Some recent studies have suggested that belief in determinism tends to undermine moral motivation: subjects who are given determinist texts to read become more likely to cheat or engage in vindictive behaviour. One possible explanation is that people are natural incompatibilists, so that convincing them of determinism undermines their belief that they are morally responsible. I suggest a different explanation, and in doing so try to shed some light on the phenomenology of free will. I contend that one (...) aspect of the phenomenology is our impression that maintaining a resolution requires effort—an impression well supported by a range of psychological data. Determinism can easily be interpreted as showing that such effort will be futile: in effect determinism is conflated with fatalism, in a way that is reminiscent of the Lazy argument used against the Stoics. If this interpretation is right, it explains how belief in determinism undermines moral motivation without needing to attribute sophisticated incompatibilist beliefs to subjects; it works by undermining subjects' self-efficacy. It also provides indirect support for the contention that this is one of the sources of the phenomenology of free will. (shrink)

It is argued that seemingly “merely technical” issues about the existence and uniqueness of self-adjoint extensions of symmetric operators in quantum mechanics have interesting implications for foundations problems in classical and quantum physics. For example, pursuing these technical issues reveals a sense in which quantum mechanics can cure some of the forms of indeterminism that crop up in classical mechanics; and at the same time it reveals the possibility of a form of indeterminism in quantum mechanics that is quite (...) distinct from the indeterminism of state vector collapse. More generally, the examples considered indicate that the classical–quantum correspondence is more intricate and delicate than is generally appreciated. The aim of the article is to give a series of examples that reveal why the technical issues about self-adjointness are relevant to the philosophy of science and that help to make the issues accessible to philosophers of science. (shrink)

A critical review of Charles Goodman's view about Buddhism and free will to the effect that Buddhism is hard determinist, basically because he thinks Buddhist causation is definitively deterministic, and he thinks determinism is definitively incompatible with free will, but especially because he thinks Buddhism is equally definitively clear on the non-existence of a self, from which he concludes there cannot be an autonomous self.

For this reason, proponents of free choice have attempted to find grounds for a refutation of determinism in the determinist position itself. Such attempts have sometimes taken the form of argumentation—by now well known—that determinism is somehow self-refuting or self-defeating.

An analysis of our commonsense concept of freedom yields two “minimal criteria”: Autonomy distinguishes freedom from compulsion; Authorship distinguishes freedom from chance. Translating freedom into “self-determination” can account for both criteria. Self-determination is understood as determination by “personal-preferences” which are constitutive for a person. Freedom and determinism are therefore compatible; the crucial question is not whether an action is determined at all but, rather, whether it is determined by personal preferences. This account can do justice to the (...) most important intuitions concerning freedom, including the ability to do otherwise. Waiving determination, by contrast, would violate the minimal criteria rather than providing “more” freedom. It is concluded that self-determination provides everything that we can ask for if we ask for freedom. (shrink)

Throughout philosophical history, there has been a recurring argument to the effect that determinism, naturalism, or both are self-referentially incoherent. By accepting determinism or naturalism, one allegedly acquires a reason to reject determinism or naturalism. _The Epistemological Skyhook_ brings together, for the first time, the principal expressions of this argument, focusing primarily on the last 150 years. This book addresses the versions of this argument as presented by Arthur Lovejoy, A.E. Taylor, Kurt Gödel, C.S. Lewis, Norman (...) Malcolm, Karl Popper, J.R. Lucas, William Hasker, Thomas Nagel, Alvin Plantinga, and others, along with the objections presented by their many detractors. It concludes by presenting a new version of the argument that synthesizes the best aspects of the others while also rendering the argument immune to some of the most significant objections made to it. (shrink)

