Compatibilism

Question 1

Define compatibilism

Answer 1

the belief that free will and determinism are compatible ideas

Question 2

Kant’s view

Answer 2

• freedom is a “postulate of morality” meaning you have to choose your morality
• two aspects: phenomenal (laws of nature => deterministic) and noumenal (concerns the mind and is the thinking self) realm- we have to make a noumenal decision which puts us on the phenomenal track
• note that Kantian ethics are non-prescriptive (no rules) meaning you have to be free/it is a necessary postulate to allow you to do the right thing

Question 3

Locke’s analogy

Answer 3

• a man is locked in a room and when he wakes up, he sees someone who he longs to see yet is he staying there voluntary when in fact it is “evident he is not at liberty to stay, he has not freedom to be gone”
• “freedom is the power to do or not to do”
• define freedom as power and will, if we have both of these then we are acting freely
• we can’t step outside of the room/universe and observe what is determined as we do with this analogy

Question 4

Evaluation on Locke

Answer 4

• just because your freedom is limited it doesn’t mean you have no freedom and can only do what you are determined to do

Question 5

Hume’s view

Answer 5

• the predictability of human nature allows us to make judgements
• we need both “liberty” and “necessity”, where the necessity allows you to make a free choice
  CP: but LoN are contingent and unreliable => they become unpredictable because it is indicative (cf. quantum)

Question 6

Criticisms of Kant’s view

Answer 6

• only gives a partial answer/partial freedom
• if we all believe in the same thing, we are determined, reason is deterministic as it is reason that dictates/tells us what to do (cf. moral absolutes)