Conversely, if I chose only to discuss matters where free will is presupposed (for the sake of discussion, not necessarily a priori, then I can’t be faulted for assuming free will exists.

I don’t actually take a staunch position on the matter. Deep down I’m agnostic on the question of free will and I assume a position only for the sake of argument. Ultimately though, if free will doesn’t exist, it doesn’t matter that i am wrong*, and if it does exist, it does matter and I am right.

* A rationally supported delusion of sorts?

Perhaps, perhaps not. Dennett again:

If people are determined to act as they do, then what about personal responsibility? How can we hold people responsible and punish them for their behaviors if they have no choice in how they behave? Dennett gives a two part answer to this question. First, we hold people responsible for their actions because we know from historical experience that this is an effective means to make people behave in a socially acceptable way. Second, holding people responsible only works when combined with the fact that people can be informed of the fact that they are being held responsible and respond to this state of affairs by controlling their behavior so as to avoid punishment. People who break the rules set by society and get punished may be behaving in the only way they can, but if we did not hold them accountable for their actions, people would behave even worse than they do with the threat of punishment. This is a totally utilitarian approach to the issue of responsibility: there is no need for moral indignation when people break the rules of proper behavior. Is it, then, moral to punish people who are unable to do other than break a rule? Yes, people have the right to come together and improve their condition by creating rules and enforcing them. We would be worse off if we did not do so. Again, an argument for utility.

As I said, this is a topic I need to do a lot more reading up on. But if the free will we have is Dennett’s “free will worth wanting” as opposed to theological notions of free will, this might have implications for absolutist approaches to morality. But those are not the only approaches to moral reasoning (insofar as moral absolutism can be described as “reasoning”).

As to sub-criminal psychopathy, to determine whether it is’ virtuous’ we would need to weigh the benefits to the psychopath and others against the detriments to athers by virtue of the breach of their moral code. Who knows, maybe society is optimised with a few psychopaths around.

Which is pretty much what I was suggesting with delusion.

As fog cognitive psyche vs the Skinners and the Freuds, I’m with you on that one . It’s just that I don’t appreciate Seligman’s commercial publications (too much thought on what’s good for the self rather than what’s good for/least harmful most, which is to be expected of self-help books).

It would probably change our notions about right and wrong, and maybe also crime and punsihment.

More interestingly it might provide another example of where an irrational belief (in ‘illusory’ free will) produces better outcomes than acceptance of reality.

As to sub-criminal psychopathy, to determine whether it is’ virtuous’ we would need to weigh the benefits to the psychopath and others against the detriments to athers by virtue of the breach of their moral code. Who knows, maybe society is optimised with a few psychopaths around.

I think you are being harsh on Seligman. I was originally taught psych by a behaviourist who provided gays with electro-shock therapy. Compared to behaviourism and Freud, cognitive psychology was a breath of fresh air – people who behaved strangely might actually be thinking strange thoughts. This was certainly news to those who insisted on treating the brain as a black box, or those who thought most problems stemmed from ones troubled relationship with their father.

He’s going from is to ought which is irrational, so this is just wrong. Oh bum. I just read AV’s comment… Speaking of which…

And you can easily imagine instances where optimism –> perseverance –> bad outcomes, such as optimistic but persistently luckless gamblers.

Which is why many utilitarians consider circumstance when trying to predict/make projections of harm (e.g. the C in “CURF” by Collins and Knight).

Seligman made the mistake of not being critical of if his observed irrationality ought to be. If he presented an outcome caused by said irrationality in a certain context AND justified that outcome (which I don’t think he could anyway*) without simply referring to his observation, then I’d be willing to accept irrationality only in that context/circumstance as being moral, or at least not immoral.

* The closest I think he could get to a rational justification would be a fatuous egoist justification in the vein of Ayn Rand, or at least an extreme version thereof (Randians are good at coming up with ad hoc contrivances to make it look like their heuristics don’t produce absurd outcomes).

I don’t know enough about the subject to give an adequate response. I guess it depends on how you define “free will.” My intuition on this is that worrying too much about whether we have free will or the illusion of it takes us too far into is-ought fallacy territory. If it happens to be the case that free will is an illusion, then free will happens to be an illusion. Why is there any reason to think that such an insight would necessarily change anything? What are the predictable or demonstrable outcomes, negative or positive, of the idea that free will is illusory?

He is asserting a rational reason for choosing to believe irrational things.

