esk@wucs.UUCP (Paul V. Torek) (01/25/85)
[grin] From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) > Sorry, Paul, as I've discussed with you before, rational evaluation is not > equivalent to free will. Unless, of course, you shirk the meaning of the > term and simply label rational evaluation as "free will" because you feel > like it. Sorry, Rich, an analysis of the meaning of "free will" shows that it IS equivalent to the capacity for rational evaluation and action. That this is not immediately obvious does not make it false. Agency (having free will) consists in being able to choose among alternatives -- which raises the question how one chooses, and the answer is by evaluating alternatives. This in turn involves the use of reason, of having a conception of a norm and being disposed to adopt a consistent, best justified set of norms. Furthermore, this analysis can be strengthened by an analogy to freedom in thought (especially inference), which also amounts to rational evaluation (in this case, evaluation of deductive arguments). Apparently you and Sargent are suffering from attachment to a paradigm (in the ordinary sense, not T.S. Kuhn's) of free will as some mysterious "ghost in the machine" with the ability to make decisions ex nihilo. Your fallacy lies is not seeing that something can be very different from a paradigm case and still be an instance of the general concept. Ask people what they think of when they hear "art" and they will probably mention painting, but when they think about it they may well admit that something very different -- engineering, for example -- is also an art. > Thus, whether or not the evidence supports it, thus, whether or not the > sole basis for believing in it (NOT rational evaluative capabilities, BUT > real live free will [mistake #1]) is wishful [mistake #2] thinking that > the cause of one's thoughts is anything OTHER THAN [mistake #1 again] the > result of chemical processes, since believing in it is subjectively [mis- > take #2 again] "better", believe in it! [EMPHASIS added.] Mistake #1 -- see above. Mistake #2 -- believing in free will is OBjectively better because it carries no penalty (of avoidable error) if mistaken but does carry a benefit (avoiding avoidable error) if correct. It is thus (to use decision theory terminology) a dominant strategy, which is about the highest recommendation reason can give. > ... look up the word "free" [--] And I find an unenlightening list of synonyms, a sure sign that some "ordinary language analysis" (like I've done above (top) and in previous articles) is needed ... > [--] and explain how, when flowing rivers, animal behaviors and human > actions all result from the same process (why think otherwise?), how human > actions are somehow "different"? The process is the same only at a very general level of description. The difference is rationality (which animals may have to some degree). > The basis of the "rational evaluation" is the process that causes it, and > whether or not the end result IS strictly rational, [--] -- is precisely the issue, so you can stop right there. > what Lewis claims is that our observations about what is (i.e., > "science") cannot be true if the source of our thoughts is "irrational". > Which infers that the nature of the universe is somehow contingent on > human thought! That would be a serious mistake if he made it, but I'm not sure he did. I read him as saying that to think "I will now rationally believe that all human thought is irrational" is to contradict oneself, and thus that it is illogical to accept a world-view which implies that all human thought is irrational. If that's what he meant, he was correct; his mistake was thinking that "Naturalism" implies irrationality of human thought. > Our observations do not make the universe what it is. ... the universe is > not the same as our observations of it ... Yeah, yeah. All of which ignores my point that the "outside world" is interesting, if at all, only insofar as it relates to us and we can relate to it. Thus the sinlessness of (some variants of) "anthropocentrism". > Remember the difference between the processes that result in the thoughts > and the "nature" of the resulting thoughts ("rational" or "irrational"), > as analyzed later. Lewis claims that these processes are "irrational" > (what *is* an "irrational" process?) An irrational process is one that tends to produce irrational thoughts; Lewis apparently believes that nonrational microscopic processes can not underly rational processes occuring on a larger level, which is incorrect. On the other hand your characterization of all chemical processes as "rational" just because they are rationally *understandable* is poor syntax; you should rather say "rationally understandable". > I suggest you read Carroll's "Conversation Between the Tortoise and the > Hare".... Though I agree that reason is simply the means by which one > evaluates the validity of conclusions based on the premises ... the nature > of reason as the justification for reason is indeed circular. Carroll > describes a set of premises, and claims that one can accept all of the > premises and yet still reject the conclusion that logically follows ... > (A "logical" person might not do any of this rejecting, but what's the > "reason" for a non-logical person to do so?) The same logical reason we have. Carroll's "tactic" of adding additional premises (which state logical laws) shows *not* that reason justifying reason is circular, but that reason is not a premise but rather the way of getting from premises to conclusions. (Carroll's mental exercise shows that the function of reason is *not* performed by treating it as a premise.) Precisely because reason is not a premise, its use is *not* circular! [on a different issue:] > The worth (or lack of worth) of scientific inquiry is not the issue; that > worthfulness/worthlessness would be determined by an application of the > results obtained. And how do you think scientists decide to do this or that research; do you think they just go about investigating any random fact (like what the average number of hairs on species xyz is, to three decimal places)? Do they not presuppose that their inquiry has at least a good chance of being worthwhile? Would they do it otherwise? > | Can there be -- as I think Rosen wants to suggest -- an "absolute right/ > | wrong" in science without implying a similar cognitivity for ethics? ^^^^^^^^^^^ > [Paul] clearly hasn't seen anything I've written on the subject of good > versus evil, and the fallacy of absolute good/evil in a world where good > and evil are simply defined as what's beneficial/harmful to the person > saying the word(s). ... "Scientific" right/wrong simply consists of that > which is true as opposed to that which isn't. "Moral" right and wrong > are clouded by the issue of who is determining the rightness and > wrongness and on what basis. What world is that? That's not how I would define good/evil (how about as what's beneficial/harmful to *anyone*?). How are "moral" issues "clouded" in a way that "scientific" (a completely separate, non- overlapping realm?) ones aren't? Take a look at a lot of scientific controversies and tell me that there is no "issue of who is determining [correctness] and [incorrectness] and on what basis"! "But," you're retorting, "there's a true/false (i.e., *cognitivity*) to science which *has no counterpart* in ethics." Oh really? Care to prove that there's such a *difference*? --The aspiring iconoclast, Paul V. Torek, ihnp4!wucs!wucec1!pvt1047 Please send any mail directly to this address, not the sender's.
rwh@aesat.UUCP (Russ Herman) (01/27/85)
>One chooses...by evaluating alternatives. > Paul Torek But discovering the alternatives can be a problem of perception, not of reason. E.g., if the room was on fire, I couldn't find a way out without my glasses! And I'm far from convinced that core values can be demonstrated as being of rational origin. -- ______ Russ Herman / \ {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!aesat!rwh @( ? ? )@ ( || ) The opinions above are strictly personal, and ( \__/ ) do not reflect those of my employer (or even \____/ possibly myself an hour from now.)