Can People Be Forced To Do Something?

[Lace Neil Singer]

I know I'm opening a can of worms here, but do you include rape in your post as not being forced? If a person is holding another person down and subjecting them to sex against their will, that is force. Not every victim submits to save themselves hurt, some are fighting all the way.

[Evandril]

Few ways a favorite author said similar

I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. — Robert A. Heinlein

Man can be chained, but he cannot be domesticated. — Robert A. Heinlein

Anyone who clings to the historically untrue - and thoroughly immoral - doctrine 'that violence never settles anything' I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedom - Robert A. Heinlein

[Pedersen]

I know I'm opening a can of worms here, but do you include rape in your post as not being forced? If a person is holding another person down and subjecting them to sex against their will, that is force. Not every victim submits to save themselves hurt, some are fighting all the way.

Answering this one sucks. I either lie, or find myself being screamed at a lot after this. Guess I'd best get used to the screaming.

Someone who is raped is having something done to them. It falls into the second category: Restraint. The victim is being restrained. Things happen while they are being restrained. These things are things they do not consent to. These things are things they do not accept.

The victim is not being forced to do something. The victim is being forced to accept something. There is a very large difference between the two.

Few ways a favorite author said similar

Thank you. Heinlein does express it much better than I did. Especially in this quote:

Man can be chained, but he cannot be domesticated. — Robert A. Heinlein

That seems to be a perfect summation of what I was trying to say, and trying to bring to people's attention. In fact, I'm going to put that into the first post right now.

[Sylvia727]

Pedersen, I understood and agreed with what you were trying to say in your very first post. A person's body can be forced, but their mind cannot. We can touch, and change, the body directly. We can only touch the mind indirectly, so any method for changing someone's mind can be indirect. To change someone's mind for them we would need to get inside of their skullspace, which would require telepathy, or technology which we can't even grasp today. We know that there are points of torture (or pressure, or stress, or coersion) at which almost all people will choose to change their minds rather than deal with the consequences of remaining the same. Cops do it all the time-- good cop, bad cop is a form of mental manipulation, but nevertheless the suspect chooses to believe, chooses to confess rather than deal with the psychological pressure. They always have free will to choose an option and the consequences of that option.

This comes up in parenting often. A parent cannot force their child to behave well. They can only offer incentives and deterrents to reinforce proper behavior. The child always has the willpower to choose whether they will continue to misbehave, and thus be punished, or whether they will cooperate and be rewarded. "I'm not making you do anything. You can choose to disobey me and be punished, or you can choose to obey me and not be punished," was a lecture I heard a lot growing up.

There's nothing religious about this theory. Psychological, yes, sociological, yes, philosophical, maybe. But there's nothing that requires a leap of faith to understand.

[Seshat]

Thank you for clarifying the physical-violence issue. Yes, a person can be forced into a room, forced into restraints, forced to endure rape or other torments: but that's not the meaning of the word 'forced' that you mean.

You seem to be talking about 'forced to choose'.

And in some ways, I agree with the summation. A person cannot be forced to make any particular choice. But a person's choices can be narrowed, until their only choices are bad choices.
I think there have to be situations where their choices are reduced to one option, but I can't think of such a situation offhand; excluding physical coercion.


However: there is a situation where a person is unable to make choices they might otherwise have made. Psychiatric illness (or induced psychiatric illness, such as being given psychoactive drugs).

The brain of a person with a psychiatric illness (natural or induced) distorts both their perception and their cognitive process.

An obsessive patient may well know that his hand-washing is overdone, and the part of their mind which is themselves may want to stop. But the part of their mind/brain which is currently in control of the actions is obsessing and insists on the hand-washing.

I may be explaining this badly. But I have lived with a person with mental illness for many years now, and have experienced mild mental illness myself. I perceive a clear difference between the person and the person-brain-body combination. And the combination can do things even when the person-inside is screaming to the rest of their 'self' to stop.

[Slytovhand]

Instead, we had a choice of doing something we did not want to do, or dealing with something else we wanted even less.

Poppycock!!!

And you should be ashamed of yourself...

We've already spent about 15 pages 'proving' that we didn't even have a choice in the first place (see your Free Will thread )

Ok, giving you less crap now...

