什么时候错误的信念可以为自己开脱?(Pt. I)

03 December 2020

Another month of pandemic. . . and another puzzle from me to distract you from it. For those of you who missed it so far, I’ve been doing philosophical pandemic puzzles since March, all of which are still available in the中国伊朗亚洲杯比赛直播2022世界杯赛程安排 2022世界杯赛程安排 . As much as I enjoy doing these, I hope it will only be a few moremonthsbefore I can bring the series to a close!

My first puzzle was about beliefs (他们是受自愿控制的吗?), and this one is too.

The present puzzle question is this: when do false beliefs exculpate someone of a moral wrongdoing?

My focus is specifically onmoralwrongdoing, rather than prosecutable legal violations.

Consider a scenario involving the tragic death of an animal. A veterinarian has two dogs in her care, and the dogs look very similar. Call them Fred and Rufus. Let’s say that for whatever reason, Fred needs to be put down. However, the vet, falsely believing that Rufus is Fred, puts down Rufus.

It is clear that the vet may be guilty of carelessness and even negligence. But we wouldn’t want to say that she was guilty of murdering Rufus, even though she did intentionally kill the animal whose name was Rufus (assume for the sake of argument that the term “murder” can in principle apply to the killing of animals). Effectively, then, her false beliefthat this dog [the one she was looking at] is Fred为她的谋杀开脱因此,在某种程度上,错误的信念可以(至少有时)在道德上为自己开脱。

That suggests something like the following, which we can call thefalse beliefcriterion of exculpation:

FBCE: If a person performs an action guided by a false belief, and that act wouldnotcount as a particular moral offenseifthe belief were true, then the person is not guilty of committing the offense.

Applying this to the vet case, we see that it works nicely. She wouldnotcount as committing murder if her belief about the identity of the dog had been true (after all, Fred did have to be put down), so byFBCEthe action that she did perform (guided by her in fact false belief about the dog’s identity) does not count as murder either.

I think there’s something along these lines that has to be right. And in a way, it’s gestured at already by the familiar children’s cry, “I didn’t do it on purpose!” But a puzzle arises if we applyFBCE另一种情况。

考虑一个被灌输种族主义宗教意识形态的人的案例。莎拉给她打电话。Sarah believes (falsely, of course) that all people (or merelyapparentpeople, on her view) of a certain race R are not in fact human persons but rather just human bodies that are controlled by remote demons as if by invisible puppet strings. Now suppose that this indoctrinated person goes and kills an individual, James, whose race is R, in an apparent attempt to stave off the demon invasion.

Is Sarah guilty ofmurderingJames, morally speaking?

在这里我有一种强烈的直觉和倾向要说yes, that was indeed murder. I assume you have the same strong intuition.

But if that intuition is correct, then ourfalse belief criterion of exculpationcan’t be quite right. For apply it to the case of the murder of James.

当然,这很难想象,但请耐心听我说。Suppose ittrue that every human body that fit the description of being R was in fact merely a puppet controlled remotely by demons. So the live bodies themselves would be more like zombies that merely appeared to be intelligent due to their being directed by intelligent agents (the demons).If如果是这样的话,那么杀死这些活着的人中的一个实际上就不是谋杀了(毕竟,那个遥远的恶魔还活着)。That means that ifFBCE是correct, however, then Sarah’s act of killing James wouldnotbe murder, since it was guided by beliefs that would render hernot guilty, if they were true.

So much the worse forFBCE, right?

But we clearly need to have something to put in its place—or at least a way of qualifying it—for otherwise false beliefs wouldneverbe an excuse, which they clearly are, as shown by the vet case.

What, then, should we put in the place ofFBCE? What’s the principle we need here?

This, I think, is a very difficult problem, if one wishes to have an entirely general solution (one that will cover all cases of actions guided by false beliefs). So you may wish to start in a piecemeal way. Start by making a list of the salient moraldifferencesbetween the two cases I just presented, and then look to see if those differences generalize to other cases you discover.

