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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
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    Perspectives
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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Compatibilists like van Inwagen's interlocutors distinguish the ability to render a law false from the ability to act such that, had one so acted, a regularity would not have been a law.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.This distinction relies on a counterfactual that seems metaphysically incoherent: laws differing while physics remains the same.
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    • 2.If deterministic laws entail all future states from initial conditions, the ability to act otherwise is illusory under either interpretation.
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    • 3.The distinction obscures rather than resolves whether agents possess the ultimate control required for genuine responsibility.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Laws of nature describe what is actually the case in closed systems, not what must be metaphysically necessary.
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    • 2.An agent can have freedom to act otherwise without having power to alter fundamental physical laws themselves.
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    • 3.The distinction preserves ordinary intuitions about moral responsibility while accepting deterministic physics.
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