Most Notorious Acts of Ecoterrorism
But environmental protests are not new. For a long time, vicious environmental activists have been committing evil actions like standing outside of their governors' offices and hanging banners from tall buildings, asking that someone take action to ensure a livable future. These unforgivable terrorists must be stopped instantly and preferably locked up for life.
It is believed that the term "ecoterrorism" was first coined in 1983, in an article by Ron Arnold that defined it as "a crime committed to save nature." Around the 1990s, a group known as the Earth Liberation Front popularized eco-terrorism and became noteworthy for their aggressive crimes. Though most of the fears about ecoterrorism never materialized, and not one person was ever killed in an ecoterrorism protest, the FBI still cracked down on the cause.
There are a lot of problems with the term "ecoterrorism," which was mostly created to give environmentalists a bad name. Every movement has its radicals, and most environmental activists don't believe in violent crimes. Most of them would rather be growing plants and doing the kind of stuff they'd truly love to be doing if it weren't for the fact that our planet is dying. Law enforcement poses a much larger threat to environmental activists than the other way around: While environmental activism has killed no one, 83 climate activists were killed in 2018, and nearly 200 activists were killed in 2017, with most of the deaths occurring in Brazil and the Philippines.
Recently—especially as humanity's future grows more dire and natural disasters ravage the world—the question of ecoterrorism has come back into the conversation. More than anything, it's a moral concern: How far are we willing to go in the present to determine our future?
While certainly we should all be taking action to combat climate change, almost no activist groups encourage violent crimes. That said, in the past, people have taken things a little too far. Here are five terrifying, violent, unforgivable acts of eco-terrorism, which you should not emulate. Wink.
1. Arson
Let's get this out of the way: While it's relatively rare, especially in terms of climate actions, some acts of eco-terrorism are destructive in nature (and most of them surround animal rights, not the climate movement, though of course they are connected but are not the same thing).
It appears that in terms of violent eco-terrorism, arson is the most popular choice. In 1987, ALF activists firebombed a University of California-Davis veterinary laboratory, causing damages of $3.5 million. The Earth Liberation Front committed an act of arson in 1992 that cost $12 million in damages and effectively militarized the entire FBI against them. They burned down a ski resort in Vail, Colorado, kicking off a wave of copycat crimes. Most environmental activists don't advocate for this type of work, and in fact, some of these more militant-leaning organizations have disturbing connections to white supremacy.
2. The Great Animal Break-in
Now that we've gotten past that, let's get into the truly despicable crimes. One of the most famous and vicious ecoterrorism groups ever, the Animal Liberation Front, is dedicated to ensuring that all animals are safe and not abused or tortured. It is believed that the ALF's first act of eco-terrorism happened in 1979, when vandals broke into New York University and released five imprisoned animals.
2. Whaling in Japan
In 2017, eco-terrorism took flight in Japan. One particularly aggressive group, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, recently rammed a Japanese whaling ship into an iceberg. (The whaling ship was fine). Apparently, other whalers in Japan have complained that activists are "harassing" them, filming their activities with cameras and giving them weird looks.
3. Victoria Tauli-Corpuz Does Her Job
In 2018, President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines tried to label UN staffer Victoria Tauli-Corputz a terrorist. Tauli-Corpuz's job is to look into abuses against indigenous peoples and present her findings to the UN, and she's also spoken out extensively about climate change. In response, President Duterte filed a petition that attempted to label 600 people (including Tauli-Corpuz) terrorists because of their purported connections to the Communist Party.
4. Activists Try to Go to Poland
At the 2018 Cop24 United Nations climate talks in Poland this past year, more than two dozen activists were denied entrance to the country on the basis that they posed national security threats. Poland faced controversy for its anti-terrorism legislation, with many fearing that Poland's national authorities had created a "blacklist" of activists.
5. The Valve Turners
In 2016, protests erupted at the North Dakota land where the Dakota Access Pipeline was to be built. In October, a group of five demonstrators broke into the pipeline's flow stations, cutting through padlocks and ultimately shutting off the pipeline's valves. Two of the protesters were convicted of felonies, and two await trial (the third was convicted of second-degree burglary). Never mind the fact that the pipeline has already spilled hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil, effectively poisoning the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's water supply and harming thousands of lives. Cutting those valves was an unforgivable offense.
