(EDIT: Dan Dennett died today and I am crushed. In a cruel blow of irony, Dan Dennett passed away shortly after I published this article yesterday, April 18, 2024. I was playfully slamming him for his compatibilist stance non-stop the past two days on the r/freewill subreddit.
I was a huge fan of Dan, a great mind and a titan in the field. I took down my article earlier this morning — I’m writing this on the 19th — because “Dan Dennett: The Dragon Queen” where I talk about how he slayed all the bad guys but “became one in the last act” for pushing the “noble lie” is perhaps the wrong message for the day of this loss.
Now I feel like a jerk and will miss one of my favorite philosophers. Lesson learned. I can make my points without disparaging others.
Minutes after taking it down I realized that Dennett himself would probably not approve of me doing that. He was an outspoken gadfly and knew what he was signing up for. So out of respect I’m keeping it up.
I’d like to think the article would make him laugh, mainly at my stupidity but also the bits of humor, both intended and unintended.
Needless to say, he couldn’t possibly ever be considered a bad guy. He’s one of my heroes and will be deeply missed by so many.
Below is the article as originally published, and I will continue with the series. Support and well wishes to all who loved Dan and respect to his family. I will write a proper piece about his greatness soon.)
Below: Post as written prior to Dan’s passing.
I’m a hard free will skeptic and my position can be written on the back of a fucking pack of matches and btw so can Dennett’s: He wants to live in a world where we LIE about moral responsibility and desert. (IMHO) And he wants to convince us that we should want that, too.
To that I call b.s. He’s the dragon queen. He slays all the bad guys only to become one in the last act. He’s also pretentious about it.
I like Dennett the person and champion his right to believe and say whatever he wants. This is not personal.
But we can’t let this persist without a better fight than what I’ve seen from the publicly outed hard free will skeptics, ala Caruso, Harris, Sapolsky.
They are too deferent to libertarians and compatibilists. Those two groups, the latter being the bigger problem, are guilty of philosophical malpractice because they are lying. (IMHO) Secondly, their lies perpetuate more harm than good. (IMHO)
This is where the debate should be, to a degree. It’s two debates: the ontology and the pragmatism.
The ontology of compatibilism is incoherent, or in the case of Dennett, I feel it has to be a flat out lie. (I presume a well-meaning one, but thickly and densely colored by a fetish for meritocracy.)
The pragmatic debate requires a bit of imagination about just how dangerous praise and blame are in every facet of life, and how unnecessary they are in light of other options to keep things in check. We’ll get into that, soon.
Chomsky and Dennett: grumpy kings who peddle the Noble Lies, which is always a bad idea, because to discuss whether the lies are indeed noble (and who decides) cannibalizes the whole project itself.
Galan’s Law: Determinismus, realitas; liberum arbitrium, solipsismus.
I will cover this in the next part of this series.