5.1, 5.2, 5.3
What are the 3 solutions that philosophers have posed to the free will problem?
- Hard determinism. - Compatibilism - Libertarianism
Libertarians believe that?
1) Determinism is false (indeterminism is true) 2) Determinism & free will are incompatible 3) We sometimes act freely.
Compatibilists believe that?
1) Determinism is true 2) Determinism & free will are compatible 3) We sometimes act freely.
What are the 3 propositions of Hard determinism?
1) Determinism is true 2) Determinism & free will are incompatible (incompatibilism) 3) We never act freely
Traditional Compatibilism holds that your action is free if?
1) It is caused by your own choices or desired and 2) it is not impeded or constrained by anything. Ex) you act in complete freedom when you give money to charity if that's really what you want to do & nothing prevents it
Compatibilists insist that even though our desires are determined, we can still act freely as long as?
1) We have the power to do what we want and 2 nothing is preventing us from doing it.
4 serious thinkers?
1. Thomas Hobbes 2. John Locke 3. David Hume 4. John Stuart Mill
Walter Stace?
A twentieth century compatibilist, arguing the compatibilist's case by trying to ascertain what we ordinarily mean by "free acts".
You act freely when you are able to do what? You dont act freely when you aren't able to do what?
Act freely when able to do what you desire to do & act not freely when not able to do what you desire to do.
This Lockean freedom exists soley at the level of what?
Action; it doesn't consider the will
The only reasonable view, in Walter Staces mind is that, ?
All human actions, both those done freely and not freely, are either wholly determined by causes, or at least determined as much as other events in nature.
William James (1842-1910)?
Argued that determinism is a feature of the universe that permits "alternative futures" and the possibility of freedom.
Why does the question arise?
B/c 2 of our basic beliefs about ourselves contradict.
Why do many people reject William James idea?
B/c indeterminism alone does not make for free & responsible actions.
Incompatibilists argue that?
Compatibilist conception of freedom must be mistaken because an agent can do what she wants without external constraints & still not act freely.
How is it possible to still do otherwise when determinism reigns in the world?
Compatibilists can say that by assigning a conditional, or hypothetical, meaning to the notion of "could do otherwise". "" means that you would have been able to do something different if you had wanted to.
The atomist philosophers of ancient Greece theorized that the world was?
Composed of bits of matter called atoms moving in rigidly determined fashion except they sometimes swerved randomly to allow for undetermined free actions in humans.
B.F. Skinner's novel Walden 2?
Depicts a community of happy people who want only what they can readily acquire or achieve. They are this way because they have been programmed through lifelong behavioral conditioning to desire only what is attainable.
The problem is all the sharper b/c both sides of the dilemma are?
Endorsed by common sense.
But even though the choice comes about by chance, it will seem to ?
Follow from previous events just as a determined choice would.
Both compatibilist & most critics agree that?
Free actions require alternative possibilities, or a "could otherwise" sort of freedom
Locke says that a free act is?
Free if it is voluntary & it is true that had you willed to do otherwise you would be able to.
The fear of a predetermined existence is reflected in what movies?
Gattaca, A Clockwork Orange, and The Truman Show.
Incompatibilism?
If determinism is true, there is no free will.
Some have said that libertarianism is?
Incoherent, mysterious, or both.
Some scientific evidence supports what?
Indeterminism: the view that not every event is determined by preceding events & laws of nature.
The most widely accepted view of quantum physics is what?
Is that at the subatomic level, some events are random and therefore uncaused.
Determinism?
Is the doctrine that every event is determined by preceding events and the laws of nature.
William L. Rowe says what against locks compatibilism?
It's not sufficient that you have the power to do otherwise if you so will; It must be true that you have the power to will to do otherwise.
What do incompatibilists say real freedom is?
It's the power to act if we will to & to have power over the will itself.
According to d'Holbach, people always act according to what?
Necessary natural laws
James holds that a free choice is ?
Not determined by previous events; There is more than 1 way a choice can go, and how it goes is a matter of chance.