Standing Rock inspired a generation, failed to stop the pipeline, and kicked off a wave of massive U.S. government panic and military action. Never mind the fact that gun violence and white supremacy-motivated crimes have killed and harmed far, far more people than any of these environmental actions. Never mind the fact that wildfires and mudslides have killed hundreds in California, or that climate change is already leading to deaths across the world and could wipe out entire countries. Certainly, it's the ecoterrorists we should be afraid of.
Orgs to Know: Saving Jane and the Fight to Stop Human Trafficking
I could have missed it, walked right by, hopped on the train and sped off into my life. Instead, I stopped and read every single word of this Amtrak poster - a warning about human trafficking.
Prostitution. Servitude. Forced Labor.
Each year innocent men, women and children are exploited in human trafficking schemes that include the use of force, fraud, or coercion to exploit them for labor or commercial sex. Any minor (under the age of 18) exploited for labor, or commercial sex is a victim of human trafficking. . . .
As I read, I recalled a conversation I'd had only days before with Kathyann Powell, Founder and CEO of Saving Jane. When I sat down with Kathyann, I was struck by her fierce commitment to her organization which is dedicated to assisting human trafficking survivors and preventing new victims.
Trafficking is a subject that makes us flinch and causes us to turn away. It's ugly, it's threatening. Not in my life, you think. Although it's often hidden in plain sight, human trafficking is real and it is everywhere.
Human trafficking flourishes in Atlanta, DC, Houston, Las Vegas, Miami, NYC, and San Diego. These cities are major hubs for human trafficking because they often host sporting events and conventions, are visited by thousands of tourists, and have large transient populations. The anonymity provided within large urban centers can make the trafficker's job simple.
It's estimated that 1 in 7 missing children are likely victims of child sex trafficking each year. Most of these children are native US citizens from lower and middle-class families who were recruited via social media - with the average age being 13 or 14 years old. 68 percent were in the care of social services - a group home, government facility, or foster care - at the time they went missing.
Things have got to change, or these children will be trapped in an endless cycle of exploitation and violence. Kathyann told me about Saving Jane's national education project, which is designed to raise awareness in young people ages 10 through 18. They use graphic novels to illustrate the concept of human trafficking so kids can identify, avoid, and report it to trusted adults.
Saving Jane partners with schools, religious and community organizations, and youth groups to implement prevention initiatives nationwide. They work with the FBI, educators, social workers, and survivors to calibrate their programs and training - with a focus on at-risk demographics such as homeless, LGBTQI, autistic, and disabled youth.
Recognizing the signs is the first step in identifying victims, so Saving Jane offers Workshops where participants learn to identify indicators of human trafficking and red flags:
- Hangs out with older men
- Has expensive new phone
- Ignores her friends
- Stops her favorite activities
- She's pregnant
- Starts using birth control
- Has bruises or other injuries
- Despondent physical state or demeanor
- Acts fearful, anxious, submissive, tense, nervous, or paranoid
Due to the Internet and social media, traffickers have never before had such easy access to children; they can now initiate thousands of recruitment conversations. To leave kids uneducated makes them more vulnerable. The most important thing is to teach them about cyber-predators without scaring them. Saving Jane aims to empower kids to be effective agents in their own protection.
Saving Jane works with national and global organizations to distribute graphic novels that teach students about human trafficking - what it is, what it looks like, what to do when you see it, and how people fall victim to it. So, they go into schools and hold Comic Book Workshops.
Director of Storytelling and Prevention, Thomas Estler, uses comic books, film, music and social media as delivery vehicles. He composes and draws Saving Jane's popular comic book series that was created with the help of the FBI victim specialists, social workers, and anti-human trafficking organizations. His ABOLITIONISTA! Manga books are an image-driven call to action and effectively help kids get smart about social media:
ABOLITIONISTA! #goodgirlgone tells the story of how one girl becomes vulnerable and falls victim to a coercive predator who trafficks her. #goodgirlgone (ages 10 - 14) is accompanied by a teacher / leader version and can be taught in schools.
