirety of what goes on next. Reality as it is now brings about reality as it is next—indeed, reality as it is now does so all by itself because we are talking about the entirety of reality as it is now (in which case any candidate “helping hand” presumed to be beyond reality as it is now, any supposed outside contributing factor involved in bringing about reality as it is next, already belongs to reality as it is now). Second, we all agree as well that if A all by itself brings about B and B all by itself brings out C and C all by itself brings about D, then it follows ultimately that A all by itself—albeit by means of B and C—brings about D. When we bring these two rather uncontroversial points together, what do we get? Well, it follows that the entirety of what is going on at any given moment (say, a moment ten billion years ago) all by itself brings about the entirety of what is going on at every subsequent moment (such as right now). That is all that Chronological Determinism says: the way reality is in the future is completely a function of the way reality was in the past, whether that past goes back to a first point (a big bang or God, say) or whether that past goes back endlessly.
Absolute Necessitarianism, which is a form of Determinism that contemporary metaphysicians typically consider a nonstarter (given its radical collapsing of all modal distinctions), is the view that there is an ultimate reality that necessitates itself and everything else (such that nothing is the case unless it is necessarily the case). Consider the following loose argument for Absolute Necessitarianism, which bypasses the details and controversies I go into elsewhere.
Assume that R is the collection of all things that do not provide the sufficient explanation for their own existences—things, in short, that are not self-caused. Assume, to put it another way, that R is the collection of all things that do not exist by the necessity of their own natures—that do not have existence, so we might say, baked into their essence (the way that being male, say, is baked into the essence of bachelor or having three interior angles is baked into the essence of a triangle). Clearly there must be a sufficient explanation for R—an explanation for each part of R and for why R obtains as opposed to some other collection. Why? Well, everything has a sufficient explanation for why it is—nothing, after all, comes from nothing. Suppose, then, that S provides the sufficient explanation for R. Now, either S is self-caused or S is not self-caused. As it turns out, S must be self-caused. Why? Well, to suppose that S is not self-caused entails a contradiction. After all, since S would be self-caused were it beyond R, the only hope for S not being self-caused is that S is either R itself or some part of R. But since S provides the sufficient explanation for R, S provides the sufficient explanation for itself—and so is self-caused—no matter whether S is R itself or some part of R. So one thing is for certain, as we have seen: S is self-caused. As self-caused, S exists by necessity—absolute necessity, in fact (since it has no dependence on anything else for its existence). Now, the necessity of S transfers over to that for which it provides the sufficient explanation: R and everything that makes up R. Why? Well, what is sufficient for something (call it “o”) is what fully explains why o does rather than does not obtain. But what fully explains why o does rather than does not obtain is what guarantees o. So since S is guaranteed (by its own nature as self-caused), it also guarantees what it provides the sufficient explanation for, which is R and everything that makes up R. The necessitarian implication should be clear. Since R and everything that makes up R are the only realities beyond that which exists necessarily in virtue of being self-caused, everything exists necessary.
Those who reject Chronological Determinism and Absolute Necessitarianism typically attack the key principle undergirding them: the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR). This principle, however, is the one thing on which I am unwilling to budge. I think of myself as an open person, but the PSR is a metaphysical hill on which I am prepared to die. Consider the following loose argument for the PSR, which bypasses the details and controversies I go into elsewhere.