There are arguments for determinism. Admittedly, this is opposed by the fact of everyday experience of autonomy. In the following, it is argued for the compatibility of determinism and autonomy. Taking up considerations of Donald MacKay, a fatalistic attitude can be refuted as false. Repeatedly, attempts have been made to defend the possibility of autonomy with reference to quantum physical indeterminacy. But its statistical randomness clearly misses the meaning of autonomy. What is decisive, on the other hand, is (...) the possibility of knowledge, which opens up opportunities for planning, freedom of choice and ultimately 'self-choice'. Results of neurobiological research, especially Benjamin Libet's and more recently John-Dylan Haynes', seem to refute this: Actions are unconsciously initiated before conscious decision. But, as Libet has also shown, consciousness always has the possibility of a veto – and thus also of knowledge-driven action control. Ultimately, the idea of possible self-choice can thus become the determining condition. Only such a form of rational self-determination establishes a spiritual identity and at the same time represents the maximum of autonomy possible for human beings. (shrink)

This paper is a contribution to a symposium on John Fischer's MY WAY. In much of that work, Fischer says, he aims to show the "resiliency of our fundamental conception of ourselves as possessing control and being morally responsible agents," and particularly the compatibility of that conception with determinism. I argue that his conclusions leave several important aspects of our ordinary conception of our agency hostage to determinism. Further, there is significant tension between certain of his views. I’ll (...) suggest that our self-conception might be resilient in some ways that receive little emphasis from Fischer, and that it might need alteration in some unacknowledged respects. (shrink)

In this paper I examine a recent scientific claim that travel into the past, so long as a ‘consistent’ trajectory is followed, may be possible. I then argue that the possibility of such travel has unexpected implications for the free will‐determinism debate. In particular, human existence may be, at best, determinate but uncaused.

In his paper, "Free Choice, Incommensurable Goods and the Self-Refutation of Determinism,"' Joseph Boyle seeks to show how the argument for the self-refutation of determinism - first articulated over twenty-five years ago - is an argument whose force depends on (first) a proper understanding of just what free choice is, and (secondly) a proper understanding of how free choice is a principle of moral responsibility. According to Boyle, a person can make a genuinely free choice only (...) if he is presented with alternative options that are incommensurable in their goodness or desirability. If the goodness or desirability of alternative options could be commensurated, or compared in accordance with some common standard, then it would be possible in principle for a person to determine which of the two options offered more, and which offered less, of the same sort of good represented by the two options. But if this sort of commensuration or comparison were possible, according to Boyle, then there would really be no need to choose. Rather, the only task that would have to be performed in order to determine the person's selection among alternative options would be the task clarifying or calculating which of the alternative options offered most fully what it is that makes both options desirable in the first place. Once the clarification or calculation is done, there would be no need-and in fact, no possibility--of really choosing: the calculation alone would settle which option is the best option, and thus which option is to be selected. Now if genuinely free choice requires that the choosing person be presented with options that are incommensurable in goodness or desirability, then it also seems to be the case that genuine choice-and the moral responsibility that goes along with it-requires that the person be presented with alternative possibilities from which to choose. And yet some compatibilist thinkers have held that moral responsibility does not really require the presence of alternative possibilities. In particular, Harry G. Frankfurt has sought to show (by means of counter-example) that a person can be a moral agent and morally responsible, even if the person did not, in fact, have any alternative possibilities available to him (that is, even if the person could not have done otherwise). Frankfurt's counter-example offers a direct challenge to the sort of incompatibilism that Boyle seeks to defend; and so Boyle is quite right to address Frankfurt head-on. For if Frankfurt is right, then it is erroneous to hold "the principle of alternative possibilities" (the principle that a person can be morally responsible for what he has done, only if he had alternative possibilities, or only if he could have done otherwise). But if it is erroneous to hold the principle of alternative possibilities, then it also seems erroneous to hold the more robust position that Boyle wishes to defend: namely, the position that moral responsibility requires not only alternative possibilities, but also alternative possibilities representing options that are incommensurable in their goodness. (shrink)

Michael Pauen defends the compatibility of freedom and determinism by way of strengthening the principle of authorship and interpreting the principle of alternative possibilities in terms of determinism. Authorship is said to be incompatible with indeterminism because the latter is unable to grasp the connection between the mental content of an agent and her action in a non-fortuitous way. Apart from authorship, there is a second minimal criterion which, according to our common sense view of freedom, must be (...) met, namely autonomy. Authorship requires absence of pure chance,autonomy requires absence of compulsion. In course of specifying his idea of self-determination, the author examines current arguments against compatibilism. The paper sets in with a terse introduction which nicely formulates the issue and, among other things, rightly stresses that every theory of self-determination depends on some idea of the self which has to be made explicit. (shrink)

