Free Will Is An Illusion

[NatsuTerran]

I have to clear up some misconceptions. People keep saying that if determinism is true, then all choices are "preordained" or things like "the story is already written." This is completely untrue and Sam Harris goes out of his way to make people understand that determinism does NOT mean that. Our decisions without free will are *continuously* determined, NOT predetermined. Meaning that a large variety of factors both past and present contribute to each thought. If everything was predetermined, that would, by definition, not take into account the present factors that influence you. Though, you could make the case that the present factors are ultimately predictable.

It all comes down to chaos theory.
When there's evidence that A causes B, in the case of a tumor, people understand that there's no free will. When it's about a type of upbringing having an effect on people's thoughts/behavior, most people understand that the person did not freely choose, but were born into the nurture that acted as a catalyst for those thoughts/behaviors. Though, some people cling to the fact that not ALL kids born to a broken home in a ghetto with abusive parent(s) will turn out poorly. They view the fact that not all of them turn out poorly to be a sign of free will. But it's ignorance at its finest. You have to look at all variables, maybe there are some life experiences or genes that are different for that individual to make them override the negative nurture they had. In this case, it is not nurture vs. free will, but one set of nurtures vs. another set of nurtures (meaningful life experiences) and that we simply could not keep track of all the variables because they are hidden. Free will is a god of the gaps argument.

Regarding morality: There is strong morality in a deterministic world. I simply don't understand the idea that there can't be good or evil without free will. It may just mean that your ideas of good and evil don't fit well into a deterministic worldview. For instance, under determinism, we should not jail people for purposes of retribution, but for purposes of not letting the crime happen again. The most telling sign of if you believe in free will or not is your ideas about retribution. Why cause more harm to someone for the sake of causing harm? For revenge? They couldn't have done otherwise, therefore the moral thing to do is just make sure more harm doesn't happen in the future while causing the least amount of harm in doing so. There's also the whole issue of a "deterrent" which is to have retributionistic attitudes for the sake of preventing future harm through psychologically deterring criminals from performing their acts, but I won't get into that. Ultimately, no free will is still a very moral worldview, it just shifts the blame for evil, (harm in this case), onto the myriad of factors that influence behavior. When that is our scapegoat, and not the individual themselves, we are forced to adopt a purely Utilitarian mentality.

Harris makes the point about surviving an attack from a burglar vs. surviving the attack from a bear. People's common feelings leave them infuriated at the person who wronged them and they want to wrong them back, but the bear is just doing what it had to do. These emotions indicate free will. I find it especially humorous when atheists who believe in evolution believe in this fallacy. Where exactly did free will evolve into us and why is it not present in the chimpanzee that attacks a human? We all simply have to do what we do based on the tacit variables of nature and nurture. Anytime people start thinking that it's free will vs. nature and nurture, they are just not paying attention to a covert form of nature and nurture competing with other natures and nurtures. Our brains are competitive battlegrounds of values, none of which were really chosen. You don't choose your wants and values, you merely feel them. But when those competing values interact with each other, that's what decisions are born out of.

Edit: Regarding the above post, our mere existence is not a brute fact that wouldn't be better or worse. I just don't get how you can think free will is a prereq to morality. I believe in Utilitarianism and the no-harm principle. Harm itself is immoral, and well-being is moral to put it simply. How can you tell me that it doesn't matter what happens to us as a species in regards to the no-harm principle? How on earth does free will need to be present for harm to be felt? For well-being to be had? For happiness to be sought? It doesn't matter at all, our only change in thinking is away from retribution and towards macro-scale decisions about well-being, a numbers game.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Go to an office supply store. The will kit ain't free kids.

[FrankDK]

> I think religionists are talking about free will in morality, not in which path they'll take walking home.

> Don't confuse the two.

It seems to me that they are the same.  An individual is presented with circumstances and a choice.  He chooses.  How could free will exist for some choices but not others?

Either we have free will in all our choices, or in none.  The choice-making system doesn't change its nature just because the range of behaviors is different.

Frank

[Colanth]

I have to clear up some misconceptions. People keep saying that if determinism is true, then all choices are "preordained" or things like "the story is already written." This is completely untrue

That's right - if you redefine "determinism".

and Sam Harris goes out of his way to make people understand that determinism does NOT mean that.

It means that the prior existing conditions mean that the occurrence had to occur, and couldn't have occurred differently.

