Ultimately, there are two primary political belief systems, and they are poorly captured by any label such as liberal, conservative, republican, or democrat. These two designations are far more fundamental than any people normally discussed, and are defined by a single fork in philosophical thought: the question of free will vs. determinism.

The two, fundamental political belief systems are:

1. Circumstances people are born into largely determine their choices and outcomes, and that each of us is fundamentally responsible for helping others overcome the negativity associated with their disadvantages. Because of this, the happiness and suffering of every person is inexorably tied to that of every other person.

2. Every person has his/her own choice to fail or succeed, and that those who suffer are doing so in some part due their own personal failure. As such, it is not the moral obligation of those who chose correctly to sacrifice in order to help those who chose poorly.

To put this in another way, one group thinks the those who are in positions of advantage are there by way of good fortune alone, and that they therefore are indebted to society, and humanity, as a whole.

The other group feels it was their individual choices that yielded their success, apart from any advantages they may have had, and that they therefore owe nobody anything–least of all those who made poor choices when they should have made the right ones.

No Longer Academic

This brings the discussion of free will directly to the forefront. It changes it from a high-brow matter for philosophers and theologians to to a real-world discussion of how the haves should treat the have-nots. I submit that no topic of political discourse is more fundamental than this.

Naturally, this brings us directly to religion. Religion teaches that God gave each of us the ability to make the right choices regardless of negative circumstances. So, when the poor kid skips school to shoot drugs in another country, or if someone rots in prison across town for crimes committed, we are taught by religion to believe that both made poor choices–not that they were handed an unfortunate set of variables.

What this means is that religion, at it’s very core, teaches apathy, and even disdain, for those who suffer because it propagates the belief that those who suffered had the God-given option to avoid it–but they chose incorrectly. If you probe deeply enough into the rhetoric of hate-filled healthcare-reform protesters (just one example) you’ll find this very belief powering their fury.

They. Chose. To. Suffer.

A belief in determinism, on the other hand, is tied to compassion, and it makes sense. Those who believe that the Big Bang happened, and that we all ended up here–some of us doing well, and others suffering–leads to the creation of public policy built upon communal happiness and suffering. And this sort of “it just happened this way” approach relies specifically on the lack of belief in supernatural free will.

Here are the Knight moves:

Atheism –> Determinism –> Compassion for the Weak

vs.

Religion –> God-granted Free Will –> Personal Responsibility for Failure –> Apathy (or disdain) from the Strong

Evidence

Ah, but what are claims without some evidence, right? As it turns out, Phil Zuckerman did an exhaustive study in 2008 of two of the most secular and most socialist societies on Earth–Denmark and Sweden. Here’s a defining excerpt from his work:

High levels of organic atheism are strongly correlated with high levels of societal health, such as low homicide rates, low poverty rates, low infant mortality rates, and low illiteracy rates, as well as high levels of educational attainment, per capita income, and gender equality. Most nations characterized by high degrees of individual and societal security have the highest rates of organic atheism, and conversely, nations characterized by low degrees of individual and societal security have the lowest rates of organic atheism.

Alas, correlation does not equal causation, but feel free to add your own anecdotal evidence ad infinitum. Find someone who believes in the shared well-being of all humanity, and they’ll tend to be more deterministic and less religious. Find someone who’s angry because they have to give up some of their money to help the poor and suffering, and you’ll likely find someone who’s not only religious, but someone who thinks religion is required for morality. Think about that for a second.

And the phenomenon continues, as Zuckerman’s work shows, at the scale of nations.

Conclusion

Resist the temptation to argue the semantics of “conservative” or “liberal” policy. Demand instead to discuss the real issue–separated from overloaded terms–i.e. the level of responsibility each of us has to help others. This is the central issue for nearly all important political topics.

Here is the argument in summary form:

1. the belief in free will leads to a lack of compassion for those who suffer
2. this is in large part due to the core religious teaching of God-given free will
3. those who lack belief in religion, and therefore in God-given free will tend to be more deterministic with respect to how and why people arrive at their station in life
4. the deterministic view, held by more secular individuals and groups, fosters compassion and a sense of connectedness between everyone’s level of happiness and suffering. Evidence of this can be seen in less poverty, higher education rates, and overall higher standards of living in countries that embrace this philosophy.