The indirect argument (IA) for incompatibilism is based on the principle that an action to which there is no alternative is unfree, which we shall call ‘PA’. According to PA, to freely perform an action A, it must not be the case that one has ‘no choice’ but to perform A. The libertarian and hard determinist advocates of PA must deny that free will would exist in a deterministic world, since no agent in such a world would perform an action (...) to which there were alternatives: an action there being the necessary consequence of preceding events and the laws of nature, it would not be possible for a person to perform actions besides those he actually performs. Determinism is seen here as “indirectly” ruling out free will by making the satisfaction of a necessary condition of free agency impossible, the former requiring, according to the leading proponent of libertarianism, Robert Kane, the performance of free actions. To have a free will, on his view, is to have committed “self-forming” actions, that is, to have done things to which there were alternatives the doing of which led to the development of the desires, preferences, and beliefs that make up one’s character. -/- The range of phenomena obeying probabilistic laws has yet to be ascertained. Under certain assumptions, both STR and GTR entail an indeterministic mechanics. But, contrary what is often claimed, quanta do not behave indeterministicly: the wave function/probabilistic laws being necessary only insofar as we wish to macroscopicly describe their behavior. It is far less clear, however, that the macro-events involved in human decision making and behavior, such as the releasing of neurotransmitters and the contracting of muscles, occur indeterministically. The ontological status of these events-whether or not they are the necessary effects of prior occurrences-is, of course, what matters in the free will debate. For present purposes, however, this question will be put aside. Instead, I will concentrate on buttressing the existing case against PA, aiming to show that even if deterministic laws hold at the level of macro-phenomena, free will remains a possibility. That is to say, I shall defend the thesis that so-called “Frankfurt cases” demonstrate that alternatives are not required to perform an action that is free in the sense of being something for which its agent is responsible. -/- My defense will be carried out in three stages. First, I must respond to those who maintain that a Frankfurt case is not a counterexample to PA because it is not an example of someone acting without alternatives. Here, I confront the question of how “robust” an alternative must bein order to provide an agent with a way of avoiding praise or blame for the action that she actually commits. Secondly, I must show that an agent may be praiseworthy or blameworthy despite lacking alternatives at the time at which she acts, i.e., an appropriate object of one of a Strawsonian “reactive attitude” sans what I shall call “local” alternatives. At this point, I must attend to David Widerker’s recent critique of the use of Frankfurt cases as counterexamples to PA. Finally, I set for myself what I take to be the most difficult task of a compatibilist: demonstrating that not even an “historical” alternative-the possibility of having chosen a different path in life than the one that one has actually taken-is needed to have a free will. In this connection, it will be incumbent upon me to explain why it would be fair to hold someone accountable for behavior issuing from a self she did not create, dispositions originating from natural conditions she did not establish. That is to say, in denying that a free will entails the ability to transcend oneself, I shall be faced with what Kane calls the “ultimacy” problem: how to explain away the incompatibilist’s intuition that it is senseless to adopt a reactive attitude towards someone incapable of self-transcendence, even if such a reaction is itself unavoidable. By showing that the desire for self-transcendence is itself irrational, I intend to solve this problem. I will, thus, be left defending a version of compatibilism according to which a free will is to be understood as a healthy faculty-the will-being exercised in an environment conducive to self-realization, which is its purpose. (shrink)

Determinism which denies freedom of action is a common philosophical view. Is the action of such determinists incompatible with Kant’s claim that a rationally willed being “cannot act otherwise than under the idea of freedom” [G 4, 448]? In my paper, I examine Kant’s argument for this claim at the beginning of the Third Section of the Groundwork and argue that it amounts to the assertion that one cannot act while being aware of being guided by invalid principles. Belief (...) in determinism does not necessarily amount to such awareness. A structurally similar argument based on the contrast between deliberation and prediction is examined and similarly found wanting. (shrink)