ABOLITIONISTA! Volume I and II both have female protagonists and are geared toward adolescents between 13 - 19 years old.
Another powerful tool that raises awareness is Saving Jane's Tee Shirts. With Anime-styled graphics that are hand drawn by Ozzyos Da Vyrus, one of these captivating Tees features:
Jada's African Ancestor from ABOLITIONISTA! Volume II
Many people don't realize how widespread and destructive human trafficking is. Raising awareness about human trafficking is essential to ending it. Saving Jane's committed to ending these crimes through education, raising public awareness, and the creation of systems, technology, and policies to prevent the formation of social conditions conducive to trafficking.
So, what's next?
Saving Jane is in the concept and development phase for campus-style facilities dedicated to protecting and empowering formerly trafficked people. These facilities would provide a comprehensive suite of support services, including short term and long term housing, childcare, and healthcare and mental health care resources.
As Survivors continue on their healing journeys, these sites would offer life skills, education, career skills, and economic development opportunities so that they can return to being an integral part of the greater community.
Finally, Saving Jane's long-term mission is to transform survivors into leaders. It's clear that this visionary organization is doing just that.
For More Information and Resources visit www.savingjane.org
Follow Saving Jane on: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter
We Are Anonymous: A Brief History of the Internet's Most Elusive Hacktivist Collective
Maybe that's why prior to the era of identity monetization, blue check marks, and self-branding, anonymity was synonymous with power.
In the early 2000s, a group known as Anonymous sprung up across digital platforms, born out of a spirit of loose anarchism and disruption. "Anonymous" or "Anon" is an umbrella term, and like the Internet itself, the group was always slippery and amorphous.
Between 2003 and 2018, Anonymous's loosely interconnected network of digital hacktivists took on everything from Scientology to the Clintons to ISIS to Trump. At some point, they fractured, and it's unclear as to whether they still exist in any context, or if they ever really did. Was Anonymous an idea? A joke? A movement?
To try and answer these questions is a doomed enterprise from the start because the group is (or was) so decentralized, so scattered, and so complex that it resists exact interpretation.
But perhaps Anonymous can also teach us something about our modern political moment—after all, the group was entwined with many of the major political forces of the past decade, from Occupy Wall Street to the Arab Spring to QAnon. Maybe it can teach us something about the art of modern rebellion, especially in a rapidly digitizing and artificial age when information is poised to become the most valuable currency of all.
Welcome to the netherworld of Anonymous, where everyone can be no one together.
Born of Trolls, Hackers Turn to Scientology
The hacktivist network known as "Anonymous" arose around 2003. Springing up on 4chan, the group began as a collective of tricksters harnessing the Internet to pull pranks and seed an ethos of trolling and general disarray.
Anonymous eventually gained global reach thanks to its appealing ethos of decentralized leadership and general anarchical spirit. With memetic virality, it spread thanks to broad, decentralized messaging techniques and an emphasis on both humor and justice.
Today, two images are usually associated with Anonymous. There's the Guy Fawkes mask from the 2006 film V for Vendetta, which follows one activist's quest to end a totalitarian fascist rule in England; and there's the "man without the head" image that symbolizes the group's commitment to decentralized, anti-authoritarian rule.
Literary Hub
Early on, the group embarked on helter-skelter actions and pranks, with mixed results. The group targeted the white nationalist figure Hal Turner in 2006, eventually exposing him as an FBI informant, and Anonymous first began to dive into high-profile political activism through an effort called "Project Chanology," a coordinated protest against the Church of Scientology. After the Church removed a video of Tom Cruise because they believed it portrayed them negatively, Anonymous hackers started a campaign to take down Scientology once and for all. They posted a video called "Message to Scientology" and launched a crusade against the church, which included a coordinated attack on the organization's website.
And so a movement was born. Thousands of people showed up in real life to protests around the country. "It was a very bizarre scene," the former hacker Gregg Housh said of the protest he attended in Los Angeles. "Here is a church created by a science-fiction author, being protested by people wearing masks created by a science-fiction author." Reality was bending; the simulation was showing its cracks.
For the next decade, Anonymous would harness the Internet in unprecedented ways, fighting for justice and destruction, for irony and distraction, and for change that would reverberate all the way to the top.
