What is Strawson's argument against free will?
It is an extensive version of the logical and simplistic standard argument against free will. Strawson is close to a group of thinkers who share a view that William James would have called "hard determinism," including Richard Double, Ted Honderich, Derk Pereboom, Saul Smilansky, and the psychologist Daniel Wegner .
Did Galen Strawson prove that free will is impossible?
Yesterday on a different forum, I was referred to a video in which Galen Strawson purportedly proved that free will is impossible. Here is his argument: [1] "When we act, we do what we do because of the way we are, all things considered." [2} "So, to be truly responsible for what we do when we act, we need to be truly responsible for how we are."
Does indeterminism help Strawson's case against free will?
Indeterminism does not help, according to Strawson, if some thoughts and subsequent actions are randomly generated. But chance need not be the direct cause of actions . In his major work, the 1986 book Freedom and Belief (corrected edition 1991), Strawson makes his case against free will. There is no such thing as free will.
What is freedom according to Strawson?
There have been numerous replies to Strawson’s argument. Mele (1995, 221ff.) argues that Strawson misconstrues the locus of freedom and responsibility. Freedom is principally a feature of our actions, and only derivatively of our characters from which such actions spring.
Is Strawson a determinist?
Though Strawson may be regarded as a hard determinist, he argues that indeterminism is equally incompatible with free will and moral responsibility.
What does Strawson say about determinism?
Strawson doubts that the question whether determinism is true is a significant one for morality. What are his reasons, and is he right? Determinism is commonly characterised as the thesis that all events have a cause, and that this necessarily includes human actions.
Does Strawson believe in moral responsibility?
In Strawson's view, there is no such independent notion of moral responsibility that explains the propriety of the reactive attitudes. The explanatory priority is the other way around: It is not that we hold people responsible because they are responsible; rather, they are responsible because we hold them responsible.
What is ultimate responsibility according to Strawson?
In this 1994 article Strawson defends what he calls the “Basic Argument.” According to it, we have no ultimate moral responsibility for any of our actions, so praise or blame, reward and punishment for our actions, cannot be ultimately just.
Why does Strawson think that we'd continue experiencing them even if determinism is true?
- Strawson thinks that if we learn that determinism is true, we would not be able to eradicate out reactive attitudes to other people. This is because reactive attitudes are just ones we have as a result of engaging in interpersonal relationships.
How does Strawson compare inductive reasoning to the law?
Strawson says that induction just is rational, the reasonable and rational is that which is inductively justified. To call an argument reasonable or unreasonable is to apply inductive standards just as calling an argument valid or invalid is applying deductive standards.
Does moral responsibility require free will?
without free will there is no moral responsibility: if moral responsibility exists, then someone is morally responsible for something he has done or for something he has left undone; to be morally responsible for some act or failure to act is at least to be able to have acted otherwise, whatever else it may involve; to ...
What is a Compatibilist view on free will?
Compatibilism is the thesis that free will is compatible with determinism. Because free will is typically taken to be a necessary condition of moral responsibility, compatibilism is sometimes expressed as a thesis about the compatibility between moral responsibility and determinism.
Should we believe in free will?
Belief in free will allows us to punish people for their immoral behaviors. So, not only is there a value to believing in free will, but those beliefs have profound effects on our thoughts and behaviors. It stands to reason that believing in free will influences how we perceive ourselves.
Do Compatibilists deny determinism?
The compatibilist denies that the truth of determinism would have this drastic consequence. According to the compatibilist, the truth of determinism is compatible with the truth of our belief that we have free will.
Do Libertarians believe in moral responsibility?
Libertarians believe that persons choose freely in such a way as to make them morally responsible at least some significant amount of the time, and that persons are free and morally responsible only because they make undetermined choices.
Are hard determinists who blame people for their actions inconsistent?
-> Hard determinism means we cannot blame or praise people for their actions. It also means that people would not be morally responsible, and so would not deserve blame for even the most evil actions. Therefore Hitler was not culpable for his actions, nor can Mother Teresa be praised for hers.
Do Compatibilists deny determinism?
