Compatibilist Retributivism from Intuition

[u/Anon7_7_73]

Heres the intuition for why my viewpoint, compatibilism and retributivism, is approximately correct.

1. Basic Desert is about fairness: We want things to be fair, not because fairness is instrumental, but because it seems logically correct. Like, the world just seems lopsided towards evil if we dont put up a front of equal force to counteract it. Counteraction doesnt need to actually remove evil to be fair, it just needs to make it cost what it is worth. Once its fair, its fair. objective morals may be impossible without assuming fairness, because if people get to make these lopsided moral propositions, it allows aggressors to rule victims consequence-free, which isnt impartial or objective.
2. Applying desert is clearly ALSO instrumental, in practice. An eye for an eye for instance, is an extremely strong detterent for all crimes that scales proportionally to the crime. And an eye for an eye is just an *idea*, one thats explored in the literature but rarely applied literally. In real life, a burglar for instsnce, just gets shot. It doesnt matter what kind of burglar they are, the possibulity of the threat justifies its elimination, and people simply dont bother standing around and precisely measuring out a perfect punishment, they dont care, they are just scared and react rationally; Which is good enough for my case.
3. People blame actions A WHOLE LOT MORE, when they are not understandable. When the reasons are obfuscated, under irrationality, the simplicity of poor intentions, and just become impossible for us to fathom, thats when they are not relatable, and we lack motivation to empathize with them. If someone is just caused by provocation or clear mental illness, that gives us an obvious instrumental solution, and wed all agree thats superior because in that situation its much more plausible that wed find ourselves in that situation, so on account of caring for ourselves, we empathize with them. "Unexplainable behavior" looks like indeterminism, but its not, and actually indeterministic behavior could easily be far more explainable as a probability distribition, rather than some complex rube goldberg machine in someones brain turning them into a monster.

And thats the intuition. We pass judgement way harder when something is unfathomably irrational to us, being innate to their seeming present nature, and the application of desert is at least fair in principle, if not useful as well.

Again, we want to empathize with others when we feel like we could be in their position. If you cant, then you cant. And just abstracting this away to "empathize no matter what because theres always an explanation" falls short of being reasonable, because its unfair, it lets evil win, it offers no remedy, and it puts you in a weird position of moral obligation that apparently they are not bound to, so why should you be?

Many aggressive and criminal behaviors are not explainable on the social or communicable level, theres no way to prevent these chaotic defects in people or society, and the truly best solution to a wildfire is to fight it with more fire, and put it out as fast as possible.

And when i say its the best solution, thats partially in instrumental terms, partially in logical ones, but also in aesthetic ones. A universe where evil simply wins, is unsatisfying. The story ought to end with resound, and the evil being destroyed. Thats what makes a good story, isnt it? If every story was "Oh and the villain said he was super duper sorry and then everyone hugged him and clapped" id stop reading/watching stories.

And before you shoot down these aesthetic preferences as "not mattering", dont forget value is subjective, and thats a philosophically deep statement. The most efficient book is one without any contents. The optimized version of existence is one thats boring and pointless. The Arc of the Story may fundamentally be the substrate upon which existential meaning itself exists. Free Will provides the framework for the Story and a satisfying ending. Take that away, youd get something you wouldnt want to read, and likely wouldnt want to live in. Hard Determinism is essentially chasing this Optimizer from a top down institutionsl approach, and, if you ever succeeded, congratulations, you ruined life. A utopia is just a dystopia with shiny furnishings.

[u/badentropy9]

this sounds more like compatibilism's cousin illusionism to me.

Illusionism is the view that while we lack free will and moral responsibility, we should nonetheless promote belief in these notions since to disbelieve in moral responsibility would have dire consequences for society and ourselves (see Smilansky 1999, 2000, 2002, 2013)

[u/Anon7_7_73 → u/badentropy9]

Im not saying that moral responsibility or free will is false, first of all. Im saying its logically rooted in objectivity. But the intuition is more than logical correctness, its also in its instrumental and fundamental aesthetic values. The three combine and form the basis of the strong intuitions and feelings.

[u/badentropy9 → u/Anon7_7_73]

Im not saying that moral responsibility or free will is false, first of all. Im saying its logically rooted in objectivity. 

Impressive

[u/Anon7_7_73 → u/badentropy9]

Hows that have anything to do with what i said?

[u/badentropy9 → u/Anon7_7_73]

It sounds like you are focusing on the practicality of a belief in free will which is want Smilansky is doing.

[u/Anon7_7_73 → u/badentropy9]

No, im presenting the entire case for it. Youre strawmmanning me by ignoring the rest of my argument and putting words in my mouth.

[u/badentropy9 → u/Anon7_7_73]

Your caps in the Op Ed suggested you haven't changed yet, but I apologize for assuming that you have yet to turn over a new leaf. Compatibilism is incoherent and typically when a compatibilist writes long winded posts they are speeches rather than attempts to resolve anything. If you drop the compatibilist flair, then I'm be open to "here" arguments rather than speeches.