What Freedom in a Deterministic World Must Be

Mind 130 (519):863-885 (2021)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Contrary to Lewis and Vihvelin, I argue that free will in a deterministic world is an ability to break a law of nature or to change the remote past. Even if it were true, as Lewis and Vihvelin think, that an agent who is predetermined to perform a particular act might not break a law or change the remote past by doing otherwise, it would nevertheless be true that he is able to do otherwise only if he is able to break a law or to change the remote past.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 91,386

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

Global control and freedom.Bernard Berofsky - 2006 - Philosophical Studies 131 (2):419-445.
Free choice.Donald L. M. Baxter - 1989 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 67 (1):12-24.
Deterministic Chance?Jonathan Schaffer - 2007 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 58 (2):113-140.
Relational Creativity and the Symmetry of Freedom and Nature.Philip Michael Rose - 2005 - Cosmos and History : The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 1 (1):3-16.
Ability and Being Able to Do Otherwise.Kadri Vihvelin - 1989 - Dissertation, Cornell University
Do Cry Over Spilt Milk.Peter B. M. Vranas - 2005 - The Monist 88 (3):370-387.
Emotion and Sartre's Two Worlds.John M. Cogan - 1995 - Journal of Phenomenological Psychology 26 (2):21-34.
Naturgesetze, Handlungsvermögen und Anderskönnen.Geert Keil - 2007 - Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 55 (6):929-948.
A critique of Vihvelin’s Three-fold Classification.Kristin Mickelson - 2015 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 45 (1):85-99.
Freedom and Determinism.Jenann Ismael - forthcoming - Philosophical Explorations.

Analytics

Added to PP
2021-04-24

Downloads
282 (#69,137)

6 months
21 (#121,644)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Brian Looper
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

Citations of this work

Arguments for incompatibilism.Kadri Vihvelin - 2003/2017 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Freedom and the open future.Yishai Cohen - 2023 - Analytic Philosophy 64 (3):228-255.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Counterfactuals.David Lewis - 1973 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 36 (3):602-605.
Counterfactuals.David Lewis - 1973 - Foundations of Language 13 (1):145-151.
Counterfactuals.David Lewis - 1973 - Philosophy of Science 42 (3):341-344.
Humean Supervenience Debugged.David Lewis - 1994 - Mind 103 (412):473--490.

View all 24 references / Add more references