implications of free will
I think the implications for believing in free will (one of the foundations of modern western thought) is to ascribe individuals responsibility for things they cannot possibly control. For example, the number one determining factor of being a wealthy adult, is the wealth level of your parents. Our economy has many of these feedback loops built in, going in both directions, up to wealth and down to poverty. Yet we have a meta-narrative within society which attributes a person's economic outcome to their "choices," a direct relation to belief in free will, which allows us to accept gross wealth accumulation, and excuse squalor and poverty as "deserved."
So if someone is born to Harvard professors and becomes a CEO and someone is born to a single mother who did not graduate high school and becomes a Burger King worker, does it make sense to say the CEO is somehow "more deserving?" Why do we allow for such punitive economic outcomes on the basis of an individual "creating themselves?" Economic determinism is rather obvious, yet we act as if everyone is playing a fair game, on an even playing field, with a fair set of rules, which is obviously not the case.
Can't we all just agree that the CEO was lucky by their birth and genetics, and set up an economic system that does not have these extremes through redistributive tax policy, on the basis that free will is obviously an antiquated notion which actually has dehumanizing affects on how we evaluate humans?
So if someone is born to Harvard professors and becomes a CEO and someone is born to a single mother who did not graduate high school and becomes a Burger King worker, does it make sense to say the CEO is somehow "more deserving?" Why do we allow for such punitive economic outcomes on the basis of an individual "creating themselves?" Economic determinism is rather obvious, yet we act as if everyone is playing a fair game, on an even playing field, with a fair set of rules, which is obviously not the case.
Can't we all just agree that the CEO was lucky by their birth and genetics, and set up an economic system that does not have these extremes through redistributive tax policy, on the basis that free will is obviously an antiquated notion which actually has dehumanizing affects on how we evaluate humans?
Comments (2)
Under the evidence that the biggest indicator of success is to come from a successful environment, and the biggest factor in future poverty is previous poverty.
The common western belief " free will" has dehumanizing affects on how we evaluate humans.
On this side of the coin, as society we leave the most vulnerable people discarded or excluded, this is one of the principal problems that capitalism rises on humanity.
Let's take a look from other direction, what if people was not expected to have free will, and everybody assumed that their destiny is mostly affected by their context, How would this affect their lives?.
The first thing i can think of, is that the motivation for improvement and productivity of the community could decrease because, if you have that assumption that free will is not your quality, then the responsibility for your well being is not yours, but someone else, and having a society with responsible members it's in my opinion essential.
Now lets put into the table the individualism that characterizes us, what about moving this variable, how would it be if individualism was removed or decreased to some degree, could it be done? how could i worry as much for a random stranger than i worry for my wife? for me at least it would be very hard,
what do you think about this, if some part don't make sense to you please let me know.
Free will is when we decide to consult our reason about our options, including our options about our mental activities, and then how we decide we want to go ahead with some of them.