The compatibilist denies that the truth of determinism would have this drastic consequence. According to the compatibilist, the truth of determinism is compatible with the truth of our belief that we have free will.
Is Peter Strawson a Compatibilist?
3.3 Focus upon the Reactive Attitudes In “Freedom and Resentment” (1962), P.F. Strawson broke ranks with the classical compatibilists.
Is determinism a theory?
Determinism is a philosophical view where all events are determined completely by previously existing causes. Deterministic theories throughout the history of philosophy have developed from diverse and sometimes overlapping motives and considerations.
What is hard determinism in philosophy?
the doctrine that human actions and choices are causally determined by forces and influences over which a person exercises no meaningful control. The term can also be applied to nonhuman events, implying that all things must be as they are and could not possibly be otherwise. Compare soft determinism.
What does Strawson mean by freedom?
Freedom, he says, is a synonym for 'true responsibility. '.
What did Strawson say about determinism?
The elder Strawson said that such feelings, and the accompanying moral responsibility, would not disappear if determinism is true , at least for some thinkers he called "optimists," roughly the same as compatibilists. However, he also recognized there were "pessimists," roughly incompatibilists .
What is Strawson's major problem with indeterminism?
Strawson recognizes that a major problem for indeterminism in a model for free will is the location of the indeterminism in the process of decisions and actions. Locating Indeterminism ( Freedom and Belief, p.43)
Why is the word "free" in question?
Because it is, among other things, the sense of 'free' that is in question when it is said that because people are free agents, they can properly be held to be truly responsible for their actions in such a way as to be truly deserving of praise and blame for them. It is the ordinary, strong sense of the word 'free'.
What is the basic argument of Galen Strawson?
Galen Strawson developed a "Basic Argument" which attempts to prove that free will and moral responsibility do not exist . It is an extensive version of the logical and simplistic standard argument against free will. Strawson is close to a group of thinkers who share a view that William James would have called "hard determinism," including Richard ...
What does it mean when you say "one doesn't understand what it is"?
To say that one doesn't understand what it is is to claim to lack the most basic understanding of the society one lives in, and such a claim is not believable. In what follows, then, the word 'free' will be used interchangeably with the phrase 'truly responsible'.
Why is the free will debate interminable?
Because the best way to try to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the free will debate, and of the reason why it is interminable, is to study the thing that keeps it going — our experience of freedom. Because this experience is something real, complex, and important, even if free will itself is not real.
What happened to those who read anti-free will text?
You can probably guess what happened: Those who read the anti-free will text cheated more often. Instead of pressing the space bar, they tended to let the answer appear. Furthermore, Vohs and Schooler found that the amount of cheating was directly correlated with the extent to which the subjects rejected free will.
What does determinism suggest about our faith in freedom?
These experiments suggest that our faith in freedom is intertwined with ethical behavior.
Is free will a romantic illusion?
Half of the participants read a paragraph insisting that free will is a romantic illusion: You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.
What is free will? What is its significance?
The term “free will” has emerged over the past two millennia as the canonical designator for a significant kind of control over one’s actions. Questions concerning the nature and existence of this kind of control (e.g., does it require and do we have the freedom to do otherwise or the power of self-determination?), and what its true significance is (is it necessary for moral responsibility or human dignity?) have been taken up in every period of Western philosophy and by many of the most important philosophical figures, such as Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Descartes, and Kant. (We cannot undertake here a review of related discussions in other philosophical traditions. For a start, the reader may consult Marchal and Wenzel 2017 and Chakrabarti 2017 for overviews of thought on free will, broadly construed, in Chinese and Indian philosophical traditions, respectively.) In this way, it should be clear that disputes about free will ineluctably involve disputes about metaphysics and ethics. In ferreting out the kind of control involved in free will, we are forced to consider questions about (among others) causation, laws of nature, time, substance, ontological reduction vs emergence, the relationship of causal and reasons-based explanations, the nature of motivation and more generally of human persons. In assessing the significance of free will, we are forced to consider questions about (among others) rightness and wrongness, good and evil, virtue and vice, blame and praise, reward and punishment, and desert. The topic of free will also gives rise to purely empirical questions that are beginning to be explored in the human sciences: do we have it, and to what degree?
