More often I see people using free will as a way of victim blaming. "Sucks that they are poor, why didn't they make the choice to work hard and pull themselves up by their bootstraps?" It might seem that free will should be the more humanitarian position, but more often than not it's used as a justification for why people deserve to have bad things happen to them. This contrast is fascinating to me.
When I made this thread part of the impetus was a belief that determinism was actually more moral, due to the prevalence of free-will being used as a device for either victim blame or explain why it's ok to not do anything to solve problems. (Oddly enough I started this thread when I was in peak centrist mode, so it's interesting that I still had these concerns).
But I'm not as much of a hardcore determinist as when I made this thread, which is less for moral reasons and more that I don't consider the concept of free will as ludicrous as I once did. Perhaps this is because I now feel as though I have a a stronger internal locus of control. I suppose that comes with having money. But ironically the fact that my attitude is shaped by the resources I have *is* kind of determinist, isn't it?
I find it's like that now for me... there's an endless circle. When you find a reason why one side of it should be true, it points to another reason that the opposite side is true.
No, that makes sense. If something cannot be proven one way or the other, then what should be chosen is the one with the most positive outcomes. Which one would you suppose that is? To me, free will perhaps implies greater possibilities and potential for change, but determinism implies greater compassion and patience.
Im sorry to point out this just 6 years later, but I think you are mixing things. Not on the first post, but on these both
If people have free will vs determinism is one thing.
If the "life outcomes" depends a person's free will or genetic on luck is another thing, you seem to mix both. What you seem to be presenting here just seems to be the old ideology of the pseudo-meritocracy.
The question about free will vs determinism from the first post and on my interpretation as separate from meritocracy wonders if your life choices, and that is entirely internal, is pre-determined by only your genetics, experiences, etc... in a way that a person with a stupid high knowledge could predict all your choices so your free will is an illusion, and free will would state that is absolutely impossible and there is always room for choice outside the genetic and experiences. That's it in a nutshell, right?
However, that is entirely different from the pseudo-meritocracy ideology or rather "life is fair fallacy" (I don't like the word fallacy here, I'd rather call lie directly). The "life is fair fallacy" is the idea that everything that happens to you is a product of your choices and doings and everything that happens to you is because you deserve it. This goes beyond capitalism actually... From the idea Sucks that they are poor, why didn't they make the choice to work hard and pull themselves up by their bootstraps?" implying that being rich is a matter of working hard and so if the person is poor then they didn't work out because they deserve to be poor is one of the forms. Another one is law of attraction, the person is poor because they attract bad energy to themselves since there is supposed to be an universe harmony where you receive what you attract the most. Karma works in the same way, so the indian explanation is because they did bad things in another life so they deserve to suffer on this one. There is the neolib version where the person is poor because the person does not hold any significant value to the market, which is taken as a fair entity. There is another one that says that with determination, discipline and faith, you can get anywhere you want, with a bunch of coaches and "examples of success" (this one sometimes is used by narcissists who fruitpick surrealistic examples to put other people down). There are older forms that involves more myths, like that kings are descendants of Gods and that a society's arrangement depends on a divine setting where every person gets the position they deserve based on some sort of earlier or after life where some people are descendant of the wise Gods and other's are just mortals. I don't know this in depth... I wouldn't be surprised if there was another form of this for slave, probably there was, not sure.
In the end, the pattern is old but it is repeatable the same. Its the idea that your life outcomes depends a 100% on you and to analyze any outcome or performance while despising completely environment conditions, denying any play on luck or twisting the role of luck ("it depends on luck, but everybody had the opportunity"), whatever that is in the form the law of attraction, from some neolib idea, some twisted religion interpretation of an earlier life, that idea of "intelligent God design" (something like that, where God did created everything so everything is purely fair and if a person is suffering its because God wanted so the person deserve it), etc... That is the fake meritocracy idea or the "life is fair fallacy" (that is entirely different from the meritocracy idea from the Meritocracy Party).
That is NOT free will. Possessing free will does NOT imply that you are immune to luck or environment conditions nor that you have full control of the outcomes. For example, you have free will to determine which numbers you are going to play on the lottery, or if you are going to do some bets on Cassino, or if you are doing bets on sports department, or which horse you are going to bet on a race of horses.. You can choose your numbers and that is free will, if you can choose your outcomes that is an entirely different thing.. You can choose the numbers, but the outcomes of the bet does not depend on you, but rather random things or on the sports teams and the horses.
But getting back on the "life is fair fallacy", I've recently noticed from HEXACO that is quite likely (not certain) that most people, at least on Canada, South Korea and US, does know that is not true (I've found that on real life explaining it is useless, people run just run to anecdotal evidence, pretend you did things you didn't or vice versa, etc...). I say that because of this:
"Honesty-Humility: Persons with very high scores on the Honesty-Humility scale avoid manipulating others for personal gain, feel little temptation to break rules, are uninterested in lavish wealth and luxuries,
and feel no special entitlement to elevated social status."
If people normally truly did believe that people on elevated social status, and that includes super rich, politicians, bosses, high rank on the army, the famous, etc... were in fact meritorious and were actually superior, and that people on low social status, and that includes poor people, low rank on army, some low rank jobs, etc... were in fact meritorious and were actually inferior, it would be normal for an honest person to treat the high social status better and more respectful while treating the lower social status worse. However, people who does that (treat people at high status as kings and Gods, or in other words treat them very well; While also treating low status people as rats or in other words treat them bad) tends to be dishonest and to lack sincerity. So from that I can take that it is likely that most people are either egalitarians (don't believe there is such significant difference of superiority or inferiority) or they simply know that people with elevated social status are not to be taken more seriously than an average Joe unless you are forced to. So most people do know that life is unfair or that some people on elevated social status are just walking jokes while some deep intelligent and competent people can be on low social status. That is why explaining won't work on most of the cases, because most people who tell you this ("Sucks that they are poor, why didn't they make the choice to work hard and pull themselves up by their bootstraps?") actually are aware that they are lying and sometimes just uses that to camouflage a lack of empathy or even to pass an impression to be on the line of justice while that is simply lying and being cruel.. Or narcissistic. Simply that..