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InTheEndEntropyWins t1_j8rpo60 wrote

Reply to comment by imdfantom in Free Will Is Only an Illusion if You Are, Too by greghickey5

Here are some links and studies around researchers effecting people's level of free will belief.

Turns out that convincing people that they don't have free will is bad.

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>These three studies suggest that endorsement of the belief in free will can lead to decreased ethnic/racial prejudice compared to denial of the belief in free will. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0091572#s1>
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>For example, weakening free will belief led participants to behave less morally and responsibly (Baumeister et al., 2009; Protzko et al., 2016; Vohs & Schooler, 2008)
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>From https://www.ethicalpsychology.com/search?q=free+will

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>these results provide a potential explanation for the strength and prevalence of belief in free will: It is functional for holding others morally responsible and facilitates justifiably punishing harmful members of society. https://www.academia.edu/15691341/Free_to_punish_A_motivated_account_of_free_will_belief?utm_content=buffercd36e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

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>A study suggests that when people are encouraged to believe their behavior is predetermined — by genes or by environment — they may be more likely to cheat. The report, in the January issue of Psychological Science, describes two studies by Kathleen D. Vohs of the University of Minnesota and Jonathan W. Schooler of the University of British Columbia.
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>From https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/health/19beha.html?scp=5&sq=psychology%20jonathan%20schooler&st=cse

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Rainbowoverderp t1_j8s1v5q wrote

>Turns out that convincing people that they don't have free will is bad.

Within our society/culture which desperately clings to the idea of free will. People grow up believing this and a lot of patterns, beliefs and thoughts are based on this assumption. You can't just tell people this assumption is wrong and expect them to magically adapt their whole way of thinking to that. It's no wonder accountability, morality, etc goes straight out the door if it was always based on the cultural myth of free will.

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InTheEndEntropyWins t1_j8s2pqw wrote

>You can't just tell people this assumption is wrong and expect them to magically adapt their whole way of thinking to that. It's no wonder accountability, morality, etc goes straight out the door if it was always based on the cultural myth of free will.

I see it another way, people really mean compatibilist free will which does exist, convincing people they don't have libertarian free will just confuses them and messes up their perfectly working moral system based on compatibilist free.

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Rainbowoverderp t1_j8s6d3q wrote

I tend to agree with you, but I wouldn't say their moral system is based on compatabilism, but rather on libertarianism. Their moral system can be adapted to a compatibilist base, but as you say, this is a confusing and difficult process, which for a lot of people ends up in them throwing away parts of their moral system (thereby proving compatibilism, ironically).

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