*As mentioned in Peter Coy's NYT essay "When Being Good Is Just a Matter of Being Lucky" (2023) -/- ----- -/- How is the problem of free will related to the problem of moral luck? In this essay, I answer that question and outline a new solution to the paradox of moral luck, the source-paradox solution. This solution both explains why the paradox arises and why moral luck does not exist. To make my case, I highlight a few key connections (...) between the paradox of moral luck and two related problems, namely the problem of free will and determinism and the paradox of self-creation. Piecing together intuitions, arguments, and insights from recent work on each of these three problems, I argue that the type of control necessary for moral responsibility can only be had by someone who is a genuine source of his own actions, but the relevant notion of sourcehood admits no coherent characterization. If our commonsense view of moral responsibility is incoherent, it is unsurprising that our commitment to the existence of morally responsible agents commits us to some paradoxical things—e.g. to both the existence and impossibility of moral luck. For more information about this article, please write to gmail account: kristin.mickelson.42. (shrink)

The paper discusses one of the central arguments in Dennett’s Freedom Evolves, an argument designed to show that a deterministic universe would not necessarily be a universe of which it could truly be said that everything that occurs in it is inevitable. It suggests that on its most natural interpretation, the argument is vulnerable to a serious objection. A second interpretation is then developed, but it is argued that without placing more weight on etymological considerations than they can really bear, (...) it can deliver only a significantly qualified version of the conclusion that Dennett is seeking. Moreover, the new argument depends upon an intermediate conclusion which, on the face of it, looks to be self-contradictory. Dennett is able to avoid the appearance of self-contradiction only by utilising a possible-worlds framework for the understanding of “could have done otherwise” judgements which is argued to be unsatisfactory. It is suggested that a different framework might hold the key to understanding how better to defend these same judgements from purported threats from determinism. (shrink)

Of liberty and necessity, by D. Hume.--The doctrine of necessity examined, by C. S. Peirce.--Determinism in history, by E. Nagel.--Some arguments for free will, by T. Reid.--Has the self free will? by C. A. Campbell.--Dialogue on free will, by L. de Valla.--Can the will be caused? by C. Ginet.--Free will, by G. E. Moore.--A modal muddle, by S. N. Thomas.--Determinism, indeterminism, and libertarianism, by C. D. Broad.--An empirical disproof of determinism? by K. Lehrer.--Free will, praise and (...) blame, by J. J. C. Smart.--Bibliographical essay. (shrink)

In a recent book entitled Free Will and Epistemology. A Defence of the Transcendental Argument for Freedom, Robert Lockie argues that the belief in determinism is self-defeating. Lockie’s argument hinges on the contention that we are bound to assess whether our beliefs are justified by relying on an internalist deontological conception of justification. However, the determinist denies the existence of the free will that is required in order to form justified beliefs according to such deontological conception of justification. (...) As a result, by the determinist’s own lights, the very belief in determinism cannot count as justified. On this ground Lockie argues that we are bound to act and believe on the presupposition that we are free. In this paper I discuss and reject Lockie’s transcendental argument for freedom. Lockie’s argument relies on the assumption that in judging that determinism is true the determinist is committed to take it that there are epistemic obligations – e.g., the obligation to believe that determinism is true, or the obligation to aim to believe the truth about determinism. I argue that this assumption rests on a wrong conception of the interplay between judgments and commitments. (shrink)

Self-organization -- Organisms, finalisms, programs, machines -- Spinoza -- Judaism, determinism, and rationalities -- Fabricating the living -- Ethics.

Few issues bedevil criminology and criminal justice as much as free will versus determinism. It goes to the heart of the character of the people they deal with and how we should respond to them. People are held morally responsible for what they do only if we believe that they have the ability to make reasoned choices to act morally. Liberals tend to hold an external locus of control and are skeptical of free will, and conservatives tend to favor (...) an internal locus of control and embrace free will. This liberal-conservative divide reveals itself in the theories they favor as the best explanations of criminal behavior. Liberals favor explanations external to criminals such as an unfair economic system or criminal justice bias; conservatives tend to favor internal explanations such as low self-control or lack of empathy. In terms of responding to criminal behavior, there have been calls to abandon the idea of punishment and abolish prisons. Liberals may tend to view this as humanitarian while conservatives will tend to view them as incredibly naïve. The greater tendency of liberals to hold an external locus of control and their skepticism about free will lead them to view people's behavior as largely beyond their control, which accounts for their punishment abolitionist stance. The greater tendency of conservatives to believe in free will and an internal locus of control leads to a more punitive stance toward criminals. Many issues that divide liberals and conservatives in criminology-criminal justice may be traced to their beliefs about free will and determinism. (shrink)

