New answers tagged free-will
-1
First, the Universe is not deterministic. The laws of classical physics are, but the reality they describe is not.
The mind is a living brain's capacity to process information. It is questionable whether we can call information a substance in its own right. As information is always represented as configurations of physical matter or energy, it might be more ...
0
You have identified a conceptual problem that those who want to believe in libertarian free will suffer from. While physics itself appears to be underdetermined, based on the last century of both Chaos and Quantum Mechanics insights, this does not help libertarians, as you note. There IS no "formal definition" that allows a mind to be both a ...
0
Kant gives an independent account of moral responsibility when he derives the categorical imperative (CI) from the concept of duty. From there he says it implies freedom only if morality entails freedom. This is in the grounding of metaphysics of morals and is a different reading given in the critique of practical reason, so i will bracket that. Kant in his ...
1
Why does "being able to do otherwise" not count as having free will?
This is the metaphysical notion of free will.
The metaphysical claim that we have free will is supported by the idea that we have the ability to choose between different courses of action, and therefore, once we have done something, we say that we could have done otherwise, i.e. ...
1
The problem is that this example conflates 'ability to' with 'willingness to'. This mathematician is perfectly capable of giving a wrong answer, or of using an older, less satisfying method of solving for the right answer. In fact, she might readily do the first as a joke, and the second as a teaching aid. She could even choose never to solve that particular ...
0
Being able to do otherwise makes no sense. Otherwise than what?
There is no otherwise. Time cannot be rewound to try again. The circumstances are never the same again.
We have only one chance to do one-wise. Free will is our ability to choose which-wise.
Top 50 recent answers are included