A free will question

[data_link]

We know that people as a general rule have free will to do whatever the hell they want within the bounds of what is physically possible. We also know that what people want is influenced by a number of factors not within their direct control, including genetics, biology, past experience, wishes of others, etc. Essentially, we are not in control of our actions because even under ideal circumstances we will tend to do what we want, but we do not decide what we want.

Now assume that you could build a mind control device that would cause a person to want to do whatever you ask them to. Since this device is not forcing them to do anything they don't want to do, the affected persons are still technically free to do whatever the hell they want.

Question #1:Can a person under the influence of this device still be considered free?

Question #2:Can a person under the influence of this device be held accountable for their actions while so affected?

[Coyote]

You have odd questions.

Ahhh, shit! I acidentally hit "yes to the first, no to the second". Bugger! In any case, no,no.

No, the person is not free, and no, the person cannot be held accountable. If the device is removed, do they recall what they've done (I'd assume so)?

[data_link]

You have odd questions.

Ahhh, shit! I acidentally hit "yes to the first, no to the second". Bugger! In any case, no,no.

No, the person is not free, and no, the person cannot be held accountable. If the device is removed, do they recall what they've done (I'd assume so)?

Why shouldn't they be held accountable? After all, they made a choice to do exactly what they wanted to do - they were still perfectly aware of societies rules regarding their behavior, and they were still perfectly capable of saying no (remember, this device only makes you want to obey. It does not force you to obey). So why should being under the influence absolve them of responsibility?

To answer your question: this device does not affect memory at all. So yes, they would remember what they did.

[ArmorPierce]

I don't consider the person under the control of this device accountable because it is like someone giving someone drugs and the person is unaware of this and it affects the person and it makes it so that the person would do things that he wouldn't normally do.

[data_link]

I don't consider the person under the control of this device accountable because it is like someone giving someone drugs and the person is unaware of this and it affects the person and it makes it so that the person would do things that he wouldn't normally do.

So... an altered state of mind (such as caused by drugs) makes one not accountable for their actions? Does that mean that if I get myself drunk, and in my drunken stupor, kill 4 people in a car crash, that I am not accountable for my actions?

[Coyote]

Of course they shouldn't be held accountable-- the only reason they did what they did was because the device made them "want" to do it. Ordinarily, they would not. The MCD makes it impossible for them to make another choice.

If I enjected a person with drugs that jacked him so full of energy (adrenaline or some such) that it made him "want" to run, and he ran off a cliff, would you say he had free will, and would have done it under ordinary circumstances?

The MCD rules him. No choice.

[Alyrium Denryle]

It is like when a person is on a halucanogen(sp) they see the spiders on thier arm and WANT to cut them off with the meat cleaver. But are they accountable for thier actions? no.

[Mr Bean]

Your still held Accoutable however the weilder of the Mind Control Devices is ALSO held accoutable as under the "Gettaway Driver" statues

[Darth Wong]

It's not a hallucinogen. It only makes people want certain things they would not normally want. Obviously, the use of such a device is immoral, because it is mind-control. However, that does not necessarily mean the victim cannot be held responsible for his actions.

Let's say someone uses this device on you and makes you want to be a pedophile. That is unfortunate; you now have pedophilic urges. Nevertheless, you are still a conscious, self-aware human being, and you recognize that it is wrong to take advantage of children. So, you suppress your urges. If you act on them anyway, then someone has been victimized, and you should be held responsible.

Think about it: pedophiles believe that their urges are natural, and that the rest of us share them but are not expressing them. They're full of shit; their urges are unnatural. But do we let them off the hook because they have these twisted urges? Are they not merely acting on impulses that they cannot control?

Free will is essentially irrelevant to the question of social responsibility. Unless someone's control over you is so powerful that you are essentially a sock puppet, you must still be held responsible for your own actions.

[ArmorPierce]

I don't consider the person under the control of this device accountable because it is like someone giving someone drugs and the person is unaware of this and it affects the person and it makes it so that the person would do things that he wouldn't normally do.

So... an altered state of mind (such as caused by drugs) makes one not accountable for their actions? Does that mean that if I get myself drunk, and in my drunken stupor, kill 4 people in a car crash, that I am not accountable for my actions?

No, that I would consider you being held accountable because you chose to get drunk on your own. But if, for example, a doctor gave you the wrong drugs and that makes your state of mind go all whacko I wouldn't consider you fully accountable.

[weemadando]

It's not a hallucinogen. It only makes people want certain things they would not normally want. Obviously, the use of such a device is immoral, because it is mind-control. However, that does not necessarily mean the victim cannot be held responsible for his actions.