The article criticises various interpretations of Epicurus's claim that belief in determinism is self-invalidating: -/- - 'The man who says that all things come to pass by necessity cannot criticise one who denies that all things come to pass by necessity, for he admits that this too happens of necessity.' - -/- especially Ted Honderich's argument that the real force of the Epicurean claim is that if belief acquisition is causally necessitated, we will be excluded from possible facts (...) and inquiries that might have produced new knowledge and might have shown some of what we take to be knowledge to be false. Honderich's argument fails to consider that undetermined inquirers might fail to make discoveries that determined inquirers could not fail to make. Determinism would not, therefore, put us in a worse position as seekers of knowledge than indeterminism. (shrink)

Even though the world is governed by laws, human beings are able to be free. In fact, there is no difference between being genuinely free and having a distinctively human psychological architecture. But self-deception and rationalization can result in the replacement of actual beliefs with operational pseudo-beliefs. When this happens, the result is a sociopathic pseudo-person. The difference between a sociopath and a psychopath is that, whereas the sociopath once had a distinctively human psychological architecture, the psychopath never developed (...) such an architecture to begin with. Thus, whereas the sociopath's personality is that of an ossified human, the psychopath has no real personality to speak of. What the psychopath lacks in the way of an actual identity, he replaces with narratives, the primary function of which is to give a semblance of cohesiveness to his otherwise gelatinous psyche, and a secondary function of which is to defraud others. But the psychopath's tendency to defraud others is merely a way of providing external reinforcement for his flimsy narrative-based faux-identity. (shrink)

In “Lifelines” Steven Rose constructs a case against neurogenetic determinism based on experimental data from biology and in favor of a significant degree of self determination. Two philosophical errors in the case favoring neurogenetic determinism are illustrated by Rose: category mistakes and an excessively narrow view of causality restricted to the linear form.

In Self-Knowledge and Resentment, Akeel Bilgrami argues that self-knowledge of our intentional states is special among all the knowledges we have because it is not an epistemological notion in the standard sense of that term, but instead is a fallout of the radically normative nature of thought and agency. Four themes or questions are brought together into an integrated philosophical position: What makes self-knowledge different from other forms of knowledge? What makes for freedom and agency in a (...) deterministic universe? What makes intentional states of a subject irreducible to its physical and functional states? And what makes values irreducible to the states of nature as the natural sciences study them? This integration of themes into a single and systematic picture of thought, value, agency, and self-knowledge is essential to the book's aspiration and argument. Once this integrated position is fully in place, the book closes with a postscript on how one might fruitfully view the kind of self-knowledge that is pursued in psychoanalysis. (shrink)

Montesquieu's Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur décadence (1733/1734) is a methodological exercise in causal explanation on the meso-level applied to the subject of the military rise and fall of Rome. Rome is described as a system with contingent initial conditions that have a strong path-determining effect. Contingent and plastic initial configurations become highly determining in their subsequent operation, thanks to self-reinforcing feedback loops. Montesquieu's method seems influenced by the ruthless commitment to efficient (...) causality and the reductionism of seventeenth-century mechanicist philosophy; but in contrast to these predecessors, he is more interested in dynamic processes than in unchangeable substances, and his use of efficient causality in the context of a system approach implies a form of holism that is lacking in his predecessors. The formal and conceptual analysis in this article is in many ways complementary with Paul Rahe's recent predominantly political analysis of the Considérations. At the same time, this article points to a problem in the works on the Enlightenment by Jonathan Israel: his account stresses a one-dimensional continuum consisting of Radical, Moderate and Counter-Enlightenment. This invites Israel to place the combined religious, political and philosophical views of each thinker on one of these three points. His scheme runs into trouble when a thinker with moderate religious and political views produces radical philosophical concepts. Montesquieu's Considérations is a case in point. (shrink)

