Free Will Flashcards
What is determinism?
The view that all actions ,are determined by prior causes
What is hard determinism?
The view that all events are determined by their causes and consequently there is no free will
What is soft determinism/compatibilism ?
though all actions are determined by prior causes there still free will
What is incompatiblism ?
if human actions are determined by causes there can be no free will
What is classical free will theory?
also called libertarianism
The view that human actions are not determined by causes and that there is free will
Why did William James reject soft determinism/compatablism ?
on the grounds that it renders the word “free” meaningless and evades the real issue
What is Benjamin Libet’s experiment?
There’s an observable build-up of electrical activity in the brain [readiness potential] starting about 550 milliseconds before movement begins
The person only becomes consciously aware of an intention to act 200 milliseconds before movement begins.
This suggests that the action is the result of unconscious processes and not of a conscious intention.
What did Brass and Haggard (2007) find in their variation of Libert’s experiment ?
subjects performed key-presses at a time of their choosing, but to stop themselves at the last minute every now and then
They found that some areas of the brain were more active when people stopped themselves than when they didn’t.
How might science be relevant to the question of free will?
evolution
neurology
psychology
What is an argument for determinism according to Ludwig Wittgenstien?
one might say, human actions just don’t feel determined.
It feels as though we decide what to do, and that that’s not determined.
but determinst argues is a powerful illusion
Wittgenstein likened it to a falling leaf being blown this way and that by the wind. If the leaf was conscious it might say to itself: ‘now I’ll go this way, now I’ll go that way.’
What is an argument for free will?
P1 if there is free will there would be no difference between actions that are under compulsion e,g the actions of severely addicted people and ones that are not
P2 there is a difference
Conclusion there is free will
Why does determinism upset people?
Two possible reasons:
- It seems to negate moral responsibility
- We like to feel that we’re in control of our own lives.
According to Smart , it makes sense to praise or blame people even if they have no free will.But what is a consequence of this view?
Smart’s view doesn’t seem to leave any room for a person deserving praise or blame, reward or punishment.
This seems to be connected to the issue of whether a person is responsible for his or her actions.
It’s only when a person is responsible, we might say, that praise or blame is deserved.
What do determinsts try to do with the agent causation argument?
skewer classical free will with this dilemma
What does evolution imply?
(1) The process of transformation from earlier to later life-forms has to be by very small changes
(2) The stuff that organisms are made of doesn’t fundamentally change
Which in turn implies that:
3) There isn’t any special substance that living things are made of – i.e. No ‘life force’
4) There isn’t any special substance that humans have that other living things don’t have – i.e. No ‘mind stuff’.
