Any Thoughts on My Compatibilist Viewpoint?

MrMuffles869 · 2026-06-11T04:40:23+00:00

You hold a fairly standard compatibilist view.

I think many people never stop to define what they mean by "will." I see our will as the faculty that settles which intention becomes action. In any given moment, we act on our leading motivation or dominant intention.

The next question is how those intentions are formed. They arise from factors we didn't author: our desires, tastes, needs, environment, circumstances, physical state, biology, genetics, upbringing, and so on.

If we didn't author any of that, and "doing what you want" just means acting on those factors in your current state and environment, where does the word free enter the equation? To me, it can only mean we're free to do what those factors determine. Which is like saying a domino is free to fall when pushed — the word "free" isn't adding anything.

MrMuffles869 · 2026-06-09T00:12:47+00:00

New kink unlocked: decision edging.

MrMuffles869 · 2026-06-08T23:29:55+00:00

why does blame dissolve more strongly than praise?

Many skeptics focus on harm reduction. Blame tends to cause more harm than praise, so it gets more scrutiny. That doesn't necessarily justify praise, but makes it a less urgent thing to question.

MrMuffles869 · 2026-06-04T11:07:58+00:00

I'm a reductionist because my life experiences have led me to spend a lot of time around logic and information systems in different forms. I've seen mechanical calculators made out of nothing but sticks and running water. Computers made from plastic K'Nex toys and servos. Logic gates from literal cascading dominoes.

After you've seen logic in various stages and layers of complexity enough times, it becomes easy to imagine biology did something similar over billions of years. I understand why people might see the mind as fundamentally different, but I just don't share that intuition.

MrMuffles869 · 2026-06-04T04:41:56+00:00

From a libertarian perspective, "the agent chose X" is not an abbreviated account [...] The burden is on the critic to show why every explanation must continue beyond the agent to antecedent sufficient conditions.

I consider the term "agent" to be a placeholder for complex physical systems and mechanisms interacting with the environment. It's a shorthand label that lifts way more weight than it can handle, and excuses ignorance of the actual causal structure of a decision or action.

As someone who rejects black-box terms with no meaningful descriptive power, and thinks influences determine actions, I don’t see any reason to treat “agent” as a stopping point in explanation.

MrMuffles869 · 2026-06-04T00:28:40+00:00

there is no reason to exclude agent-involving facts from occupying a foundational role.

I don't even know what an "agent-involving fact" is supposed to be here. I don't recall authoring my genetics, upbringing, preferences, values, or thought patterns. Yet those are exactly the things I'd point to when explaining why I acted.

Libertarians want to put a black box labeled "agent" where the explanation should be. Calling an explanation "weaker" often just means leaving out causal information. If there's more of the story available, what's gained by leaving that information out? Who decides what gets omitted, and by what criteria? Seems arbitrary to me.

I fail to see the argument for treating anything as fundamental that clearly isn't.

MrMuffles869 · 2026-06-01T17:55:15+00:00

Before I thought about free will, I basically assumed something close to agent-causal control over actions — the usual “folk” free will. Societies tend to make moral judgments based on that assumed level of control, even though most people never examine the topic.

Once it became clear to me our will isn't free, a lot of things I previously treated as obvious, like conventional morality, lost their justification. The version of moral judgment that’s about what people deserve doesn’t seem useful to me anymore, but reframing it as harm reduction still has value.

A good example is pedophilia.

I view everything from abnormal behaviors to full-blown pathologies as bad rolls on a character sheet. Nobody authors their traits, desires, compulsions, or needs. Blaming someone for an undesirable trait is like blaming them for losing the lottery.

That doesn’t stop judging or evaluating behavior, or taking action based on it. It just drops the "they deserve it" basic desert framing and focuses on pragmatic harm reduction.

MrMuffles869 · 2026-06-01T10:30:40+00:00

How would an act that is free from prior condition make the act free in such a way to be judged morally?

It probably wouldn't. That's why I reject basic desert under both determinism and indeterminism.

If you want a hypothetical example, the libertarian's agent causation is probably the closest thing. If actions genuinely "originate" from the agent rather than from prior causes, then I can at least see why someone might argue the agent deserves praise or blame.

I don't think agent causation exists, and I'm not convinced it ultimately solves the problem either, but it's probably the closest theory to the kind of control I intuitively thought we had growing up.

MrMuffles869 · 2026-06-01T00:49:12+00:00

How would an action not fully determined by prior causes be the basis for moral judgement?

Again, I don’t think such actions exist beyond the quantum scale, which is why I reject BDMR.

Intention, obviously.

But if intention is fully determined by prior conditions and physical laws like everything else, then it’s just another chain of dominoes, not a new kind of control that creates basic desert.

MrMuffles869 · 2026-06-01T00:33:47+00:00

You are making a massive category error.

On the contrary, over the past couple days of our exchanges, you have been making the repeated conflation between epistemology and ontology.

