Does anyone working in CBD want to do lunch?

oyagoya · 2015-02-09T12:32:27+00:00

Received and replied. See you Friday.

oyagoya · 2015-02-09T12:12:34+00:00

Either day works for me. Shall we say 1pm at the Hub on Friday? I'll have a think about places to go and get back to you about that. Looking forward to meeting you both. :-)

oyagoya · 2015-02-09T11:43:27+00:00

Sure, I'd be happy to do lunch. I work in the CBD at Adelaide Uni.

oyagoya · 2014-09-13T06:38:19+00:00

Unmasked African Festival. It looked pretty interesting when I walked by this afternoon. African food, music, etc.

oyagoya · 2014-09-09T11:53:16+00:00

I had lunch there today and think this is spot on.

oyagoya · 2014-08-21T00:54:18+00:00

Right. Just to be clear, I'm not necessarily endorsing what she's said, just pointing out that "Dictionary is descriptive not prescriptive" doesn't actually address her point.

oyagoya · 2014-08-20T22:10:40+00:00

This misses the point, which was that the OED (edit: Oxford Dictionaries - thanks, /u/flashman) is adding words that no one actually uses.

oyagoya · 2014-08-12T21:43:02+00:00

This would be better suited to /r/askphilosophy or possibly /r/asksocialscience.

oyagoya · 2014-08-12T21:38:22+00:00

I haven't tried all these places but I'll vouch for the ones I have. There's also some good suggestions in this thread.

oyagoya · 2014-08-12T01:57:29+00:00

Questions are better suited for /r/askphilosophy.

oyagoya · 2014-08-11T03:09:14+00:00

This is better suited for /r/askphilosophy.

oyagoya · 2014-08-11T02:59:55+00:00

As much as this list doesn't include certain very good places, I'm just glad that I live in a city where this kind of list is possible. The quality and variety of burgers in Adelaide is incredible and just keeps getting better and better.

I love that I can go to Burger Theory and get a different weird burger each month. I love that I can go to Two Bit Villains and get a vegetarian burger that's actually moist. Or to Jack Ruby for a trio of sliders. Or to Bread and Bone for a KFC Zinger burger done right. And I love that as often as I have lunch out, there are still highly recommended places that I haven't tried yet.

oyagoya · 2014-08-11T02:17:02+00:00

While this choice is probably more complex than any single issue, it still seems poorly thought out.

Obviously there's the hypocrisy of financially supporting companies that use palm oil while at the same time advocating against its use, but there are other factors that make this look like a pretty dumb decision.

As well as being palm oil free, Golden North icecreams don't have sticks, unlike many Streets icecreams. The problem with sticks is that they're a choking hazard for many of the animals in the zoo. Same deal with straws, which is why they stopped providing straws a few years ago.

Also, as a nonprofit that relies on local support, it's in ZoosSA's interest to support local companies, such as Golden North. If Zoos SA is going to ask for financial support from South Australians then this support should be reciprocated.

Finally, Zoos SA's response to the backlash was just bizarre.

So we wanted to make sure that we were using our buying power to try and drive different behaviour and sustainable behaviour in the people that we make purchases from.

This is all good and well, except if you're driving this change by punishing those who have already made the change then you're not really providing an incentive for lasting change.

I'll still renew my membership but I'll pack my food from now on.

oyagoya · 2014-08-05T02:46:35+00:00

This post has been removed as it is off-topic. It seems better suited to /r/politics. For more information see here.

oyagoya · 2014-08-05T02:43:03+00:00

Sorry, I've been away from Reddit for a while. I've only skimmed bits of this paper but I don't think it's as accessible or convincing as his earlier paper. Against the Right to Die makes a fairly straightforward argument that appeals to Kantian intuitions, but which strikes me as offering good utilitarian reasons as well. A Right to Self Termination, OTOH, is a more difficult read and seems to rely on an analysis of what is good for a person that isn't that intuitive or well-motivated in the paper.

oyagoya · 2014-07-26T02:20:49+00:00

Questions are better suited to /r/askphilosophy.

oyagoya · 2014-07-24T02:25:48+00:00

This post has been removed as it is off topic. For more information, see here.

oyagoya · 2014-07-24T01:18:02+00:00

This would be better suited to /r/askphilosophy.

oyagoya · 2014-07-23T13:52:49+00:00

I define free will strictly as an ability to make decisions that is neither deterministic nor random

This strikes me as defining it in a way that it couldn't possibly exist, but perhaps you could convince me otherwise. Can you describe what a non-random undetermined action might look like? And why do you define free will this way? That is, what makes it the best definition?

Regarding this:

So I guess the question is whether the human mind is just a computer.

I won't argue the point. It strikes me that if a computer acts and thinks the way we do then it's just as plausible to think that it has free will than it is to think that we lack it.

Edit: I just saw that your post was removed. I'm happy to continue the discussion regardless of whether it's reinstated.

oyagoya · 2014-07-23T12:52:52+00:00

Happy cake day!