Bruce’s answer (esp. the stuff on the is-ought fallacy) is more than sufficient. My point was that optimism –> perseverance –> good outcomes is a mundane observation, because not persevering –> no outcomes, good or bad. And you can easily imagine instances where optimism –> perseverance –> bad outcomes, such as optimistic but persistently luckless gamblers.

So you think that it doesn’t matter whether we have free will or merely the illusion of free will?

This is a pretty mundane observation,

He is asserting a rational reason for choosing to believe irrational things.

I’d rephrase this as “Either a choice…

Also, I don’t think that a choice not being entirely predictable means that it isn’t amenable to reason. Reason still has a roll to play in guessing (i.e. educated guesses).

I fully concede that reason and reason alone doesn’t work, but I don’t think that it needs the involvement of metaphysics (theistic or non).

Moreover, I don’t think that any moral system (rational or otherwise) should be faulted due to human limitations that the application of all moral systems can be subject to (failures of communication, absence of knowledge etc).

If you told someone that you mix 1 part fertilizer into 9 parts water to grow a nice lawn, and they didn’t hear properly and added the fertilizer pure and burned the grass, it wouldn’t make it a bad fertilizer. Blaming moral systems (not just the reason based ones) for human limitations is the same as blaming the fertilizer for a lack of knowledge on the part of its user. Blaming the tool so to speak.

He asserts that a little of the right sort of ‘irrationality’ generally leads to better outcomes. Some people might call this the virtue of hope. (interestingly he says people in some occupations such as law are better off without it).

I’m going to refer ti Seligman’s irrationality as delusion, because that’s what it is; convincing yourself of things that you know aren’t true.

Personally, I prefer to keep self-help authors like Seligman on the bookshelf. His stuff is great for propagating pointy-haired types.

Calling said self-delusion a virtue of hope is to my way of thinking, an is-ought violation. You need some moral heuristic to bridge is and ought (determining what ought be and confirming that it is the case); the two are naturally separated by a logical chasm (or Hume’s Guillotine if you want to give credit where it is due).

All virtues are oughts (i.e. ought to be by virtue), whereas Seligman’s observation is purely is; it is the case that the self-deluded do well in certain circumstances (also with the unspoken but unavoidable observations that the un-deluded go unrewarded relatively speaking and that more tasks are performed by the deluded).

As a reductio, consider also that sub-criminal psychopaths fare above average in managerial positions, but act in a manner that would violate the morals of almost anyone between Martin Luther and Peter Singer. Should sub-criminal psychopathy be given the status of a virtue simply because it is the case that they fare well? If delusion can be a virtue, then so can psychopathy!

Or for a real world reductio related to Seligman’s observation and a more explicit example of ought-from-is; Nick Keelty. I see little of virtue, and much of harm (and for those using other criteria than harm I am sure you can find similar objection) in continuing the delusion that Keelty has done his job as well as he should have.

The Haneef case and the subsequent lying as well as his own breech of anti-terrorism laws by inadvertently revealing that detainees were being investigated is enough to mandate (at least on grounds of merit) that he be sacked.

Delusion is keeping him in the job, but it ought not be the case. I can’t see a virtue of delusion bridging the is and the ought by demonstrating that “is” is the same as “ought”, rather I think delusion, by way of pretending “is” and “ought” are the same (that Keelty by merit ought to be commissioner), implies its own failure.

Seligman’s irrationality, his employee says “I feel I can do it!” – employer says “therefore I know you can, you have the job!” – sane public say “he just stuffed up because he never had the skills” -scenario-delusion, isn’t a virtue.

All it can be is an observation. Things aren’t as they should be. Human resources on average doesn’t monitor merit with accuracy, just the same way that it struggles to deal with workplace psychopaths.

Incidentally, I’ve been given a copy of Seligman’s Learned Optimism before back in the 90s by someone who didn’t appreciate my skepticism (yet failed to demonstrate that I was a pessimist) and I stand by my prior assessment; cognitive behaviour therapy theory for dummies, with dumb bits added for dummies to feel less dumb.

Incidentally, my second run-in with a Seligman proponent (circa 1999) who hated my skepticism (with somewhat of a passion) was with a young earth creationist who I caught using the search string “Silvia Saint*” on the computers as a client at an AngliCare training facility. Speaking as a former SysOp and a future biology teacher (whom this guy hated), this is one of those anecdotes I’m never going to forget the minutiae of!

Maybe I’m tarring Seligman by association.

* Contains profanity, but not pornography.