Our decisions without free will are *continuously* determined, NOT predetermined.

That's arguing against a deterministic universe AND against a universe created by an omniscient creator.

Meaning that a large variety of factors both past and present contribute to each thought.

Determinism says that those factors DETERMINE the thought.

If everything was predetermined, that would, by definition, not take into account the present factors that influence you. Though, you could make the case that the present factors are ultimately predictable.

Determinism has nothing to do with predictability, but what it says is that the present factors are determined by previous factors, which were determined by still-previous factors which ... right back to the beginning of time.

It all comes down to chaos theory.

"Chaos", used in this sense, doesn't mean undetermined, it describes the math of systems subject to the Butterfly Effect (a tiny initial condition GREATLY effecting the outcome).

You're confusing mathematical concepts, temporal concepts and things people say.

Regarding morality: There is strong morality in a deterministic world.

There can't be morality in a deterministic world.  Is it moral or immoral to torture an infant?  It's neither, it had to be done due to the initial conditions.  (That's what "deterministic" means.)

I simply don't understand the idea that there can't be good or evil without free will.

There can't be.  You can't be held liable (in a moral sense, not a legal sense) for something over which you have no control.  And if you can't be held liable, what you did is neither good or bad.

Where exactly did free will evolve into us

It's not in the class of things that evolved.

and why is it not present in the chimpanzee that attacks a human?

Who says it's not?  The chimp couldn't possibly have chosen to not attack?

Edit: Regarding the above post, our mere existence is not a brute fact that wouldn't be better or worse. I just don't get how you can think free will is a prereq to morality.

If you have no control over what you do (no free will), you can't be held accountable for what you do (in a sane society).

Harm itself is immoral

That's the current thinking - sort of.  It wasn't always that way.  At one time, it was considered immoral, if you defeated an enemy tribe, to NOT kill the entire tribe.  And the last time I looked, killing is a form of harming.

How can you tell me that it doesn't matter what happens to us as a species in regards to the no-harm principle?

It matters to US.  It hardly matters to the universe as a whole.

How on earth does free will need to be present for harm to be felt?

It doesn't, but "immoral" isn't defined as "harm being felt".

[josephpalazzo]

One argument against free will is the following: if you were transported to a time in your past, with every memory erased from that time, would you make different decisions? I think not. You would make exactly the same choices that got you from that moment in the past to the present.

[NatsuTerran]

@ Colanth

It seems pointless even discussing it with you, we are speaking a different language, especially when you say determinism has nothing to do with predictability and then in the next breath define determinism as being the same definition of predictability. About morality, I agree that the universe doesn't care about our morality. Morality exists IN us, just because the universe doesn't care if it's a planet of rocks or a planet of humans doesn't mean morality doesn't exist. You seem like a theist the way you talk about determinism and morality, as if morals have to come from something greater and can't just be a human condition. When reading what you asked about why a chimp "couldn't" do otherwise, it makes me think you are confusing free will for free choice. With choice being the hypothetical of an individual making one decision vs. the other, and the "will" being what it is that your brain happens to "will," i.e. the direction your brain happens to sway. I just can't fathom how people can believe we aren't wholly determined by nature and nurture. You never really even denied the core concepts of determinism. Just danced around morality and definitions the way you see them. The bottom line for me is that people are wholly determined by causal factors in their choices. And for morality, there doesn't have to be any semblence of people being held responsible for anything for there to be morality. Morality has absolutely nothing to do with choices that people make, it has to do with positive outcomes vs. negative outcomes.

[NatsuTerran]

Regardless, I'll post my thoughts on each line of response.

That's right - if you redefine "determinism".

The story is not already written in determinism. It's more like the story is written up to this point and the rest of the pages are blank. It just so happens that your hand with the pen in it is controlled by a mindless puppeteer.

It means that the prior existing conditions mean that the occurrence had to occur, and couldn't have occurred differently.

This is true, but I don't see how that means the story is already written in full when we don't know how to compute all variables. This is where chaos theory comes in. We don't know how the variables interact with each other because there's too much stuff going on for us to grasp at once. Thus things are only predictable in theory but not in practice.

That's arguing against a deterministic universe AND against a universe created by an omniscient creator.

I don't understand what an omniscient creator has to do with anything.

Determinism says that those factors DETERMINE the thought.

Of course, by contribute I meant that they are the only thing that contribute. There's zero evidence for any other contributing factors.

