So there's a view. that you might share that
the physical world is determined. What I mean
by that is that the physical world is dictated
by certain fundamental laws of physics, such
that the previous state of the world plus these
laws of physics guarantee the next state of the
universe. If you study Newtonian physics, you
know exactly what this worldview looks like.
So take the initial conditions, the initial state
of the universe, or the way that the universe
is right now, and then follow these laws of physics,
and you should know exactly what will happen
next. If a billiard ball, let's say a billiard
ball A, is traveling towards another billiard
ball, let's call it billiard ball B. In a vacuum
at a specific velocity v with a mass of m, then
when billiard ball A hits billiard ball B, ball
B with its given mass will then move at such
and such a velocity, right? And you could use
these Newtonian laws to calculate exactly what
the velocity will be based off of the mass and
based off of all the other information given,
right? Okay. The only issue with knowing what
comes next for us humans is that we just lack
knowledge of all the initial conditions of the
world, and we currently don't have everything
there is to know about the laws of physics. We're
still uncovering and trying to make sense of
some of these laws that seem to be governing
the universe. But once we know both, we can have...
what might be like a God's perspective, right?
We can then predict with 100 % accuracy what
will happen next, and after that, and after that,
until the end of time, right? Let's set aside
some of the wrinkles that quantum physics may
throw in. I don't know if they actually do, but
let's just assume for the sake of argument that
the world is determined in the way that I just
described, right? If it's true, right, which
a lot of people tend to work under similar sorts
of assumptions about. the way the world operates,
right? If true, then we as physical beings are
then subject to these laws of physics, right?
And this shouldn't be much of a surprise, right?
If you think about, you know, just your physical
health, right? If you're exposed to a virus,
there's a chain reaction that leads to your sneezing
and coughing and having a fever. We don't think
it just like magically occurs or by chance, right?
It's because we believe that the laws of physics
apply to us as well. which is also why we take
medication, right? These medicines have been
developed in order to help us alleviate certain
symptoms or illness or kill bacterial infection
that might be harming us, and we know that it'll
work to a certain degree because we know that
doing X will lead to Y, which will lead to Z,
right? It's also why, you know... You know that
if I kick you in the chest within the force,
you're going to fly off in some kung fu movie
sort of way, right? We are physical beings. And
so hence, it makes sense that we are bound by
the laws of physics. This is actually the very
reason that you probably will not jump off a
rooftop to see if you'll fly, because you know
that based off of your understanding of gravity
works, you're definitely going to fall. And given
what else you know, you probably are going to
hit the ground and you're going to get seriously
injured, right? What does this have to do with
anything? Well, let me connect the dots for you,
right? You and I are bound by the laws of physics.
And if these laws are deterministic in the way
that I have described, then you and I are not
any different than the billiard balls, right?
Everything about us, from our genetics to our
environment to the impact that the world has
on our thoughts and behaviors and the way it
shapes us and the way we, you know, develop both
physically, mentally, all these things, our personalities,
tendencies, right? All of this. is determined.
And that seems even more likely the more that
we uncover some truth about the human psyche
through things like neuroscience. What we find
is that there are certain processes in the brain
and in our body that send certain messages that
result in the things that we might have attributed
to something else now being attributed to just
simply laws of physics, including... Things like
our emotions, right? Our emotions are nothing
more than a set of certain neurological chemistry
and physiological response to certain types of
stimuli. It is the kind of response might be
based in part on genetics, but also might be
from life experience that has kind of habituated
us to respond in a certain way, okay? What's
odd here is that when it comes to holding someone
morally responsible, we seem to view people in
a very different way. We seem to assume that
our actions, at least when we're not under the
influence of certain substances or suffering
from some debilitating disease or disorder, that
we're actually acting on some sort of rational
capacity, something that is up to us, right?
But the question arises, right, how is it possible
that, you know, we're being held responsible
for something that we're presuming is up to us
if we ourselves are nothing more than a mere
extension of repeated applications of the laws
of physics, right? And it becomes even more puzzling
when we think in the following way, right? Like,
look, we would not hold— billiard balls for the
kind of behavior that they engage in because
we don't think it's up to them, right? Like the
balls move in the way that they do because of
the forces that are applied to them, right? So
like, look, if the ball is moving around and
I get smacked with one of the balls and it hurts,
right? I don't start yelling at the ball and
saying like the ball did something wrong and
there's an injustice and now I'm going to sue
the ball for the harm it caused, right? That
makes no sense. But we do it with other people.
We do it with other people. We don't treat other
people, at least in certain cases, right, in
the way that they behave. When we attribute it
to being up to them, we don't treat them in this
way that we do billiard balls or other objects,
right? Rather, we treat them as if they are the
internal, what do we call it, the initial cause,
the motivator, the one that made it happen. We
treat other people in this way, and that's the
very reason that we hold each other responsible
for things. That's why we sue each other. That's
why we get angry and frustrated, and we blame
other people. It's because we think that others...
are not just simply extensions of these repeated
applications of the laws of physics, right? So
we are then faced with attention, right? Attention,
I think, we face regularly, right? We see other
people, either ourselves or others, as free,
as reasoning, deliberating agents that make decisions
about what to do. Hence, because they are these
free... you know, agents, right? We can hold
each other responsible morally, legally, or otherwise,
right? Yet, we also see people as nothing more
than a product of, you know, biology and the
environment, laws of physics, right? Hence, they
make the decisions that they do because they
were molded into the kind of people that they
are. All right. This happens a lot when we, you
know, get to really know a friend, get to know
a person kind of very intimately, deeply. You
learn about the history and a lot of things sort
of start to make sense. Right. You know, this
is what therapists do for their patients, right?
