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    The Humean approach to laws of nature does not by itself ... — Carmelics
    Home/Free Will & Foreknowledge
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    The Humean approach to laws of nature does not by itself resolve the problem of determinism and human freedom.

    Free Will & Foreknowledge
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

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    Reason for
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    • 1.Humean views deny laws most of their pushiness and explanatory force.
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    • 2.On such views, questions about determinism and human freedom must be approached afresh rather than being dissolved by the Humean account of laws.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.On Humean supervenience (Lewis), laws are mere regularities with no governing force, so 'determinism' reduces to patterns of events rather than necessitation.
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    • 2.If determinism loses its modal force under Humeanism, the traditional incompatibilist threat—that laws compel agents—dissolves without requiring independent resolution.
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    • 3.Compatibilists like Lewis explicitly leverage Humean laws to reframe freedom as pattern-consistency, showing the account directly shapes, not bypasses, the free will debate.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Ramsey and Lewis's Best Systems Account entails that laws supervene on the Humean mosaic, making the agent's history partly constitutive of the very laws that allegedly constrain them.
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    • 2.If agents are partially constitutive of the laws governing them, the asymmetry between 'law' and 'agent' presupposed by classical incompatibilist arguments is undermined from within Humeanism itself.
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    Free Will & Foreknowledge

    Related

    Compatibilists like Lewis explicitly leverage Humean laws to reframe freedom as ...Humean views deny laws most of their pushiness and explanatory force.If agents are partially constitutive of the laws governing them, the asymmetry b...If determinism loses its modal force under Humeanism, the traditional incompatib...
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    On Humean supervenience (Lewis), laws are mere regularities with no governing fo...On such views, questions about determinism and human freedom must be approached ...Ramsey and Lewis's Best Systems Account entails that laws supervene on the Humea...

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    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: determinism-causal
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    On second thought, however, it is not so surprising that broadly Humean philosophers such as Ayer, Earman, Lewis and others still see a potential problem for freedom posed by determinism. For even if human actions are part of what makes the laws be what they are, this does not mean that we automatically have freedom of the kind we think we have, particularly freedom to have done otherwise given certain past states of affairs. It is one thing to say that everything occurring in and around my body
    Extraction notes

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

    Details

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