How does that follow from a belief that people have free will? Is it somehow impossible for people who have free will to traffic in other human beings or force them into starvation? I don't see the logic.
Of course you are implicitly accusing those who "believe in free will" of saying that being trafficked or starving are the person's own fault; but I don't see the logic of that either. There is no requirement that believing in free will requires focusing on only one person's choices. The human traffickers and the corrupt leaders who allow their people to starve are making choices too--bad ones. And part of believing that people have free will is being willing to call a spade a spade when people make bad choices.
Because believing in free will as commonly referred to means it's ok to choose not to do something about bad behavior happening in the world. It's not ok to stand by and let child trafficking happen.
> believing in free will as commonly referred to means it's ok to choose not to do something about bad behavior happening in the world.
Yes, that's true. However...
> It's not ok to stand by and let child trafficking happen.
...unless child trafficking is happening right in front of you, you're not "standing by". There are a zillion bad things always happening around the world. Are we all supposed to stop all of them? And how would not believing in free will help stop all of them? I don't see how that follows at all.
Furthermore, let's say we do stop believing in free will; then what? Do we all get forced to drop everything else in our lives and go stop child trafficking? Says who? There is no way to even implement a scheme like that unless someone makes a choice and decides what needs to be stopped and tells others to go stop it. Calling this "not believing in free will" strikes me as pointless at best, and deliberate manipulation at worst.
Actually, yes, we should all stop what we are doing and fight child trafficking immediately. To argue anything else is a morally indefensible position.
Now, you might say you fight child trafficking currently because you vote for people who make the laws that say it's illegal and "dust your hands", but yet it's not enough because child trafficking still happens. At the end of the day, you are ok with child trafficking happening because, "Well, at least I choose not to traffick children, so that's enough."
Well, I am debating against someone who claims free will is what will stop child trafficking. If I can convince you to move your position to mine, I can't influence others to also move to my position, and if all people end up viewing it similarly to me, I believe we will solve child trafficking.
> I am debating against someone who claims free will is what will stop child trafficking.
I have made no such claim. I have said that, on net, a society where people's right to make free choices is respected will have less suffering and more good things than a society where it isn't. But that doesn't mean no bad things will ever happen in the former type of society. Nor is respecting others' right to make free choices the same as "free will" by itself.
If you can't see why respecting other people's right to make free choices is inconsistent with child trafficking, isn't it obvious? Child traffickers don't respect the right to make free choices of the children they traffic in. So getting more people to respect other people's right to make free choices would obviously reduce the prevalence of child trafficking.
Not it wouldn't and our society is largely a result of your way of thinking. We have yet to see how a society that advocates determinism would turn out.
> our society is largely a result of your way of thinking
It most certainly is not. Our society refuses to respect people's right to freedom of choice in all kinds of ways. And most of those ways can't even be justified on the grounds of harm to others, which is where your big sticking point seems to be. Our society throws people in jail just for having drugs in their possession, even if they haven't harmed anyone and are not threatening anyone. The poster I originally responded to in this thread had therapy they didn't want forced on them by their family, for something they didn't even think was a problem and which certainly didn't make them a threat of harm to anyone, and our society was just fine with that. From what I can see, in your vision of the ideal society, that would be happening all over the place.
> We have yet to see how a society that advocates determinism would turn out.
Sure we have. The Soviet Union was based on ideas like the ones you are advocating. So is Communist China today. Perhaps you want to live in Communist China; if so, you're welcome to move there (unless of course you already live there). I don't.
No, in your society, the one we live in right now, it is already happening. People have others choices imposed on them. A parent thrusts their choices onto their children often to much detriment as the aforementioned person.
In a society I'm proposing, those kind of choices aren't able to be thrusted on a person because the idea that you can choose for someone is removed. It simply is behavior that is exhibited, and we understand that behavior enough to change it or we need to learn more to understand the behavior. Your reality, the current one we live in, is the nightmare for some people.
The Soviet Union and Communist China, terms you want to use to describe them, do not sound like what I am advocating in the slightest. I'm advocating that we acknowledge the underlying reality that we are not free to make choices. There is only the illusion our brains create. How you interpret that is on you. It has nothing to do with other countries or systems of government. Stop trying to drag in straw mans because your ideas lack substance.
> in your society, the one we live in right now, it is already happening. People have others choices imposed on them.
Oh, for goodness' sake. I've already agreed that this is the case. I just don't think it means our society is based on respecting other people's freedom to choose. Are you not even reading what I post?
> In a society I'm proposing, those kind of choices aren't able to be thrusted on a person because the idea that you can choose for someone is removed.
Since you and I don't even agree on what "choice" means, I think we need to taboo that word for this discussion, because to me, what you are saying here looks like pure sophistry given as an excuse to allow you to do whatever you want to people without their consent--in other words, as I said, tyranny worse than the worst tyranny in history. The rest of your post has the same problem.
Elsewhere in this discussion, you said that if I had cancer, you would rearrange my brain if you thought it would cure the cancer. And I asked you a question in response. Your answer to that question will help me to understand whether the issue we are having here is just a matter of a difference in terminology, or a fundamental difference in viewpoint. You can respond where I asked the question, or here.
I did there. Let's consolidate our discussion to just a back and forth on that thread if you want to continue the discussion, which I thoroughly hope you do.
What would you rather me be doing to fight it? Be on TV everyday as single handedly bringing in the bad guys who are making their "choices" to traffick children? Are you ok with their "choices" to hurt children? Why aren't you on TV everyday bringing the bad guys into jail?
Honest answer? You and I, as individuals, can't fight it unless we are right there when it happens. As I have said, more than once now, the fact that we can make choices does not make us omnipotent.
In any case, I'm not the one that is saying everyone should drop everything and go fight child trafficking. You are. I am simply pointing out that you are not actually doing what you claim everyone should be doing.
We can't fight it unless it happens right in front of us? We can donate to organizations that do have the stated purpose. We can vote for politicians who propose laws and policies that make it extremely difficult for it to happen. How are you powerless to do anything about it unless it happens "right in front of you"?
And I'm pointing out how in my capacity I am doing everything I can to fight it. Part of that is convincing your (or more likely others reading this), that your position is wrong.
> We can donate to organizations that do have the stated purpose. We can vote for politicians who propose laws and policies that make it extremely difficult for it to happen.
Sure, if we think such organizations and politicians actually exist. (I'm skeptical that they actually do, but I'm willing to assume they do for the sake of this discussion.) But to me, that doesn't count as "drop everything you're doing and fight", which is what you said earlier that everyone should be doing. If what you meant by "drop everything you're doing and fight" is just "support organizations and leaders that you think will improve the situation", then I don't disagree with your suggestion as a general thing (though I might disagree with your specific selection of which organizations and politicians to support), but I think your choice of words was a very poor one. To most people, "drop everything you're doing and fight" means "completely rearrange your life so you are spending all of your time and effort fighting this problem".
And you would be wrong then, as most people define free will as the ability to actually control one's own actions rather than participate in a false world view where those "choices" are viewed as the important part of defining free will.
And I do ignore it. Not it of spite, but because it fails to hold up to intense rigor and scrutiny.
I disagree. And I see no point in continuing to argue about it. We simply do not agree on how "most people define free will".
> it fails to hold up to intense rigor and scrutiny.
You are apparently ignorant of the extensive literature on free will and cognitive science in which the view I am defending does hold up to intense rigor and scrutiny.
At any point you could link to any scientific study that established the rigor of your arguments. The fact that you do not indicates you are unable to, or you are aware of the latest scientific evidence that shows contradictory evidence to your claims.
Anything that can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