Reductionism--understanding complex processes by breaking them into simpler elements--dominates scientific thinking around the world and has certainly proved a powerful tool, leading to major discoveries in every field of science. But reductionism can be taken too far, especially in the life sciences, where sociobiological thinking has bordered on biological determinism. Thus popular science writers such as Richard Dawkins, author of the highly influential The Selfish Gene, can write that human beings are just "robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the (...) selfish molecules known as genes." Indeed, for many in science, genes have become the fundamental unit for understanding human existence: genes determine every aspect of our lives, from personal success to existential despair: genes for health and illness, genes for criminality, violence, and sexual orientation. Others would say that this is reductionism with a vengeance. In Lifelines, biologist Steven Rose offers a powerful alternative to the ultradarwinist claims of Dawkins, E.O. Wilson, Daniel Dennett and others. Rose argues against an extreme reductionist approach that would make the gene the key to understanding human nature, in favor of a more complex and richer vision of life. He urges instead that we focus on the organism and in particular on the organism's lifeline: the trajectory it takes through time and space. Our personal lifeline, Rose points out, is unique--even identical twins, with identical genes at birth, will differ over time. These differences are obviously not embedded in our genes, but come about through our developmental trajectory in which genes, as part of the biochemical orchestra of trillions of cells in each human body, have an important part--but only a part--to play. To illustrate this idea, Rose examines recent research in modern biology, and especially two disciplines--genetics (which looks at the impact of genes on form) and developmental biology (which examines the interaction between the organism and the environment)--and he explores new ideas on biological complexity proposed by scientists such as Stuart Kauffman. He shows how our lifelines are constructed through the interplay of physical forces--such as the intrinsic chemistry of lipids and proteins, and the self-organizing and stabilizing properties of complex metabolic webs--and he reaches a startling conclusion: that organisms are active players in their own fate, not simply the playthings of the gods, nature, or the inevitable workings out of gene-driven natural selection. The organism is both the weaver and the pattern it weaves. Lifelines will be a rallying point for all who seek an alternative to the currently fashionable, deeply determinist accounts which dominate popular science writing and, in fact, crowd the pages of some of the major scientific journals. Based on solid, state-of-the-art research, it not only makes important contributions to our understanding of Darwin and natural selection, but will swing the pendulum back to a richer, more complex view of human nature and of life. (shrink)

Genetic testing can not only provide information about diseases but also their prevalence in ethnic, gender, or other vulnerable populations. While offering the promise of significant therapeutic benefits and serving to highlight our commonality, genetic information also raises a number of sensitive human rights issues touching on identity and the perception thereof, as well as the possibility of discrimination and social stigma. It stands to reason that the results of individual screenings could haplessly be used to make general assumptions about (...) entire ethnic or gender groups. In this manner, genetic information can directly influence identity by impacting and perhaps even reframing conceptions of group rights and dimensions of self-identification, thus importing constitutional scrutiny on questions of dignity and discrimination in particular. Is there a risk of collective stigmatization deriving from discrete testing of self-identified individuals? Would such stigmatization impinge on individual dignity by the exogenous imposition of ethnic or gender/sexual identity? If so, what norms can most adequately respond if and when individual and group interests diverge? These questions are examined from a comparative perspective. (shrink)

“Privacy considerations no longer arise out of particular individual problems; rather, they express conflicts affecting everyone.”Along with the promise of assuaging the scourge of disease, the so-called genetic revolution unquestioningly imports a slew of thorny human rights issues that touch on matters such as dignity, disclosure, and the subject of this article – genetic testing and the social stigma potentially deriving therefrom.It is now rather evident that certain otherwise therapeutically promising forms of research can inadvertently involve social risks exceeding the (...) individual preoccupations of eclectic study participants. With that as the case, the following proposes to examine the peculiar stigma attached to genetic information and its potential human rights implications extending beyond the insurance and employment context. In so doing, it raises the intersection of interests between self-identified members of historically vulnerable groups and the group itself, which the law seems to take for granted in the genetics context. (shrink)