Good luck looking for a solution. And be on the lookout for my own attempted solution (or my own with a little help from Aristotle) later this month!

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Comments(9)


Tim Smith's picture

Tim Smith

Friday, December 4, 2020 -- 10:02 PM

FBCE is contingent on self

FBCE取决于自身利益。如果有人为了钱而杀死一个生物——在这个案例中,兽医就是这么做的——那么他们就会为这笔钱和他们给宠物主人和狗带来的痛苦和痛苦而陷入困境。专业知识会使一个人在其实践中受到责难,无论该专业知识的真实价值如何。你要么自称是专家,要么不是。如果你做……然后你要为你的行为和这些行为的后果负责。

Whether one falsely believes in something or not, when they claim truth without caveats (which any cult typically does) they are culpable. The same is true for a priest who takes the confession of a serial killer and fails to protect others from harm.

A philosopher on the other hand, who Socratic-ally questions their actions prior to taking them can truthfully tell others they didn't know right from wrong or at least weren't paid money to say so one way or the other (which typically philosophers are not.)

Certainly someone who gives aid to another without self interest is rare but blameless should that aid bring harm. Just as certain most everyone else carries responsibility along with their beliefs. That is why it is always best to question belief to the very limit of credulity. That much we all know is we don't know all.

I think Aristotle will agree with this.

elderrhody444's picture

elderrhody444

Monday, December 14, 2020 -- 9:55 AM

I am not a philosopher but

I am not a philosopher but did graduate work in History, plus took another major in Anthropology as an undergrad. Please therefore forgive me for failing to make reference to philosophers who may or may not support my views, (except maybe Spinoza who appears to have thought like I do that free will is significantly overstated.)

这个问题很有趣,因为它向我提出了至少两个非常重要的问题;1)人类是否具有能动性(拥有自由意志),2)我们是否注定成为我们自己。此外,它还提出了一个道德难题:如果一个人因为无知而对其他人作恶,那么他应该得到原谅,并因此而不受惩罚吗?

In my revisionist view, eight of the twelve apostles must have walked out when Jesus said that everyone would be forgiven. (And of the four than remained, one was stone deaf, another toying with his sneaker laces, and the last slavishly loyal and willing to accept any manner of questionable assertions, (currently referred to as "false news.")

I assume we are discussing the massive wave of dumb that has swept across this federation of disparate states but which is euphemistically called a nation. If that is my error, I apologize for these remarks. Assuming I am correct, and dumb or malicious alien lifeforms have secretly replaced tens of millions of humans in the disunited states of America, then I assert the following: The question is past its relevant time. We are in the midst of an existential civil war which has been going on, with violence and without it since the original states were still mere colonies. The confederate states were loyalist during the American Revolution and loyalist during the English Civil War. The confederate states are culturally incompatible with the northern and western coastal states. Anthropologists will tell you people fight for their cultures. Culture is human world view. Oh, and you can pretty much erase the midwest too from rational discourse with the pervasive neo-Calvinistic fundamentalism which informs its political decisions. I am saying this because I wanted to pinpoint the epicenters of the current nonsense. It is "Nixon's southern strategy" gone wild.

The reason the question could be considered of minor import is that our very liberty and civilization is being threatened by ignorant uninformed people who were irrationally y given the right to choose political leaders. These people are being controlled by the oligarchs for their own economic, (and therefore political), advantage. Because of the very dangerous conditions caused by technology and global capitalism, the mass of humans are in an fight for our lives, (that is for our physical well-being, security and what shreds of our liberty remains.) Any discussion other than how best to overcome the massive wave of deliberately induced expressions of stupidity are a waste of time. When good men do nothing, bad men prevail. Here I sit waiting for the intellectuals to finish ruminating while the society around us in burning down. Call a spade a spade and let's get on with the real question: How can we silence these idiots and build a progressive just society? You know, the Monopoly game is all over. Almost all of us have no cash left to play. It has all been seized by "the system," by the rules of play. As Marx taught us, when the means of production change, society changes with it. In a world enslaved by gigabytes and controlled by the programmers and financiers, we must stop debating non-essentials and get moving in the right direction. Me, it's too late for me. I am old and past my time, but geez, I did hope to see a just and equitable society evolving rather than this pile of human waste I see around me.