In short, the belief in free will, as propagated by religion and a religion-based criminal justice system, retards human progress by giving a backdoor justification for selfishness. The reason we are seeing so much resistance to policies that help the have-nots, at the expense of the haves (e.g. healthcare reform), is in significant part due to the belief that the have-nots deserve their position, as a direct result of their poor choices.

Until this fundamental issue is addressed head-on, by taking on the illogical belief in supernatural free will, true political discourse will remain out of reach.

::

One of the most common arguments from the religious is that without God there would be no morality. Non-believers reject this, and there’s an easy though experiment way to see which side you fall on. So, to those who do subscribe to a mainstream religion such as Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, consider this:

Imagine that one day God comes to earth and announces a new rule that says it’s a moral responsibility of all believers to kill anyone who doesn’t have a copy of your religion’s Holy book in his/her house.¹.

The question is: would you instantly accept this as morally acceptable because it came from God, or would you reject it because it’s wrong to kill someone for such a thing?

And here are the results. If you would immediately start killing people because God told you to (and therefore the command was “moral” by definition), then your morality comes from God. But if you would question and/or reject this command because it feels “wrong” to you, then your morality comes from somewhere else.

Which are you?

Notes

¹ Forget the silliness of this particular rule; it doesn’t matter. Besides, God asked Moses to kill a man for gathering wood on the Sabbath, so strange requests aren’t without precedent. And don’t cop out by saying, “My God would never make such a rule, so it’s pointless to discuss.” This is the whole point of a hypothetical–to see what you would do. You don’t have to accept it as an actual possibility.

1. There is no supernatural origin of free will.
2. All human action is the product of the interaction of a finite number of variables.
3. These variables are determined by combining genetic potential (nature) with the environment that interacts with that potential (nurture).
4. Humans do not control their own genetics.
5. Humans do not control their environment.¹

So, if a criminal stands before you with poor intelligence and a poor upbringing (limited educational opportunities, negative role models, etc.) which one of these variables is his fault?

Neither.

And if neither of those variables are under his control, and no supernatural interference is present to provide free will, then how can anyone possibly be held responsible for their actions–good or bad?

The answer is that they cannot. In truth, neither heroes or villains deserve credit for their actions. It is a deterministic² combination of variables that creates the world we live in, and the mature thing to do as a society is to realize this and take action accordingly.

What action you ask? Intelligently, and humanely, control the variables.

A Possible Implementation Model

Given this information and a society advanced enough to embrace it and act upon it, I believe a separation of missions is necessary within the effort. First off, I don’t expect anything this advanced in approach to exist for many decades and/or centuries, and at that point I hope government will be a lose collection of individuals that is organized in such a way that they have little to no incentive to be selfish in any way. Kind of like weekly overseers elected by the masses who have nothing in mind but altruism.

Yes, it’s fantasy, but bear with me; I don’t want to get caught up debate over government corruption.

1. The first arm of government would be dedicated to enhancing the quality of humanity. This would include the elimination of disease, the promotion of peace and prosperity, the improvement of education programs, and possibly the engineering of our genetics to eliminate negatives and/or accentuate positives ³.

2. The second arm of government would be in charge of keeping negative, violent, and dangerous elements of humanity out of the general society. So murderers and rapists and other criminals would be isolated and kept from impacting society further.
   
   This will be controversial, as it may include strategies such as forced environment change (not necessarily prison, however) and even extreme measures such as sterilization to prevent the propagation of uncontrollable causes of negativity.

The key is that these two arms of government would supplement each other. The first group would operate as if humans were completely benign and in need of help, and the second group would operate as if the main society was to be protected from unfortunate genetic or environmental variables. And the first’s mission would be to rescue those being isolated by the second.

Finally, there would be a third, overseer group, made up of the noblest and smartest among the society, that oversees both arms. This would keep the first group from getting too powerful and prohibiting the second group from doing what’s best for the whole. And it would prevent the second group from getting too powerful and going on some sort of “genetic purity” bend that tries to take us to a Brave New World, or worse.

The most important thing in all of this is that both efforts are required to maintain a healthy society, and that it’s difficult to find people who understand and accept the need for both. Most people are on one side or the other and see the other side as either weak or evil.

Again, the three pieces:

1. Accept that physics ultimately guides our lives.
2. Take steps to keep negative elements out of society.
3. Simultaneously work to elevate those we are isolating.

