The determinist denial of agency is itself a moral position of nonaccountability

Evidence

Neural networks are nonethical. The unconscious neural processes have neither a sense of personal responsibility nor morality. The issue of morality arises in the purposes to which behavior is put, the means that are used, and the human consequences of the actions. A deterministic thesis that humans have no conscious control over what they do, in fact, is a position on morality—it is one of moral nonaccountability. Such a view is socially consequential. Does a nonagentic conception of human nature erode the personal and social ethics that undergird a civil society? How would people create and maintain a civil society if its members were divested of any conscious regulation for their actions? — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 315

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that ‘neural networks are nonethical’ and that determinism is itself a moral stance — not a neutral scientific position — reframes who bears the burden of proof. It resists summary because it collapses the naturalistic/ethical distinction the whole determinism debate presupposes.
• XREF: Connects to We by Zamyatin — the reduction of persons to ciphers of mechanistic forces and the erosion of individual responsibility within a totalizing system.
• SEED: Angle: ‘The determinism defense’ — a piece on how modern courtroom and public discourse increasingly deploy neural-determinism rhetoric as an exoneration strategy, and the ethical incoherence of doing so.

Related

• Denying conscious control is itself a moral position of nonaccountability (similarity 0.94)
• Radical neuroscience determinism would absolve everyone of moral responsibility (similarity 0.86)
• Neuroscientific determinism could erode moral responsibility depending on theory scope (similarity 0.85)
• All perception is unconscious projection that civilization must learn to control (similarity 0.84)
• Moral responsibility presupposes that people have self-influence over their actions. (similarity 0.79)
• Moral agency involves partial rather than absolute personal control over conduct (similarity 0.79)
• Epiphenomenalism denies conscious thought any causal effect on behavior. (similarity 0.78)