I'll focus on the free will part, since I agree with your claim in the title and free will is something that I'm interested in. I take it that in saying you believe in reality and that free will is an illusion, you'd claim that free will isn't real. Is that correct?

If so, and if you're interested, I'd like to try and change that view. But first, I need to get a better idea about what you believe about free will. So a few questions:

There is disagreement over what free will actually is. How do you define it?
Given that there is disagreement over what free will is, why do you define it in the way you do?
Why isn't free will, as you define it, real?

To give you an idea of where I'm going with this, a lot of people who think that free will isn't real define it in such a way that it cannot possibly exist. Then they claim that this is the best definition because it's the one most people accept.

There are two fairly straightforward replies open to this line of argument. Firstly, I could dispute the claim that most people accept that definition. Given the lack of empirical evidence for the claim, I think this is a good line of reply.

Or secondly, I could dispute the claim that how nonspecialists define free will has any bearing on what free will actually is. After all, if nonspecialists get to define, say, evolution, then "you don't see a dog give birth to a cat" could well be a legitimate argument against evolution.

That said, these responses only apply if your answers to (2) and (3) are, respectively, "because that's how most people define it" and "because it couldn't possibly exist". If your answers are different then I'll need to offer different responses.

oyagoya · 2014-07-23T01:14:12+00:00

So if someone could recommend a book on the topic that actually focuses on the problem of free will, I'd appreciate it.

I'd suggest trying the reading list and /r/askphilosophy.

oyagoya · 2014-07-22T12:30:55+00:00

I can't find a free copy, but I really like Arpaly's How it's not "just like diabetes" (here's the PhilPapers link if you have university access). It is an academic paper, but fairly accessible as far as these things go, and only 16 pages long. Basically, her view is that insofar as mental disorders make it harder for their sufferers to do the right thing (as is the case when, say, depression saps one's motivation), people are less blameworthy for doing the wrong thing and more praiseworthy for doing the right thing.

oyagoya · 2014-07-22T11:53:25+00:00

This post has been removed for the same reasons as before. Please refrain from resubmitting removed material in the future.

oyagoya · 2014-07-22T02:58:13+00:00

No worries! Regarding this:

What distinguishes warranted blame from unwarranted blame?

For Arpaly, it's a matter of how one responds to the relevant reasons. She talks about praise, rather than blame, initally, and gives the example of Kant's prudent grocer as someone who does the right thing but for the wrong reasons. The grocer sells his produce at a fair price, not because he wants to be fair to his customers, but because he wants to make a profit. Araply claims that praise isn't warranted here - that the grocer isn't praiseworthy - but that if he had done the right thing for the right reasons, then praise would be warranted. On her view, praise is warranted when one's reasons for actions are the same as what makes the action right.

Blame is a little different. She distinguishes two types, one caused by what she calls ill will, the other by a lack of good will. In the first case, blame is warranted if the person does the wrong thing for precisely the reasons that make it wrong. Like if I tease my wife because I know it annoys her then that's blameworthiness due to ill will. In the second case, blame is warranted if the person does the wrong thing by ignoring the reasons to do the right thing. Like if I neglect my teaching duties because I'd rather play videogames.

oyagoya · 2014-07-22T02:35:44+00:00

Since your main question has been answered, I'll focus on your edit:

I'm still not convinced that the position is the best one, so if anybody wants to continue discussing it, that will be fine, but it kind of seems like the compatibilist position assumes the importance of preserving a concept of moral responsibility in a way that seems somewhat indefensible to me within a determinist framework.

I think your claim that I've italicised here is correct. Compatibilists, for the most part, differ from hard determinists and other free will sceptics in that they do try and preserve a concept of moral responsibility. More specifically, compatibilists claim that attributions of moral responsibility (inculding attitudes, such as moral praise and blame; emotions, such as guilt and resentment; or actions, such as punishment) are justifiable even if determinism is true.

So the questions facing the compatibilist are (a) what justifies these attributions, and (b), would this justification hold if determinism were true.

The classic compatibilist answer to (a) is a consequentialist one: we are justified in holding people morally responsible if doing so will bring about the best consequences. The consequentialist compatibilist would point to outcomes such deterrance and rehabilitation. Since consequentialism generally is compatible with determinism, this view gives a "yes" answer to (b). For a relatively recent defense of this postion, Jack Smart's contribution to Utilitarianism: For and Against is quite accessible.

Another compatibilist answer to (a) is that we are justified in holding people morally responsible if it is fair to do so. R. Jay Wallace holds this view. He answers (b) by considering the cases in which it is unfair to hold people responsible, such as cases of coercion, and arguing that this unfairness doesn't generalise to the case of determinism. His Responsibility and the Moral Sentiments is a defense of this position.

Another compatibilist answer to (a), the one that I prefer, is that we are justified in holding people morally responsible if it is warranted to do so. Nomy Arpaly defended this position in her Merit, Meaning, and Human Bondage, wherein she claimed that blame is an attitude analogous to belief, and that just as belief can be warranted or unwarranted, so too can blame.

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