Determinism has nothing to do with predictability, but what it says is that the present factors are determined by previous factors, which were determined by still-previous factors which ... right back to the beginning of time.

Determinism has nothing to do with predictability, but what it says is that ***present factors are determined by previous factors****. That is the CORE requirement for predictability. It may go back to the beginning of time, but that's irrelevant. Just because everything has a catalyst does not undermine our illusions of choice and how they work for us.

"Chaos", used in this sense, doesn't mean undetermined, it describes the math of systems subject to the Butterfly Effect (a tiny initial condition GREATLY effecting the outcome).

When I say chaos theory I just mean the impossibility of predicting things despite things being perfectly predictable. Comes down to us not being able to fathom all possible variables at all possible times because the equations that determine things are so complex.

There can't be morality in a deterministic world.  Is it moral or immoral to torture an infant?  It's neither, it had to be done due to the initial conditions.  (That's what "deterministic" means.)

It's immoral to torture an infant. You have no idea what you're talking about here. Why is it that people who don't believe in determinism never understand determinism and what it entails? It MAKES NO DIFFERENCE that it HAD to happen. You honestly think we cannot sit down and philosophize on the act as it happened and come to the conclusion that FUTURE INSTANCES OF THIS would be bad? What you are essentially saying is "what's done is done, it had to happen." And that's true, but in a trivial and pointless sense. It happened but it has an effect on us which can CAUSE us to make future decisions about whether future instances of it are condemned or glorified or anything in between. That is morality, and it does not matter on an intance by instance basis, morality depends on looking at the future and not what happened and must have happened. You can have your own views on morality, but they are apparently dramatically different from my own. I don't need a God for my morality, I don't need choices for my morality. I don't need anything but a semblance of harm vs. well-being. Just because your own twisted idea of morality is shunned by determinism doesn't give you the right to say determinism blankets out all morality.

There can't be.  You can't be held liable (in a moral sense, not a legal sense) for something over which you have no control.  And if you can't be held liable, what you did is neither good or bad.

Who cares if you can't be held liable morally? The outcomes are all that matter. Your last sentence here shows that your view on morality are inseparably tied to choice. This is severely flawed. Morality to me has only to do with outcomes. An outcome could be a boulder falling on your head. That would be immoral to me, and subsequent outcomes, such as deciding whether or not to do something about this area's falling boulder problem, would also be either moral or immoral depending on how much harm results. So in my worldview immoral acts can be done by inanimate objects as well as people, which are subject to the same rules as inanimate objects in a sense(under determinism). This likely illustrates why we are in a sense speaking past each other. It just means we have to *adapt* our sense of morality to apply to circumstances and not agents, because agents don't exist to begin with. If such a thing were officially proven as an indisputable fact, people wouldn't suddenly drop morality. Our morals would adapt to scapegoating circumstances instead of individuals, which is where the blame should be placed to begin with. I don't know how much of Sam Harris you've read or watched but he covers the shit outta this in Free Will and The Moral Landscape. People keep confusing determinism with fatalism.

It's also humorous to me how believers in free will fixate on morality instead of actually trying to prove free will. Even if morality is logically impossible under determinism, it doesn't have the slightest effect on determinism's veracity.

It's not in the class of things that evolved.

So there's absolutely no science or evidence behind it whatsoever? You just *know* this, sounds familiar. And you matter-of-factly stating that it didn't evolve doesn't help your case. Where did it originate? What is it exactly? How do you know it is even real? I'll save you time, it's a superstitious belief. You matter-of-factly assume it real and work backwards trying to believe in it.

Who says it's not?  The chimp couldn't possibly have chosen to not attack?

Wow. Just wow. You don't comprehend that the chimp's brainstate at the moment is set in attack mode, and working backwards you can't fathom that certain factors(outside of its control) led to such a brainstate?? Okay so where do you draw the line? Take it back to single cell organisms. Do THEY have free will? They do the same exact shit over and over. It's utterly predictable. Predictability violates free will. The two are logically contradictory. If I can predict what you will do before you even know it (because I know your current and past brain states, and can reasonably predict what future experiences you will have) then that means the only factor in this example of cause/effect was the things that I knew of. But could you honestly say that you chose any of these things in a vaccuum? If not, then it's not free will because your brain has been pre-emptively colored by experience. You don't choose those experiences.
I'm done here, I'll get a stroke if I try to cover everything here. But my points should be obvious.