Let's say someone uses this device on you and makes you want to be a pedophile. That is unfortunate; you now have pedophilic urges. Nevertheless, you are still a conscious, self-aware human being, and you recognize that it is wrong to take advantage of children. So, you suppress your urges. If you act on them anyway, then someone has been victimized, and you should be held responsible.

Think about it: pedophiles believe that their urges are natural, and that the rest of us share them but are not expressing them. They're full of shit; their urges are unnatural. But do we let them off the hook because they have these twisted urges? Are they not merely acting on impulses that they cannot control?

Free will is essentially irrelevant to the question of social responsibility. Unless someone's control over you is so powerful that you are essentially a sock puppet, you must still be held responsible for your own actions.

Question is how strong is the want? Is it just a mild urge, or is it a near-instincual want.

Depending on this the question of being held responsible for their actions becomes a difficult point.

[data_link]

No, that I would consider you being held accountable because you chose to get drunk on your own. But if, for example, a doctor gave you the wrong drugs and that makes your state of mind go all whacko I wouldn't consider you fully accountable.

Yet you would still consider me accountable. And rightly so, if the drugs work anything like this hypothetical mind control device, because I would still be capable of saying no.

Consider this: some idiot doctor gives me a large injection of heroin and I become addicted. If I then choose to seek more heroin, am I not responsible for that act? Even though it was the injection of heroin that caused me to want something I would not normally want?

[data_link]

Question is how strong is the want? Is it just a mild urge, or is it a near-instincual want.

Depending on this the question of being held responsible for their actions becomes a difficult point.

Even instinctual wants are not irresistable. For instance, all humans instinctually desire sex. This does not mean that humans in the presence of an attractive member of the opposite sex are unable to refrain from having sex with them.

[weemadando]

Question is how strong is the want? Is it just a mild urge, or is it a near-instincual want.

Depending on this the question of being held responsible for their actions becomes a difficult point.

Even instinctual wants are not irresistable. For instance, all humans instinctually desire sex. This does not mean that humans in the presence of an attractive member of the opposite sex are unable to refrain from having sex with them.

I'm talking about wants that border on NEEDS. Humans will do nearly anything for food etc...

[data_link]

Question is how strong is the want? Is it just a mild urge, or is it a near-instincual want.

Depending on this the question of being held responsible for their actions becomes a difficult point.

Even instinctual wants are not irresistable. For instance, all humans instinctually desire sex. This does not mean that humans in the presence of an attractive member of the opposite sex are unable to refrain from having sex with them.

I'm talking about wants that border on NEEDS. Humans will do nearly anything for food etc...

That's because if they don't get food they might die... the same excuse does not apply to heroin, yet the desire felt by a heroin addict will often exceed their want for food - we do not then forgive them if they use illegal methods to obtain said heroin.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Is it the kind of want that makes camels, drink dew off of railroad tracks, when th train is coming, because the drought is so bad?

[Nova Andromeda]

--To start I don't think anyone has true free will. The fact of the matter is people do what they want and cannot do what they don't want except by force or accident. Therefore, no to the first question. The second question is more complicated. To address it we must first understand generally how the human brain works. From what I understand it is a complex neural network with certain hardwired functions that cannot be altered and other features that can be customized. Basically, a neural network functions by taking input and tranforming it into output. The if the output is undesireable (based on a built in goodness criteria) the network is wacked and told "BAD NETWORK." The network then tries a new transformation of the input and its output is again judged. Basically, a neural network learns to transform input into output that confroms to whatever it is set to conform to. For humans and anything else with a brain the "goodness criteria" is hardwired by evolution and we perceive it as pain, pleasure, etc; the transformation is our reaction to input such as seeing fire and either running and not getting burned or playing with it and getting burned. In fact, it is our hardwired "goodness criteria" combined with how our network has been trained that define who we are. If you alter the "goodness criteria" with this mind control device you destroy that person. This "new" person must then be held accountable for their actions just like the "old" person was held accountable for theirs. However, if there "old" person were to reappear because the mind control was stopped we could not hold them accountable for what the "new" person had done which was different from what the "old: person would have done.

--I'm pretty sure I've confused everyone, but let me just say TOUGH SHIT!

[data_link]

--To start I don't think anyone has true free will. The fact of the matter is people do what they want and cannot do what they don't want except by force or accident. Therefore, no to the first question. The second question is more complicated. To address it we must first understand generally how the human brain works. From what I understand it is a complex neural network with certain hardwired functions that cannot be altered and other features that can be customized. Basically, a neural network functions by taking input and tranforming it into output. The if the output is undesireable (based on a built in goodness criteria) the network is wacked and told "BAD NETWORK." The network then tries a new transformation of the input and its output is again judged. Basically, a neural network learns to transform input into output that confroms to whatever it is set to conform to. For humans and anything else with a brain the "goodness criteria" is hardwired by evolution and we perceive it as pain, pleasure, etc; the transformation is our reaction to input such as seeing fire and either running and not getting burned or playing with it and getting burned. In fact, it is our hardwired "goodness criteria" combined with how our network has been trained that define who we are. If you alter the "goodness criteria" with this mind control device you destroy that person. This "new" person must then be held accountable for their actions just like the "old" person was held accountable for theirs. However, if there "old" person were to reappear because the mind control was stopped we could not hold them accountable for what the "new" person had done which was different from what the "old: person would have done.