Do we forgive people for who they are? We can't know their moral underpinnings, nor their motives, can we. I guess in general one could say that since everything is caused by everything in the past, (including the absence of somethings), and since the universe is in a continual state of flux and change, and since conditions vary from nano second to nano second, I suppose everyone can be forgiven.
Like Tim Willocks said in one of his books, "the warp of life is woven from innumerable threads." I really like that. It puts things into perspective. No, Virginia, (and also South Carolina if you want), there is no free will because we are who we were destined to be, genetically, by conditioning, by indoctrination, by culture, by whatever. Therefore, if you feel like it, bless us all with a shower of forgiveness. Me, no, I do not forgive the stupids once they cross the line and so our society harm, maybe even existential harm. Napoleon said of his generals when they failed that they were "culpably negligent." The stupid should know enough to vote morally and if they don't to avoid voting at all; and of paramount importance, keep their mouths shut. My grandparents and parents worshiped education and expressed humility in the presence of intellect. Now we have morons spewing ignorance all over the place, bringing hate and dissension into our society so the oligarchs can keep us disunited and impotent as they practice their greed and indifference.

Tim Smith's picture

Tim Smith

Saturday, December 19, 2020 -- 10:40 PM

444,

444,

Hmm... I'm not sure if I see the necessity of invoking the lack of Free Will here, but would indulge it. Just because one doesn't have Free Will doesn't excuse their action... ever. The courts are safe on this point.

False belief on the other hand in a world without Free Will, where a person is capable of truth, where they are responsible for finding truth for others (ie a Vet asked to euthanize an ailing dog by it's owner) that is beyond guilty. It is negligent.

Historians, Philosophers and Anthropologists alike have a calling for truth. Any negligence in that calling might be termed stupid but I would impute a more sinister intention and gruesome reward.

Hmm... is that stupid?

elderrhody444's picture

elderrhody444

Wednesday, December 23, 2020 -- 6:01 AM

Good thoughts, Mr. Smith. It

Good thoughts, Mr. Smith. It continuously annoys me that there is a fundamental contradiction in all of my thinking and expressions. That is to make moral choices myself and expect them from others. Yet, I increasingly believing we have no "free" choices. Put another way, we only have very defined and confined choices and pre-formed decisions about those choices. We are everything that came before and are so controlled.. How can one choose any action "freely," (good or bad or otherwise), if one is not in command of one's own destiny nor even one's persona?

We are in a constant state of making decisions we think are choices, yet do not comprehend we are driven to those choices and decisions by who we are and by everything past, present, (and since Time is non-linear and merely a human construct), future as well. I guess that my simple understanding of some quantum physics has upset my formerly primitive view of life and what it means to be a human and an individual. So, do I opt for the answer that "intent" is the definitive factor to consider when deciding forgiveness? That is the ancient Catholic response, is it not? That one's intentions determine guilt or innocence. But there is another compelling argument: that we are known by what we do. Perhaps my personal position at this point in time, given what little I know, is that we are all destined to be what we were born to be; a criminal, a healer, a thinker, a magician, a dancer, a prostitute, tinker, tailor soldier or spy..... Neither intent nor action defines us. There is only the outcome (consequence) of everything before.

When someone behaves foolishly for example, I can only shrug and think they were destined to do so. I think that it is foolish for us to ignore billions of wiser people in non-Western cultures who believe it is up to Allah to will something, to occur or not, or that karma will prevail, or that what is meant to be is meant to be. There are many such expressions of humanity's absence of agency. We should take them more seriously rather than believe we had individual choice which somehow mattered. Perhaps we would have been less vexed. In a religious context, I have in other venues argued that free will is a tactic for religious people to assign guilt in the absence of knowledge about the complexity of causation. If one can assign guilt because of a theological position, one can have power and control over others. Admittedly though, it is not comforting to think that because we are destined and free will is largely a fiction, all manner of disorder and low behavior must be expected.