And JosephPalazzo's thought experiment is a nice throw-back for me. I was contemplating that when I was five years old. I'm surprised that determinism isn't more popular because it's so obvious to me that if you were simply transplanted back in time the same decisions would be made. Eve would still have her cravings for the fruit over and over again if you went back to that moment, because nothing else has changed in the brain, why would her decision change? God is always the immoral one because it all goes back to him.

[Aroura33]

I am on my mobile, which makes it hard to quote. Directed at Natsu, wanted to say I agree with you except about how you are describing, or perhaps understanding, if "the story is written". If determinism is fact, and I think it is, it IS written. Just because we humans are unable to grasp all the variables and cannot predict the future does not mean we are somehow in a moment od not quite determined existance. The future must be determined already, the story already written, but we do not have the means to read it. We probably never will.

I also agree with Sam Harris that a deterministic outlook would actually improve social behavior and views on morality and how we handle the consequences of actions. It would certainly remove the barbaric, biblical notions of retribution and punisment as justice or revenge. Our notions of many things would have to alter, but it would not destroy society, any more than realizing god is an illusion has suddenly made us all rapists and thieves.

[NatsuTerran]

I guess that's true aroura. Saying "the story is written" is true on a universal sense, but the way it sounds tends to get people confused. For instance, if someone tells you "It's settled, the story is already written, you will have to do X in a few years." It becomes nonsense because their prediction itself becomes a factor in the equation, which could likely determine you to prove them wrong. But in a completely unseen sense, I agree that things are determined, but saying they are predetermined is weird because we cannot possibly have the sheer omniscience necessary to examine every variable involved. And also, there may even be a case of sheer randomness that is unpredictable. Some have tried to latch onto this as an attempt to keep free will relevant, but it's really just randomness on a quantum level (if that's what it really is). In that case, the story may not actually be already written because things are random, though I speculate that we simply don't have the science at the moment to truly understand the catalysts of those things that some are saying are purely "random." In that case, I guess you could say the book is still written, except it's like one of those alternate ending books where you flip around to several different pages to see what happens, lol.

[Colanth]

@ Colanth

It seems pointless even discussing it with you, we are speaking a different language

Yes, I'm using the normal definitions of words, you're desperately redefining them so that you win the argument.

especially when you say determinism has nothing to do with predictability and then in the next breath define determinism as being the same definition of predictability.

You may have inferred that definition, but it's not the one I gave.  Just because something is determined by past events doesn't mean that we have the ability to predict it.  YOU'RE the one who brought in chaos theory - don't you even know what it is?

About morality, I agree that the universe doesn't care about our morality. Morality exists IN us, just because the universe doesn't care if it's a planet of rocks or a planet of humans doesn't mean morality doesn't exist.

It exists in the same way that any opinion exists, but it doesn't exist objectively or absolutely.

You seem like a theist the way you talk about determinism and morality, as if morals have to come from something greater and can't just be a human condition.

That's all they are - the condition of having an opinion.

When reading what you asked about why a chimp "couldn't" do otherwise, it makes me think you are confusing free will for free choice.

Free will is the ability to choose freely.

With choice being the hypothetical of an individual making one decision vs. the other, and the "will" being what it is that your brain happens to "will," i.e. the direction your brain happens to sway.

Which is your "choice".  Stop redefining words.

I just can't fathom how people can believe we aren't wholly determined by nature and nurture.

That's indeterminism.

You never really even denied the core concepts of determinism.

I don't, I just said that your redefinition of the word isn't what everyone else defines it as.

Just danced around morality and definitions the way you see them.

The fact that I don't accept your redefinitions doesn't mean that I'm dancing around definitions - but it sure means that you are.  As far as morality, of course we dance around it - there's no absolute morality.

The bottom line for me is that people are wholly determined by causal factors in their choices.

That's your opinion.  You're entitled to have it.  That doesn't make it correct.

And for morality, there doesn't have to be any semblence of people being held responsible for anything for there to be morality. Morality has absolutely nothing to do with choices that people make, it has to do with positive outcomes vs. negative outcomes.

That's you redefining a word again.  That's not morality, that's outcome.

Study the Lifeboat Dilemma.  Either outcome is negative, but one outcome is more moral than the other.

[Colanth]

Regardless, I'll post my thoughts on each line of response.

