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Existence of Free Will

The document discusses the existence of free will and whether it is compatible with determinism. It argues that while introspection suggests free will in choice, determinism implies that choices are determined by past events, questioning whether free will truly exists. Compatibilists believe free will is compatible with determinism if choices stem from thoughts and without coercion, but determinism may render this an illusion of freedom.

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Felix Orion
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30 views2 pages

Existence of Free Will

The document discusses the existence of free will and whether it is compatible with determinism. It argues that while introspection suggests free will in choice, determinism implies that choices are determined by past events, questioning whether free will truly exists. Compatibilists believe free will is compatible with determinism if choices stem from thoughts and without coercion, but determinism may render this an illusion of freedom.

Uploaded by

Felix Orion
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Existence of Free Will

Existence of free will is often argued from introspection. Freedom means


choice. Since I chose to write this paper and I could have chosen otherwise, I
am free in writing this paper. However, to establish that I could have chosen
otherwise, proving that I felt that I could have chosen otherwise is not
enough: One must also prove that my choice is the original cause of my
motives to write this paper.

According to compatibilists, your action is free if the immediate cause of the


action are your thoughts, there is no coercion, no duress (physical or mental),
and your thoughts satisfy a certain condition on freedom, which varies
depending on the compatibilist. If that is used as definition of freedom, then
my writing this paper is free.

Unfortunately, if determinism is true, then the compatibilist freedom is


merely an illusion of freedom. In evaluating freedom, we are not interested in
counter factual conditionals unless the agent was free to make the conditional
true. If a person is being shot, then the person would have been unharmed if
he had stopped the bullet. Nevertheless, the person is not free not to be
harmed because he was not free to stop the bullet.

According to determinism, my actions today are determined by what had


existed a million years ago. Thus, if what happened a million years ago is
held fixed, it is (according to determinism) impossible for me not to write this
paper. I could only choose not to write this paper by changing what occurred
one million years ago, and that is impossible. One can argue that there are
some possible worlds in which the past is different and I am not writing this
paper. However, we are restricted to this world, freedom of choice means
freedom to choose i...

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