Experimental philosophy of freedom

http://pantheon.yale.edu/~jp677/Jonat...

Experimental philosophers take on one of philosophy's most revered figures, Aristotle, by seeing if ordinary people agree with Aristotle's conclusions about when one is forced to do something and when one does it freely.

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[jacob hunt]

It's because by "forced," people mean "ethically forced," not "causally forced."

[MsRockdemon]

"It seems as if the only thing that could explain it is that it's Wrong to throw his wife overboard, but its Not Wrong to throw his wife's cargo overboard....But why would the Wrongness explain why whether or not the Captain was Forced to do the action?"

Wrongness explains Morality. Cargo cant drown, so its not a question of Morality. It is Immoral to drown your wife, but if youre Forced to "choose" to drown her or yourself, thats not a choice--that is a Force Immoral against both of you.

[MsRockdemon]

Lets be clear...

In the first question, the force is: Throw out your wifes property or you drown.

In the second question, the force is: Throw your wife out to drown and you live, or Throw yourself out to drown and your wife lives.

A force exists in both cases because you dont want to have to make either of these choices...

But the first force allows you to make a reasonable escape; while the other force horrifically makes you choose a moral decision, both of which result in someones death.

[jivediscodan]

He was not forced in either case. People answer yes in the first because throwing the cargo over seems like an obviously rational thing to do. However if the question asked whether or not he was forced to throw the cargo and his wife over in order to not drown, and if throwing the cargo and his wife over were the only things he could have done in order to not drown, then he was forced to.

[MrPeppergun]

It's not supposed to be a philosophical question, it's a philosophical experiment used to do research on how people think. The philosophical question comes at 2:56

[amabodei]

Great video, In the first instance, he was "forced" by his concept of "value" - eg. the value of the cargo over the value of his life. In the second, he was not forced because the value of throwing his wife over equaled the value of sinking in the ship. (unless he disliked her of course) The Captain acted out of his own assesment of value. His concept of value is the framework in which he may or may not be free. But he is still ultimately free to decide whether to obbey the principals of value.

[MigDanskeren]

It's irrelevant if we here forced or not, both actions were wrong. in case (A) He destroyed his wife's property and should pay retribution when he returns home if she so insists. In case (B) he committed murder and should be punished accordingly.

Honestly, I don't understand why this would be considered a difficult philosophical question.

[WYATTSHOW1]

I don't know, I just used it to describe the sense in which we can predict possible futures, and choose which possibilities we can eliminate by our action or inaction. This sort of thinking about possible futures that can be avoided offers a form of soft free will, because we can at least avoid the futures we foresee and DON'T want, without eliminating room for 'FATE'. 'Forced' describes a situation in which all futures are equivalent, and no action can change it.

[renumeratedfrog]

My personal intuition that the captain wasn't forced to do anything in either cases. He chose it.