WikiLeaks and the Arab Spring: Anonymous Gets Political
Anonymous quickly shifted focus towards censorship and free speech. They used DDoS (Distributed Denial of Services) attacks to shut down websites they viewed as threatening to freedom. In 2010, they emerged to protest a censorship bill in Australia; and later that year, they collaborated to defend WikiLeaks after Amazon kicked Julian Assange's operation off its servers and Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal stopped processing donations to the group. (Anonymous later separated itself from WikiLeaks, due to Assange's influence over the organization).
Around the same time, a segment of the group decided that they'd collectively become too serious. They needed more "lulz"—LOLs, laughs, the trolling ethos that originally inspired the group. So a group called Lulz Security (or LulzSec) was born. They hacked the CIA's website. The next month, the FBI arrested fourteen Anonymous hackers for the aforementioned earlier attacks on PayPal, and Anonymous began to rise on the US government's radar.
In 2011, when the Tunisian government blocked WikiLeaks, Anonymous launched a crusade to support protestors in the movement that would eventually spark the Arab Spring. One of the more infamous leaders of LulzSec, Hector Xavier Monseguer (or "Sabu")—who would later become an FBI informant—and others also allegedly helmed a DDoS attack on the Tunisian government's websites. Anonymous was also integral to the planning of 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests in New York, which were somewhat similar to the organization in that they lacked internal structure and clear leadership and set goals.
Soon, White House staff became concerned that the group could destabilize the US power grids. The group became known as cyber-terrorists and anarchists. Perhaps out of necessity, or because its major players were being taken out or growing up and leaving hacktivism behind, Anonymous fractured around 2015 and 2016, leaving behind conspiracies and a legacy of rupture and chaos.
Still, Anonymous's penchant for social action continued throughout the 2010s. In 2013, Operation Safe Winter fought to raise awareness about homelessness. In 2014, a group called "Operation Ferguson" organized cyberprotests against the police after the death of Michael Brown.
In 2015, Anonymous shifted its focus towards the Islamic State. #OpISIS was a response to the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris; despite being a largely uncoordinated effort, they still managed to make waves. "For more than a year, a ragtag collection of casual volunteers, seasoned coders, and professional trolls has waged an online war against the Islamic State and its virtual supporters," writes E. T. Brooking. But they never lost their irreverence.
"Taking away the free speech from a group that is advocating the end of free speech is delicious fun," a member wrote on a Reddit forum about the Hebdo operation.
"They rise up most forcefully when it comes to Internet freedoms and technology, particularly technology that is being abused in some way," says Brian Knappenberger, creator of the documentary We Are Legion. "They're sort of protectors of the Internet. This is their territory, and if it's abused, they're personally offended."
In the latter half of the 2010s, Anonymous waged war against pedophiles and the dark web. In 2018, they lashed out at QAnon, the pro-Trump conspiracy group that stole Anonymous's branding despite a complete lack of alignment with most of Anonymous's central ideologies.
Some members of Anonymous may have gone off to join QAnon; it's hard to know. Though different from Anonymous, QAnon shares some of Anonymous's hatred of the government—its "deep state" paranoia echoes Anonymous's fears of totalitarianism.
Today, QAnon members often show up at Trump campaign rallies, and though Anonymous and QAnon have very different ideas about what constitutes freedom and free speech, it's clear they both believe they're fighting for it.
In the wilderness of the Internet, especially when so many layers of irony interlace with each other and when trolls abound, it's easy for ideologies to twist out of form. It's easy for trolls to be mistaken as criminals, too—just as it's easy for trolls to become criminals. On the Internet, at least outside the realm of corporate influence and bribes, identity is as fluid and amorphous as you want it to be. Anonymous members can become Trump supporters who can become Bernie supporters who can become QAnon supporters who can become FBI informants who can then rejuvenate Anonymous.
If the Anonymous movement shows us anything, it's that identity and ideology are not set. They're as fluid as the shifting landscape of the World Wide Web, which might just be a reflection of the shifting tides of the human spirit.
Remembering Anonymous in 2020
If you Google Anonymous, you'll see the question "is anonymous good"? pop up on the search bar.
