Libertarianism

Question 1

Kant’s view

Answer 1

• “we intrinsically feel as if we are free” => to be human is to be free and if we don’t feel free we are => not ethical
• need to live as if we are free in order to develop as free will is more important
• cf. Berkeley “esse est percepi” and dinosaur example
• whether or not we have free will is irrelevant, as it only matters if we believe to have it (cop-out?)

Question 2

Sartre’s existentialist view

Answer 2

• “man is condemned to be free”
• we want to be determined in order to provide an “excuse” for our actions => in effect, we invent determinism ourselves
• in existentialism we blame ourselves => a) we have responsibility and b) we this we could have taken a different perspective
• we would only show regret if we could have acted otherwise

Question 3

Evaluation of libertarianism

Answer 3

+ we have an intuition of decision, we feel as if we are acting freely (cf Kant)
CP: Locke/Spinoza: “vail of ignorance”, could result in self-delusion of our freedom
+ Hume’s causation: “a constant conjunction is not a necessary connection” => determinism is undermined as it is simply an interpretation of what we observe