rationalskepticism.org

romansh wrote:

zoon wrote:
Yes, Sapolsky does seem to have missed the mark there.

What is the difference between blaming someone and recognizing that someone might be the proximate cause of an event?

I would say that blaming someone includes a call for that someone to be punished for causing the event, whether they are to be punished by God, karma, or other people. I’m arguing (I think fairly uncontroversially) that blame evolved as part of moral behaviour in human groups, it’s when one person calls on others in the group to punish some transgressor.

I think Sapolsky is arguing that blaming (or praising) people assumes the existence of ultimate free will, so as a determinist he’s saying it’s a bad idea. The problem is that he tells us in moral terms that we should not blame people because we are all determinate and so people’s actions are not their fault, i.e. he’s saying anyone who blames someone else is blameworthy, which is incoherent.

I think blaming (along with punishments and rewards) makes sense if we merely don’t understand our own mechanisms, we don’t have to have ultimate free will, so I’m one kind of compatibilist, but I would not claim that I’m entirely clear about these matters.