A short search will reveal that most self-proclaimed authorities on the subject believe that Anonymous is neither good nor evil. Instead, it's a diverse group made up of people from all around the world, bound together by a shared symbol rather than a structure or hierarchy.
Because Anonymous never had a set ideology or leader, there's no one precise way to remember them. There's no way to know what's real, or if Anonymous was ever the super-group that the media made it out to be. Most likely, it was more of an idea than anything else, though it may still exist in pockets. There's also no way to tell if the group has just gone further underground or if it truly has been dead for years.
According to Gabriella Coleman, Anonymous was always about freedom and elusiveness. "They dramatize the importance of anonymity and privacy in an era when both are rapidly eroding," she writes.
In terms of ethos, Coleman argues that Anonymous embodied an ancient trickster archetype, using old ideas about freedom, hedonism, and the randomness of the universe to cope with an increasingly unbearable modernity. "Nietzsche was attuned to the vitality of sensuality, myth, and art. Music, poetry, and even the mad laughter of the trickster Dionysus, who he championed, offer an aesthetic life of pleasure," she writes in her book Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous. "They are pursuits through which humans can overcome their limits and the tragic condition of life: 'Not by wrath does one kill but by laughter. Come, let us kill the spirit of gravity!'"
Is Anonymous nothing more or less than an idea, which became a movement and an identity? Was it all just a story? Has the story ended, or has it fractured and bled into other movements and other corners of the Internet?
Someone in a Guy Fawkes mask is out there, laughing.
The Anonymous forum on Reddit is still alive and well. A month ago, one Redditor mused, "Is Anonymous just a legend to teach us that we do not need a name or an organization to use our power?" Could Anonymous have been a myth designed to reveal that 'All of us can anonymously exploit the options that we have (elections, commercial decisions, jobs we chose, freetime activities) to change the world together?'"
Recently, #AnonHasBeenDeadForYears trended on Twitter. Some agreed with the hashtag. Some warned the world that Anonymous has never been dead—instead, it's everywhere.
These are the kind of conversations that Anonymous inspires. Half-ironic, half-imbued with radical visions—zombified, always mutating—Anonymous (or whatever remains of it) persists.
Maybe it persists in part because it, ironically, offered a form of identity, of differentiation, of meaning crafted through collectivity born out of a crisis of meaning. Perhaps in anonymity, there is identity.
"On the street...I am just another person in a sea of faces," writes a (fittingly) anonymous blogger in Dazed, in a piece that may or may not be a parody or a fake—we'll never know. "But in cyberspace we are different. We helped free the people of Egypt. We helped fight against Israel as it attempted genocide. We exposed more than 50,000 paedophiles around the world. We fought the drug cartels. We have taken to the streets to fight for the rights you are letting slip through your fingers. We are Anonymous."
Are you?
How to Improve America's Broken Prison System: Create a World Without Free Will and Moral Responsibility
As philosophers continue to debate whether free will exists, another question arises: what are the implications if we let go of the concept of free will and the kind of moral responsibility that accompanies it? How would our institutions, behaviors, and individual operations change if we allowed the idea of a causally determined universe without free will to become a part of public consciousness? Based on the work, of Samuel Harris, Daniel Dennet, Robert Kane and Bruce Waller, one can conclude that the world would be a more productive, compassionate place if society were to generally let go of this concept and embrace a hard determinist viewpoint.
First, it's vital that we elucidate what hard determinism looks like in the context of other philosophical viewpoints regarding free will. At present, the debate regarding the existence of free will revolves around the idea of determinism, it's validity as a concept, and, if valid, how that affects free will and responsibility. Determinism is the idea that everything that occurs and will ever occur is an inevitable product of all that has occurred before.
Or as Robert Kane puts it in his book Free Will, "…we say that a determined event is inevitable or necessary, (it cannot but occur), given the determining conditions." (Kane, 6) This idea calls into question the validity of the concept of free will. In this debate, when referring to "free will," one means the kind of freedom that goes beyond surface freedoms (choosing what to eat, where to travel etc.) and extends to the power to control why one desires what they desire and chooses what they choose. Kane refers to this deeper kind of free will as, "…the ultimate power over what it is that we willed." (Kane, 2) Another way to think about it is the power to be the author of one's own character.
