>if you believe you have good intentions its alright if there

>>8659780
Where does he say this? I will personally punch him in the face if this isn't some obscure troll.

>>8659780

except he never said that. Ask yourself why manslaughter is different to murder and you'll understand to some degree what Harris thinks about intention.

>>8659781

What he actually says is that a person's intentions are a plausible guide to how we can expect them to act in the future. The guy who stabs you on purpose might try to do it again, whereas the person who stabs you accidentally might drive you to the hospital. This is an important consideration in deciding how to treat people whose actions have had negative consequences.

>>8659781
Check his 'debate' with Chomsky
>>8659783
Its what it consists of.
It was alright to bomb a pharmaceutical plant in the Sudan causing the deaths of who knows how many people, an entirely predictable event as it was known the plant produced half the countries medication, because Bubba had good intentions

>>8659786

The difference between murder and manslaughter is precisely intention. He's not saying that it was alright to bomb the pharmaceutical plant, he says that there is an ethical difference between maliciously killing innocent people and doing so through negligence. The immediate consequences are just as bad, but our judging of the individual who performed these acts and how we treat them as a result of their actions has to be different.

>free will is an illusion
>intention still had moral weight

Huh.

>>8659793

He doesn't say it has moral weight in the sense of moral blame. He doesn't think moral blame is a rational concept at all. But just because we don't have free will doesn't mean suffering isn't bad. We lock people up to protect society from them, and we lock the people up not just because they do bad things, but because they intentionally do bad things. It doesn't make sense to put people in jail for things they did accidentally because jail isn't a moral punishment and people who do things accidentally can be expected not to do them again.

>>8659800

If there is no free will we don't even have the option of locking people up for their ill-intended wrongdoings. Either they get locked up or they don't.

>>8659800
>doesn't say it has moral weight in the sense of moral blame.

I want using the term in 'that sense', either. I meant it 'weighs' in our 'considerations' in how to 'deal with others'. Oh wait...

>>8659806

You're confusing determinism with fatalism. Things aren't predestined regardless of how we act. We just can't ultimately account for why we act the way we do because the universe is either completely deterministic, completely random, or some combination of both. We still make choices, and those choices still have consequences, we just aren't the authors of our choices and we couldn't have behaved differently.

>>8659813

>You're confusing determinism with fatalism.

They are actually the same thing, folks like you just like to equivocate between the two to have your moral language without any of the unpleasant metaphysical commitments using that language forces you to make.

>>8659819

But they're not. If fatalism is true, then no matter how I behave the same thing will happen. If determinism is true, then only those things will happen that are possible given the choices I make, I just can't account for why I make the choices I do.

>>8659785
Holy cow philosophy is retarded

>>8659824

Why?

>>8659823

I really hate appealing to definitions, but it's kind of the only recourse when someone is trying to change them on you just to score a few self-esteem points, so:

>http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/#Int

>Determinism: The world is governed by (or is under the sway of) determinism if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.
>the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.

Sounds an awful lot like fucking fatalism, don't it?

>>8659836

Not really.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKv2pWZkgrI

>>8659836

Choice is part of the causal stream. Let's say I will go to the shops at some point in the future. If fatalism is true, then if I just sit in my bedroom all day I will eventually make it to the shops anyway. If determinism is true, I have to get up and walk to the shops to get their, I just can't author the intention not to go to the shops.

>>8659839

>claim someone is changing definitions to suit his specious arguments
>nah man, look, here's the man himself formulating his own special definition of a well-established philosophical concept just to sit his specious arguments

Hm.

>>8659841

You're an idiot.

> What did the U.S. government think it was doing when it sent cruise missiles into Sudan? [...] Asking these questions about Osama bin Laden and the nineteen hijackers puts us in a different moral universe entirely.

Funny how he writes a whole book advocating for consequentialism, but when the US does something bad and they knew the consequences, it's suddenly about intentions.

>>8659844

That's not an argument.

>>8659849

I don't argue with idiots. That would make me an idiot. I merely explain things to them that they don't understand until I get bored.

>>8659842

You can google "fatalism vs determinism" if you want to and get a bunch people who aren't Sam Harris saying the same thing.

>>8659850

Stop posting then.

>>8659849
>>8659852

>http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fatalism/
>Though the word “fatalism” is commonly used to refer to an attitude of resignation in the face of some future event or events which are thought to be inevitable, philosophers usually use the word to refer to the view that we are powerless to do anything other than what we actually do. This view may be argued for in various ways: by appeal to logical laws and metaphysical necessities; by appeal to the existence and nature of God; by appeal to causal determinism.
>by appeal to causal determinism.