The PSR says, in short, that you cannot get something from nothing. That, in effect, there is nothing uncaused, nothing that lacks a complete explanation, seems unquestionable. It is absurd to say some reality—some energy, some process, some thought, some action, some hallucination, some quantum fluctuation, or so on—can bloom from the absence of all reality. Only something going on can engender something going on. That is the main case for the PSR. The difficulty of spelling the argument out in steps (as I did it for example when defending Chronological Determinism) is a function of the fact that the PSR is so basic that it would be presupposed in every step—presupposed in the very nature and point of the argument. On this note, however, consider—in what amounts to an indirect reinforcement of the certainty of the PSR—that any argument against the PSR tries to give a sufficient reason for rejecting the PSR and so seems to assume that for something to be the case—in this case, that the PSR is false—there must be a sufficient reason why it is the case. Any argument against the PSR seems to assume, in short, the PSR. Furthermore, it is impossible even to imagine something—say, a potato or a car—coming from nothing. To do so would require doing what is beyond our reach: namely, imagining as absent every possible sort of cause for that thing, including—and here is the nail-in-the-coffin point—causes for that thing that we could not even imagine. Besides, there is no way that beings coming from nonbeing can ever be demonstrated experimentally, for obvious reasons. No matter what pop interpretations of quantum mechanics might say, uncaused events have never been—and could never be—demonstrated. As Einstein (perhaps one of the most famous recent advocates of the PSR) would put it: any scientist who says that a certain particle E lacks a sufficient cause could never be sure of what it is more reasonable to assume anyway: that there are variables operative beyond their ken.
3. Why the Incompatibilist Premises are True
The second premises of the HCD Argument and the HAN Argument are, in effect, forms of incompatibilism. The second premise of the HCD Argument says that human moral freedom is incompatible with the truth of Chronological Determinism and the second premise of the HAN Argument says that human moral freedom is incompatible with the truth of Absolute Necessitarianism. Why think that such forms of incompatibilism are true?
Much effort has been devoted to defending these forms of incompatibilism. The basic point is rather obvious.
If whatever I do or think or feel or so on is necessitated by (or, to put it in the colorful way that my students tend to remember, shit completely out of) the remote past before I was born (in the case of Chronological Determinism), then clearly whatever I do or think or feel or so on is not ultimately up to me. And if whatever I do or think or feel or so on is necessitated by some self-necessitated source such as God (in the case of Absolute Necessitarianism), then clearly whatever I do or think or feel or so on is not ultimately up to me. But if whatever I do or think or feel or so on is not ultimately up to me, then I lack moral freedom (the sort of freedom on which moral responsibility depends).
Since I have yet to make a longer post in defense of these forms of incompatibilism, let me make the case here in a more careful fashion. To streamline the discussion, I will talk simply in terms of our actions. It should be clear, however, that what I say applies as well to our thoughts and our feelings and our physical characteristics and our cognitive abilities and our personalities and so on.
1. If Chronological Determinism is true or Absolute Necessitarianism is true, then our actions are guaranteed by what we ultimately have no control over occurring.
Rationale.—We ultimately have no control over whether conditions that precede our very existence occur (obviously). But our actions are guaranteed by a past that precedes (temporally, perhaps ontologically as well) our very existence if Chronological Determinism is true. And our actions are guaranteed by a chain of necessitation that stops at a self-caused wellspring that precedes (ontologically, perhaps temporally as well) our very existence if Absolute Necessitarianism is true.
2. If our actions are guaranteed by what we ultimately have no control over occurring, then we ultimately have no control over whether we perform our actions.
Rationale.—If p occurs and we ultimately have no control over whether p occurs, and if p’s occurrence guarantees q’s occurrence and we ultimately have no control over whether p’s occurrence guarantees q’s occurrence, then q occurs and we ultimately have no control over whether q occurs. For example, if my not lifting the pen right now is guaranteed by what I ultimately have no control over, then I ultimately have no control over whether I lift the pen right now.
3. If we ultimately have no control over whether we perform our actions, then our actions are not free (free in the sense required for moral responsibility).
Rationale.—S does action A freely only if S ultimately has—at least the merest sliver of—control over whether A happens.
Therefore, if Chronological Determinism is true or Absolute Necessitarianism is true, then our actions are not free.