In this module, I first explore the dialectic that leads to Kant’s substantive moral theory. In the second section, I explicate the roots of Kant’s ethical theory in terms of his attempt to resolve the antinomy of freedom and determinism. Kant’s solution is a Normative Compatibilism that resolves the inconsistency via morality, in general, and self-governance in particular. As noted in our lesson on Yoga, this is a strategy that Yoga endorses, and hence, predates the Kantian approach by (...) over a millennia and a half. Yet, Kant’s approach to Normative Compatibilism is unique to him, and perhaps, more influential. In the third section, I review Kant’s dialectic by which he concludes that The Categorical Imperative is the means by which rational agents resolve this tension by freely determining themselves. In the fourth section, I consider some preliminary objections to Kant’s theory. In the fifth section, I draw some conclusions. (shrink)

In this chapter, the author uses the film Minority Report as a means of reflecting on the age‐old topic of free will. Traditionally, having free will is thought to require two things: alternate possibilities and self‐control. Soft determinism is the view that determinism is true, and yet we have free will anyway. It is not rational to embrace hard determinism, since hard determinism, in conjunction with norms implicit in reasoning, leads to a conclusion that rationally (...) undermines hard determinism itself. A determinist (hard or soft) would instead interpret minority reports as evidence of the pre‐cogs’ fallibility ‐ perhaps the future is predetermined, but sometimes one of the pre‐cogs makes a mistake about what is going to happen. One might take this as grounds for abandoning the Precrime system ‐ until one remembers that any criminal justice system is fallible. (shrink)

It is certainly true that we could give an account in mechanistic terms of what there is which would be, in one sense, as complete account of what there is. If everything listed in the account were put in a pile, for example, there might be nothing left out of the pile for someone to go and fetch to it. This would be one sense in which we could give, in mechanistic or purely physical terms, a complete account of what (...) there is. But there is a more important sense in which an account in mechanistic terms cannot be allowed to be complete, because it could not include language qua language or any particular occasion of the use of language qua language, such as the giving of that account itself. I want to go on to argue now that this claim means that we cannot drop the concept of person, and that any Determinist or Physicalist who tries to make such a move is in a self-stultifying position. If we are to have any concepts at all we must have the concept of purposive action and thus the concepts of agent and person. (shrink)

The debate about the relation between the (phenomenal) psychological realm and our (noumenal) rational freedom is moot because Kant in fact argues that psychological determinism is undemonstrable, even in the phenomenal realm. Kant contends that causality is strictly related to substance. Also, the three Analogies form a mutually integrated set of principles. Kant’s Paralogisms show we have no knowledge of a substantial self. If we have no evidence of a substantial self, then we cannot apply any of (...) the Principles of the Analogies to the self. Consequently, we cannot justify any determinate causal judgments in psychology. Hence determinism is in principle unjustifiable within even empirical psychology. (shrink)

Rather than use Habermas’s writings as a paradigm for critiquing The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, I intend to evaluate and to analyze the dynamic tension that develops between the ideas of pluralism and individualism. I will consider how Franklin defines rationalization and reason and how he continually adapts the definitions to recontextualize individual needs, interests, and values within the emergent general will. I will also suggest the ways in which Habermas’s theoretical language accommodates Franklin’s concept of self-determinism within (...) his own conception of noncoercive consensus. (shrink)

We have no reason to believe that reasons do not exist. Contra Bart Streumer’s recent proposal, this has nothing to do with our incapacity to believe this error theory. Rather, it is because if we know that if a proposition is true, we have no reason to believe it, then we have no reason to believe this proposition. From a different angle: if we know that we have at best misleading reasons to believe a proposition, then we have no reason (...) to believe it. This has two consequences. Firstly, coming close to believing the error theory is idle or pointless. Secondly, philosophers who argue that believing sweeping theories like determinism or physicalism is self-defeating because they are either false or believed for no reason pursue a worthwhile argumentative strategy. (shrink)

