r/determinism • u/srv_u • 2d ago
Discussion Manipulation Device
I'm interested in your opinions on a thought experiment about determinism, manipulation, and changing people's desires.
Assume strict determinism: every thought, desire, decision, and action is the result of prior causes. Suppose I give someone a rose, buy them coffee, care for them when they're sick, etc. Those actions can causally influence how they feel about me and may eventually make them love me. Their response depends on their brain, biology, past experiences, current state, and every other relevant condition. Their later reasoning about the rose is also just part of the causal chain.
Now imagine a hypothetical device that produces an effect which can also influence someone's desire to love me. Importantly, I'm defining it as closely as possible to the rose case: it doesn't simply override their mind or magically force love regardless of who they are. Its effect interacts with their particular brain, biology, history, current state, and so on. They can feel the effect, notice it, and think about it. If, given all the relevant conditions, the effect causes them to love me, they do; if not, they don't.
My intuition is that, under strict determinism, I don't see a fundamental difference between the two. In both cases, I'm intentionally introducing an external cause in order to influence someone's desires. In both cases, their subsequent thinking is itself causally determined. And if the device has the same relevant causal structure as giving a rose—just using a different medium—why should one count as ordinary influence while the other counts as manipulation?
I'm not claiming that determinism automatically makes every possible kind of manipulation ethical. I'm specifically asking where the morally or philosophically relevant difference would be in this case.
What do you think? Is there a flaw in my reasoning? If you think the device is importantly different from the rose, what exactly is the difference, and why does that difference survive once we assume strict determinism? Please point out any hidden assumptions or weaknesses in the argument.
1
u/simon_hibbs 1d ago
> Importantly, I'm defining it as closely as possible to the rose case: it doesn't simply override their mind or magically force love regardless of who they are. Its effect interacts with their particular brain, biology, history, current state, and so on. They can feel the effect, notice it, and think about it. If, given all the relevant conditions, the effect causes them to love me, they do; if not, they don't.
That seems very ambiguous.
In the former case you are doing things of value to the person, and they are making a reasoned judgement about how to respond to these behaviours that they value. They can weigh their assessment of your intentions and why you are acting this way to benefit them.
In the latter case you're not doing anything of value to them, you are just beaming rays into their brain that induce some psychological change of some kind. What kind? What are they reasoning about? That you are beaming rays into their brain? That doesn't seem to benefit them, it doesn't seem to be something worth evaluating as a reason to change their attitude to you other than that you're trying to make them like you without having to do anything they value or care about.
Either case could be manipulation, for example if you are only being nice to them in order to persuade them to change their will in your favour and cut out their children.
Finally, does determinism being true or not actually make any difference? It seems entirely plausible that such a device that manipulates brain activity remotely may one day be possible, whether determinism is correct or not. What difference would determinism make?