Those who reject the forms of incompatibilism in question do not typically go after premise one or premise three of the argument I just gave. That makes good sense. Premise one is indubitable. After all, (a) the past goes back before we came to be (in which case our actions are guaranteed by what is ultimately not up to us if Chronological Determinism is true) and (b) we are not deities existing by the necessity of our own essences (in which case our actions are guaranteed by what is ultimately not up to us if Absolute Necessitarianism is true). Premise three also seems unquestionable. After all, how can our actions be done freely, freely in the sense that we are subject to praise or blame for those actions (and so in a sense independent of any pragmatic considerations), if ultimately we lack even the merest say over whether the action takes place? Sure, even if we lack the merest say over whether the action takes place we are still free in the nonmoral sense that, say, we have more range of possible behaviors than a tree or a stone. But clearly we are not morally free if we ultimately lack even a modicum of say over anything we do.
Compatibilists do attack premise two, however. Using merely the language of Chronological Determinism (in order to streamline the discussion), here is how the compatibilist’s case typically unfolds.
Even if it is guaranteed from the remote past that I do not lift the pen at time T1, it might still be that I ultimately have control over whether I lift the pen at T1. How so? (1) Even if my not lifting the pen at T1 has been guaranteed by the remote past over which I have no control, I still ultimately have control over whether I lift the pen at T1—so long as I would have lifted the pen had I tried. (2) Even if my not lifting the pen at T1 has been guaranteed by the remote past over which I have no control, I still ultimately have control over whether I lift the pen at T1—so long as by not lifting the pen I am doing what I want to do and no one is coercing me (say, through hypnosis) not to lift the pen.
I will end by giving the standard incompatibilist responses to these points, responses that I find more than convincing.
First, if Chronological Determinism is true and S’s not lifting the pen is guaranteed by the remote past (such that it has been guaranteed that S does not try to do otherwise than what he does), then S ultimately does not have actual control over whether he lifts the pen (however much counterfactual control he may have). Second, if everything that happens is guaranteed by the remote past prior to the birth of S, then not only S’s action but also the desire to do the action itself is guaranteed by the remote past prior to the birth of S. In this case, even though S is doing what he desires, the action resulting from this compelled desire is still unfree. The coercion by the remote past, moreover, is more unescapable than any hypnosis or gunpoint threats! Actions resulting from being controlled by an alien force (as in hypnotism by a divine hypnotist) are actions that S does not do freely. But actions guaranteed by the past are relevantly similar to, and at least as compelled as, actions resulting from being controlled by an alien force. (The same points apply, of course, when we put the debate in the language of Absolute Necessitarianism.)
As this response makes clear, there are two key reasons why the compatibilist attack fails. (1) Having actual-factual control (one cannot but think of Chilli from TLC here: “Baby that’s actual and factual”) is required for morally free behavior. Counterfactual control, which I do admit we do have, is not enough. But if Chronological Determinism is true or Absolute Necessitarianism is true we do not ultimately have that actual-factual control. (2) An action being (a) uncoerced (in the court-of-law sense) and (b) in line with the agent’s desire still does not mean that the action would be morally free in a reality where either Chronological Determinism is true or Absolute Necessitarianism is true. For the agent would still be coerced—indeed, in an even more potent way than the typical cases we talk about in the court of law (hypnosis, gun-point threat, addiction, mental illness)—and the agent’s desire to do the action would be as beyond the ultimate control of the agent as the action itself if Chronological Determinism is true or Absolute Necessitarianism is true.
4. A Response to a Common Objection to HD: Humans are Morally Responsible and so Freedom-Incompatible Forms of Determinism are false
Above I made a case for HD, the view that some moral-freedom-incompatible form of Determinism is true. While doing so I defended it against several objections: attacks against the principle of sufficient reason as well as attacks against incompatibilism. Now I want to present and then refute a common—although intellectually suspicious—rebuttal to HD.
Recall that HD is the view that a freedom-incompatible form of Determinism is true. The main forms of Determinism in question are what I call Chronological Determinism (CD) and Absolute Necessitarianism (AN). By freedom-incompatible forms of Determinism, I will refer simply to these two (if only to streamline the discussion).