This is a detailed, sophisticated and comprehensive treatment of autonomy. Moreover it argues for a quite different conception of autonomy from that found in the philosophical literature. Professor Berofsky claims that the idea of autonomy originating in the self is a seductive but ultimately illusory one. The only serious way of approaching the subject is to pay due attention to psychology, and to view autonomy as the liberation from the disabling effects of physiological and psychological afflictions. A sustained critique (...) of concepts such as moral autonomy, self-realisation, ideal autonomy, and identification is offered. The author replaces these with an alternative model that reveals how spontaneity, vitality and competence enable human beings to act in the real world. (shrink)

I argue that a distinction made in recent literature in the philosophy of mind between self-organizing and self-governing systems can serve as the basis of a principled distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ determination on the part of the compatibilist with respect to freedom or control. I first consider two arguments for the claim that causal determinism undermines control: the Consequence Argument as presented by Peter van Inwagen, and the Four Case Argument of Derk Pereboom. I then elucidate (...) the difference between a self-organizing and self-governing system, and argue that the capacity for self-representation that is constitutive of the latter allows for agential control. This difference, I argue, can provide the basis of a principled distinction between good and bad determination. I subsequently show how the framework presented undermines the Consequence and Four Case Arguments in their attempt to establish the claim that causal determinism undermines control, and I discuss the application of this framework to manipulation arguments in general. Finally, I consider and respond to Galen Strawson’s Basic Argument and the general rejoinder to my account that one is not responsible for the particular way in which one exercises one’s capacity for self-representation, and that this undermines any claim to agential control and responsibility. (shrink)

In this pathbreaking book Mitchell Aboulafia considers the development of the sense of self by critically analyzing the philosophies of George Herbert Mead--an American pragmatist who argues that self-consciousness results from social interaction through language and symbol--and of Jean-Paul Sartre, the existentialist who maintains that consciousness is free to create the self. Building on their work, Aboulafia provides an original analysis of consciousness and self-determination.

This article addresses the question of the mechanisms of the emergence of structure and meaning in the biological and physical sciences. It proceeds from an examination of the concept of intentionality and proposes a model of intentional behavior on the basis of results of computer simulations of structural and functional self-organization. Current attempts to endow intuitive aspects of meaningful complexity with operational content are analyzed and the metaphor of DNA as a computer program (the `genetic program') is critically examined (...) in relation to an alternative metaphor of DNA as data. It is argued that relatively simple networks of boolean automata can classify and recognize patterns of binary strings on the basis of non-programmed, self-generated criteria, but lack a capacity for self-observation and interpretation. To overcome this problem it is necessary to clarify the relationships between the goals and underlying mechanisms of a process and between a system and its environment. It will be shown that memory devices that record the histories of interactions are essential for models of conscious and unconscious intentional behavior and that the possibility of infinitely sophisticated - and therefore unprogrammable - machines cannot be avoided. It will be argued that the notion of infinite sophistication allows the ideas of self-organization and physical determinism to be reconciled. These models will be used to suggest how the voluntary aspect of decision-making in general can emerge out of functional self-organizing processes. The conclusion will introduce the notion of `underdetermination' of theories, which imposes an intrinsic limitation on models of complex natural systems - a limitation that, at the same time, may be precisely what makes possible mutual understanding and intersubjectivity. (shrink)

Education and Free Will critically assesses and makes use of Spinoza’s insights on human freedom to construe an account of education that is compatible with causal determinism without sacrificing the educational goal of increasing students’ autonomy and self-determination. Offering a thorough investigation into the philosophical position of causal determinism, Dahlbeck discusses Spinoza’s view of self-determination and presents his own suggestions for an education for autonomy from a causal determinist point of view. -/- The book begins by (...) outlining the free will problem in education, before expanding on a philosophical understanding of autonomy and how it is seen as an educational ideal. It considers Spinoza’s determinism and discusses his denial of moral responsibility. Later chapters consider the relationship between causal determinism and autonomy, the educational implications of understanding free will and how free will can be utilised as a valuable fiction in education. -/- This book will be of great interest to academics and postgraduate students in the field of education, especially those with an interest in moral education and philosophy of education. It will also be of interest to those in the fields of philosophy and psychology and specifically those focusing on the free will problem, on Spinoza studies, and on the relation between moral psychology and external influence. (shrink)