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Freedom and Determinism

Freedom and Determinism. Hard Determinism. Review. The Freedom Principle : Some actions are free. The Control Principle : An action is free only if it’s up to the agent. Determinism : Everything that happens is causally determined by the past, together with the laws of nature.

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Freedom and Determinism

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  1. Freedom and Determinism Hard Determinism

  2. Review • The Freedom Principle: Some actions are free. • The Control Principle: An action is free only if it’s up to the agent. • Determinism: Everything that happens is causally determined by the past, together with the laws of nature.

  3. Garden of Forking Paths Phil 114 Western Bio 101 UW

  4. Garden of Forking Paths Phil 114 Western Bio 101 UW

  5. With earth’s first clay they did the last man knead, And there of the last harvest sowed the seed. And the first morning of creation wrote What the last dawn of reckoning shall read. -Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

  6. The Consequence Argument If determinism is true, then our acts are the consequences of the laws of nature and events in the remote past. But it is not up to us what went on before we were born, and neither is it up to us what the laws of nature are. Therefore, the consequences of these things (including our present acts) are not up to us. -Peter van Inwagen

  7. The Incompatibility Argument • Determinism is true. • If (1), then the Freedom Principle is false. • [So] The Freedom Principle is false.

  8. The Incompatibility Argument • Libertarianism: Determinism is false. • Soft Determinism: Determinism is compatible with the Freedom Principle. • Hard Determinism: The Freedom Principle is false.

  9. Hard Determinism The will… is necessarily determined by the qualities, good or bad, agreeable or painful, of the object or the motive that acts upon his senses, or of which the idea remains with, and is resuscitated by his memory. In consequence, he acts necessarily,… he never acts as a free agent. -Baron D’Holbach

  10. Hard Determinism Choice by no means proves the free agency of man: he only deliberates when he does not yet know which to choose of the many objects that move him… until his will is decided by the greater advantage he believes he shall find in the object he chooses, or the action he undertakes. From whence it may be seen, that choice is necessary…

  11. Hard Determinism The opposers of necessity say: that if all the actions of man are necessary, no right whatever exists to punish bad ones, or even to be angry with those who commit them… [But] Laws are made with a view to maintain society, and to prevent man associated from injuring his neighbour; they are therefore competent to punish those who disturb its harmony…

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