Concepts are, of course, fuzzy and often indistinct, and easily manipulated to suit our ends so long as we obscure those parts of the concept that would undermine or aim.

>>8659854

'No'.

>>8659852
>>8659849

e·quiv·o·ca·tion
iˌkwivəˈkāSH(ə)n/
noun
the use of ambiguous language to conceal the truth or to avoid committing oneself; prevarication.

>>8659856

Saying that you can justify fatalism by appeal to determinism doesn't mean they're precisely the same thing. You don't seem to understand that they are separate concepts. Even if you were to argue that in order for fatalism to be true some form of determinism must also be true, that doesn't suggest that fatalism must be true if determinism is true.

Fatalism is the "resignation in the face of some future event", precisely as I said above. Determinism just says that the world is deterministic. If you are a fatalist you believe it doesn't matter what you do, if you are a determinist you think it does matter, as far as bringing about some future outcome goes.

>>8659866

Reading comprehension.

>Though the word “fatalism” is COMMONLY [i.e. in layman's parlance ] used to refer to an attitude of resignation in the face of some future event or events which are thought to be inevitable, PHILOSOPHERS USUALLY use the word to refer to the view that we are powerless to do anything other than what we actually do. [THIS is the USE we are INTERESTED IN HERE. GOT IT?]

>we are powerless to do anything other than what we actually do
>Determinism: The world is governed by (or is under the sway of) determinism if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.
>the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.
>we are powerless to do anything other than what we actually do

You seeing the relation 'between' the concepts now?

>>8659866

You could even argue that I am using the terms 'fatalism' and 'determinism' incorrectly. But even if that were true (and I don't think it is), you could just pick two new words to stand for the concepts I'm expressing. And these concepts are quite clearly not identical to each other.

>>8659874

Fucking. Wew.

>>8659875

You know this thread was about Sam Harris right?

>>8659873

This doesn't contradict anything I've said. In both cases of the definitions of fatalism and determinism that I use (that I got from multiple sources on the internet), we are powerless to do anything other than what we actually do. That doesn't make them identical concepts. There are multiple ways in which we can be powerless.

>>8659882

I've been had. I really am an idjit. Guess I'll go hang myself. It was determined at t0

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The simple fact is this: If there's no such thing as 'free will', punishment makes little sense. The whole idea of 'personal responsibility'/etc becomes nothing more than an excuse for revenge.

This isn't fucking news. Even Nietzsche was saying the same thing. One of his longer aphorisms was practically the fucking blueprint for modern-day rehabilitative justice:

> We have scarcely begun to reflect on the physiology of the criminal and yet we are already confronted with the indisputable realization that there is no essential difference between criminals and the insane...we should not shrink from drawing its consequences by treating the criminal as an insane person: above all, not with haughty mercy but with the physician's good sense and good will... one should not neglect anything to give back to the criminal, above all, confidence and a free mind; one should wipe pangs of conscience from his soul as some uncleanliness and give him pointers as to how he might balance and outbid the harm he may have done to one person by a good tum to another, or perhaps to society as a whole. All this with the utmost consideration. And above all, anonymity or a new name and frequent change of place, so that the irreproachability ability of his reputation and future life be endangered as little as possible.

>Today, to be sure, he who has been harmed always wants his revenge, quite apart from the question of how this harm might be undone again, and he turns to the courts for its sake; for the present this maintains our abominable penal codes, with their shopkeeper's scales and the desire to balance guilt and punishment. But shouldn't we be able to get beyond this? How relieved the general feeling of life would be if, together with the belief in guilt, we could also get rid of the ancient instinct of revenge, and if we even considered it a fine cleverness in a happy person to pronounce a blessing over his enemies, with Christianity, and if we benefited those who had offended us. Let us remove the concept of sin from the world-and let us soon send the concept of punishment after it. May these banished monsters live somewhere else henceforth, not among men, if they insist on living at all and do not perish of their own disgust.

>...In crude stages of civilisation, and even now among some savage peoples, the sick are, in fact, treated as criminals, as a danger to the community, and as the dwelling of some demonic being which has entered them in consequence of some guilt: every sick person is a guilty person. And we - shouldn't we be mature enough for the opposite view? Shouldn't we be able to say: every 'guilty" person is a sick person?

