Nine years ago, when crypto-fraudster @SBF_FTX was 19, his mother, a Stanford professor, wrote a very long article making the case that free will is a myth and that we should not blame people for committing crimes.
bostonreview.net/forum/barbara-…
bostonreview.net/forum/barbara-…
“[O]ur worldviews, aspirations, temperaments, conduct, and achievements—everything we conventionally think of as “us”—are in significant part determined by accidents of biology and circumstance,” she wrote in 2013.
“[S]uppose that Smith grew up in a neighborhood where drug dealing was the most common form of gainful employment. He was raised by a single mother who was a cocaine addict, and by the time he was twelve was supporting his family by selling drugs…
“When he was seventeen, he got caught up in a drug deal gone bad, and in the altercation that ensued, he shot and killed the buyer.
How should we think about Smith’s level of moral responsibility?”
How should we think about Smith’s level of moral responsibility?”
She adds, “parental income and education are the most powerful predictors of whether a three-year-old will end up in the boardroom or in prison…”
According to Fried’s own argument, we should hold her son *more* responsible for his fraud, given his rich, educated parents.
According to Fried’s own argument, we should hold her son *more* responsible for his fraud, given his rich, educated parents.
Fried concludes, “we have gotten nothing from our 40-year blame fest except the guilty pleasure of reproaching others for acts that, but for the grace of God, or luck, or social or biological forces, we might well have committed ourselves.”
*Nothing.* For her, it’s black & white
*Nothing.* For her, it’s black & white
Fried’s essay is reflective of the standard Woke attack on personal responsibility. “You’re not responsible because you didn’t choose your genetics or circumstances.” Under such reasoning, one is not responsible for committing crime.
Amazing.
Amazing.
I addressed this denial of free will/personal responsibility in “San Fransicko.” I noted that, after WWII, there was a debate over free will, and most decided that the “good soldier” a.k.a. “I was just following orders” defense was untenable. 
I pointed out that denial of free will gives people permission to behave badly. SBF may be proof of that.
If free will is a myth, it’s a good one. It’s what leads people to obey laws. It’s what allows civilization to exist. The fact that free will is a myth, “socially constructed,” is no argument against it.
What all of that philosophical gymnastics gets you is the justification to do whatever you want. It opens the door to might-makes-right justifications. And it provides a clear path to the charitable-ends-justify-the-fraudulent means rationalizations SBF engaged in.
This scandal is spectacular proof that high intelligence is no substitute for shitty ethics, and may even undermine them. The smartest guys in the room are particularly well-equipped to justify bad, power-hungry nihilism.
Some people have misinterpreted my thread as saying we should blame SBF’s mother for SBF’s apparent crimes. Definitely not. That’s her argument, not mine. I’m saying we should hold SBF, and nobody else, responsible.
As usual, the antidote can be found near the poison. Paul Bloom, in the same issue, makes the identical case I made, which is that free will motivates good behavior.
bostonreview.net/forum_response…
bostonreview.net/forum_response…
“If you take her argument seriously, nobody should blamed for anything—not the teenager, or the corrupt politician, or the cheating spouse, or anybody else. You also shouldn’t praise, admire, or respect anyone, as all of these attitudes presume some degree of choice.”
Amen
SBF deliberately hit his investors in the face while they were sleeping and now he is half-denying he did so deliberately.
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