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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
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    42
    Any agent who has the power to do something also has the ... — Carmelics
    Home/Modality & Possibility
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    Any agent who has the power to do something also has the power not to do that thing.

    Free Will & ForeknowledgeModality & Possibility
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Power entails a set of inter-related powers.
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    • 2.Having the power to do something is inseparable from having the power to refrain from doing it.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Frankfurt-style cases demonstrate that an agent can possess a power to act while a counterfactual intervener guarantees the alternative cannot be realized.
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    • 2.If an omniscient counterfactual intervener blocks all alternatives, the agent retains the power to act but the power to refrain is rendered causally inert or absent.
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    • 3.A power that cannot be exercised under any accessible condition is not a genuine power, so the entailment from power-to-do to power-to-refrain fails.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Some powers are constitutively one-directional: the power to detonate a bomb, once exercised, forecloses the power not to have detonated it.
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    • 2.If a power's exercise is irreversible, the agent lacks any co-present power of restraint at the moment of action, falsifying the symmetry claim.
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    Topics

    Modality & PossibilityFree Will & Foreknowledge

    Connections

    1 topic

    Causation2 linked

    Related

    A power that cannot be exercised under any accessible condition is not a genuine...Frankfurt-style cases demonstrate that an agent can possess a power to act while...Having the power to do something is inseparable from having the power to refrain...If a power's exercise is irreversible, the agent lacks any co-present power of r...
    +3 moreShow less
    If an omniscient counterfactual intervener blocks all alternatives, the agent re...Power entails a set of inter-related powers.Some powers are constitutively one-directional: the power to detonate a bomb, on...

    Similar

    Any agent who has the power to do something must believe himself to ha...88%An agent has the ability to do something only if there is a possible w...86%An agent is genuinely able to do something only if the agent has shown...84%If an agent has the ability to perform an act, the agent performs that...83%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: reid
    View source passageHide passage
    Reid is clear that power is not the sort of thing that admits of a logical definition. We cannot reduce it to some set of simpler qualities. However, this doesn't mean that we can't say anything about what power is. On the contrary, Reid makes a variety of claims about power. Importantly, he claims that power is the quality that, when coupled with exertion, necessitates a particular effect. Taking a cue from ordinary language, he holds that it is a contradiction to say that an entity has the pow
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit