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    If an agent could have chosen otherwise, the best system ... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→Even on a Humean view of laws, it does not automatically follow that humans have the freedom to have done otherwise given certain past states of affairs.

    If an agent could have chosen otherwise, the best system systematizing that counterfactual history might yield different laws, making 'same laws, different choice' metaphysically incoherent.

    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Laws of nature are descriptive regularities systematizing actual and counterfactual facts, not independent constraints on possibility.
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    • 2.If an agent could have chosen differently, that counterfactual scenario is genuinely possible and must be included in the best system.
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    • 3.A system that accommodates both actual laws AND the counterfactual choice would be less elegant, forcing us to revise one or the other.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Laws can be strict and exceptionless while counterfactuals about choices remain true—they track dispositional properties, not law violations.
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    • 2.The 'best system' criterion is pragmatic, not metaphysically fundamental; different systematizations coexist without incoherence.
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    • 3.Saying 'could have chosen otherwise' might mean consistent with agents' capacities, not that alternative physics is genuinely possible.
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    Key Terms

    Systematizing(as what the statement suggests Plato was doing with earlier ideas)
    Taking existing ideas and organizing them into a structured, organized system with clear principles and logical connections.
    agent(Economics terminology applied to medical ethics)
    The party in a principal-agent relationship who is instructed to produce the good or service on the principal's behalf — in the medical context, the doctor
    counterfactual(Modal logic and epistemology)
    A conditional statement concerning what would be the case if some antecedent condition were true, evaluated across possible worlds; contraposition does not hold in general for counterfactuals.
    laws (natural laws)(refers to whether the rules of reality would stay the same or change)
    The fundamental rules that govern how the universe works, like gravity or the laws of physics.
    metaphysically incoherent(as used in metaphysics)
    Something that doesn't make logical sense when you think deeply about how reality actually works—it's self-contradictory at a fundamental level.

    Connections

    1 topic

    Free Will & Foreknowledge1 linked

    Related

    A system that accommodates both actual laws AND the counterfactual choice would ...Even on a Humean view of laws, it does not automatically follow that humans have...If an agent could have chosen differently, that counterfactual scenario is genui...Laws can be strict and exceptionless while counterfactuals about choices remain ...
    +3 moreShow less
    Laws of nature are descriptive regularities systematizing actual and counterfact...Saying 'could have chosen otherwise' might mean consistent with agents' capaciti...

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    2 (1 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit
    The 'best system' criterion is pragmatic, not metaphysically fundamental; differ...