FREE WILL AS FOR ALTRUISM IS DANGEROUS
Free will if it is about being good and compassionate and loving implies that we
should be altruists. It implies that free will is really about helping
others. If altruism is bad then belief in free will is bad.
Altruism or selflessness is completely evil. You are more sure that you exist
than you are that other people exist. Therefore you have to put yourself first
and others next – which when done correctly means we behave in a decent way
towards all. Those Altruists who argue that extreme forms of Altruism such as
walking one hundred miles to get somebody some small unimportant item are
hopelessly inconsistent.
Egoism is harmless. Egoism recognises that you can only love (love as in feel
good about and want to help them not altruistic love) others to the extent that
you can love yourself. Altruism tells you that it is immoral to love yourself
meaning that you are not worth loving - and so it must be evil to look for help
from anybody – and must try to eliminate doing anything to gratify feelings. You
will end up murdering fifty people and go to jail and not care if you become a
real Altruist. Altruism puts an attitude in you that makes you capable of
anything when the conditions are right.
Altruism is not possible for whatever we do we want to do it under the
circumstances and we do it to feel better in ourselves so it is all selfish and
there is no such thing as sacrifice. The impossibility of altruism proves there
is no God because what would be the point in God letting us suffer if we only do
what pleases ourselves? We cannot love God – his devotees are self-deceivers -
or them either and God is supposed to have given us free will to see if we will
love. We might as well enjoy ourselves all the time when we can make no real
sacrifices – to sacrifice something for reasons of self-interest is not to make
a sacrifice at all for you want to do it to be better off.
We know that there can be no free will at all without the ability to practice
Altruism.
If God gave us life so that we can practice altruism, if altruism is the reason
we are given life as the proponents of the God hypothesis allege, then it
follows that a life that is not capable of it is not important or at least not
as valuable as the life of a free agent. Free will fans believe that beings with
free will are the highest beings and that that is one of the reasons why animals
are lower. Some schizophrenics cannot exercise their alleged free will or be
altruistic. Neither can the victims of advanced Alzheimer’s Disease. Altruism or
free will then implies that they are only human in appearance and should be
neglected in favour of the person who is “normal” for according to Altruism or
free will, making a person altruistic is the most important thing and this
cannot be done with them. Altruism or free will’s supporters may say that the
insane people cannot use their free will but it is still there and so they are
equal to the rest of us. They know fine well that it is not enough just to have
the power to have the faculty. The faculty does not exist unless it is active.
It is as silly as saying that the power to calculate is enough to make you a
mathematician but how can it be enough when you do not generate any thoughts for
then you might as well not have the power at all. Altruism or free will is
elitist which is one reason for its popularity. It is no use for Altruists or
free willers to respond that they look after babies and they have no free will.
Babies have to be cared for because if they were not, there would be no
altruists. They might also say that the person who has severe Alzheimer’s is
still a human being with human dignity. But they hold that animals do not have
the same dignity as us no matter how similar to us and loving an animal appears
to be. Though an animal has some logic, consciousness and feeling and so it is
hardly honest or altruistic to invent an excuse for treating a person with few
faculties as being superior to an animal. The only real reason could be because
the animal has no free will but they cannot admit that for then their elitism
would be made evident. This is all very offensive to the victims of mental
deterioration and their carers for these victims have no free will either. But
this is what they are saying no matter how hard they deny it. We can avoid being
derogatory to those poor people with these diseases by denying free will.
Humanism can and will campaign for laws to be made prohibiting belief in free
will for they incite to hatred and are unnecessary. It is slander to say
something bad about somebody that you don’t have to think is true so it should
be the same with free will if the law is to have any credibility.
My The Case Against Altruism refutes the arguments that Egoism is bad news. We
also know that anybody who says they love the sinner but hate the sin is not
telling the truth which gives us a further reason to discard the doctrine of
free will as harmful. When all do wrong how can there be any free will to love
anybody? The only answer is to deny that sin or immorality exist but hold that
wrongdoing is the symptom of a sickness.
Bad Arguments for Malice of Free Will
Beware the rejection of free will as a good doctrine for the wrong reasons.
Argument: Nobody knows what another person is like inside. You can never tell
what a person’s motives are. No two persons are alike. Therefore you are never
sure if a criminal meant to offend. The criminal might have thought he or she
was doing right. Even if you believe in free will you cannot tell if this person
is really evil or misguided. So what is the point of believing in it?
Reply: The argument is too sceptical. It would have you think that all the
evidence can do is show who it is safest to imprison. For instance, it is safer
to punish a person who is found guilty of manslaughter in case he did it
intentionally than to punish a person who was not even there or whose sanity is
questionable for it. But this is an absurd conclusion. The doctrine of free will
is no use for anything but trouble because it is pro-judging and is therefore a
charter for those who practice calumny. If it is true that we never know others
or never can say that they are probably bad then even if you don’t agree with
free will at all then you still have the bad results for you will have to let
people get away with the evil they do. We have an idea of what others meant to
do.
Argument: Any good we do freely, merits an infinite reward because it shows we
would do endless good if we could. The bad we do is a vote for chaos and chaos
can do infinite damage. So it is infinitely bad in intent. So, there is a choice
between rewarding a free agent and punishing him. It would be right to do the
reward for doing the latter would then be an unnecessary evil. This means that
complete anarchy has to be approved. If you believe in punishment you can never
punish too much but too little.
Reply: When there is a choice you have to pick the one that suits the
circumstances best. For example, you can’t let people commit murder so you would
have to forget the good they have done and make them pay but if they tell little
lies you cannot do the same. We have to tolerate things that are not serious. I
cannot say punish them for the attitude is that they should not receive
retribution but be hurt to deter them and others off crime. However, the
deterrence theory is dangerous if taken and supported in isolation.
Posted on Debunking Christianity - Nov 13
Christians argue that we must be free to the extent that we can become pure evil
for God wants us to love and to love voluntarily without any compulsion. If we
have free will, I think Christians exaggerate how much we have. Most
philosophers believe that we don't have free will or in something called
compatiblism. This is the view that our will being programmed and our will being
free are compatible which seems to mean that our will is not completely free but
is partly programmed. Compatiblism is the accepted view of the majority of
psychologists and psychiatrists. In that case, we should not be given the power
to seriously hurt others. God is to blame if we have that power. It is simply
evil to exaggerate our freedom in order to pave the way for believing in God.
That is really putting faith before people at least in principle. Logically,
accepting the free will excuse for God standing by as babies suffer at the hands
of tyrants should make people callous.
Conclusion
Belief in free will is inexcusable if it does harm. Proponents cannot say that
it is justified because it is true. And that is because there is no proof for
it.
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