Compatibilism is the position in philosophy that we may have free will while simultaneously living in a deterministic universe. Many have strong intuitions in favor of it.
Here’s a close analogue to compatibilism that perhaps explains those intuitions:
Analogue: What it is for a behavior to be “freely chosen” is to be subject to incentives. Some of these incentives are pride, shame, self-righteousness, and guilt. Thus, a society’s system of morality can encourage certain behaviors (the behaviors we call freely chosen) while it is unable to affect other behaviors (the behaviors we do not say are freely chosen).
For example, we say that my writing of this argument is freely chosen, because if someone pointed a gun at my head and told me not to, I would stop. In contrast, if a gunman told me to stop my heartbeat, there would be nothing I could do.
Here is a related claim to Analogue. It follows from Analogue if we assume a few plausible social facts:
The emotions of pride, shame, self-righteousness, and guilt are socially valuable, as they are necessary features of a social-system that achieves good outcomes through providing “moral incentives” to agents within it.
For example, I do not masturbate in public, even in cities to which I will never return. Similarly, I tip even in restaurants whose food is not worth coming back to. In the past I have gone to a grocery store, started shopping, realized I needed a cart, left the grocery store carrying food I had not paid for, gotten a cart from deep into the parking lot, and re-entered the store in order to purchase the food.
Often, moral rules are quite sophisticated. If I borrow my room-mate’s book without asking and take it to a coffee shop while they’re at work, I will feel no shame or guilt. However, if someone at the coffee shop spills coffee on the book, I will feel shame and guilt until I can replace it, even if the spilling was not my fault. This very cleverly encourages me to be responsible with my room-mate’s things. Generally, feelings of guilt and shame arise in complex normative structures whereby agents can accrue liabilities, take on duties, trade obligations, etc.
Some moral feelings serve, not to prevent selfish behavior, but to steel the self against temptation and support long-term projects. Some moral feelings serve, not to prevent selfish behavior, but to steel the self against temptation and support long-term projects. For example, one feels ashamed when admitting to be unemployed. We are also fatphobic. A student feels ashamed in class when they must admit they didn’t do the reading. Moral systems that fight temptation, rather than selfishness, tend to use shame. For example, one feels ashamed when admitting to be unemployed. We are also fatphobic. A student feels ashamed in class when they must admit they didn’t do the reading.
Some moral feelings are not socially valuable, and we can understand the reasons why. Consider sexual morality. Historically, shame and guilt supported adolescents in delaying sex until they had found a socially appropriate mate. The rise of the birth-control pill suddenly negated the need for this shame, but morality required time to adjust. Thus, attitudes toward sex have changed only gradually over the last fifty years. Today, in more progressive circles, adolescents might only feel ashamed for having unprotected sex. Imagine having to admit to your mother that you had gotten pregnant and needed her to drive you to an abortion. Consider whether you would feel better or worse if you used proper protection.
Though morality is a flawed system of social regulation, it would be quite radical to claim that moral feelings are on net an evil. One reason it seems plausible (the terms “morality” and “moralism” sometimes leave a bad taste in the mouth) is that morality tends to be invoked as-such when the reasons for our moral feelings have evaporated. When someone steals, we can explain why theivery is wrong: it forces stores to adopt theft-prevention measures that raise prices and make shopping worse for everyone. So, we needn’t invoke morality directly. In contrast, when a woman has protected sex before marriage, the only objection is that her action is per se immoral; many reasons for our sanction against it were erased by the birth-control pill.
Nevertheless, not all invocations of morality as-such are unjustified. Sometimes, the reason we must invoke morality as-such is that the practical reason for an ethical rule is too difficult to explain. Hence, we often invoke morality as-such when dealing with children. We might tell a child not to steal because “that’s wrong!” Some rules are so complex that even adults have trouble with them. Hence, many papers in economics, philosophy, and legal theory are explanations why a legal or normative system is a good thing. Here is an example. Here is another. It’s good for such rules to induce feelings of guilt and shame even if agents feeling those feelings cannot explain them.