Where did free will come from?
One finds scholarly debate on the ‘origin’ of the notion of free will in Western philosophy. (See, e.g., Dihle (1982) and, in response Frede (2011), with Dihle finding it in St. Augustine (354–430 CE) and Frede in the Stoic Epictetus (c. 55–c. 135 CE)). But this debate presupposes a fairly particular and highly conceptualized concept of free will, with Dihle’s later ‘origin’ reflecting his having a yet more particular concept in view than Frede. If, instead, we look more generally for philosophical reflection on choice-directed control over one’s own actions, then we find significant discussion in Plato and Aristotle (cf. Irwin 1992). Indeed, on this matter, as with so many other major philosophical issues, Plato and Aristotle give importantly different emphases that inform much subsequent thought.
What is free will?
As should be clear from this short discussion of the history of the idea of free will, free will has traditionally been conceived of as a kind of power to control one’s choices and actions. When an agent exercises free will over her choices and actions, her choices and actions are up to her. But up to her in what sense? As should be clear from our historical survey, two common (and compatible) answers are: (i) up to her in the sense that she is able to choose otherwise, or at minimum that she is able not to choose or act as she does, and (ii) up to her in the sense that she is the source of her action. However, there is widespread controversy both over whether each of these conditions is required for free will and if so, how to understand the kind or sense of freedom to do otherwise or sourcehood that is required. While some seek to resolve these controversies in part by careful articulation of our experiences of deliberation, choice, and action (Nozick 1981, ch. 4; van Inwagen 1983, ch. 1; O’Connor 2000, ch. 1), many seek to resolve these controversies by appealing to the nature of moral responsibility. The idea is that the kind of control or sense of up-to-meness involved in free will is the kind of control or sense of up-to-meness relevant to moral responsibility (Double 1992, 12; Ekstrom 2000, 7–8; Smilansky 2000, 16; Widerker and McKenna 2003, 2; Vargas 2007, 128; Nelkin 2011, 151–52; Levy 2011, 1; Pereboom 2014, 1–2). Indeed, some go so far as to define ‘free will’ as ‘the strongest control condition—whatever that turns out to be—necessary for moral responsibility’ (Wolf 1990, 3–4; Fischer 1994, 3; Mele 2006, 17). Given this connection, we can determine whether the freedom to do otherwise and the power of self-determination are constitutive of free will and, if so, in what sense, by considering what it takes to be a morally responsible agent. On these latter characterizations of free will, understanding free will is inextricably linked to, and perhaps even derivative from, understanding moral responsibility. And even those who demur from this claim regarding conceptual priority typically see a close link between these two ideas. Consequently, to appreciate the current debates surrounding the nature of free will, we need to say something about the nature of moral responsibility.
What is satisfactory account of freedom to do otherwise?
A satisfactory account of the freedom to do otherwise owes us both an account of the kind of ability in terms of which the freedom to do otherwise is analyzed, and an argument for why this kind of ability (as opposed to some other species) is the one constitutive of the freedom to do otherwise.
What is Plato's freedom?
Hence, freedom for Plato is a kind of self-mastery, attained by developing the virtues of wisdom, courage, and temperance, resulting in one’s liberation from the tyranny of base desires and acquisition of a more accurate understanding and resolute pursuit of the Good.
Is Jones morally responsible for voting for Clinton?
Jones is unable to refrain from deciding to vote for Clinton, and yet, so long as Jones decides to vote for Clinton on his own, his decision is free and one for which he is morally responsible. The second, positive conclusion, is that freedom and responsibility are functions of the actual sequence.
Does Spinoza believe in morality?
According to Spinoza, so far from this being necessary to motivate us to be moral, it actually distorts our pursuit of morality. True moral living, Spinoza thinks, sees virtue as its own reward (Part V, Prop. 42). Moreover, while free will is a chimera, humans are still capable of freedom or self-determination.