Today, for the purpose of this article, the debate can be reasonably divided into two large categories: compatibilism and incompatibilism. The first group is made up of those who believe free will is compatible with the idea of determinism, that is, that free will can exist, on some level, in a causally determined world. The classical compatibilist believes that, "…our natural belief in the incompatibility of free will and determinism rests on confusions of two kinds—confusions about the nature of freedom and confusions about the nature of determinism." (Kane, 21) In brief, classical compatibilists believe that the kind of free will worth having is essentially merely an accumulation of exercising surface freedoms, something very possible in a causally determined world.
Contrastingly, incompatibilists are those people who believe that free will and determinism can't both be true. This leaves incompatibilists with the burden of proving that free will and determinism cannot exist simultaneously, which once accomplished, leaves them to decide which of the two (determinism and free will) is then true. Meaning this group is much more starkly divided than the compatibilists.
The first group in this division, libertarians, are as Kane puts it, those "…who affirm free will and deny determinism…" (Kane, 32) This leaves the libertarian to prove how free will can exist in an indeterminist world, which creates arguments that rely largely on luck or other vague, metaphysical concepts that critics argue, even if true, won't necessarily make a person more free. This view agrees the most with the intuitive sense of free will many common "folk" have, but is not accepted by the majority of philosophers of merit.
The other view an incompatibilist can reasonably take is that of hard determinism, the belief that because determinism is true, free will cannot exist. As Kane puts it, those who hold this view, "…believe that if you look more deeply into the psychological and other springs of action, you will see that all of us are determined to do what we do, whether it be good or evil; and so none of us is ultimately responsible." (Kane, 68) It is this view, as we will explore, that removes the burden of free will and moral responsibility from the world, and creates space for a more compassionate, productive world. Essentially, if we were always going to do what we do because of a combination of our experiences and biology, how can our actions truly be our fault?
According to Kane, "Hard Determinism is defined by three theses: (1) Free will is incompatible with determinism and (2) free will does not exist because (3) determinism is true." (Kane, 70) The basic argument, that philosopher Galen Strawson lays out, seems to make this thesis appear logically sound. The argument is made up of five parts that are as follows: (1) Nothing can be causa sui - nothing can be the cause of itself. (2) In order to be truly morally responsible for one's actions one would have to be causa sui, at least in certain crucial mental respects. (3) Therefore nothing can be truly morally responsible (Strawson,1)This seems to be a difficult argument to reason ones way out of, as at every step one is tempted to refer to an earlier moment of self-authorship, only to be foiled by Strawson's unavoidable logic that such a moment simply cannot have existed.
Those who oppose this view, argue that though we may be affected by our environment and biology, we still have the power to decide to change who we are. (Kane, 73) To this, Kane says that Strawson argues that, "…neither compatibilists nor libertarians give us an adequate account of how we could change our characters that accounts for true responsibility. If the way we change ourselves later in life is determined by how we already are, as compatibilists allow, then that kind of change would not amount to true responsibility. But if the way we change ourselves later in life is undetermined, as libertarians require, then it would amount to mere luck or chance and that would not be true responsibility either."(Kane, 73) Of course, it is important to note, as Sam Harris does in his book Free Will, "There is a distinction between voluntary and involuntary actions, of course, but it does nothing to support the common idea of free will (nor does it depend upon it). A voluntary action is accompanied by the felt intention to carry it out, whereas an involuntary action isn't." (Harris, 12) Meaning that just because we do not act with free will, does not mean we do not act voluntarily, it is merely the motivation behind our voluntary actions over which we have no control. Essentially, hard determinists argue that the only two things that influence what a person does are biology and circumstance, and if an individual doesn't have control over either of these things from their first moments on earth, how can they be held responsible for their actions? Indeed, when considering these arguments, hard determinism begins to feel inescapable.