That's right - if you redefine "determinism".

The story is not already written in determinism.

Determinism means that the outcome is determined, so yes, it is already written.

It's more like the story is written up to this point and the rest of the pages are blank.

That may be your definition of determinism, but that's not how anyone else uses it.

It means that the prior existing conditions mean that the occurrence had to occur, and couldn't have occurred differently.

This is true, but I don't see how that means the story is already written in full

Since it has to unfold as prior conditions determine it will, it's "already written".  How can you see "has to occur" as being different than "already written", as far as how deterministic either is?

when we don't know how to compute all variables.

That has to do with whether we can predict the outcome, not whether it's predetermined.

This is where chaos theory comes in. We don't know how the variables interact with each other because there's too much stuff going on for us to grasp at once. Thus things are only predictable in theory but not in practice.

1) That has nothing to do with determinism.  If something is determined it's determined, whether we can predict it or not.

2) Chaos theory deals with tiny starting conditions having huge effects.  It shows that we can't predict a lot of things that have multiple interactions, but that's not the theory, it's one of the conclusions.

That's arguing against a deterministic universe AND against a universe created by an omniscient creator.

I don't understand what an omniscient creator has to do with anything.

If there's an omniscient creator, free will isn't logically possible.  Characters in books have no will, free or otherwise.

Determinism says that those factors DETERMINE the thought.

Of course, by contribute I meant that they are the only thing that contribute. There's zero evidence for any other contributing factors.

That's not what "contribute to" means.

Determinism has nothing to do with predictability, but what it says is that the present factors are determined by previous factors, which were determined by still-previous factors which ... right back to the beginning of time.

Determinism has nothing to do with predictability, but what it says is that ***present factors are determined by previous factors****. That is the CORE requirement for predictability.

But not a sufficient requirement.

It may go back to the beginning of time, but that's irrelevant. Just because everything has a catalyst does not undermine our illusions of choice and how they work for us.

Which has nothing to do with predictability in a deterministic universe.

"Chaos", used in this sense, doesn't mean undetermined, it describes the math of systems subject to the Butterfly Effect (a tiny initial condition GREATLY effecting the outcome).

When I say chaos theory I just mean the impossibility of predicting things despite things being perfectly predictable.

That's not chaos theory, that's "our inability to predict the outcome of large chaotic systems".

Comes down to us not being able to fathom all possible variables at all possible times because the equations that determine things are so complex.

Which has nothing to do with determinism, or whether the universe is deterministic or not.

There can't be morality in a deterministic world.  Is it moral or immoral to torture an infant?  It's neither, it had to be done due to the initial conditions.  (That's what "deterministic" means.)

It's immoral to torture an infant.

Not if you had no choice.  It's as immoral as sweating.

You have no idea what you're talking about here.

I'm not the one redefining words and misusing them.

Why is it that people who don't believe in determinism never understand determinism and what it entails?

Who said that I don't believe in it?

It MAKES NO DIFFERENCE that it HAD to happen. You honestly think we cannot sit down and philosophize on the act as it happened and come to the conclusion that FUTURE INSTANCES OF THIS would be bad?

It would be bad, but it has no moral value, positive or negative.  "Moral" DOES NOT mean "bad outcome".  It has virtually nothing to do with outcome.  If it did, volcanoes near inhabited areas would be immoral.  (And don't start with the "volcanoes aren't human, and morality only applies to humans" crap - you don't get to change your own definition to meed different conditions.)

What you are essentially saying is "what's done is done, it had to happen."

No, what I ACTUALLY said was that if you have no control over an event, the event has no morality value.  It's whether you have control over it that determines whether morality enters the picture - not whether it already happened.

And that's true, but in a trivial and pointless sense. It happened but it has an effect on us which can CAUSE us to make future decisions about whether future instances of it are condemned or glorified or anything in between. That is morality

Only if you redefine it as such.  The morality that everyone else is speaking of isn't determined by the fact that doing something with a bad outcome will keep you from doing it in the future.

and it does not matter on an intance by instance basis, morality depends on looking at the future and not what happened and must have happened.

Your definition of it, not the one everyone else uses.  If I kill someone just to see what it feels like to kill someone, that's immoral according to the current Western morality.  If the world ended the second I did it, it would still be immoral, even though there would be no future to look at.

You can have your own views on morality

Everyone can, but if you want to be taken seriously by educated adults, you can't have your own definition.