Oh, and of course, since everything is related, this begs the question for me: do we indeed live in a simulation? At least one might argue that if we are destined to be who we are and to make the "choices" we do, have not we been programmed by the consequences of everything which occurred or failed to occur in what we call, "the past?"

Tim Smith's picture

Tim Smith

Friday, December 25, 2020 -- 12:09 PM

444,

444,

Why dither here? What melancholy drives solace?...none.

我们是童年碰撞的伤痕。在上面擦土。闻着泥土的味道,沉溺于感染之中。

There is no free will. Just as assuredly there is no predetermined truth found without looking. That is the non-linear life we lead. If there is no comfort in that... tough.

没有一个自由的意志是自由的。左边是鸟类,右边是人工人工,根据你自己的浏览算法来引导你。解放的是创造力和真理。依赖于自己思想所有权的院士们不会利用这种自由。你做的事情。庆祝一下,然后继续前进。在我们的生活中,有更多像你一样理解这一点的人。享受街头音乐家和你自己的诗歌。这是一件奇妙的事情,对你和那个顽童都没有任何好处。

我明白你的意思。人们不喜欢听我这么说。我喜欢你的话语。

Best to you.

DavidTonn's picture

DavidTonn

Wednesday, January 13, 2021 -- 12:13 PM

Neil,

Neil,

It seems to me that you are perhaps prevaricating over your definition of person capable of being murdered. As far as I can tell your only reason for modifying the culpability of the Veterinarian vs Sarah, is contingent on the definition of "what can be murdered" being different. The appropriate critical question is about the actor (Vet vs Sarah), not the being acted upon (Dog vs. Person), but your moral consequent seems to be critically dependent on the being acted upon.

Your call to intuition to lead your assessment demonstrates this. Your intuition is developed based on your survival, not morality--morality may effect survival, but it isn't the entirety of it. Intuition seeks to achieve a quite and final solution to an immediate problem. Blaming Sarah would achieve this--she would then be apprehended, punished/imprisoned, and perhaps rehabilitated. But it wouldn't address the actual reason/impetus behind the fact that James (the otherwise sustained meme framework of "there exist a human-like race of demon-people who should be killed and that look like R") was killed and was thus the culpable party to the Murder of James.

This is not to say that Sarah isn't culpable of some crime (such as manslaughter), just not "murder" of the "human being" here named James.

The argument is really that Sarah should have known better than to kill James. How exactly? Well, in this context, Sarah should have confirmed that James was really a demon, as described in her false beliefs. Likewise, the veterinarian should have confirmed that Rufus was really the sick canine Fred, as described by his false beliefs. FBCE must apply the same way.

elderrhody444's picture

elderrhody444

Thursday, March 11, 2021 -- 6:54 AM

I enjoy this forum because

我很喜欢这个论坛,因为不像我偶尔访问的许多其他论坛,这里的评论是聪明而有说服力的。谢谢你给我几分钟清醒的时间。

Harold G. Neuman's picture

Harold G. Neuman

Tuesday, February 1, 2022 -- 9:19 AM

Many beliefs are false, if

很多信仰都是错误的,如果仅仅因为杜威的声明,例如,我们陷入了一个极端主义的时代。不管是宗教的,政治的还是其他的。辩解的吗?祝你好运。我相信水是湿的。在这个宇宙里,水是湿的,不管我信不信。我也相信我相当聪明。在我看来,这是一个命题。并不是每个人都同意。我想说的是什么? If you haven't gotten it, you were not paying attention. If THAT is propositional, on my part, sobeit.

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Harold G. Neuman's picture

Harold G. Neuman

Wednesday, February 16, 2022 -- 11:50 AM

One might ask: if someone is

有人可能会问:如果有人是在错误信念的影响下行事,那么这种行为是否值得进行无罪推定?有人断言,对法律的无知不能作为辩护理由。难道我们没有一个类比吗?还是说,我没有理解其中的区别?

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