Now, the common move against HD is to perform a so-called “Moorean Shift” on any argument given for HD. In an earlier post I looked at two such arguments. For the sake of the discussion here I will combine them Let us look at the two arguments I gave from an earlier post.
HD Argument
1. Either Chronological Determinism is true or Absolute Necessitarianism is true.
2. If either Chronological Determinism is true or Absolute Necessitarianism is true, then humans lack moral freedom.
Therefore, humans lack moral freedom.
To perform the Moorean Shift the opponent of HD might ask us to consider two statements: statement o “humans are morally responsible,” is more intuitive than statement r, “either Chronological Determinism is true or Absolute Necessitarianism is true.” When we do we should see, so at least the opponent of HD says, that o is more intuitive than r. Since these statements are incompatible with each other, and since what is more intuitive has a greater claim to truth, we are entitled to replace premise one of the above HD Argument with a new premise: humans are morally responsible. As a result, the original HD Argument against moral responsibility shifts into the following argument against both Chronological Determinism and Absolute Necessitarianism.
1. Humans are morally responsible (and so are morally free).
2. If either Chronological Determinism is true or Absolute Necessitarianism is true, then humans are not morally free (and so are not morally responsible).
Therefore, Chronological Determinism and Absolute Necessitarianism are both false.
I should also add that independent support for statement o is often given to bolster the case. (1) To be morally responsible for our actions is to be deserving of praise and blame for our actions. We praise and blame all the time. The propensity to praise and blame is, indeed, so deeply ingrained that involuntary feelings of deep displeasure wash over us for having performed certain actions. (2) The rejection of moral responsibility, a rejection of the basis for social order and purposeful living, would require drastic changes to our self-image and social practices: no more prizes or prisons or so on—in effect, no more of the strongest motivations (reward and punishment) for vain creatures like us.
Several responses can be made to the objection at hand.
The Moorean shift itself fails. That is important to say right off the bat. (1) Such a shift will not work for someone—someone like myself—who finds r to be more intuitive than o. For on the assumption that the more intuitive statement has the greater claim to truth (which is the key presumption behind every Moorean Shift, r would be true and the HD Argument I gave above would result. (2) Even if o and r are equally intuitive, in which case neither statement would have a greater claim to truth in virtue of its intuitiveness, it would still be illicit—according to the very rules for making the shift—to make the shift. (3) How can the one who makes the shift be justified in claiming that humans are morally responsible when, for all he or she knows, either Chronological Determinism is true or Absolute Necessitarianism is true? To be justified in making the shift, the shifter needs to attack the proofs for Chronological Determinism and Absolute Necessitarianism.
What about the independent support for the claim that humans have moral freedom? There are various things important to say in response to this.
First, the practice of praising and blaming is, obviously, compatible with people not really being morally responsible. Just because I blame you for graffitiing my garage door does not mean that you really deserve blame. Just because I feel pangs of guilt over kicking the puppy, that does not mean that the action was ultimately up to me. To be sure, the propensity to praise and blame may very well be ingrained in us as the result of selective pressures over eons; it may very well increase the likelihood of our continuance as a species, useful as it is for promoting, deterring, protecting, and so for surviving. But even if by some magic the propensity is so deeply ingrained that it could never be given up through cultural training or advanced scientific technologies, that does not mean that people really are genuinely deserving of praise or blame.
Second, even if drastic changes would result if we rejected moral responsibility, that does not mean that there is moral responsibility. Drastic changes might not even be required anyway. To be sure, some rejectors of moral responsibility suggest that the practice of praising and blaming would have to stop altogether as a matter of justice. Most rejectors hold, however, that the practice of praising and blaming is still appropriate even if people are not morally responsible. How so? We could praise and blame not because people genuinely deserve it, but merely for pragmatic ends: rehabilitation, education, deterrence, quarantine. I could praise my child for doing well on his homework not because he really deserves it, but to inspire him to continue such behavior. Society could detain Tom, the child rapist, not because he is morally responsible but because, like a carrier of a contagious deadly disease, he poses a threat to society. Systems of social control in a reality where no one is morally responsible do not have to be much different than they are currently. Such systems can even be better—more humane, fair, effective—if their developers are wise.