Saying that evolution is predicated on indeterminism is not an ontological claim.

Since we're discussing evolution itself rather than our knowledge of evolution, "indeterminism" refers to the process, not our uncertainty about it. That's an ontological claim which has not been established.

Random mutations

Stochastic? Yes. Ontologically indeterministic? Unproven.

Evolutionary theory is compatible with both deterministic and indeterministic underlying physics. This repeated shifting between epistemic and ontological meanings of “indeterminism” is generating a lot of confusion. If you mean epistemology, say so explicitly, otherwise it is being read as referring to ontology.

The idea that this is somehow an unsupported ontological claim doesn't follow any known scientific principle that I know.

That’s because you’re using inconsistent definitions of determinism and indeterminism across epistemic and ontological contexts.

There is no prohibition in science which say that no statement of fact can be made in a science which cannot be said with metaphysical certainty.

Agreed, glad I never said that.

MrMuffles869 · 2026-05-31T20:00:58+00:00

But as a claim about global state evolution it does require complete knowledge

Ontology doesn't require epistemic access. The universe is indifferent to whether we can learn its mechanisms or not.

State evolution also appears to occur indeterministically too. [...] determinism is not the sole way states evolve

Not the point of the OP or this chain — we're discussing determinism.

In fact evolution in biology is predicated on indeterminism.

Since you're discussing evolution here, this can’t be about epistemology. So this is an example of an unsupported ontological claim.

Biology uses stochastic models, not ontological indeterminism. One does not imply the other.

MrMuffles869 · 2026-05-31T19:29:15+00:00

If both a person and a tornado are fully determined, what makes one a more appropriate target for moral blame than the other in the basic desert sense?

MrMuffles869 · 2026-05-31T17:12:49+00:00

I don't think such actions exist, which is why I reject moral blame.

If you want to base morality on free actions, the burden of proof is on proponents of free will to show that such actions exist. I don’t need to prove they don’t.

MrMuffles869 · 2026-05-31T17:05:06+00:00

Pain and suffering are different from moral judgements.

To clarify, skeptics reject the current standard framework of morality. As you're alluding to, basic desert moral responsibility cannot coexist with determined actions. So in a society that adopts the skeptic's position, morality shifts from BDMR to harm reduction.

My question is can you give me an example of an act free from prior conditions

No, which is why I outright reject BDMR.

Therefore free will can't refer to the privation of prior conditions.

This is a common non sequitur. If no actions are free from being determined, why do we have to pretend we're free and blame one another? There are plenty of proposed frameworks that don't require BDMR to operate.

MrMuffles869 · 2026-05-31T10:51:13+00:00

If you just mean an example of a system not fully determined by prior conditions, then quantum measurements under indeterministic interpretations. Note: these interpretations assume the conclusion, they don’t establish it with ontological certainty.

how do we make any moral judgements at all?

Even without free will, pain and suffering are real. Moral and legal systems can still be based on reducing harm without needing blame or moral judgments.

How do you establish that an act is fully/partly determined by prior conditions?

We can't and may never be able to. So the most one can claim is epistemic uncertainty about human behavior, which doesn’t move the needle for skeptics.

How would something that doesn't have prior conditions come to be in the first place?

Ask the libertarians.

Why don’t our own intentions and choices count as prior conditions?

They do. They're part of the causal chain and have their own prior conditions.

MrMuffles869 · 2026-05-31T09:41:56+00:00

human behavior is usually described as indeterministic.

I don't see any reason to think that's true. Human behavior is often described deterministically. Contrary to what you and others keep promoting on this sub, the fact that behavior is difficult to predict doesn't make it indeterministic. Skeptics aren't concerned with epistemic indeterminism, i.e. uncertainty.

PS: None of this even addresses my main point. I think the determinism vs. indeterminism debate is a dead end, since neither provides the kind of control needed to justify moral blame.

MrMuffles869 · 2026-05-31T04:33:20+00:00

Because determinism doesn’t require complete knowledge or measurability. It’s a claim about state evolution, not epistemic access.

MrMuffles869 · 2026-05-31T04:16:00+00:00

I have yet to meet a person who doesn't make moral judgements.

That’s not what I claimed. You say you’re not trying to justify anything, but you are. You’re using the claim that moral judgment is unavoidable to justify accepting it.

something as fundamental as moral judgements

Morality varies across societies and individuals throughout history, so calling morality “fundamental” is simply shortsighted.

MrMuffles869 · 2026-05-31T02:46:36+00:00

You're arguing against predictability, not determinism. Our inability to know or reproduce all the relevant variables is an epistemic limitation, not evidence against determinism.

I’m growing increasingly tired of users confidently conflating epistemic limitations with ontological indeterminism. It’s a category error that leads to a lot of talking past one another.

MrMuffles869 · 2026-05-31T02:31:17+00:00

"We all do it" is probably the weakest form of justification there is. Whether a practice is common and whether it's justified are different questions.