Help them connect the dots, right? Oh, yeah,
it's interesting that you had these sorts of
experiences seem to have a certain kind of impact
on you, and it makes sense why you respond in
the way that you do to certain kinds of situations,
right? The reason that you have certain phobias
or the reason that you do tend to react very
strongly to certain kinds of perceived slights
or whatever else it might be, right? So this
way of seeing people, it's reflected in how we
make sense of... you know, each other, right?
We tend to try to get to know each other for
this reason, because we don't think that they
just end up being who they are out of nowhere.
We believe that they are who they are as a product
of some combination of their biology as well
as their life experiences, okay? But when we
see others in this way, then it now is very confusing,
right? Because it now seems as if they had no
control over who they are or the decisions that
they make, right? It doesn't make any sense at
all, right? So the point is this, look, we are
constantly living with this tension and we're
trying to figure out how it is that we're supposed
to view people and hold them responsible while
at the same time also seeing them like any other
physical object in the world. And we're trying
to... balance these two because it seems like
going off into one direction too much has certain
consequences that we're not particularly happy
about, right? For instance, if we went too far
off into the direction of people don't have any
control over themselves, they're just a mere
product of their environment and their genetics
and the laws of physics and the way that billiard
balls are, then we would have no grounds for
holding anybody responsible. Our entire legal
system would have to change. It wouldn't be anything
about moral or legal responsibility, but rather
it would just be some pragmatic thing about...
We don't want billiard balls flying in our face
in the same way we don't want people's fists
flying in our face. So as a pragmatic concern
about things that people generally do not want,
in order to fulfill the majority of people's
desires, we're going to have to set laws that
restrict people and have rules for how people
are going to be punished. But these are pragmatic
concerns. It's not because anybody did anything
wrong. We would have to get rid of that notion
that people are doing anything that anything
is wrong. wrong, anything that they are, can
be held responsible for in any way, right? Any
sort of punishment, any sort of legal justification
for, you know, incarcerating people would have
to strictly be on the grounds of some pragmatic
concern about, you know, I don't know, general
preference of the way that we want to structure
our world, the way that, just the same way that
I want a building to look or, you know, serve
a certain function or purpose, I want now the
laws to serve certain functions. Nothing more.
So we might not be too happy going in that direction,
but we also might not be too happy going in the
other direction and saying that people are just
free, rational entities that should be held responsible
for any decisions that they make. Because the
reality is that we do tend to account when we're
evaluating or judging other people. we tend to
account for the fact that some people have sometimes
just been dealt a bad hand. And as a result,
it wasn't really their fault that they tend to
be the way that they are. We call these mitigating
circumstances. Like, look, if a child has been
abused incessantly since... you know, infancy,
right? And as a result, suffer from certain brain
damages. And as a result, they tend to behave
in certain ways that potentially harm other people,
right? Like, we tend to be a lot more understanding
of that person than somebody who has had every
opportunity in the world to not be somebody that
other people absolutely hate, right? Or engage
in what we might call, you know, antisocial behavior.
And so we hold these two people along different
standards for a reason, right? Because the history,
to some degree, maybe it doesn't account for
all of it, but it does seem to matter to some
degree. We empathize with the people who have
struggled in their lives and have not been given
an opportunity to make their lives the best that
they could. to be the best version of themselves.
We tend to empathize with those people a lot
more than somebody who has had those opportunities,
right? We tend to account for the environment
and for the genetics and for whatever else might
have shaped the person into the kind of person
that they are. So what am I saying here, right?
What I'm trying to say is the following, right?
You probably already hold the position. You probably
lean more in one direction or the other already.
And you can actually look to your own judgment
of, you know, other people and in the way that
you engage with the world generally, including
non -human, you know, inanimate objects, animals,
and so on. You probably have some sort of position
on this already that is actually informing your
views. But if we don't talk about it out loud
and we don't come to at least some points of
agreement on this matter, you might find that
the disagreement in the worldview might be what's
shaping the different ways we approach things
like legal policies, the way that we approach
social services, and how much we think that it's
the responsibility of the community to... provide
for certain basic goods as opposed to it being
an individual responsibility right like these
questions a lot of them i find from my conversations
with others comes down to some sort of disagreement
in where you are in this spectrum of leaning
more towards humans just being nothing more than
you know determined entities physical entities
just like anything else or You know, how much
weight you give to the idea that people should
be treated and held responsible as free, rational
agents. And most people will probably be somewhere
in the middle, again, leaning more in one direction
or another. But the fact that that sort of framework
is working in the background and is the source
of so much of our disagreement tells me that
it will be important for us to actually talk
about it out loud. to see exactly where the points
of disagreements are and to, you know, share
reasons for one or the other to come to at least
something closer to a consensus, at least as
far as we might know, you know, something that
will maybe suffice to bring about a kind of a
world or a way of navigating the world that we
can at least more or less agree to. So I hope
that this gives you at least some reason for
thinking that even though we might not be able
to settle this question, it at least would be
important for us to have this conversation much
more openly and much more explicitly than we
might be doing today.