This brings up the question: How would internalizing a hard determinist viewpoint shape the way individuals view themselves? Hard determinism may at first appear to be a callous view, as one may assume that the absence of free will means that humans are veritable slaves to determinism, nothing but metaphorical puppets tied to the merciless hands of luck. But, just because ultimate moral responsibility is not an option, that does not mean individual responsibility is also invalid. In fact, Bruce Waller argues in his paramount work, Against Moral Responsibility, the absence of moral responsibility, "…would leave ample room for take charge responsibility and increase the likelihood of exercising it well, and when we look closely (and distinguish take charge from moral responsibility), take charge responsibility is the responsibility most of us really want. It enables us to exercise effective control, make our own decisions and choices, reflect carefully on what we deeply value, and manage our own lives." (Waller, 278) Waller maintains the optimistic viewpoint that, essentially, the idea that we are not causes unto ourselves, should be an idea that motivates and empowers individuals to consider what it is they desire and why, and begin to make choices that leads them in this direction. The elimination of free will and moral responsibility as valid concepts leaves room for people to inspect why they are the way they are, and use that as the motivating force to change their path. Indeed, the very knowledge that none of us are responsible for who we are could be a positive factor that shapes us unavoidably, "…it would promote stronger self control and nurture genuine self-respect." (Waller, 278)
We see now that it is in fact very possible that the loss of moral responsibility could actually positively affect an individual, but what of an individual's view of others? Here is where hard determinism most obviously improves the world. As Harris points out, "Once we recognize that even the most terrifying predators are, in a very real sense, unlucky to be who they are, the logic of hating (as opposed to fearing) them begins to unravel." (Harris, 53) An interesting way to think of this problem is with the following thought experiment: if you were to take the place of a murderer, moments before he commits the heinous act, and arrive in his body with his exact brain and past experiences, could you possibly say you would put down the knife and decide not to murder? Of course not. The things that led him to that place, his biology and experiences, are what have made him into who he is. He is not evil because he has decided to be evil, he does not have the impulse to kill because some deep part of him chose it, and there is no scrap of you that would be transferred to his body that is deeper or more in control of decision making than the murderers nervous system. So how can we hate him? Instead, it makes sense that instead of condemning the murderer as evil, we should seek to understand the factors that led him to murder, in order to create a society in which fewer people are led to act as such. As Waller puts it, "…the most salient feature of a world without moral responsibility is its openness to inquiry: its openness to recognizing and reporting and dealing with problems and flaws and mistakes." (Waller, 285)
This does lead to an obvious question: what is to be done with the murderer? As Harris states, "Certain criminals must be incarcerated to prevent them from harming other people. The moral justification for this is entirely straightforward: Everyone else will be better off this way. Dispensing with the illusion of free will allows us to focus on the things that matter—assessing risk, protecting innocent people, deterring crime, etc.." (Harris, 53) This idea, that incarceration would still be justified without free will, the same way quarantining sick people is justified, is known as the quarantine model. Kane cites philosopher Derek Pereboom, who argues that an upside of this idea, "…is that punishments would not be more severe than is needed to protect society and deter future crime, just as quarantine of the sick should not be more restrictive than is needed to protect society from diseases." (Kane, 75)
Additionally, without moral responsibility, the criminal justice system can be made to reform instead of punish. Waller cites Michael Cavadino and James Dignan, who point out that the American criminal justice system blames the individual instead of at least partially blaming the various factors that contributed to an individuals criminality, "…Crime is likewise seen as entirely the responsibility of the offending individual. The social soil is fertile ground for a harsh "law and order ideology." (Cavadino and Dignan in Waller, 285) But Waller points out that retributive law and order is not effective, in fact, in America's retributive system, a person going to jail once, raises their likelihood of doing so again. Waller goes on that, in some countries justice systems, "…when genuine efforts were made to develop effective rehabilitation programs, some achieved considerable success; it also became clear that those negative influences that shaped violent antisocial character." (Waller, 294) This positive effect does not just extend to criminal law, without moral responsibility fostering individual blaming; systems (such as medical teams, air traffic control, factories etc.) can be improved to work better and with less mistakes, as individuals will be more likely to admit their mistakes, and people will be more likely to analyze how systems can be redesigned to ensure less mistakes. Summarily, "The second positive feature of a world without moral responsibility is that it shifts the focus to systems and away from individuals." (Waller, 285)
This argument, that a world free of free will and moral responsibility would be a better world, can perhaps be deepened when one acknowledges that perhaps it is not an argument merely confined to hard determinist thinking. To illustrate this, let's investigate Daniel Dennet's response to Sam Harris' Free Will. It is important to note that Daniel Dennet is a compatibilist.
