For most people, me certainly included, blame is a two-edged sword. It can feel good to wield one edge against people we think have done something wrong (or lots of things wrong). Just to pull a name out of my cranium, Donald Trump comes to mind.
But when the other edge is used against us, we often feel like we’re being blamed unfairly. After all, our intentions were good. Things just didn’t turn out as we expected.
The same applies to shame. We may think that other people should feel ashamed of something they did, while we resist the idea that shame should arise in us — because like blame, shame is an uncomfortable experience.
I’m not saying that I have a cure-all for blame and shame. However, I strongly believe that giving up a belief in free will, or at least markedly reducing our belief in it, is the best way of reducing our propensity to blame and shame both others and ourself.
The central tenet of free will is a person could have done differently. Either someone else, or us. A driver backs into our car in a parking lot. We get upset. Maybe we yell at them, “Why didn’t you look for other cars before you backed up?”
This assumes that they could done what they did differently. But if everything in the cosmos was rewound to the moment just before they started to back up, every atomic and subatomic particle being in exactly the same state, how is it possible that the driver could have done anything differently?
It isn’t possible. That’s why free will is almost certainly an illusion.
Free will in the true sense of this notion, not the watered-down version favored by so-called compatibilists, requires a non-physical entity to be part of our psyche that is unaffected by the deterministic cause and effect influences that govern every other entity in the everyday world.
Brains. Hurricanes. Flowers. Birds. Clouds. Everything.
There’s no evidence that such a non-physical entity exists, or how it could create freely-willed human actions. Soul is one candidate. But there’s no evidence of soul, or any convincing explanation of how an immaterial entity could produce actions in the physical world.
The very idea of an uncaused action — which is necessary for free will to exist — makes no sense. Either we do things for a reason, or randomly. Neither is compatible with free will. I’m unable to grasp how will can be free in a world where causes have effects, and effects lead to other causes.
Still, it is clear that actions do have consequences, Until we have lots of driverless cars, it’s virtually certain that a person was behind the wheel of the vehicle that backed into our car. That physical person can be held responsible for the accident, even if they didn’t freely will what they did.
However, no immaterial self capable of doing something different than what they actually did is involved here.
If a dog bites a child, we don’t assume that the dog possessed free will and could have chosen not to bite. Yet we have no problem making sure that steps are taken to make sure that the dog won’t bite other people or animals.
A lack of free will doesn’t mean a lack of assigning responsibility. It simply means that blame and shame aren’t reasonable responses to behavior we don’t like, because blame and shame require an assumption of you could have done differently.
Again, the “you” can either be another person, or ourself.
We can regret an action by someone else or by us. We can take steps to help assure that the action won’t happen again. We can hold the person who carried out the action responsible for what they did.
Life and society operate just fine without a belief in free will. All that changes, really, is that the foundation of blame and shame dissolves. To me, that’s a very good thing.
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Just wait until AI starts blaming and shaming people for being so stupid. Especially the ones who exist in their measley world. The ones that claim no will power to stay off of their territory. The guilty computer!
>> …… because blame and shame require an assumption of you could have done differently.<<
If you touch heat, you feel pain and if you feel pain you withdraw your hand and in withdrawing you save your hand for further use.
Blame and shame are the same but abstract … they help you to make better choices.
In harvesting berries of hawthorn or blackthorn you can easily collide with a thorn and that thorn, certainly from blackthorn, can cause a painful infection …. thanks to the pain, you can avoid it next time or stop gathering the berries.
Soul, if there is one, is not making choices .. it never did. Robots are programmed by hard and software to make choices, yet they are not aware, not alive.
“There’s no evidence that such a non-physical entity exists, or how it could create freely-willed human actions.”
Yes, free will assumes a non-physical entity attached to us, and indeed, there is no evidence for such an entity. But people fear that having no free will would mean that society could act irresponsibly and that wrongdoers would plead “I couldn’t help it”, and get away with murder – literally.
