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I think that generally speaking, this person does not exist. Everyone I know who is fat is also weak-willed in other domains of their life.
Incentives are certainly an input to [willpower], hence the section about shaming as societal intervention. The veteran was skinny in the military because there are strong incentives that helped increase his [willpower], the muslim is able to abstain from eating during ramadan for the same reason. You might think of it as [incentives]+[mental strength]=[willpower]. As circumstances change and they leave the military, or ramadan ends, or society starts shaming them less for being fat, the magnitude [incentive] reduces enough that they can't make it over the threshold and overcome [forces against].
No, there are plenty of obese people who become fit. I think if you ask them, they will pretty much universally describe it as requiring an intense exertion of willpower to achieve. And I would be willing to bet that very many obese people would be able to lose weight if they were given sufficient incentive. Take an extreme example: if every time they ate a meal greater than 500 calories they were shocked with a cattle prod, it seems obvious that most people would choose eating smaller meals and being hungry over being zapped and they would lose weight.
it does not seem to me to be a coincidence that the reduction in explicit shaming has coincided with an increase in BMIs. Clearly implicit shaming results in a lower [incentive] than explicit shaming. Hence my argument that we re-implement more explicit shaming. I do want to note that you don't have to hate someone to shame them for something, and that shame can be a strong pro-social force (that's why it exists). "Love the sinner, hate the sin" and all that.
To put it plainly, it is incredibly obviously a volitional health state. It's obviously a choice whether or not to go back for a second portion, it's obviously a choice to exercise or not. The only out here is some form of argument against free will, but people who argue the choice to eat the whole pie isn't actually a choice never live the rest of their lives like they don't have free will. It's pure cope.
I'd personally bite that bullet and say that libertarian free will does not exist. I'm not sure what you think I should do differently, or in my framing must do differently, given that belief.
Do you treat yourself and other people as being responsible for their actions? Say someone rear ends you at a stoplight because they were looking at their cellphone while driving. Do you think they are to blame? Do you get angry at them? Do you pursue an insurance claim against them?
Treating people as agentic is a fundamental basis of more or less all human interactions. Perhaps there are some ascetic monks up in the mountains somewhere who have really internalized that free will doesn't exist to the point that they actually behave as such. But in my experience nobody who says they don't believe in free will really acts like it (I'm including myself here, intellectually I think that it is clear that the universe is fully deterministic, but I don't live my life as if it were so).
But this system of laws and punishment clearly does influence outcomes, like a slope guides water downhill. And criminals are to blame in the same way as tsunami is to blame for its victims, I can get angry at both. Also our whole society does stand on the assumption of free will so you just learn to put up with thism
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Yes, responsibility isn't a function of free will. In a cosmic sense they were always going to rear end me and we've built up systems around responsibility to handle this that provide incentives that influence behavior ect. ect. I'm entitled to insurance whether or not it could have actually ever been different. You can built up all of society without the need for free will and I don't really see why anyone would act differently depending on whether they believe in it.
This is nonsensical. How can responsibility not require free will? Why be mad at someone when they have as much agency as a rock rolling down a hill?
I basically agree with you that the universe is probably deterministic, but trying to argue that people don't act like free will exists is ridiculous.
We're a razors edge away from arguing about definitions but at the risk of that. My air conditioner is responsible for keeping my house cool in the summer, a responsibility it failed at recently, and yet as far as I know it possesses no free will. The person who rear ended me has a responsibility to not rear end me and has failed much like my air conditioner. It's not as if the person chose with anything like free will to rear end me, very few people would ever choose to do such a thing.
Yeah, it does appear we are in definitions territory. I understand your point, but I think mine is obviously true.
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How not believing in free will should change your day to day life? I don't see it.
See my reply here: https://www.themotte.org/post/1070/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/228825?context=8#context
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