Man is a being purely ________ in whatever manner he is considered?
Physical
Baron d' Holbach (1723 - 1789)?
Prominent philosopher who made the statement: the soul is continually modified conjointly w/the body, is submitted to all its motion, w/o this it would remain dead. It is subjected to the influence of those material & physical causes which give impulse to body. It depends upon material elements that surround it.
Many who reject the notion of free will say that?
Punishing people for their crimes makes no sense & instead we should try to modify their behavior through behavioral conditioning & other techniques.
According to d'Holbach, all the mental & moral attributes that people think are evidence for an immaterial soul are in fact what?
Purely physical and natural.
What provides a surprising counterexample to the notion that?
Quantum physics provides a counterexample to the notion that every event has a cause.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley?
Shows a futuristic society of contented citizens who are happy w/their lot in life b/c social engineers manipulate & dampen people's desires with a mind-numbing drug (soma).
Compatibilists assert that we can still?
Still do otherwise even if determinism reigns in the world.
Compatibilism basically says what?
That determinism is true & so is the commonsense belief that we have free will.
What have libertarians also pointed out?
That if what an agent does happens by chance (randomly) then she is not free to act or not act.
The great appeal of compatibilism is what?
That it provides a plausible way to reconcile free will & determinism.
Most indeterminists don't deny that many of our actions are caused by prior events; they concede that what?
That much of human behavior may be causally determined but reject the notion that previous events cause all our actions.
What do hard determinists say about these uncaused events
That they are mostly confined to the subatomic realm & do not significantly affect the larger world of human actions.
Problem of free will?
The challenge of reconciling determinism with our intuitions or ideas about personal freedom.
Determinists typically appeal to what to support Proposition 1?
The deliverances of science. They point out that scientific research is forever uncovering causal connections, seeming to confirm a deterministic picture of world.
What is the difference between acts done freely and those which are not?
The free acts are all caused by desires, motives, or some sort of internal psychological state of agents mind. Unfree acts, are caused by physical forces or conditions outside the agent.
What did John Locke say?
The preferences of the mind might always be determined, yet the person who has the power to act or not act, according to such preference, is free.
Proposed solution 2: Compatibilism/soft determinism?
The view that although determinism is true, our actions can still be free.
Hard determinism?
The view that no one has free will.
What do critics say against the compatibilist's notion of freedom?
They maintain that merely being able to act according to your desires w/o constraints is not real freedom if your desires are determined for you in the first place.
23. True or False? James says that determinism professes that those parts of the universe already laid down absolutely decree what the other parts shall be.
True
25. True or False? Stace thinks that determinism is compatible with moral responsibility.
True
26. True or False? Stace believes that determinism is consistent with free will.
True
What is another reason that people care about the free will issue?
Upon it hangs momentous questions about moral responsibility, legal punishment, praise & blame, & social & political control.
3rd Solution: Libertarianism?
View that some actions are free, for they are caused or controlled by the person or agent.
On one hand we tend to think we have and on the other we usually assume?
We tend to think we have free will in the sense described and we usually assume that every event has a cause.
What is the central question in the free will debate is?
Whether we in fact have this more fundamental form of freedom
16. __________ wrote The Will to Believe and The Varieties of Religious Experience.
William James
6. According to Sartre, if God does not exist,
anything is permissible.
14. The view that what will be will be, and no human actions can change it, is known as
fatalism
4. For the soft determinist, to say that you could have done otherwise is to say that you would have done otherwise if your desires
had been different.
19. The Consequence Argument is supposed to establish
incompatibilism
If it is true that human actions are as much determined as anything else then?
it cannot be true that what distinguishes actions freely chosen from ones not is that the latter are determined by causes while the former are not. Therefore, being uncaused/undetermined by causes, is an incorrect def of free will.
2. According to Taylor, hard determinism conflicts with
the fact of deliberation and our sense that some actions are up to us.
8. According to Stace, free acts must be
those whose immediate causes are psychological states in the agent.