Lucky to Be Responsible

This is a lightly edited quote from Daniel Dennett. I think this applies to more than just free will.

“We're not responsible for being responsible. We're lucky to be responsible, but once we're responsible we're responsible for staying responsible. Once you have the competence, once you have the can do, once you've got the self-control, then you get two things: 1) you get the freedom of the state, you get to sign contracts, you get to earn royalties, you get to go where you want to, you get to get a passport, you get to get married; 2) the price you pay for that is your willingness to be punished for any violations of laws. It's a great bargain. It's a great deal. It's the best game in town and we've got to think of free will as an achievement not a metaphysical endowment. We weren't born with free will. The little baby doesn't have self-control. They get self-control, pretty much unless they have a horrific childhood. They get self-control. They learn from their mistakes, they overcome their obstacles, not in every case, we want to leave plenty of room for people who are disabled. But a key fact, the serial killer, the person with the brain tumor, are disabled. They don't have free will. But that doesn't mean nobody has free will."

Here is a link to a video of Dennett’s conversation with Michael Shermer where I heard the quote. Below is the original transcript I copied from youtube.

49:54

uh I think that we have to

50:01

recognize that we're not

50:07

responsible for being responsible we're lucky to be

50:13

responsible but once we're responsible we're responsible for staying

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responsible once once you have the competence once you have the can do once

50:24

you've got the self-control then you get two things you get the

50:31

freedom of the state you get to sign contracts you get to earn royalties you get to you you get to go where you want

50:37

to you get to get a passport and so forth and so on you get to get married the price you pay for that is

50:44

your willingness to be uh punished for any violations of laws that

50:51

you make it's a great bargain it's a great deal it's the best game in town

50:56

and and we've got to think of Free Will as an achievement not a metaphysical

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endowment we we we weren't born with free will the little

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baby doesn't have the self-control they get self-control

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pretty much unless they have a horrific

51:21

childhood they get self-control they learn from their

51:28

mistakes they overcome their obstacles not in every case we want to leave

51:34

plenty of room for people who are who are disabled but a key fact if you look

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at at I haven't read sosi's book but if you look at at um Sam Harris's little

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book on free will he he runs out this the the serial

51:54

killer the person with the brain tumor right yeah most people are disabled they don't have free will but

52:02

that doesn't mean nobody has free will