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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
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    321,452
    Perspectives
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    42
    Free will is incompatible with causal determinism. — Carmelics
    Home/Moral Responsibility
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    Free will is incompatible with causal determinism.

    Moral Responsibility
    ?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.Possession of free will requires an ability to act otherwise than one in fact does.
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    • 2.The truth of determinism entails that an agent's actions are the unavoidable consequences of things over which the agent lacks control.
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    • 3.If an agent's actions are the unavoidable consequences of things over which the agent lacks control, then the agent's actions are not up to him.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.The ability to act otherwise required for free will is a conditional ability: one could have done otherwise if one had chosen differently.
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    • 2.Determinism is compatible with the truth of such conditionals, since a different prior choice would have deterministically produced a different action.
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    • 3.Therefore, determinism does not eliminate the relevant sense of 'could have done otherwise' needed for moral responsibility (G.E. Moore, Schlick, Ayer).
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.What grounds moral responsibility is not the absence of causal determination but whether the action flows from the agent's own reasons-responsive mechanism (Fischer & Ravizza).
      ?

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    • 2.A causally determined agent whose deliberative processes track and respond to reasons is not relevantly unfree, since the causal chain runs through the self rather than bypassing it.
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    • 3.The Consequence Argument's transfer of non-responsibility principle (β) illicitly treats agent-constitutive causal chains as external constraints equivalent to physical compulsion (Dennett, Wolf).
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    Topics

    Moral Responsibility

    Related

    A causally determined agent whose deliberative processes track and respond to re...Determinism is compatible with the truth of such conditionals, since a different...If an agent's actions are not up to him, then the agent does not have the sort o...If an agent's actions are the unavoidable consequences of things over which the ...
    +6 moreShow less
    Possession of free will requires an ability to act otherwise than one in fact do...The Consequence Argument's transfer of non-responsibility principle (β) illicitl...The ability to act otherwise required for free will is a conditional ability: on...The truth of determinism entails that an agent's actions are the unavoidable con...Therefore, determinism does not eliminate the relevant sense of 'could have done...What grounds moral responsibility is not the absence of causal determination but...

    Similar

    Free will involves access to alternatives in a way that is not compati...82%While determinism may make an agent's action unavoidable, it does not ...76%A major obstacle to accepting compatibilism is the persuasion that det...76%We cannot will as a universal law of nature that no one ever develop a...76%

    Source

    AI-extracted3/3 agreementValid
    SEP: moral-responsibility
    Consequence Argument (Ginet, van Inwagen, Wiggins)
    View source passageHide passage
    If possession of free will requires an ability to act otherwise than one in fact does, then it is fairly easy to see why free will has often been regarded as incompatible with causal determinism. One way of getting at this incompatibilist worry is to focus on the way in which performance of a given action should be up to an agent if he has the sort of free will required for moral responsibility. As the influential Consequence Argument has it (Ginet 1966; van Inwagen 1983: 55–105; Wiggins 1973), the truth of determinism seems to entail that an agent’s actions are not up to him since they are th...
    Extraction notes

    Validity: The premises form a valid chain of reasoning—from determinism to lack of control to actions not being up to the agent to lack of free will—and each premise is either explicitly stated or clearly entailed by the source passage's presentation of the Consequence Argument.

    Confidence: The passage explicitly lays out the Consequence Argument as a reason for thinking free will is incompatible with determinism. The premises are clearly stated or closely entailed.

    Details

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