As Brian states: “A lack of free will doesn’t mean a lack of assigning responsibility. It simply means that blame and shame aren’t reasonable responses to behaviour we don’t like, because blame and shame require an assumption that you could have done differently.”
And the moment has passed where we assume ‘we could have done differently’. I would add that blame and shame (no matter how enlightened we are) will probably always arise, as they are part and parcel of the emotions of being human, but we can learn from them without feeling guilty and, where and if applicable, adjust our future behaviour accordingly.
It’s Karma some has been caught up with because they simply can’t live in Truth. More Truth they try to acquire, hence more Ego which leads to more karmic reaction.
Imagine a life with no karma.What would it look like.
That’s where Truth resides for anyone to be friends with.
As Huckleberry Finn said, “It don’t make no diference whether you do right or wrong, a person’s conscience ain’t got no sense, and just goes for him anyway. If I had a yaller dog that didn’t know no more than a person’s conscience does I would pison him.”
I think there’s a lot of truth to that. But the moral paradox still stands — to be completely heedless of conscience is a recipe for….well, instead of explaining I’ll put it into a thought experiment:
Think of a world leader whom you believe had no conscience.
You thought of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and/or Donald Trump.
It’s clear then that an utter lack of conscience is no way to go through life.
Again, to the paradox: Many religions that are ostensibly “shame-based” also teach that destiny is foreordained. In Sant Mat, they say “destiny is written on the forehead,” and that whatever happens is the Lord’s will.
More fully though, “Try your best to do good, and whatever happens is the Lord’s will.” Paradoxical as it may be, to me this is the moral golden mean. Obsession with moral perfection is an unhealthy scrupulosity, while a complete deafness to conscience is sociopathy.
“blame and shame require an assumption of you could have done differently”
Again, no. Like I’ve discussed at length, many times. Just no.
Blame and shame do not require the assumption of free will.
This mindless repetition, time and time again, completely ignoring critique that you’ve no cogent rebuttal to, it surprises me, baffles me, disappoints me.
Make that the sixth fallacious assumption you’ve simply assumed is true. (Added to those five from long ago, that you’ve since come to understand are fallacious.)
So many old arguments long disproven… And in total the points don’t cohere logically into a conclusion.
Free will
Blame
Existence of Soul
Responsibility
Absence of Choice
Predestination
All these do not logically add up to anything when each is a very derivative and qualified observation.
1. Free will
Does exist and doesn’t exist.
A. You can see that when you learn and can choose from alternatives, you personally have greater freedom. Education gives people greater choices, and relative freedom from poverty, from dependence on others which limits their mobility, etc.
B. Everyone acts from their conditioning. Everything is cause and effect.
You see, you can argue for both apparently contradictory views and still be logically consistent. To claim these are incompatible is a straw man.
2. Blame (or praise)
Who can be blamed? Who can be praised? We are all just products.
Yet doing so can hold the person responsible for harm, or good, in account, and that is where society benefits, because giving by consent support to the helpful adds power to helpful endeavors, while withdrawing support from harmful activity also helps reduce the spread of harm. Blame and praise have their function. And therefore they exist. But in a closed system every butterfly is part of every effect. Both are true. They are not incompatible at all.
3. Existence of Soul. To detect the existence of anything, to claim it exists you must witness it, ideally measure it. Yet many of the things that make up this world are scientifically beyond observation and measurement. Yet they must exist in order for any part of this creation to exist. So the unknown does exist, and the entire history of science is the proof.. The moment science established something as real, it has proven to be more complex than anyone thought before. The unknown should be respected. It exists. We don’t know anything about it yet and can’t otherwise comment except to say that what makes life, and that makes us are mysteries we can only partly answer.
4. Responsibility. If we acted only as a cog in the wheel, to that extent we aren’t responsible. We were forced. To the extent we are the wheel, we are indeed responsible. Where do you place your consciousness? Go figure. One thing we do know: As we are able to take more responsibility for our actions, we act for the benefit of the whole. It’s a nice form of growth.
5. Absence of Choice. Were we destined to choose door number 2? Probably. But now we see we can choose door number 3. So now we really do have choice, relative to before. And that’s a good thing.
