Now I happen to think that God isn’t all powerful in the Greek sense. But I think we have to be careful not to caricature the opposing views. At a minimum a strong argument has to be provided for the claim free will doesn’t absolve some aspects of responsibility.

If man has free will (independent of god), then god is not all-powerful by definition, rendering most religions meaningless. You can’t have it both ways. Words have meaning.

If god has the power but chooses to abstain and let man make decisions (free will) on his own, it still does not absolve him of that responsibility. An all knowing god already knows the outcome of any decision man might make, so, as you can see, this puts the responsibility “ball” back in god’s court. For example: Letting go of your child’s hand at a busy intersection does not absolve you of your parental responsibility, logically speaking, especially if you KNOW for a fact that he will wander into traffic.

It never ceases to amaze me to what extent otherwise intelligent people will delude themselves into accepting as fact, particularly when it comes to religion. I guess it’s a coping mechanism that’s evolved in the human animal, but I could be wrong.

Blake, I believe God offers us the way out. I’ve got a post half written on this.

As to the other part – it’s an odd thing to say since it’s very obvious I’m not a physicalist. (For instance I think aspects of the first person view are irreducible to the second person view; not to mention I accept real universals) Further I never said good and evil are merely brain structures and evolution. I said that is most what we have access to. Then I further included revelation. (Odd you’d leave that out) I thought it clear I was talking about us from our current epistemic stance and not some ideal inquirer. (Which is what I take God to be)

Since I believe the universe is acting upon us in a way that will subtly affect us I believe that continued inquiry continued long enough will reach a stable view on what ethics is.

Shucks, it’s too bad that life requires us to have some kind of commitment regarding LFW today. I’m not speaking here in an intellectual sense, but in a practical sense. One’s actions either imply an embodied belief in LFW or they do not. It really does make a difference if I believe that I (or anyone else) can do otherwise (e.g., it really does matter — today — whether my wife is more than a computer when she says she loves me — same for my love for her).

Related to Blake’s last comment, I cannot understand how Latter-day Saints would opt to believe in some kind of deterministic worldview (even if it ends up being true!).

But the frankfurt scenarios even if used via intuitions aren’t interesting because they tell us what “responsibility is.” Rather they are interesting because they point to some points of undecidability. At least that’s what’s interesting to me.

As to what I think about ethics, my position is basically Peircean. I think the universe acts on us but often in subtle ways. I think most of our intuitions are due to the cognitive structures of our brain (roughly our ideas of good and evil due to evolution) and then social development. Beyond that there are reassessments of values that continue, albeit slowly, as we develop. Since I believe the universe is acting upon us in a way that will subtly affect us I believe that continued inquiry continued long enough will reach a stable view on what ethics is.

What I disagree with is the idea that right here and now we have much ability to know what that is.

As we continue to investigate what? How people act? How they attribute culpability in their outward behavior?

Look, you began this post with Frankfurt counterexamples to LFW. These counterexamples rely entirely on intuitions as to whether a person in a hypothetical situation is one that we intuitively see is morally responsible notwithstanding the conditions that seem to negate LFW, or more accurately, almost negate LFW because they seem to take away all relevant alternative possibilities. They function as intuition pumps. Without such intuitive guidance as to whether a person is morally accountable, these counterexamples cannot even begin to function as counterexamples to LFW. So I am confused. It seems that given your rejection of formal ethical theory and also of any intuitive guide to moral accountability, these Frankfurt scenarios cannot even function.

I’d be interested in how you see me relying on anthropology. You may be right that to the extent we rely on intuitions that are widely shared, we are doing an anthropological check on moral accountability. However, there is a reason that naturalists are never deontologists as well. Deonotological ethical theories (like my agape theory of ethics) require genuine free will or LFW to make sense of them. I believe a naturalistic world view can be accommodated by a utilitarian ethic.

As to Blake’s critique that I’m merely offering anthropology. I’m not. I’m saying all we have access to epistemologically outside of a few vague revelations is anthropology. A different matter. I think ethics is knowable in the long run as we continue to investigate but I think our ability to provide even remotely plausible meta-theories or prescriptive descriptions is pretty limited. Put an other way, I think Blake is appealing to anthroplogy as well but just dresses it up so it doesn’t look like anthropology.