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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
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    42
    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

    It is not the case that The branching roads metaphor fails as an argument for incompatibilism.

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

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.When the branching roads metaphor is stripped of figurative language, its main premise reduces to the claim that genuine choices between alternative courses of action require that choosing and doing otherwise be compossible with the actual past and the actual laws.
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    • 2.This claim is simply a restatement of the incompatibilist position rather than an independent argument for it.
      ?

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    • 3.An argument whose key premise merely restates the conclusion it is meant to support begs the question.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Van Inwagen's Consequence Argument shows that unavoidability of the past and laws entails unavoidability of all consequences, independent of any metaphor.
      ?

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    • 2.The branching roads metaphor is merely pedagogical illustration of this formal argument, not the argument itself, so its rhetorical failures leave the underlying logic untouched.
      ?

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    • 3.Stripping a metaphor of figurative language tests its poetic merit, not the validity of the argument it illustrates.
      ?

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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Frankfurt-style cases, which compatibilists treat as decisive, presuppose that 'could have done otherwise' is the relevant freedom condition—confirming incompatibilists and compatibilists share this analytical starting point.
      ?

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    • 2.If both sides accept alternative possibilities as the target concept, then invoking compossibility with the past is not question-begging but is tracking the shared explanandum.
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    • 3.A premise that articulates a jointly accepted necessary condition for the concept under dispute is dialectically legitimate, not circular, per Sider's work on conceptual analysis.
      ?

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    Strongest counterpoint
    Explore the most compelling reason on the other side.