What altruism gene?

You will have to pay for the full story.

Or you could just be altruistic and summarize it for us.

Pretty much what you would think. Israeli scientists claimed (with much excitement)to have discovered and "isolated" the gene that makes us do nice things. If memory serves, this gene releases some long-named chemical that goes to the brain and gives us a little high when we escort Grannie across the street.

No doubt we will be hearing many more of these kinds of stories in the years to come. Hopefully, some clever mind is tracking them and will write a book some day showing how they don't add up and how they contradict one another. In the meantime, welcome to the latest scientific effort to deny consciousness and free will.

I think Peter is referring to either dopamine or oxytocin as the feel-good chemical. And he is correct about the self-refuting nature of the research. Hmmm...let's see - I wonder if there is a gene for believing in reductionism?

Peter:

Ah, but as anyone who has been through puberty knows, free will and consciousness have very little relation to one's actual behaviour.

Peter:

How far do you think free will actually extends?

Brit:
You are free to behave as you choose and you are aware of the choices you wrestle with. The degree of relatedness between free will & consciousness and your actions is up to you.

Dave

Thanks.

So can teenage boys choose whether or not to break their voices, grow hair in funny places, go tongue-tied when the prettiest girl in the class talks to them, and dabble incompetently in communism?

Jeff:

Really, really far.

Brit:

Do let's be serious. Was that a cryptic clue from the Times crossword?

Perfectly serious, Peter.

Why is the behaviour of boys and girls going through puberty different to their behaviour before and after it?

Are awkward, rebellious, easily-embarrassed, prone to depression and sex-obsessed entirely though their own free will?

Oddly popular choices, if they are just choices.

Naivety kicks both ways. It's just as absurd to deny that biology influences behaviour at all, as it is to propose that it completely determines it.

Peter:

Oh, really.

It certainly doesn't extend so far as being able to think like a woman.

Or to think unlike a man.

Those are two pretty serious constraints on free will right there.

I'll bet you have a characteristic approach to life in general that has been, absent whatever wisdom age provides, largely invariant.

I doubt you have the free will to change that, either.

I'm not implying free will doesn't exist, but I do think the bounds within which it operates are very constrained.

Ironically, for you to suggest otherwise would give you reason to exercise some free will and become a leading intellectual light on the Left.

Okay--that's somewhat tongue in cheek. But the further left one gets, the more one's arguments rest on human nature as a tabla rosa--in other words, a realm of unburdened free will.

Brit/Jeff:

We are talking about free will in the choice of our actions, not our characters, biological limitations or emotional desires. If you guys think the facts that I can't control whether I shiver or not in the cold or admire a pretty woman are chinks in the doctrine of free will, so be it, but you aren't talking about free will. Brit, do you think the young, excited, depressed teen is more justified in committing a sexual assault (or less able to control it) than the old geezer because of these biological limitations? Should we be more forgiving of him in the less of considering him less accountable for his actions?

Peter:

"We are talking about free will in the choice of our actions, not our characters, biological limitations or emotional desires"

You're talking as if people routinely make choices independently of their characters, emotional desires or biological limitations, which is patently absurd. Not even we nasty secular rationalists are that coldly controlled, and even if we were, we couldn't choose to, for example, run 100 meteres in 10 seconds.

Heraclitus said "Character is destiny" - which might be overstating it a little, but he's not a million miles away either.

Nobody chooses to go through puberty. It's obviously biology. That's not even remotely controversial.

These scientists think that they've found out something about how that biology works.

So why would you immediately jump to the conclusion that they're trying to attack the concept of free will? Your gene-phobia is clouding your common sense.

Brit:

For cryin' out loud, the doctrine of free will is not a scientific theory that seeks to give a natural explanation for all our actions. It says that we are all capable of RISING ABOVE our animal/biological/emotional instincts and impulses and making a conscious, free choice of what we will DO, not what we will think, feel, desire, etc. It is not easy or natural or automatic and it doesn't say the same choices are equally hard for everyone. It is also not very important in trying to determine why I chose orange over grapefruit juice this morning.

I personally don't care very much what gene some scientists say they have discovered on any given day or what it supposedly does. But, as I'm sure you well know, the collective game that is being played here is to say all behaviour is determined. We've had this junk from psychology for a hundred years on the emotional front and now we are going to live with it on the physical for at least a few decdes until we wake up and realize it explains very little.

