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Let’s explore our
causal will from the perspective of
morality. What that means is that
if we don’t have a personal free
will, then it’s not accurate to say
that we have a personal morality.
When we talk about morality, we’re
basically talking about right and
wrong, and personal responsibility.
We do certain things that are good,
and we expect God, or the universe,
to reward us for those things. If
we do things that are bad, we expect
that the universe will punish us.
That tends to be the way it
generally works, but the salient
point here is that it’s not up to us
whether we do right or wrong, good
or bad.
Every moral
decision that we make is based on
our understanding of the morality of
the issue. Take, for example, a
young boy who is raised in a culture
where stealing is, for some reason,
done and promoted. The culture
teaches stealing. This young boy is
raised in this culture, and learns
is that stealing is not wrong;
stealing is right. This young boy,
when he becomes a man, steals. He
considers himself to be right in
doing so. Let’s now consider
another person, a young girl, who
was raised in a different culture.
She was taught by her culture that
stealing is wrong, and grows up to
not steal.
Is the boy who
becomes a man and steals to be
blamed for his stealing, and is the
girl who doesn’t steal to be
credited for not stealing? If we
believe we have a free will, we’ll
say “yes.”
But to the extent
that we understand that we don’t
have a free will, we understand that
the boy could not have done other
than to steal because when he steals
he thinks he’s doing the right
thing. That’s what he was taught.
That’s how he was conditioned. With
the girl, it’s the same thing. She
was conditioned to think stealing is
wrong, and she doesn’t steal.
The rightness and
wrongness of what we do is not up to
us. It’s up to how we were taught.
If we’re in a certain culture, we’re
going to believe that certain things
are right and certain things are
wrong. If we’re in a completely
different culture, we may believe
that other things are right, and
other things are wrong. But we
don’t get to choose what culture we
are raised in. We don’t get to
choose what parents we have, what
ethics they instill in us, what
books we read in school relating to
morality, etc.
That is a good
way to understand why we don’t have
a free will, and how this relates to
our moral decisions. We’re not
truly morally accountable. We’re
puppets, or robots, or automatons,
or whatever, and we do good and evil
because we’re either lucky in the
first case or unlucky in the
second. When we do good, then the
proper response is to be and feel
grateful. If we define good as that
which creates happiness, that’s the
reason we would be feeling
grateful. We’re doing something
that is going to benefit us, and,
ideally, benefit the world around
us.
In our
relationships with our best friends,
our spouses, our parents, our
brothers and sisters, all of the
people around us, we essentially
interact. What we say and do – our
morality toward each other – is
based on our understanding of
morality and our understanding of
whether our wills are free or
causal. To the extent we fall for
this illusion of free will -- that
we believe we are the captains of
our fate, and can decide what we
want – when someone does something
wrong to us, we will tend to blame
the person.
We attribute
moral accountability to the person,
and say to ourselves “well, if the
person did something wrong, the
person deserves to be punished.”
That will often breed anger and
judgment toward the person. More
often than not, this blame hinders
rather than helps our
relationships. Now let’s see our
interactions with the people around
us as having been the result of our
causal will, or the causal past.
Suddenly, that
person who did wrong to us is no
longer our enemy and adversary, per
se. He is no longer someone we
believe deserves some kind of
punishment. When we understand that
we don’t have free will, and we have
causal wills, and people do not
behave as we believe they should, we
might say to ourselves “it would
have been nice if the causal
universe, or God, would have
compelled that person to act
differently, but S/He didn’t. You
can’t blame a robot -- a human being
without free will – for doing
something the person was completely
compelled to do. You can’t
logically do that.
This perspective
helps with our relationships. It
helps us to be more understanding,
compassionate, and forgiving, not
just toward others, but also toward
ourselves. We do wrong all of the
time. That’s almost the definition
of being human – we make mistakes.
We have high goals and aims, but we
also have a part of our nature that
causes us to do things that are not
in our best interest, or the best
interest of others.