I don't need a God for my morality, I don't need choices for my morality. I don't need anything but a semblance of harm vs. well-being.

Which no one but you calls "morality".

Just because your own twisted idea of morality is shunned by determinism doesn't give you the right to say determinism blankets out all morality.

If you really think that, no one here is going to take you seriously.  Do you know what the phrase "chew toy" refers to on internet fora?

There can't be.  You can't be held liable (in a moral sense, not a legal sense) for something over which you have no control.  And if you can't be held liable, what you did is neither good or bad.

Who cares if you can't be held liable morally?

No one, unless you care whether or not something is immoral.

The outcomes are all that matter.

To you, but that has nothing to do with morality.

Look,  you don't really seem to know what you think, and you don't understand the meanings of words.  Figure out where you stand.  I'm too old to waste time following you contradicting things you said earlier.

[Colanth]

But in a completely unseen sense, I agree that things are determined, but saying they are predetermined is weird because we cannot possibly have the sheer omniscience necessary to examine every variable involved.

Weird or not, whether we can examine every variable has absolutely nothing to do with whether things are predetermined.  It may have something to do with whether we can determine whether things are predetermined, but that's a different thread.

[Aroura33]

Colanth, again I am on my mobile, so have difficulty quoting, my appologies.

I wanted to address what you said about morality being based on choice. Currently, in most societies for most things catagorized as moral or immoral, this is believed to be true. But it is based on a flawed belief, imo.
A murder is still a murder even when we do understand that the person doing the murder was compelled, ie had no choice, to do it, such as in the case of some of the extremely abused and mentally ill psychopaths. We can profile these people, modern science now understands to some degree that some crimes, such as those and some pedophelia, are uncontrollable compulsions. Yet we still hold these people accountable for the harm they do, and attempt to prevent them from doing further harm. My point being that even now, when determinism is recognised as the cause of a crime in a microcosmic way, we still hold those criminals accountable for their actions. If we recognize it in the macrocosmic way, I do not see that it would change that. It might cause us to be more likely to look for causes of crime, and devote more resources to early detection, prevention, and rehabilitation instead of just punishment in the eye for an eye style, but that would be a very good thing! A positive step forward in social justice.

Also, it is not true that only Natsu is defining it in terms of harm vs well-being. Again, this is something Sam Harris has addressed in his books and lectures, and he has got quite a lot of people who agree with him. It is also not a new or novel concept. Philosophy has been discussing whence comes and why commeth at all morality for ages and ages, and this idea is centuries old, and has had its own adherents over those centuries.

Indeed morality is NOT absolute, but subjective. One of the reasons this is so is because societies are constantly re-evaluating the harm vs well-being of current mores. Why are gays and lesbians now being not only more widely accepted but allowed to marry and adopt children? Why are blacks no longer slaves, allowed equal rights, and interracial marriage more widely accepted as perfectly moral thing? Because the warcry of how those things would HARM society has been tested, and discovered to be untrue (by people with open minds. Some of course are still crying them, despite it all being blatently false). More people realize that unjust treatment of segments of the population was doing more harm than good to society as a whole. The harm vs well-being equation is HOW society creates morals, and also why they are constantly changing, because humans are constantly re-evaluating them.

In a deterministic universe, assuming the majority of people began accepting it as such, this would not change. We would have to adjust some of our ideas about what is and is not moral though that will continue to happen either way, but ironically, the way we would arrive at those conclusions would be the same way we do now, for the most part.

Just a few thought right before I go to bed. Take with a grain of salt.  8-)

[Colanth]

I wanted to address what you said about morality being based on choice. Currently, in most societies for most things catagorized as moral or immoral, this is believed to be true. But it is based on a flawed belief, imo.
A murder is still a murder even when we do understand that the person doing the murder was compelled, ie had no choice, to do it, such as in the case of some of the extremely abused and mentally ill psychopaths.

Murder isn't a moral value, it's a legal term.  It's still a murder, but if the murderer had no choice in committing the murder (such as a person too mentally ill to make a rational decision), we don't consider it an immoral act.  Whether an act is immoral, and whether it's illegal, aren't always the same.

Also, it is not true that only Natsu is defining it in terms of harm vs well-being. Again, this is something Sam Harris has addressed in his books and lectures, and he has got quite a lot of people who agree with him. It is also not a new or novel concept. Philosophy has been discussing whence comes and why commeth at all morality for ages and ages, and this idea is centuries old, and has had its own adherents over those centuries.