Sometimes, we invoke morality as-such because we do not want to admit the reasons behind a moral rule. For example, it is considered rude to tell a story about someone being comically fat when one’s audience includes a fat person. This rule is enforced, not by explaining its value, but through an escalating series of indirect signals. First, one silently signals that they are unamused by the story, even if they do find it funny. If that fails, one might say “stop; you’re being an asshole.” Pressed further, one might even say “its rude to tell such stories.” This is a lie. It’s only impolite to do in front of fat people (or, it is much more impolite. If one would only object if a fat person were present, invoking a universal rule is dishonest). Only as a final alternative would one say “it is impolite to tell this story because X is fat, and telling this story reminds X that their fatness is derisible to others, which makes them sad.” Because explaining the justification behind the rule is harmful, we invoke morality as-such (or use bad-faith ad hominen arguments) instead of explaining our true justifications. In situations where the explanation does no harm, we can explain the purpose of the rule more explicitly.
In contrast, some social rules are enforced always and everywhere with invocations of morality (or bad faith arguments), because explaining the reason behind the rule is always and everywhere a harmful act. The rule against telling comic stories about fat people can be explained whenever fat people aren’t around, because fat people’s feelings are the only thing harmed by the explanation. In contrast, the justifications for some rules can never be admitted publicly, no matter how well these justifications are understood by all. I will not list any such rules here. That would be harmful! Think of me like an airline pilot leading you through severe turbulence. I might know it’s severe. You might know it’s severe. But I’m not going to say anything. I’m going to tell you there’s nothing to worry about, despite the bumps. My assurances might soothe you, and there’s nothing you could do about the danger anyway.
Sometimes mass deceptions are a good thing.
Furthermore, sometimes we can do better than a mass-deception. Sometimes we can explain the justification behind a rule in a way that can only be understood by those not harmed by it. For example, a mother of a young child might lay down a rule (“do not climb on chairs to get into the cabinet”) and explain the rule’s purpose to the father by spelling out important words, so the child does not learn the secret information that makes the rule necessary (say, “the cookies are in the cabinet”).
Nevertheless, we should not dismiss the dangers of rules that cannot be publicly justified. Sometimes, we obfuscate a rule’s justification because it is unfair or unsavory. Terms like “traitor” and “disgusting” are often useful for sustaining such rules. Consider racism in the Antebellum South. In that society, Whites who opposed racism faced virulent ad-hominem invective as “race-traitors,” and justifications for racial heirarchy were often heavy on emotion and light on detail. Of course, the true value of racist moral feeling was to preserve a heirarchy with Whites slaveowners at the top. Since White slaveowners had attained social authority, they were even able to induce moral feelings on many slaves, who then actively supported the system.
Many Marxists believe the same same mechanics uphold bourgeois morality, sometimes called the Protestant work-ethic (an ethical system which notably rose to prominence at a time when burghers were socially subordinate to aristocrats).
Thus, we can always learn about a rule from asking cui bono, but we must ask such questions with intellectual humility. Our knowledge of economics and philsophy is limited. So, we might make mistakes when determining the facts. Worse, we might cause a rule to fail, if the unspoken value of the rule only lasts so long as its purpose is kept sotto voce. There is a very funny movie about this.
Though we can observe morality in action, and we can understand the ways that it works, we cannot so easily explain how it arises.
Guilt, shame, pride, and self-rightenousness are deeply ingrained biological phenomena, like humor, joy, sadness, music, stress, loneliness, and wrath (righteous anger, by the way, is just the sort of moral feeling that requires a complex game-theoretic explanation to justify).
Just how shame and guilt arise in light of social structures is a difficult question. Certainly, moral feelings are influenced by beliefs. They are also influenced by social sanctions and denouncements. But more than that is hard to say.
Furthermore, the dangerous thing about morality is that it might wither away the better you understand it.
Consider all of the above. I hope I have given a good explanation of many moral phenomena, and why feelings of guilt and shame are often worthwhile. But I doubt that I instilled moral character into you. There is an obverse to Hume’s famous is/ought disctintion. Just as no factual propositions cannot imply a moral obligation, moral reasoning alone cannot induce a psychological state.
Perhaps, seeing “free will” as no more than responsiveness to moral incentives causes those moral incentives to decay. Perhaps we must believe morality to be something other than it is in order for morality to work.
Perhaps this is the sublimated insight of conservatism.
Indefensible Expectations 