Pat Ramsey

10 Beliefs discovered | 1 Totals Votes

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MY BELIEFS

This seems to be the metaphysics of our best-confirmed physical theories, e.g. special relativity and quantum mechanics. The purpose of this belief set is to explore the ethical implications of having available only these two models of why things happen.

Pat Ramsey

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2. My choices are events in the universe.
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Pat Ramsey

#2

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Partly, this is suggested by experiments that seem to tie choice to brain events prior to conscious decision. Partly it comes from the metaphysical assumption that physical events are caused only by other physical events. And partly it just sets up the paradigm I want to explore.

Pat Ramsey

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This follows from #1 and #2. Whether my 'choices' are sheerly random or strictly determined since before my birth, or a hybrid combination of these, in no case does the worldview established by #1 and #2 seem to allow me to decide between multiple live alternatives.

Pat Ramsey

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This would seem to be a basic principle of moral responsibility. If someone else pushes me and I involuntarily bump into a third person, knocking them in front of a bus and killing them, I'm not morally culpable because it wasn't my choice. And so with the situation set up by #3.

Pat Ramsey

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5. I am a self-revising machine for making choices.
Why

Pat Ramsey

#5

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Formally, this is an assumption; but it seems the only objective self-understanding available in the worldview of #1-3. "Self-revising" follows from my observed ability to learn, including new decision making procedures. And that learning is a cognitive function of my brain.

Pat Ramsey

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Also formally an assumption. Its purpose is to make sense of #5 in light of #3. It proposes that my predetermined biology defines what I am initially, and then that "what I am" performs its operations of self-elaboration, self-amendment, and choice in tandem with the environment.

Pat Ramsey

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7. I am morally culpable for my choices.
Why

Pat Ramsey

#7

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We normally believe this, but it was threatened by #3-4. But per #6, the self is culpable for bad choices in the same sense that a too-small airplane wing is culpable for inadequate lift. The self has the job of making good choices, and has failed in its job if it makes bad ones.

Pat Ramsey

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See #1-9 above! To me, credible alternatives to any of #1, 2, 5 and 6 would be truly head-spinning.

Pat Ramsey

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8. Some people are doomed to moral failure.
Why

Pat Ramsey

#9

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From #6 it only follows that some people may be doomed to moral failure; so constituted in their biologically predetermined self that they are unable to learn to make morally good choices. But it appears that there are indeed such people: sociopaths and psychopaths, for example.

Pat Ramsey

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Our moral heroes made good choices, and their wide following shows that many others can learn what good choices look like, at least. Part of what we seem to need is an ethical culture, one that improves and transmits the best-available solutions to the problem of living together.

Pat Ramsey

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