To return to our old bugbear, I suspect the reason you, Jeff and a lot of secularists are so anxious to discount or minimize free will is that it doesn't fit into your historical image of man's evolution, which only works on the basis of our ancestors' being driven, consciously or otherwise but irresistably, by simplistic outside forces called survival pressures. Take the Great Trek out of East Africa. Everybody marching mindlessly all over the place in response to scarce game or climate change or whatever. No room for the womenfolk nagging the men incessantly about how it is time to settle down and threatening to cut off all the nooky if they don't. Seriously, you can't make the transition to consciousness and free will work, so you deny or minimize it.

Peter:

Meanwhile, back here in the real world, there's no such thing as an absolute genetic determinism versus absolute spontaneous free will debate any more.

Where free will exists, it exists within certain constraints, including biological ones.

The interesting questions are about the degrees.

Another interesting question is: why do some people cry havoc whenever it is suggested that there might be a genetic explanation for cerrtain general behaviours, such as the relatively sudden awakening of sexuality among adolescents?

If ever there was a candidate for a bit of genetic explaining, that's a candidate.

Brit:

Who said anything about absolutes? Can you name me one respectable proponent of free will who ever claimed biology and our physical natures have no influence whatsoever on our lives? I can name you lots of scientists (and bloggers) who are convinced of the opposite. Do you think the fact that there is a natural, biological explanation for puberty is news? Or that the religious are all upset and want to deny that? Sorry, but you guys are the take-no-prisoners extremists on this one.

C'mon, Brit, I know scientists love to discover the same thing over and over, but you know very well what the point of all this is. Long live scientism!

And, by the way, if these guys are so smart about how KISS-1 (really!)is what it is all about, how would they explain the painful, exquisite, tortured, pure and tragic love I had for Elizabeth Clark in kindergarten?

Well, I noted above that you said of this report: "welcome to the latest scientific effort to deny consciousness and free will."

If you want a top-notch look at free will, there's nobody better than Ted Honderich: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/dfwIntroIndex.htm.

I guess everyone has their Elizabeth Clarks. What's different is the precise quality of one's feelings for Lizzy in kindergarten and in 4th form.

Interestingly, this 'switch-on' idea fits the anecdotal evidence. The 'girls are yucky' to 'girls make me tongue-tied' change is remarkably sudden.

Peter:

We are talking about free will in the choice of our actions, not our characters, biological limitations or emotional desires.

Precisely what I am talking about. The constraints upon our choice of actions are, must be, considerable, or Communism would work splendidly, and everything the Left espouses would be a rousing success. But those things failed precisely because we do not possess ability to freely choose our actions. Except for that, Communism would indeed have been paradise on earth. Because of that, Communism always becomes a charnel house.

Pardon me if I overdo the analytical thing, but you make an implicit assumption in the following statement that makes it, in my view, self contradicting.

It says that we are all capable of RISING ABOVE our animal/biological/emotional instincts and impulses and making a conscious, free choice of what we will DO, not what we will think, feel, desire, etc. True, but the hidden assumption is that you can only rise above the instincts and impulses you possess. You cannot rise above a woman's instincts and impulses because you don't have them in the first place. That is a constraint upon your free will.

Also, in this I suspect the reason you, Jeff and a lot of secularists are so anxious to discount or minimize free will is that it doesn't fit into your historical image of man's evolution ... you suspect wrong. I, at least, hope to recognize free will for precisely what it is, not what I desire it to be. Moreover, by definition the very existence of a generalized thing called Human Nature (according to the Christians, divinely provided; according to materialists, what we ended up with at the end of the day) itself strictly bounds free will.

And whichever explanation you choose, the notion of Human Nature's invariability, and its impact on free will, are identical.

Jeff:

I've read your post several times to try and figure out exactly what your point is. I've settled on "the human condition implies constraints upon our powers--we are not omnipotent gods." I'll buy that.

Peter:

Apologies for conveying my ideas badly.

It is more than just stating that "the human condition implies constraints upon our powers."

You said, or at least implied, that the scope within which free will can operate is very large--almost as if it is some deus ex machina.

I maintain it is not--that when you consider the constraints of gender, personality, and physiognomy (I hope that is the right word), that scope is really quite small.

I wonder--can you cite any free will instances where you rose above your animal/biological/emotional instincts?

I'm not talking about choosing whether to buy a new car, or what make/color.