Those little quotes have come from the existentialist movement, one of the most famous being Sartre, who did some line about you can make him a prisoner, but he's still free to choose what sort of prisoner he chooses to be.

I totally agree with your thoughts on this, to the point that it often pisses me off when ppl use the "I don't have any choice" crap. There is always a choice.. you may not like it, you may not like consequences, you might just be afraid of them or of change in general, but there is always a choice. You don't like your home life - move. "Can't"? Well, if your house burnt down, what would you do then... suddenly, your options have just changed - what's the real difference??

Everything is an option (although, our lack of free will obviously denies that )

There was a philosopher (I'm thinking Kant, but not sure) who came up with the idea of Psychological Imperatives and (?) Ethical Imperative (IIRC). The first, we can only do what we consider what is in our own best interests (for whatever that may be defined as), the latter that we will usually do what is in our own best interests. I'm one for the former. We don't have a choice in the matter - and in the end, it's the battle of consequences.

But Seshat has beaten me to a thought-line... drugs. They change our perspectives, and under their influence, we would do things that without them we may not. Where does that fit in??

[Pedersen]

However: there is a situation where a person is unable to make choices they might otherwise have made. Psychiatric illness (or induced psychiatric illness, such as being given psychoactive drugs).

True, using the right combination of drugs it is possible to alter a person's decision making process. However, I'm not convinced that it is possible to control the alteration. In other words, you might manage to change the process, but you are not able to control the outcome reliably.

Poppycock!!!

And you should be ashamed of yourself...

We've already spent about 15 pages 'proving' that we didn't even have a choice in the first place (see your Free Will thread )

Ok, giving you less crap now...

And I do believe that. I also believe that we have act as if we do have free will. Many people are restrained by only a couple of things, and one of them is the idea of punishment. For those, if they have no free will, there is no restraining them. Hence, the need for us to make believe we do.

[Slytovhand]

True, using the right combination of drugs it is possible to alter a person's decision making process. However, I'm not convinced that it is possible to control the alteration. In other words, you might manage to change the process, but you are not able to control the outcome reliably.

Hypnosis??

[Pedersen]

Everything that I have ever heard about hypnosis states that hypnosis only allows for heightened suggestibility. In other words, you're not able to force the subject to do something he or she would be unwilling to do outside of such a state.

Now, it might be possible through a combination of drugs and hypnosis to achieve a desired goal, but that will be a very difficult effect to achieve and (even then) will be extremely unreliable, especially if the controller is unable to be in direct contact with the controlled.

[Boozy]

Everything that I have ever heard about hypnosis states that hypnosis only allows for heightened suggestibility. In other words, you're not able to force the subject to do something he or she would be unwilling to do outside of such a state.

I have heard that as well, although I don't know if what I've heard is true.

Basically, my understanding of hypnosis is that you wouldn't do anything you wouldn't do in the situation you believe you are in. So if the hypnotist tells you you're robbing a bank, you will picture yourself standing in a bank with a gun in hand... but the non-criminals among us will freak out and wonder how they got into this situation. Only a criminal would choose to play out the hynosis-induced vision by shooting the teller and taking the cash.

[Sylvia727]

I went to a hypnotist's show once. He had five people up on bar stools, and told them that they were driving nice sports cars. Red convertibles with the tops down, going 70 mph on the freeway. They mimed holding a steering wheel and kept their right feet on in front on the gas pedal. "There's a police car, wave to the officer." Four people held up their hands and swiveled their wrists in a proper wave; one guy held up his middle finger. It was the same suggestion to all five of them. They reacted differently based on their personalties.

I've never been hypnotized, and I've only picked up cursory information, so I don't know what it's like. But I've also heard that it only messes with your perceptions, not your ability to choose.

[lordlundar]

I see what you're getting at Pederson. The context you are referring to when you say forced to do something is that you have no control over your actions, as opposed to simply choosing A over B.

My take is that as long as you have control over your mind and your body in some fashion, you are not forced to do anything. It's a simple matter of the consequences of Choice A being more favorable than Choice B.

As far as your second choice, that depends on the determination of the person. If the person's determination to accomplish their decision is infinite, than yes, apart from restraining them (removing their capacity to control their actions) is impossible.