In the unlikely event that any of you fucks read this, which was a pain in the ass to copy/paste, you'll see what I mean.

>>8659780

>How is this man taken seriously?

Except he isn't by people who know what they're talking about.

>>8659896

The problem is that Sam Harris can say the same thing and be called an idiot and a pseudo intellectual for it, at least on /lit/.

>>8659886

I am not going to hold your fucking hand through every little inference. Just reflect on the the phrase 'fixed as a matter of natural law' and really dig into what that notion of 'fixity' entails.

Per determinism: any universe state at t(n) follows from the conditions of the universe at t(n-1), all the way down the line to t(0). Try and find room for a meaningful concept of choice somewhere in there.

>>8659905

Nope.

>>8659904

As I understand it, Sam Harris isn't saying what Nietzsche was saying. He says that 'free will' isn't really free (to whatever extent I don't know) - and yet still believes in punishment/etc.

This, again borrowing from Nietzsche, is akin to having Christianity without the God/Christ (as with George Elliot/etc) - it takes a lot of mental gymnastics and is ultimately dishonest.

>>8659886

>That doesn't make them identical concepts.

You're right, though, they are not coectensive. But they have strongly overlapping valences, such that I can say colloquially that they are the same thing and be understood by anyone not trying to make an equivocal distinction between the two.

>>8659907

You're fucking done, kiddo.

>>8659913

He doesn't believe in punishment for the sake of punishment. He says something along the lines of "if we could lock up hurricanes to protect people from them we'd do that, but we can only lock people up". He doesn't believe in moral blame, he doesn't think emotions like hatred or a desire for revenge are rational, he just thinks we should take steps to protect ourselves from the people we can't convince to be good.

>>8659924

You're still missing the point. Sam Harris is disavowing the metaphysical commitments he needs to make in order to remain LOGICALLY CONSISTENT with his positions vis-a-vis 'intention', 'choice', etc.

>>8659931

Unless you've said it elsewhere in this thread could you elaborate on what you mean?

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>>8659924

It's all well and good to lock people to contain whatever risk they pose - what then? You can't rehabilitate a hurricane - people are different. Locking people up for the sake of lucking people up is punishment par excellence. If he is true to his logic (that thing he, like a modern-day Socrates, fetishes in a most Apollonian way) - then he should wish to see even the worst criminals rehabilitated.

As for those whom we "can't convince to be good" - the only 'moral' way of killing them would be to provide them with the means of killing themselves, and only if they want to. Apart from that, every attempt should be made to rehabilitate - however long it takes.

>>8659936

You cannot hold that determinism is true and that people have choices simultaneously unless you RADICALLY redefine 'determinism' or 'choice' or both. Sam goes whole hog and does both, which is why actual philosophers OPENLY MOCK HIM TO HIS FACE.

>>8659940

I agree entirely, and I'm almost certain that Harris would as well given his quasi-utilitarian ethics. Rehabilitation is the optimal course of action in dealing with criminals. It might be difficult to achieve in practice however.

>>8659945
>Rehabilitation is the optimal course of action in dealing with criminals.

But this implies they have the power to act other than how they will, though, doesn't it?

>>8659941

I think it was Einstein (not that it matters) who said "we can get what we want, but we're not able to want what we want". This kind of sums up how you can have both without contradiction. We can come to forks in the road, but the thoughts and emotions and impulses that cause us to go in one direction rather than the other are all constrained entirely by things outside our control (neurology, environment, genes, etc.).

>>8659953

>constrained entirely by things outside our control

Constrained by the state of the universe at time t, you fucking idiot.

>>8659951

All it implies I think is that the universe is not a static place. To say that we don't have free will is not to say that we will remain the same forever. The possibility for change exists and it can be brought about by external influences. We just can't ultimately account for what and how we are influenced by.

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>>8659953

>I think it was Einstein (not that it matters) who said "we can get what we want, but we're not able to want what we want".

>Getting the quote wrong
>Mistaking Einstein for Schopenhauer

JUST

>>8659962

K I failed.

>>8659953

Just more equivocation. What is irksome is you don't see it, but Harris does. He just tries to hide it. You're a fool; he's a charlatan.

>>8659964

Maybe you're right, but I don't feel like arguing with you anymore.

>>8659960
>The possibility for change exists and it can be brought about by external influences.

If determinism is true, it will ALWAYS and ONLY be brought about by 'external' action, and calling an alteration that happens to pass through our bodies a 'choice' given this is chicanery.