--I'm pretty sure I've confused everyone, but let me just say TOUGH SHIT!

Everyone including yourself Nova... but if you are saying that by changing what people fundamentally want and don't want, then would you be a different person after undergoing a program of classical conditioning designed to change what you like and don't like, would you then be a different person afterwards, or is there some difference between changing someone's wants quickly (mind-control device) and changing them slowly (classical conditioning)?

[Nova Andromeda]

Everyone including yourself Nova... but if you are saying that by changing what people fundamentally want and don't want, then would you be a different person after undergoing a program of classical conditioning designed to change what you like and don't like, would you then be a different person afterwards, or is there some difference between changing someone's wants quickly (mind-control device) and changing them slowly (classical conditioning)?

--I'm not at all confused, I'm just not very skilled at explaining stuff that is out of the ordinary realm of discussion. First I would say that people have motivations that can be considered primary directives and motivations that can be considered secondary. Pain is primary motivation. Basically, very very few people can resist prolonged torture. Sexual pleasure would be a secondary motivation since it isn't as important as avoiding torture or not starving. A neural network can be tricked and screwed with in a large number of ways and this is true for humans as well. You just have to know what buttons to push, for how long, and with what intensity. However, the closer you get to primary motivations the harder it will be to get the neural net (human behavier) to generate output contrary to those motivations. Nevertheless, if you were to alter my primary motivations you would destroy me and create something else and action which I currently may or may not object to.

[Frank_Scenario]

The criterion for freedom is not just doing what you want. Here's a scenario (from Locke, I believe): Tonight, while I sleep, some guy comes, kidnaps, and puts me in a locked room. This room is filled with all sorts of stuff that I love (it's a big room). There's a TV, some video games, a computer with an Internet connection, great food; my friends are there, and so on. I don't want to leave this room.

However, I'm not free with respect to leaving, not because of my desire, but because I couldn't leave the room whether or not I want to. If freedom is just doing what you want, I'm free in this example even though I'm being held prisoner. This is counterintuitive, to say the least. Clearly, the proper criterion is that, given a certain situation where I choose something, I could have done otherwise. So I'm not free in the hypothetical scenario because, even though I want to stay, I cannot do otherwise (and leave).

That said, I'd say you are not free, because the device interferes with your ability to do otherwise. It depends on the extent of the control the device grants. If it's just a minor desire, then I'd say you are still free; one the other hand, if it also gets rid of your inhibitions or somehow overrides your ability to make decisions, then you are not free. In the first case, if the person acts on the desire, he is accountable for his actions, but the owner of the device also bears the responsibility. In the second, then I'd say that the responsibility is solely on the owner of the device.

[victorhadin]

There is some evidence to suggest that the hindbrain/ subconscious pre-empts impulses in the 'conscious' portion of our brain when we are about to perform an act. It raises an interesting question: 'Is free will an illusion projected by the hindbrain?'

[Larz]

They don't have free will, no, but they should be accountable because some how they are responsible for being caught and having this device put on them. Stupidity is no excuse (I hold the same stance with people on trail for killing while under the influence of drugs.)

[Cthulhu-chan]

I'm going to have to say yes, and yes, so long as I'm understanding what you are saying here. Basicly, this device is appending a new want to the list of wants the individual already posesses, correct? So long as it does nothing further, even if it can vary the intensity of this new desire, the individual must still make value judgements on any action to satisfy it. Don't get me wrong, this device could be used to make a person VERY miserable, and the one that set the desire would also share responsibility, but that would not absolve the afflicted individual of responsibility, nor would it impair their ability to act appropriately.

[haas mark]

No, they are not free becasue they are your wants, not their own.

No, they are not accountable. Same reason.

[Cthulhu-chan]

Nope. 'Fraid I must still disagree. Say you were a soldier out in the feild that had to be operated on and they had to use morphine to do so. Morphine is very addictive, so you now want it. Depending on how much was was necessary over the recovery time, it could be a minor desire to a nearly physical need. You didn't want to become addicted to it, but that choice was out of your hands. You can ignore/fight that desire, get counseling or medical help. Or you can give in to it, which would be illegal. If you do give in, you are responsible for your actions to satiate that desire.

Same situation, except the motives of the one placing the desire would come under attack as well in the original question.