Let’s look at
this from the perspective of how we
might treat a very young child – a
two-year-old. When a two-year-old
does something wrong, what do we
do? Generally, we tend to be
understanding toward the
two-year-old. We say to ourselves
“the two-year-old couldn’t have done
any better. S/he doesn’t know any
better.” At two years old, a child
does not have enough experience, or
knowledge, or maturity, or
information. Because the child
doesn’t have sufficient cognitive
and emotional ability, we don’t
attribute free will to the
two-year-old. We conclude that
two-year-olds do not have a free
will. They can’t think and do
whatever they want because they are
limited by their degree of education
and psychological development.
What happens?
Because we recognize that the
two-year-old does not have a free
will, we are compassionate toward
him or her. We think to ourselves
“hey, that two-year-old is not
responsible for spilling that drink,
or doing whatever s/he may have done
that we may consider wrong. And,
we’re therefore much kinder toward
the two-year-old. Think about it.
We’re much more forgiving and
accepting. That is why morality is
so important to this question of
whether human beings have a free or
a causal will. When we come to
understand that we don’t have a free
will – that free will is an illusion
– then we can apply the same
understanding and rational
compassion that we apply toward the
two-year-old toward everyone in our
lives, including ourselves.
It’s not going to be without
challenges. Even how we address
those challenges, incidentally, is
just as compelled and unfreely
willed as anything else. For
example, let’s say someone does
something that we are compelled to
dislike. We’re compelled to see it
as wrong. What do we do? If we
operate under a causal will
perspective, we say to ourselves
“alright, the person is not to
blame.” But let’s say the person
keeps, for example, stepping on our
foot. That can’t be the end of it.
We basically have to take action
even though we know that the person
does not have a free will, and is
completely compelled to do what they
have done or not done that we
consider a threat. If someone is
physically threatening us, we might
say to ourselves “alright, the
person does not have a free will,
but neither do I, and, the causal
past may have us engage in self
defense.
The point is that
when we understand that we have
causal wills instead of free wills,
it doesn’t mean that other people,
or we, have license to do what we
want. We don’t. It’s important to
remember that when the universe
compels us to do what is right, it
usually rewards us with some kind of
pleasure. When we do what’s wrong,
the universe will often punish us in
some way or another. So, even
though we might be compassionate
toward someone who is doing wrong,
that doesn’t mean we absolutely have
to be a doormat, or be vulnerable to
other people’s aggression. And
again, it doesn’t give us license to
say to ourselves “well, I don’t have
a free will, so I can do whatever I
want.” It just doesn’t work that
way.
This is very
important to remember, because many
people see the reasoning of why we
don’t have a free will, but can’t
completely accept it because they
are afraid that if we give up this
illusion of free will, it will spell
the end of civilization. Such a
fear is much more likely than not to
be unwarranted because we human
beings are hedonic creatures. We
seek pleasure and avoid pain. If
somebody is doing something wrong,
we may not blame them for it, but
we’ll certainly have to take some
kind of action to minimize the
impact of that wrong. The same goes
for us if we do wrong. We don’t
have to be afraid of civilization
collapsing because of our
understanding that free will is an
illusion. I think the potential
benefits of understanding our wills
as causal far outweigh its potential
detriments.
Our whole
civilization and judicial system,
and system of business and economics
is based on the illusion of free
will. With our criminal justice
system, there is an appreciation of
extenuating circumstances. There is
somewhat of an understanding of our
causal will. For example, if in our
criminal justice system somebody
does something wrong, and there is a
mitigating factor -- let’s say the
person was distraught, or ignorant
of certain facts, or has some kind
of disability -- our law accounts
for that. It might minimize a
sentence or find the person
innocent. That’s recognition of
causality. That’s recognition that
a certain person could not have
helped what s/he did.