Third, the rejection of moral freedom and responsibility might not be so bleak.
(1) The rejection of moral responsibility might be beneficial, replacing a punitive world order with a wise world order. Families waste away in resentment over the fact that their child was murdered. An understanding that the killer was not morally responsible, that he is the way he is and did what he did merely as a matter of “luck” (at least relative to him), could very well decrease the bitterness. With the edge taken off our resentment and lust for revenge, and with the resultant increase in calm and forgiveness, society might be motivated to follow the footsteps of Norway, which has one of the lowest recidivism rates in the world, and focus less on retribution and more on rehabilitation. In general, realizing that we are not morally responsible presumably would increase our resilience to life’s hardships, lessen our grave tendency to take ourselves and others so humorlessly, and drive home the importance of preventative measures—early education, intervention, and restoration—to ensure the best, most rational, future.
(2) Much stays the same even if we lack moral freedom. Our lives can still be filled with novelty and oriented around fulfilling aspirations. We can still be active agents, choosing to bring about changes we want. We can still have hope just as much as we can still have pleasure. We can still find value in things. Think about it. We value and devalue people for their looks even when those looks are understood to be inborn. Indeed, people often feel self-important for what they recognize to be a matter of luck: facial symmetry, certain talents, height, or so on. And consider this. Our folk psychology runs so deep in us that we get mad at our laptops when they malfunction even though laptops are not agents in ultimate control of themselves. We get mad at the dresser leg when we smash our toe into it. We get mad at our spouses for their nighttime dreams. Are not many people in the professional positions that they are in, or have the moral characters that they have, because of what they inherited as a given? Many of these people, even if they come to know how much their situation is due to luck, do not walk around upset. It is reasonable to conclude, then, that even the easily-triggered citizens of twenty-first-century United States have the psychological resources to accept, without much trauma, nothing being ultimately up to them. Leave it to a human, the adaptable creature par excellence, to normalize even the worst situations, especially over generations. It took only a few months, for instance, for us to conform to a Cancel Culture where mere accusation is good enough for guilt.
(3) There are still lesser senses of freedom for which we could strive even if we lack moral freedom. We could still increase the range of our abilities—increasing the range of our bodily flexibility, for example, through certain yogic practices. There would still be the freedom that comes from putting yourself through intense disciplinary training (such as the freedom to improvise on the ukulele after hours practicing scales and chord progressions). There would still be the freedom of becoming more indifferent to troubling matters, overcoming certain habits, reigning over certain instincts.
The main response to objection 3, however, is to attack the first premise of the Moorean Shift directly. One way would be to restate either the HCD argument or the HN argument against human moral freedom. The burden is on those who oppose HCD and HN to show which premises of the two arguments are false. But for reasons that we have considered extensively (above as well as here and here), there is good reason to accept premise HCD-1 and premise HN-1. There are also compelling reasons to accept premise HCD-2 and premise HN-2 (see above). Indeed, the opponent who makes the Moorean shift obviously accepts HCD-2 and HN-2.
Another way to attack the first premise directly would be to show that humans lack moral freedom and responsibility regardless as to whether CD or N is true. Here is one attempt.
1. S does action A freely only if S himself is the self-caused source of A—by which it is meant: of at least some aspect of A.