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>>8659951

Although peoples' actions may be 'inevitable', they are 'inevitable' in different ways and at different times.

If we imagine the criminal to be a victim of circumstance, for example, then his actions were of course inevitable. If we change his circumstances, however, à la rehabilitation, then we can ensure (as much as possible) that his future inevitable actions are good and law-abiding.

At the very least, it makes the goodness and lawfulness of his future actions much more likely - which is undeniably better than mere punishment. If one were to retort that rehabilitation does not GUARANTEE the goodness and lawfulness of his future actions, I would entirely agree - but then the goodness and lawfulness of anybody's actions is not guaranteed. Merely likely or unlikely, given their circumstances.

>>8659969

We aren't arguing. I'm explaining, you're failing to understand. I told you this already.

>>8659972

I don't see it intentionally deceptive, it's just using the word "choice" the way most people use it and incorporating it into a worldview where there is no free will. But I would agree that we would need to rethink what the word "choice" means in such a context.

>>8659792
so as long as you manage to think that you don't mean it it's somehow better?
this bullshit reasoning is why sam harris and the entire anglo-buddhist meme is literal cancer. detach yourself and do whatever the fuck you want.

>>8659980
>it's just using the word "choice" the way most people use it and incorporating it into a worldview where there is no free will

That is the deception, that is the dishonesty. Most of Harris' audience are layfolk that aren't going to pick up on the sophistry. He's banking on their ignorance, and he's selling them the philosophical equivalent of snake oil.

>>8659983

Are you suggesting there is no ethical difference at all between intentionally causing harm and accidentally doing so?

People need to stop listening to this guy, or his appeal to science brand of fascism will actually start to be taken seriously. A total fraud and a dangerous idiot

>>8659987
what proof do you have that the person did not intentionally cause the harm?

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>>8659999

>>8659987

>2016
>Drawing this distinction when Free Will obviously doesn't exist

>>8660005
the question of Free will has absolutely nothing to do with intention. Intention can both be used as a predictive marker of future actions as well as a tool for insight into the character of the agent which in turn can also act as a predictive metric. Whether or not their choice was 'free' (I don't actually consider the term free will to bear any meaning whatsoever) is immaterial if we're talking about an individual in a position of power, if they're knowingly causing the deaths of thousands, they should be removed

>>8660014

>if we're talking about an individual in a position of power, if they're knowingly causing the deaths of thousands, they should be rehabilitated*

>>8660002
that's your response?

>>8660022
I wasn't >>8659987

>>8660017
No, removed. It should be a volatile, zero-tolerance position, and a nation doesn't have time for their leader to be 'rehabilitated'. When I say removed, I don't mean killed, I literally mean removed from their position of power

>>8659783
It's not at all like that. Very few people would ever be convicted of murder if it were more like Harris' thing, because you'd have to full on prove intention without reference to their actions outside of what they say/write/claim. And if they were to claim in their speaking and writing that they did it for some other reason, even if they admit the killing was a strong possibility, it wouldn't be murder still.

In fact I think it would even work as "I will kill them" is murder whereas "I will have to kill them" would be manslaughter. Anyway, retarded claim from both yall.

>>8659780
Why so eager to misrepresent a man's views, OP?

He says that all other things being equal in an evil deed, a good or bad intention makes a difference. He does not mean to imply that this excuses the evil deed, merely that intention can make a difference in how the person should be judged.

As far as I understand his point, anyway

>>8659999
What particular person? what proof can he have of an intention in a hypothetical situation that you haven't even explained - that doesn't even exist? Do you mean to imply that intention can never be proven or disproven?

How is he suppose to reply?

>>8659785
>>8660141
So what the judicial branch of government already does?

>>8659792
>he says that there is an ethical difference between maliciously killing innocent people and doing so through negligence

It is entirely predictable that if you destroy a factory producing half of a countries pharmaceuticals that they are going to go without

so they do it knowing the consequences, or they dont stop to think about it

>>8659987
it is completely foreseeable
>>8659999
the evidence is their claims of good intentions

>>8660173
#Sudanlivesmatter

>>8660170
Indeed. What's your point, anon?

>>8660005
>free will not existing changes what peoples opinion on intent should be
Why?Are you actually autistic?This shit is incredibly obvious, and requires very little thought.The person who drops something on your foot to hurt you, and the person who accidentally steps on it are different people.Again ARE YOU ACTUALLY AUTISTIC?