The fact that an act causes harm is PART OF what may make it immoral, but it's much too simplistic to claim that that's what DETERMINES morality.  If someone threatens your child's life and you kill him, did you harm him?  According to that simplistic view, saving your child's life was an immoral act - you caused harm.

I don't argue that harm has some little part in determining morality, but it's just one of MANY criteria.

Indeed morality is NOT absolute, but subjective. One of the reasons this is so is because societies are constantly re-evaluating the harm vs well-being of current mores.

And a lot of other factors - need, ability, knowledge, etc., etc.

Why are gays and lesbians now being not only more widely accepted but allowed to marry and adopt children? Why are blacks no longer slaves, allowed equal rights, and interracial marriage more widely accepted as perfectly moral thing? Because the warcry of how those things would HARM society has been tested, and discovered to be untrue

Any claim that homosexuality harmed society was known to be untrue more than 2,000 years ago, so that's not the only reason it's becoming more accepted now.  (And interracial marriage was acceptable back to the beginning or recorded history.  And probably earlier than that.)

In a deterministic universe, assuming the majority of people began accepting it as such, this would not change. We would have to adjust some of our ideas about what is and is not moral though that will continue to happen either way, but ironically, the way we would arrive at those conclusions would be the same way we do now, for the most part.

If we all agreed that the universe is deterministic, the first change would be to anarchy.  In a purely deterministic universe, nothing we "do" (we can't actually decide to do anything - the "decision" was made by the very nature of the universe that we find ourselves in) can have any difference, so nothing is "moral" or "immoral" or, in fact, matters.  At all.

Could we live - in a civilization - like that?  Of course not.  Whether the universe is deterministic or not, we MUST live as if what we do makes at least some difference.  (Which is why people went to the polls in the USSR, even though there was only 1 candidate on the ballot.)  Once we're convinced that nothing we do makes any difference, nothing - not even torturing babies for fun, to use another poster's measure of horror - matters.  And we rapidly "devolve" into depravity and, most likely, a planet so irradiated that not even roaches would survive.  Oh sure, some of us would continue to act in what we consider a moral manner, but a few thousand nuclear warheads wouldn't care and we'd all - moral or depraved - be "On the Beach".

[Aroura33]

If we all agreed that the universe is deterministic, the first change would be to anarchy.  In a purely deterministic universe, nothing we "do" (we can't actually decide to do anything - the "decision" was made by the very nature of the universe that we find ourselves in) can have any difference, so nothing is "moral" or "immoral" or, in fact, matters.  At all.

Could we live - in a civilization - like that?  Of course not.  Whether the universe is deterministic or not, we MUST live as if what we do makes at least some difference.  (Which is why people went to the polls in the USSR, even though there was only 1 candidate on the ballot.)  Once we're convinced that nothing we do makes any difference, nothing - not even torturing babies for fun, to use another poster's measure of horror - matters.  And we rapidly "devolve" into depravity and, most likely, a planet so irradiated that not even roaches would survive.  Oh sure, some of us would continue to act in what we consider a moral manner, but a few thousand nuclear warheads wouldn't care and we'd all - moral or depraved - be "On the Beach".

This is completely silly, and differs little from the claim theist make that atheists cannot have morals without believing in God, when clearly we can and do.  When entire nations lose belief in a higher power, the didn't start nuking shit.  If entire nations stop believing in free will, they won't either.
 
There are many, many determinists out there.  It is also a growing belief (or lack of belief in free-will?), and yet, those people are not out doing immoral things.  Because ultimately, we all still desire to live and live as happily as we can, and to do so we must abide by the social contract.  Also, the persitance of the illusion continues, even when you know it is an illusion.  You can see through it as needed, in moments and in specific situations as we realize it applies, but our brains are wired to bring the illusion right back as soon as we stop actively thinking deterministically.  So what you said is made-up BS speculation based on fear and not fact.

Do you think most people would start raping and murdering if all humans lost belief in God?  No.  It is NO DIFFERENT with determinism.  Point me out all the anarchist, murdering, baby eating determinists.....oh yeah, that isn't what happens when you lose belief in free will any more than it is what happens when you lose belief in God.  If anything, believing in determinism has made me behave more morally, and certainly, absolutely it has made me more compassionate towards others.