Thoughts?

Notes

¹ One does have the appearance of free will all throughout life, and hence appears to have control over their environment as well. But the ability to change anything in one’s life depends on the current variables present in the brain at any given decision point, and these are still bound by genetics + environment up to that point in time. Thus, all decisions are still deterministic. The ability to change one’s environment is an illusion.

² I use deterministic in the weak form here, as I am not addressing the realm of randomness at the quantum level. In other words, the outcome might not be knowable, even with all the variables, due to randomness, but since no part of the decision is actually coming from the human separate from the combination of variables within them, the outcome is deterministic relative to the human actor.

³ No, not like Brave New World–more like we are trying to do now. Isolating and eliminating genetic defects that cause disease and such. The moral discussion that surrounds both elimination of flaws and enhancement is extensive, but suffice it to say that it should be handled very carefully, with a supreme respect for the dangers that can come from going too far.

[ 2009-05-21 : Edited my language on government to avoid major tangents seen in the comments ]

What follows is an excerpt from a letter Professor Dawkins recently wrote to address a person who had been duped by Ben Stein’s horribly stupid movie, Expelled. This particular piece addresses what many religious and/or anti-evolution people consider to be a major problem with evolution, i.e. the linking between what evolution says about how life evolves vs. how we should build our society as humans.

Richard Dawkins handles the issue quite well (bold emphasis mine):

Now, to the matter of Darwin. The first thing to say is that natural selection is a scientific theory about the way evolution works in fact. It is either true or it is not, and whether or not we like it politically or morally is irrelevant. Scientific theories are not prescriptions for how we should behave. I have many times written (for example in the first chapter of A Devil’s Chaplain) that I am a passionate Darwinian when it comes to the science of how life has actually evolved, but a passionate ANTI-Darwinian when it comes to the politics of how humans ought to behave.

I have several times said that a society based on Darwinian principles would be a very unpleasant society in which to live. I have several times said, starting at the beginning of my very first book, The Selfish Gene, that we should learn to understand natural selection, so that we can oppose any tendency to apply it to human politics. Darwin himself said the same thing, in various different ways. So did his great friend and champion Thomas Henry Huxley.

So don’t ever let anyone give you this lame argument. Think of the female black widow killing its male mate after they have sex. Think of the countless animals that regularly kill their children.

In short, there are countless examples of things that happen in nature, which are worth studying, that we shouldn’t try and emulate. To put it another way, just as we study black widows in order to understand how they live yet don’t promote women killing their mates after sex, we can also study Darwinistic Evolution without applying its principles to human society.:

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I have a number of friends that are religious fundamentalists. We enjoy debating the important issues of our respective belief systems: skepticism for me, and Christianity or Judaism for them. The latest of these has been free will. I’ve touched on the topic a number of times before, but would like to revisit it again.Upon being presented the moral mechanics of Christianity’s Fall of Man I again put forth my argument regarding free will in that situation:

Imagine the moment we chose to eat the apple. God wasn’t surprised because he designed our ENTIRE ability to choose. Think about that. Our very mechanism for “free will” was designed by God in every detail, with him knowing the outcome in advance. Free will isn’t something outside of God. It’s not a mystery to him. He made it. He knows precisely how it works, and he knew exactly what we’d choose. In other words, God created us atom by atom and thrust us into a difficult situation in which he already knew that we’d choose incorrectly. He knew this because he flawlessly designed our choice system, provided all the inputs, AND knew the outcome. Explain to me again how it’s man’s fault that we suffer?

My fundamentalist friend’s reply was focused on the logical conclusions that I must reach were I to embrace a lack of free will in a practical sense. While I find the approach to be almost unrelated, it still has merit that’s worth exploring. He says:

The guy that takes a sledge hammer to your BMW… don’t call the cops…it’s not his fault, no free will. The folks that are destroying the world (global warming, cultivation of the rain forest, water pollution) don’t hate on them…it isn’t their fault.

This may seem to some like an absurd argument to some, but upon closer inspection there is something to it. It doesn’t speak to whether or not we have free will, but rather to the consequences of believing that we don’t. Quite simply, it says that if one is to embrace the idea of no-free-will to its logical conclusion then we must accept a whole package of uncomfortable truths along with it.

