Free will: An impossible reality or an incoherent concept?

Human Affairs 32 (4):413-419 (2022)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The problem that Tallis attempts to address in Freedom: An Impossible Reality is that science appears to describe the entire world deterministically and that this seems to leave no room for free will. In the face of this threat, Tallis defends the existence of free will by arguing that science does not explain our intentional awareness of the world; and it is our intentional awareness that makes both science and free will possible. Against Tallis, it is here argued that his argument is vulnerable to two criticisms. Firstly, his characterisation of science as apparently deterministic is inaccurate. Secondly, he has not solved the problem he has set himself but rather recast it, so that his conclusion leaves us having to account for free will, not in a deterministic universe, but either as a product of chance or as a miracle. It is here suggested that when we set aside the illusory threat of scientific determinism, we also set aside the temptation of free will. That done, we may better focus upon agent’s freedom of action – as discussed by philosophers such as Hobbes, Locke and Hume – the rational capability of an agent to act upon their wishes, given the constraints under which they find themselves.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,593

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

The Non-Reality of Free Will.Richard Double - 1990 - New York: Oxford University Press.
On Spinoza's 'Free Man'.Steven Nadler - 2015 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 1 (1):103-120.
Descartes on God's Ability to Do the Logically Impossible.Richard R. La Croix - 1984 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 14 (3):455 - 475.
Descartes on God's Ability to Do the Logically Impossible.Richard R. La Croix - 1984 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 14 (3):455-475.
The Illusion of Freedom Evolves.Tamler Sommers - 2007 - In Don Ross, David Spurrett, Harold Kincaid & G. Lynn Stephens (eds.), Distributed Cognition and the Will: Individual Volition and Social Context. MIT Press. pp. 61.
Concrete Impossible Worlds.Martin Vacek - 2013 - Filozofia 68 (6):523-530.
Impossible interpretations, impossible demands.Francesco Pupa - 2015 - Linguistics and Philosophy 38 (3):269-287.
Freedom. An impossible reality.Raymond Tallis - 2022 - Human Affairs 32 (4):474-507.
God’s Impossible Options.Kenneth L. Pearce - 2021 - Faith and Philosophy 38 (2):185-204.
Libet's impossible demand.Neil Levy - 2005 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 12 (12):67-76.
Rowe's Argument from Improvability.Michael Almeida - 2006 - Philosophical Papers 35 (1):1-25.

Analytics

Added to PP
2022-11-07

Downloads
27 (#506,730)

6 months
12 (#122,866)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Stephen Leach
Keele University

Citations of this work

Freedom. An impossible reality.Raymond Tallis - 2022 - Human Affairs 32 (4):474-507.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Critique of practical reason.Immanuel Kant - 1788 - New York,: Liberal Arts Press. Edited by Mary J. Gregor.
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.Peter H. Nidditch (ed.) - 1979 - Oxford University Press UK.
Freedom. An impossible reality.Raymond Tallis - 2022 - Human Affairs 32 (4):474-507.

Add more references