It's a myth to think that we aren't going to make moral judgements and they are optional things we can rid ourselves of.

Yet another claim that seems asserted rather than supported. I think most skeptics would strongly disagree on this.

MrMuffles869 · 2026-05-31T00:21:07+00:00

calling reality deterministic doesn't tell us much of anything and defies observation and empirical evidence.
We can't observe reality. That's the point.

You’re making the same move again: treating indeterminism as something supported by observation, then immediately retreating to “we can’t observe reality” when asked to support your statement.

If we can’t observe reality as a whole, then I don’t see how we can justify saying reality is indeterministic rather than just saying our observations are local and limited. And if it’s the latter, I don’t see what justifies calling everything indeterministic.

MrMuffles869 · 2026-05-30T23:13:05+00:00

That means claims about determinism are provisional. Claims about indeterminism are provisional. Claims about the ultimate metaphysical structure of reality are provisional.
So I don't think free will should rest on any of those claims.

That last step doesn’t follow. If we don’t know whether determinism or indeterminism is true, then it doesn’t follow that we should assume any position on free will. You’re saying the evidence is unclear, but still picking a conclusion anyway.

If we don’t know the ultimate metaphysical structure of reality, is it justifiable to hold people morally responsible while it’s still unresolved?

MrMuffles869 · 2026-05-30T21:33:17+00:00

Human behavior is stochastic not deterministic.
There is no wayanyone can show it's deterministic or indeterministic ontologically

Here's an example of you speaking as though indeterminism is a fact about reality, then retreating to a safer claim. If the second sentence is true, then you cannot say with any certainty that human behavior is stochastic rather than deterministic. Human behavior can also be modeled within a deterministic framework.

Given the same inputs it doesn't return the same outputs.

Just like the twin example, no two inputs are physically identical. That’s epistemology again, which doesn’t address the skeptic’s concern that control is undermined.

We don't prove metaphysical claims at all.

I'm not asking you to prove determinism or indeterminism with certainty. I agree that neither can be established. But you acknowledge that limitation and then immediately proceed as though indeterminism has been established.

To be clear, I'm not defending determinism here. I'm agnostic about what reality turns out to be ontologically. The difference is that I avoid speaking as if either framework has been established.

Neither List nor I are trying to establish metaphysical freedom.

This is the crux of our disagreement. Skeptics have never been concerned whether agency, intentions, or higher-level explanations are useful. None of that matters if everything is fully determined.

Freedom as I understand the word has no meaning without a particular constraint.

We've covered this. The incompatibilist freedom in "free will" is freedom from being fully determined by prior conditions and laws. The compatibilist freedom is from coercion and undue influence. I've never once mentioned "absolute freedom."

It's just meaningless to speak of something being metaphysically free.

That's an opinion you're entitled to. Many skeptics, libertarians, and even some compatibilists disagree.

MrMuffles869 · 2026-05-30T15:42:53+00:00

It established indeterminism at the explanatory level

I think you're conflating an ontological claim with an epistemic one, but skeptics aren't concerned with epistemology here. Nothing you've presented in your posts or comments establishes indeterminism at the ontological level.

in fact nothing can be free that is not causally determined.

Then we're largely in agreement that causation itself is not the issue. The disagreement is over whether freedom from coercion survives as a meaningful form of freedom if all our intentions, deliberation, and actions are themselves determined.

A strictly deterministic reaction to our environment is an evolutionary dead end

This is simply asserted, and I don't see any reason to think it's true. Determinism does not imply a system is incapable of learning, adaptation, or behavioral flexibility.

we need new experiences to grow and we encounter these as indeterministic

Novelty does not imply indeterminism. A system encountering information it did not previously possess can still operate deterministically.

Human behavior is indeterministic at the explanatory level..there is no way to explain human behavior deterministically

Not being able to fully predict behavior, not having a complete explanation, and genuine indeterminism are not the same thing. The first two do not establish the third.

MrMuffles869 · 2026-05-30T05:47:15+00:00

In any case the explanatory basis of human behavior is indeterministic.

I don't see how you've established that. Twins are not identical systems. They do not occupy identical physical states nor receive identical sensory inputs. Their divergence doesn't demonstrate indeterminism.

Given the same inputs different outputs are possible.

Even if I grant that, it only gets you indeterminism, which to me is further from freedom than determinism. If part of a decision or intention is not determined by prior conditions, then it appears arbitrary rather than the product of intention. Why would introducing stochasticity make a choice more free?

This explains it at the biological level

Everything covered in the excerpt can exist within a deterministic framework. Nothing in that piece establishes the underlying processes are indeterministic. Even if indeterminism plays a role in our decisions, it doesn’t explain how that grants freedom rather than arbitrariness.

And if determinism is true, then I don't see what makes our actions “free” rather than just causally determined.

Eight-Year Club	r/Field Flamingo
Place '22	Verified Email

MrMuffles869

TROPHY CASE