In business, it’s
the same. We ascribe personal
attribution to each other based on
the belief in a free will. Some of
us do much better at whatever than
others of us. Our current free will
perspective has us reward that
person above another person who was
not as lucky. That leads to the
kind of economic competition that,
if you want to get very real about
it, is likely the main engine for
climate change. We have a
competitive culture that promotes
the idea that “I of my own free will
did something good, and I deserve to
be rewarded for it” rather than
saying, “no, what I did was not of
my own free will. It was simply
fortune or luck, and my personal
well-being is not any more important
than that of those of us who have
been less lucky, and certainly not
more important than the fate of our
entire civilization over the next
several decades because of climate
change.”
Our understanding
of the nature of human will has
profound implications and effects.
When we understand that morality is
not a personal thing, the only thing
you can talk about as moral or not
is the causal past, or God.
Whatever is making us do what we do
is the only moral agent that
exists. We’re not moral beings as
human beings because we’re compelled
to do whatever moral or immoral act
we do. We’re just like a hand that
might do something right or wrong.
We’re not going to attribute
responsibility to this hand; we’re
going to attribute it to the brain
that makes it do what it does.
Naturally, by the same reasoning,
we’re not going to attribute
responsibility to the brain that
leads the hand – we’re going to
attribute it to the causal past.
We’re like a
hand, and we think we’re the brain
or causal past. When it comes to
morality, the better we understand
that everything is causal, and that
there is no personal morality, the
less judgmental we will be. Think
about some of the major tenets in
the major religions. Even though
these religions get this question of
human will wrong, they get a lot
right. Religion tends to be about
morality.
Sometimes it doesn’t live up to its
ideals, but there is within most, if
not all, religions, this idea of
right and wrong. Sometimes it’s not
good to be judgmental, per
se. We have to differentiate
between right and wrong, but to be
judgmental means to blame. So, this
whole concept of non-judgment,
whether it be Christian, Jewish,
Islamic or whatever, really has it’s
basis in the idea that judgment
doesn’t truly make practical sense.
If someone is doing something, and
you’re judging them based on what
they are doing, and they don’t have
a free will, then the judgment is
erroneous and misplaced.
You could,
conceivably judge the causal past,
or God. I tend to do that. I say
to myself “well, if I was God, I
would not have created pain.
Naturally, if there is no pain there
would be no evil, because evil is,
by basic or utilitarian definition,
what creates pain. In other words,
if there was no pain, there could be
no evil.” If the causal past has
compelled us to do wrong, we could
say to ourselves “the causal past
should not have done that.”
But, does the
causal past have a free will? Does
God have a free will? My guess is
“no.” Within our reality, there are
a few things that transcend our
ability to understand. I’ll go
through them briefly, and relate
them to what we are talking about.
Infinity; it’s impossible to know
whether space goes outward
infinitely, or stops at some point.
Either prospect appears illogical
when contrasted with its
alternative. The same goes for the
eternities, going into the eternal
past and into the eternal future.
Our mind cannot wrap itself around
the idea of reality going on forever
and ever, just like it can’t wrap
itself around the idea of everything
just ceasing to be.
Within that
context, it seems impossible for us
to know whether the universe that is
compelling us is compelled itself,
or not. It’s an open question. The
reality that rings through is that
the causal past may have a free will
– may decide of its own accord what
will be and won’t be -- but
certainly we can’t do that as human
beings. It’s because we don’t have
a free will that morality is not
properly applicable to us. In other
words, we’re neither moral nor
immoral. We’re actors on a stage,
doing what the causal past compels
relative to morality. Sometimes it
has us do things that we consider to
be good, and other times not. It’s
just not up to us.
Our world is at a
very challenging time. Climate
Change will be with us for at least
the next several decades, and it’s
going to be extremely challenging.
The global economy is going to be
challenging. To the extent we
understand that we do not have a
free will, we will understand that
we are not essentially morally
responsible, and can be much more
compassionate and non-judgmental
toward the people in our world.
That, I think, will be the way we
solve these problems, because the
free will perspective causes blame
and moral judgment, which causes
denial, conflict and aggression,
whereas the causal will perspective
would likely lead to more
intelligent responses.
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