A World Without Free Will

Just for the sake of tidiness allow me to restate the no-free-will proposition that I’m offering. The basic idea is that however we got here, we are little more than highly complex machines. We process input through a finite and knowable system and arrive at a decision. That decision looks random to us because we neither have full knowledge of the decision system itself (our biology), nor the seemingly incalculable number of variables that influence it (every single event that’s ever influenced us).

The unpleasant conclusion that we must reach when accepting the proposition above is that we have nothing to do with our fate. Happy people are lucky. Suffering people are unlucky. Murder cannot be held accountable for their actions, and no credit can be given to heroes for their bravery.

Just thinking about it almost throws me into a panic. Cognitive dissonance nearly overwhelms me. The idea instantly nullifies everything our civilization is built upon — most notably the very notion of personal responsibility. The criminal justice system becomes akin to a perverse child care system where babies are tortured for crying or asking for food.

Defining the Variables

Perhaps free will is the necessary delusion after all. But if it’s necessary to ignore free will in order to function in this world, let’s at least define the truth before proceeding to turn our backs to it for practical reasons. Below I’ll attempt to present a universal theory of human action according to a world in which we lack free will. Here are the variables:

1. Where We Start Were you born in Etheopia or the Hamptons? Did you go to a private school or have you never seen a book? Were you starved of nutrition during while in the womb, or did you have the world’s best formulas while listening to Baby Motzart? Nothing determines where one will end up more than where one started.
2. Our Genetic Giftedness Intelligence, beauty, athleticism, artistic talent, motivation — all these help a person regardless of where they came from or what they are exposed to. This is why some people rise from the ghetto and others falter despite a legion of opportunities.I place intelligence at the top of this list because I think it offers the largest adaptive advantage. If you have one or more of these things you tend to do well. If you don’t, you tend not to. This is true regardless of where you started or what you experience in life.
3. What Happens to Us Life is random. It doesn’t matter if you went to Harvard and eat dinner with Bill Gates every Sunday; if you get a rare disease and die at age 30 you can’t do much about that. Some people get in the wrong relationship and end up on heroin. Others randomly bump into someone on the street and get handed a career they never could have achieved in school.Who we meet and what happens to us defines who we are. Forrest Gump was lucky to have been in the right places at the right time; a child who saw his family murdered in front of him was not. Both situations deeply effect the outcome of their lives, and neither person had any input into the situation.

The one thing stands out about these three variables is that we don’t have any control over any of them. It looks like we do, and it feels like we should, but we don’t. We fall prey to the common delusion that it’s not what we were handed that matters, but what we do with it.

What people fail to realize is that our ability to capitalize on what were given is in fact something we were given.

Read that again. There aren’t two different things — 1) genetic abilities and 2) motivation to make use of genetic abilities. No. In fact those are arguably one in the same. The only thing that determines one’s ability to make use of their own gifts and talents is #1 Where they came from, #2 How much motivation they have inherently, and #3 how they were raised and the experiences they had in life.

In other words, we’re just responding to stimuli. The doctor who makes great financial decisions and looks down on those who doesn’t is a pompous ass. He had at least two out of the three variables go strongly in his direction. He’s basically a lucky bastard.

The crack whore down the street, however, was born prematurely with Fetal Alchohol Syndrome and a less than average IQ. She ends committing an armed robbery and going to jail for life. Did she make a poor choice or was there simply no choice at all? What part of the equation was she in control of?

The decision to “break out” of a set of negative conditions improve oneself is NOT independent of the three variables. It’s part of them. As is the decision to rebel against the world and start carjacking and raping people.

Quite simply, if you accept the fact that we have no control over the three universal variables then we forfeit the ability to heap praise on the virtuous or scorn on the wicked. Is this the world we live in?

The other night while driving back home I happened upon a stretch of country road that had dozens of frogs either hopping across or just sitting there.

I hit many of them, and it bothered me greatly. I swerved to avoid quite a few, but some were just so bent on suicide that they basically jumped right in front of me.

The irony was that I was listening to Danzig at full blast through all this. So I’m singing along to “satanic” music being pumped through the car at a deafening volume, yet I am getting upset because I’m inadvertently killing little frogs on the highway.

The real question at hand, though, is how most other people feel about killing frogs on the highway. Especially those who would judge me for listening to Danzig. I can’t help but think they wouldn’t care much.