Free Will

Question 1

What is free will?

Answer 1

(F)Free Will: We do (at least sometimes and to some degree) have free will in the sense that we could have done otherwise than we actually do.

Question 2

What is determinism?

Answer 2

(D)Determinism: A complete description of the total state of our world at some time t together with the laws holding in our world entails in which total state our world is at any other time t*.
exactly
- one possible future and exactly one possible past, given the laws of nature

Question 3

What is Incompatibilism?

Answer 3

(I)Incompatibilism: Free will in the sense of (F) and determinism in the sense of (D) are incompatible, i.e., if one is true, the other is false.

Question 4

What makes up the traditional trilemma of free will?

Answer 4

Free Will, Determinism and Incompatibilism cannot be all true at the same time, because the truth of two of them entails the falsity of the third. At the same time, however, they all seem plausible (at least to some extend).

Question 5

What is Libertarianism?

Answer 5

Libertarianism claims that free will and determinism are incompatible, but that there is free will. As a consequence, libertarians deny that the world is deterministic. (F) and (I) are true, but (D) is false

Question 6

What is Hard Determinism?

Answer 6

Hard determinism claims that free will and determinism are incompatible, and that the world is deterministic, so that there is no free will. (F) is false, because (I) and (D) are true

Question 7

What is Compatibilism?

Answer 7

Compatibilism is the claim that there can be free will even if the world is deterministic. (F) and (D) can both be true, because (I) is false.

Question 8

What is the most prominent argument for Incompatabilism?

Answer 8

Argument from alternate possibilities:
P1 If determinism is true, then we cannot do otherwise than we actually do.
P2 There is free will only if we can do otherwise than we do.
C If determinism is true, then there is no free will.

Question 9

What is Leeway Compatibilism ?

Answer 9

Leeway compatibilism is the view that P1 is false, i.e., the view that even if determinism is true, we can (we have the leeway to) do otherwise than we actually do.
(In the sense explicated by the conditional analysis of “could have done otherwise.”- if the past had been different, now would (could) be different)

Question 10

What is Source Compatibilism?

Answer 10

Source compatibilism is the view that P2 is false, i.e., the view that even if we cannot (have not the leeway to) do otherwise than we actually do, we can nevertheless have free will, if we ourselves are in a sense to be explicated the “ultimate” source of our decisions, choices, and actions.

Question 11

What do Liberitarians argue (in regard to determinism)?

Answer 11

Libertarians argue that determinism is not a problem for free will, since the world is indeterministic.

Question 12

What is the luck objection? Whose view does it counter?

Answer 12

If the world is indeterministic, then what happens at a given time, does not fix (or determine) what happens at other times, in particular later.

If that is the case, then the fact that we have certain beliefs,
desires etc., can not fix how we decide, chose and act later.

In that case, however, is not mere chance, or luck, that we decide,
chose and act the way we do?

Argument against Libertarianism.

Question 13

What is Hard Incompatibilism (aka Scepticism)?

Answer 13

Hard incompatibilism: Free will is incompatible with both determinism (e.g., because of the argument from alternate possibilities) and indeterminism (e.g., because of the luck objection).

Question 14

Explain the “consequence argument,” from Peter van Inwage. What does it support?

Answer 14

Against compatabalism

1.No one has power over the facts of the past and the laws of nature.
2.No one has power over the fact that the facts of the past and the laws of nature entail every fact of the future (i.e., determinism is true)
3.Therefore, no one has power over the facts of the future

Question 15

What is the claim of event-causal libertarianism?

Answer 15

According to event-causal libertarians, our decisions, choices and actions are part of the perfectly ordinary causal course of the world. Our decisions, choices and actions are perfectly ordinary events , and as such they are caused by prior events. It is just that causes are not sufficient for their effects, i.e., they don’t determine them, they just
raise their probability. Since the causal antecedents of our decisions, choices and actions just raise their probability and do not make them inevitable, there are open alternatives

Question 16

What is the key-objection against event-causal libertarianism?

Answer 16

the luck objection:
It seems as if the agent herself doesn’t have anything to do with the settling of the outcome, but is merely the stage where the probabilistic events happen that settle which of the possible paths into the future is taken

Question 17

What argues the “disappearing agent objection” by Derk Pereboom?

Answer 17

Consider a decision made in a context in which moral reasons favor one action, prudential reasons favor a distinct and incompatible action, and the net strength of these sets of reasons are in close competition. On an event-causal libertarian picture, the relevant causal conditions antecedent to the decision – agent-involving events – would leave it open whether the decision will occur, and the agent has no further causal role in determining whether it does. With
the causal role of the antecedent events already given, whether the decision occurs is not settled by any causal factor involving the agent. In fact, given the causal role of all causally relevant antecedent events, nothing settles whether the decision occurs. Thus, plausibly, on the event-causal libertarian picture, agents lack the control required for moral responsibility.

Question 18

What is agent-causal libertarianism?

Answer 18

According to agent-causal accounts of free will, it is the agent herself that causes her intention to act. She is thereby guided by reasons (and other prior states or events), but she is not determined to so cause her intention. The agent and only the agent settles (causes) which of a range of possible courses of action she takes.
It is not mere chance or luck, they contend, what we decide,
chose or do, because it is precisely us as agents who directly cause our decisions, choices and actions.

Question 19

Describe the “rollback argument”. Against which position does it argue?

Answer 19

Against agent-causal libertarianism:
Suppose Anne, at t, in our world agent-causes an intention to a. After Anne’s act of agent-causing her intention to a, God winds back the
universe and lets it play out again. If agent-causal libertarianism is right, there isnothing to guarantee that Anne will again agent-cause an intention to a and not an intention to b instead. Suppose that God has made this “rollback” 726 times. And suppose, that Anne agent-caused an intention to a 363 times and an intention to b 363 times as well. Is it not (again!) just luck which intention Anne will agent-cause the 727th time?

Question 20

What is the main argument for Source-compatabilism?

Answer 20

Frankfurt cases are cases in which a person, call her Black, wants another person, call her Jones, to perform a certain action. Black is determined to go to great lengths for insuring that Jones will do what she (Black) wants her to do. In particular, Black has installed a device in Jones’ brain that tells her exactly what Jones is about to do. In case
Black sees that Jones is about to do what she wants her to do, she does nothing and lets Jones go ahead. In case, however, Black sees that Jones is about to do something else, she will intervene (triggering appropriate processes in Jones’ brain) and make sure that Jones nevertheless behaves as she (Black) wants. As it turns out, Black does not have to intervene: Jones does what she is supposed to do out of her own reasons, motives etc.
Jones is acting of her own free will and is thus morally responsible (after all, Black did not have to intervene, Jones acted exactly as she had acted had Black not existed). At the same time, however, Jones
did not have any open alternatives, for given Black’s presence, it was inevitable that Jones would do what she did.