6. Predestination. Everything has a cause, so then it must have been predictable, from some universal point of omniscience? In theory. But never in practicality. Because cause and effect are predicated om an assumption of linear time. And one day Brian, you may have the traumatic good fortune to witness that time only works that way in this little bubble of very limited consciousness.
Just try making a different decision today, seriously, about who you are, and then awaken tomorrow to discover you had a childhood you didn’t realize before. Your own history is different, rewritten, re-lived differently. A different childhood. Time is a fickle mistress, buddy.
But do we have free will to NOT feel Guilt or Shame ?
What motivates people to be selectively interested in finding their truth about the abstract concepts of free will, soul, karma, god etc etc. … not all people do. …or about “perfect” guru”s
All these concepts turn around being responsible before others for one’s action.
But even if one could find logical answers for that truth .. whatever action is performed has its consequences.
The stone thrown into the pond makes ripples, but the ripples are not always the same even in the same pond.
CAUSE … is a difficult concept .. the mind masters might try to lay hands in it it.
If a stone is thrown into a pond and ripples are formed are they CAUSED by the one that throws? The stone, the pond, the water, the weather and god knows what more?
What is cause?
What moves.
There is constant flux in the universe, transport of energia
Hi Um:
You wrote: “There is constant flux in the universe,” well, maybe not constant.
You wrote: “If a stone is thrown into a pond and ripples are formed are they CAUSED by the one that throws? The stone, the pond, the water, the weather and god knows what more?”
Imagine things moving in the opposite direction, where the ripples come together to form the stone!
Black holes and supernovas tend to work like that.
Time is only constant relative to matter and space, and time also helps define these.
Time can move as oddly as a flower’s pedals:
Cartesian Coordinates: For drawing, use x=r*cos (theta) and y=r*sin(theta)
Calculus works in a similar way, Um. A single variable constantly applied can yield varying results, even results that appear to go back upon themselves. Time is no different. We are in a very small segment of a single bubble, so we only see this tiny single line that, in our tiny view, appears straight and constant. It isn’t. Time can only be said to be a fixed constant as a whole, in its entirety. That would be all things past and future. But not so locally, either geographically or by measure in this tiny point in the tiny history of the creation. we are a fragment of a drop, thinking the drop is the ocean. It’s just a drop, Um. And we are only in a tiny portion of that. But even in that drop time moves differently in all kinds of different places. So, speaking of cause and effect, one can say one thing is connected to another, but to say they are universally linear and related in a single direction simply isn’t so. We are a single point of consciousness, so that’s how we see it. But just as a single dot of ink cannot be used to define the entire picture, so our single viewpoint of just this single instance, looking at the trail we can see, is no basis to presume the entirety.
The ripples make the stone, the stone made the pond. The pond makes the ripples.
And as eastern philosophers, and western sci-fi writers have alluded to, what you think is not only conditioned by these things but conditions them. When you choose to look at things from a different point of view, you see they are different. And then, trying to return to your original point of view, you see that they were never like that at all. You literally changed reality by changing your thinking, even the past. If that is so, why bind anyone to the past by claiming nothing could have been different? It can be different now, and becoming different, you will see the past was never what you thought it was. You create both future AND past by your choice of thinking and focused attention.
…And therefore, everyone, you should be ashamed of yourselves for not re-creating your own past by giving up the old version you created, taking on a new perspective, and letting a little time and the great Consciousness that rethinks this creation into being moment by moment. Give up control in order to cling to a dead truth that never was. Let reality do its work. It won’t be what you want, though. But it will be a deeper truth that gives you a better future. If you don’t like your past, that’s on you to do something about it. Yes, alter your own past, put some new ripple in the pond, and watch and listen, and then look back to find a different stone was dropped long ago from the one you thought.
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@ Spence
Spence, you deserve an answer on your level …..but ….. I am not the one that has the capacity, neither intellectual, nor linguistic, logical, scientifical and certainly not spiritual, to give you that answer.
The rest I deleted.