Rationale.—A (or, again for the sake of the argument, at least some aspect of A) must have its buckstopping, that is, nonderivative, source in S if S does A freely. Otherwise we would be saying something absurd: that S does A freely even though A is entirely a function of factors not ultimately up to S. Now, a buckstopping source is either uncaused or self-caused. Otherwise (that is, were it other-caused) it would not be a buckstopping source. Now, what is uncaused—being not up to us—contributes nothing to secure human moral freedom: a mere droplet of not-up-to-me-ness, so to say, cannot change a not-up-to-me soup into an up-to-me soup. Even pushing aside the fact that nothing is uncaused (a claim I defend elsewhere), it follows that A must have its buckstopping but not-uncaused source in S if S does A freely. Understand what this means: either (a) S himself is the self-caused source of A if S does A freely or (b) some mere portion of S is the self-caused source of A if S does A freely. After all, since a not-uncaused source of action is a source of action that is caused either by itself or by something else, and since a buckstopping source of action is a source of action that is not caused by something else, a buckstopping but not-uncaused source of action is a self-caused source of action. Option-b, however, is out. For if merely some portion of S is the self-caused source of A, then how can S himself be doing A freely when A flows from something that caused itself to be in S and so is something that is completely not up to S? S himself is not doing A freely if A flows from something utterly alien to S any more than you are doing freely what someone else is doing to their child right now on in another galaxy. Therefore, S himself is the self-caused source of A if S does A freely.
2. It is not the case that S is the self-caused source of A.
Rationale.—That which is self-caused could refer only to that which exists by the necessity of its own nature (as opposed to the two absurd senses of causation I discuss elsewhere: (1) where a thing exists before it exists in order to cause itself to exist or (2) where a thing causes itself to exist at the very same moment it comes to exist in the first place). The problem is that humans, even insofar as they are eternal souls caused by God, are not self-caused in that sense. Since S himself was born from parents, or at least a divine parent, S is not self-caused.
Therefore, S does not do A—and, by implication, any action—freely in the sense required to be morally responsible (that is, to be genuinely deserving of judgments such as praise and blame for what they do).
This proof does not operate on the assumption that either Chronological Determinism or Absolute Necessitarianism are true. That is made explicit in the rationale for premise 1, where the possibility of uncaused events is allowed. Why such an allowance is relevant should be clear. An uncaused event, after all, is an event that is neither caused by the past (as everything in the future relative to some past is according to Chronological Determinism) nor necessitated by itself or something else (as everything is according to Absolute Necessitarianism).
Here is a more direct attempt to show that humans lack moral responsibility regardless as to whether Chronological Determinism is true or Absolute Necessitarianism is true.
1. If you are morally responsible for action O, then you must have contributed to giving rise to O and you must be morally responsible for at least some portion—call it “Z”—of what you contributed.
2. If you are morally responsible for this Z, then you must have contributed to giving rise to Z and you must be morally responsible for at least some portion—call it “Y”—of what you contributed.
3. Since at no point are you self-caused, this chain will go on in an indefinite amount of steps until some point is reached, at best your fertilization, where you are clearly not morally responsible for the portion of what you contributed in question at that point.
Therefore, you are not morally responsible for O—O being a function of factors entirely beyond what is ultimately up to you.
The argument is as powerful as it is straightforward. All it demands is that the agent be morally responsible for an infinitesimally small factor contributing to the action. But even that extremely low standard cannot be met by beings like us, impotent to be self-caused. If the argument set the bar any lower, it would absurdly allow that an agent can be morally responsible for an action even when the agent fails to be morally responsible for any factor—even the merest insignificant sliver—contributing to the action; it would absurdly allow that people can be morally responsible for actions that are completely a function of factors not ultimately up to them.
That is all that needs to be said. But I want to stress two things. First, even if the agent is neurotypical and aware, even if he intends to perform his actions and reflects on their consequences beforehand, that does nothing to change the fact that his actions are ultimately the result of factors entirely beyond the agent’s control. Second, even if there are innumerable complex factors involved in the causal chain leading up to the action, even if there is indeterminacy and feedback loops in the causal process, the regress point still stands: at no point is the agent the buckstopping source of even the smallest factor contributing to the action.
“We need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.”—Kafka (against the safe-space cancel culture pushed by anti-art bullies, left and right)