Waller's argument, that a world free of moral responsibility and the idea of free will is a better world, feel pretty sound and, at surface, Harris appears to agree with Waller. However, upon further inspection, one can find quite a few flaws within Harris' argument. Daniel Dennet helpfully illuminates these in his paper, "Reflections on Free Will." Dennet's major criticism of Harris focuses on the idea that Harris assumed an incompatibilist view (libertarian even). Harris argues that because free will requires that we somehow step outside the causally determined universe and such stepping is impossible, no one can have free will. Dennet asks us to look carefully at this kind of argument and realize that just because the world is causally determined, doesn't mean our choices, "come out of the darkness" (Harris, 34). Instead, Dennet argues, "Freedom involves the ability to have one's choices influenced by changes in the world that matter under the circumstances. Not a perfect ability, but a reliable ability." (Dennet, 14) Additionally, Dennet criticizes Harris' tendency in his work to define the kind of free will worth having as that which "common folk" feel they possess, "…he thinks 'free will' has to be given the incoherent sense that emerges from uncritical reflection by everyday folk. He sees quite well that compatibilism is "the only philosophically respectable way to endorse free will" (p16) but adds: However, the "'free will' that compatibilists defend is not the free will that most people feel they have. (p16)" (Dennet, 4) Dennet argues that just because the compatibilists version of free will is not the kind most people feel they have, does not mean it is invalid. Harris' biggest mistake is assuming that because we cannot be authors of ourselves, we cannot have any degree of free will at all. Interestingly, both Waller and Dennet disagree with him, despite supposedly maintaining radically different views.
Dennet argues that compatibilists, "…think we can articulate and defend a more sophisticated model of free will that is not only consistent with neuroscience and introspection but also grounds a (modified, toned-down, non-Absolute) variety of responsibility that justifies both praise and blame, reward and punishment. We don't think this variety of free will is an illusion at all, but rather a robust feature of our psychology and a reliable part of the foundations of morality, law and society." (Dennet, 1) The kind of free will Dennet allows for, is not Harris' kind (ultimate authorship) but rather what Waller might call, "take charge responsibility" (Waller, 278). Waller describes this kind of free will as, "It enables us to exercise effective control, make our own decisions and choices, reflect carefully on what we deeply value, and manage our own lives." (Waller, 278) It appears that the only thing that truly differs between the two men's view points is what they mean when they say "free will." They both assert that the power to respond differentially to stimuli in the environment exists. However, Waller does not see this as free will, and instead means ultimate authorship over ones character when referring to free will. Meanwhile, Dennet thinks ultimate authorship is an incoherent idea, and believes free will is this smaller thing mentioned above, and therefore compatible with determinism. What is important though, is that neither man believes that we have the kind of free will that requires ultimate responsibility for ones actions. This means that a hypothetical world improved by dispelling of free will and moral responsibility is a world possible as a compatibilist and hard determinist.
When inspected carefully, it becomes clear that ultimate free will is not seen as possible by either the compatibilists or the incompatibilists, and it is only the libertarians who believe such a freewill exists. In conclusion, moral responsibility is an incoherent idea because individuals are merely the product of a causal world, and therefore their actions are a product of this world as well. Embracing this idea would create a more compassionate and effective world because it would be a world open to inquiry into people's behavior, additionally such a world helpfully shifts focus to systems and away from individuals. Indeed, Waller says, "In the absence of moral responsibility, it is possible to look more deeply at the influences of social systems and situation and to move away from both the fundamental attribution error and the individualistic blindness that hides the forces that shaped our qualities of character." (Waller, 286)
Sources
The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility Author(s): Galen Strawson Reviewed work(s): Source: Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition, Vol. 75, No. 1/2, Free Will, Determinism, and Moral Responsibility (Aug., 1994), pp. 5-24
Kane, Robert. Free Will. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2009. Print.
Harris, Sam. Free Will. London: Simon & Schuster, 2012. Print.
Dennet, Daniel. "Reflections on Free Will." (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 1 May 2017.
Waller, Bruce N. Against Moral Responsibility. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2011. Print.