11-24-2004, 04:15 AM
Nystul,Nov 23 2004, 11:05 PM Wrote:A person who does not believe in absolute good or evil has no motivation to make "the right choice", and a person who does not believe in free will has no motivation to make a choice at all.
Well, again my opinion is that no-one is actually deciding to make the "right choice" they are just utility maximising, and they give "morally right" decisions a high weighting in their utility function. This would mean that ppl that don't believe in free will do have a motivation to make a choice, they make a choice that maximises their utility function, which may even include "morally right" as a positive weighting.
"On the other hand, if good, evil, and free will all do exist, then it matters a great deal that we believe in them."
OK so my questions to this are:
1) Why does it matter?
2 ) What are the implications of not believing in one or both?
3) What is your definition of "free will" and how do you test for it (if it is possible to test), i.e. is there an action that can occur that can only be interpreted as "free will" has occured?
My opinion of free will is not testable, as I have defined free will as being behaviour that is not programmed.