Determinism is fatal to Stoicism

A message from Grant Sterling to the International Stoic Forum on 12/10/2018.

All:

    I don't have nearly enough time to discuss all the things that I
want to discuss in this very interesting thread.  (Please stop cheering.)
So I'll settle for some 'small plate' comments.

    1) I think the sentence "we influence these choices through...genes,
learning, and experience" is incoherent.  If "choices" are simply physical
phenomena caused by physical elements in the brain and central nervous
system, then there is no such thing as "we" and certainly no such thing
as "influence".  Just as well say "the rock influences its choices through
its mass and shape". 
    2) Chrysippus (and perhaps other Stoics, although this is by no means
clear) was a determinist, with a view of choice not substantially different
from Harris.  But I think determinism is absolutely fatal for Stoicism, because
I don't think there is a _meaningful_ distinction between "things in our control"
and "things not in our control" on deterministic grounds.  There are "things
caused by the physical state of our brains" and "things not caused by the
physical state of our brains (though they might be caused by the physical
state of other bodily organs)", but this is a trivial distinction on which no
substantive metaphysical conclusions can be based.  Why the former could be
good and evil but the latter could not be becomes a random mystery.
    3) I think Harris and others radically underestimate the corrosiveness
of their doctrines.  They model their worldview on the hard sciences (and,
don't get me wrong, I love real science), but hard science has no room for
"desires" or "beliefs" or "well-reasoned arguments".  If you believe that
everything is caused by particles colliding with other particles, and causing
outcomes with mass, velocity, electrical charge, etc., then say that.  You
didn't change your beliefs about free will because of Harris' arguments--
the electro-chemical state of your brain was caused to move from alpha to
beta as a result of photons crashing into your eyes in a certain pattern.
    4) I also disagree with Harris' attempts to suggest that this doesn't matter
very much.  For example, with determinism, there is no such thing as morality.
    Suppose that Smith sees a small child drowning in a swimming pool.  Smith
is an excellent swimmer, and the child is small--he could in fact simply lean
over and scoop the child up from out of the pool with little effort and no risk
at all.  But Smith doesn't do so--let us say that, using unscientific language,
he is angry at the child's mother for spurning his sexual advances, and wants
to see her suffer when she finds her dead child.  And we all say that he did
"the wrong thing".  But the notion of "the wrong thing" makes sense only
_by comparison to an alternative_.  No-one would say that I am doing the wrong
thing by typing this e-mail, because "initiating permanent world peace" would
be a better outcome than telling people my thoughts about Stoicism and free
will.  No-one would say that because "initiating permanent world peace" is
not something that I can possibly do--it's not an alternative that I have.  Had
I really had the option of world peace or this e-mail, and chose this e-mail,
then you could meaningfully criticize my choice.  But I didn't have that option.
    But if we call Smith's action wrong, then we must have in mind some
alternative.  And we do--we think that the right thing for him to do would
have been to walk over and scoop up the child and save its life.  But that's
because we're used to seeing the world through the lens of free will.  We
should recognize that it is _physically impossible_, a _violation of the laws
of nature_ for Smith to do anything other than salivate over the thought of
the mother's horrific pain.  Smith has exactly the same opportunity to
save the child as I have to initiate world peace--0%.  All moral categories
are based on the assumption that people can freely choose between
meaningful alternatives--determinism says that they can't.
    Of course we can still punish people for their actions, in the same way
that I can spray my cat with a water bottle when she claws the furniture.
I want her to act a certain way, and I inflict suffering on her to force her
to change her behavior.  Perhaps Harris finds this notion of punishment
for human beings innocuous--I find it terrifying.
    5) Most importantly, though, the experiments on which Harris leans
heavily are scientifically flawed.  Not just "imperfect"--no experiment on
human beings is scientifically perfect, especially ones that require us
to take seriously people's reports of their mental life.  No, I mean that the
experiments are fundamentally and fatally flawed.  They not only do not
prove that there is no free will, they don't even lend any serious evidence
to that thesis.  If you're interested in this, read the works of Al Mele
(unfortunately, I don't have a link for you to use).  Mele systematically
destroys the experiments, from a purely scientific point of view.  (I
should say that I don't agree with Mele's own view of free will, but I
do agree with his refutation of the experiments.)

    So I happily throw aside Harris.  But I admit that in your post there
is an argument more powerful than the experimentally-based argument.
If you will permit to to do a small bit of extrapolation:

    1) Our choices and everything that contributes to them are nothing more
than physical events in our brains.
    2) All physical events are caused by prior physical events.  (Perhaps we
should make an exception here for quantum indeterminacy, but let us
leave that aside for the moment.)
    3) Ergo, our choices and everything contributing to them are caused
by prior physical events.
    4) Ergo, either there is no such thing as free will, or free will must
simply be redefined as some sort of deterministic physical process.

    This argument is logically valid, and so anyone who believes both
premises should accept the conclusion.  (Actually, I have much more
sympathy for the "there is no free will" solution than for the "let's
redefine 'free will' to fit determinism" solution {although Chrysippus
chose the latter}.)
    The problem is that I think that the first premise is obviously
false, and there is good reason to doubt the second premise as
well.  Certainly there is no _proof_ of either premise that should
satisfy anyone who claims to be a scientist, although I know many
scientifically-obsessed philosophers who embrace both premises
because they falsely think that science supports or demands them.

    Regards,
        Grant