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Core Concepts
Adequate Determinism Agent-Causality Alternative Possibilities Causa Sui Causality Certainty Chance Chance Not Direct Cause The Cogito Model Compatibilism Comprehensive Compatibilism Conceptual Analysis Control Could Do Otherwise Creativity Default Responsibility De-liberation Determination Determination Fallacy Determinism Disambiguation Either Way Ethical Fallacy Experimental Philosophy Extreme Libertarianism Event Has Many Causes Frankfurt Cases Free Choice Freedom of Action "Free Will" Free Will Axiom Free Will in Antiquity Free Will Mechanisms Free Will Requirements Free Will Theorem Future Contingency Hard Incompatibilism Illusion of Determinism Illusionism Impossibilism Incompatibilism Indeterminacy Indeterminism Infinities Laplace's Demon Libertarianism Liberty of Indifference Libet Experiments Luck Master Argument Modest Libertarianism Moral Necessity Moral Responsibility Moral Sentiments Mysteries Naturalism Necessity Noise Non-Causality Nonlocality Origination Paradigm Case Pre-determinism Predictability Probability Pseudo-Problem Random When?/Where? Rational Fallacy Responsibility Same Circumstances Scandal Science Advance Fallacy Second Thoughts Semicompatibilism Separability Soft Causality Special Relativity Standard Argument Taxonomy Temporal Sequence Tertium Quid Torn Decision Two-Stage Models Ultimate Responsibility Uncertainty Up To Us Voluntarism Philosophers Mortimer Adler Rogers Albritton Alexander of Aphrodisias G.E.M.Anscombe Anselm Thomas Aquinas Aristotle David Armstrong Augustine J.L.Austin A.J.Ayer Alexander Bain Mark Balaguer William Belsham Henri Bergson Isaiah Berlin Bernard Berofsky Susanne Bobzien George Boole Émile Boutroux F.H.Bradley C.D.Broad C.A.Campbell Joseph Keim Campbell Carneades Ernst Cassirer Roderick Chisholm Chrysippus Cicero Randolph Clarke Samuel Clarke Anthony Collins Diodorus Cronus Donald Davidson Democritus Daniel Dennett René Descartes Richard Double Emil du Bois-Reymond Fred Dretske John Earman Laura Waddell Ekstrom Epictetus Epicurus Herbert Feigl John Martin Fischer Owen Flanagan Luciano Floridi Philippa Foot Alfred Fouillée Harry Frankfurt Richard L. Franklin Michael Frede Carl Ginet H.Paul Grice Nicholas St. John Green Ian Hacking Ishtiyaque Haji Stuart Hampshire W.F.R.Hardie R.M.Hare Georg W.F. Hegel Martin Heidegger R.E.Hobart Thomas Hobbes David Hodgson Shadsworth Hodgson Ted Honderich Pamela Huby David Hume Ferenc Huoranszki William James Lord Kames Robert Kane Immanuel Kant Tomis Kapitan William King Christine Korsgaard Keith Lehrer Gottfried Leibniz Leucippus Michael Levin C.I.Lewis David Lewis Peter Lipton John Locke Michael Lockwood John R. Lucas Lucretius James Martineau Hugh McCann Colin McGinn Michael McKenna Paul E. Meehl Alfred Mele John Stuart Mill Dickinson Miller G.E.Moore Thomas Nagel Friedrich Nietzsche P.H.Nowell-Smith Robert Nozick William of Ockham Timothy O'Connor David F. Pears Charles Sanders Peirce Derk Pereboom Steven Pinker Karl Popper H.A.Prichard Hilary Putnam Willard van Orman Quine Frank Ramsey Ayn Rand Thomas Reid Charles Renouvier Nicholas Rescher C.W.Rietdijk Josiah Royce Bertrand Russell Paul Russell Gilbert Ryle T.M.Scanlon Moritz Schlick Arthur Schopenhauer John Searle Wilfrid Sellars Henry Sidgwick Walter Sinnott-Armstrong J.J.C.Smart Saul Smilansky Michael Smith L. Susan Stebbing George F. Stout Galen Strawson Peter Strawson Eleonore Stump Richard Taylor Kevin Timpe Peter van Inwagen Manuel Vargas John Venn Kadri Vihvelin Voltaire G.H. von Wright David Foster Wallace R. Jay Wallace W.G.Ward Ted Warfield Roy Weatherford Alfred North Whitehead David Widerker David Wiggins Bernard Williams Ludwig Wittgenstein Susan Wolf Scientists Michael Arbib Bernard Baars John S. Bell Charles Bennett Margaret Boden David Bohm Neils Bohr Ludwig Boltzmann Emile Borel Max Born Stephen Brush Leon Brillouin Thomas Buckle Donald Campbell Anthony Cashmore Eric Chaisson Jean-Pierre Changeux Arthur Holly Compton John Conway E. H. Culverwell Charles Darwin Abraham de Moivre Paul Dirac John Eccles Arthur Stanley Eddington Albert Einstein Paul Ehrenfest Richard Feynman Michael Gazzaniga GianCarlo Ghirardi Nicolas Gisin Thomas Gold A.O.Gomes Joshua Greene Jacques Hadamard Patrick Haggard Augustin Hamon Sam Harris Martin Heisenberg Werner Heisenberg William Stanley Jevons Pascual Jordan Simon Kochen Stephen Kosslyn Rolf Landauer Alfred Landé Pierre-Simon Laplace David Layzer Benjamin Libet Josef Loschmidt Ernst Mach Henry Margenau James Clerk Maxwell Ernst Mayr Jacques Monod Roger Penrose Steven Pinker Max Planck Henri Poincaré Adolphe Quételet Jerome Rothstein Erwin Schrödinger Claude Shannon Dean Keith Simonton Herbert Simon B. F. Skinner Henry Stapp Antoine Suarez Leo Szilard William Thomson (Kelvin) John von Neumann Daniel Wegner Steven Weinberg Norbert Wiener Eugene Wigner E. O. Wilson Ernst Zermelo |
Freedom of Action
Freedom of Action is sometimes regarded by philosophers of "agency" as the real problem of Free Will, but this is a major confusion.
The confusion may have begun as early as Thomas Hobbes and David Hume, the modern founders of compatibilism.
For Hobbes and Hume, to be free to act on one's will is simply to be free of external constraints. Absent any external coercion, an agent is free to do as one wills, even if the will itself is determined (or predetermined) by causal laws of nature.
This was the foremost view in the age of Newtonian deterministic physics, and continued to grow stronger in modern times despite the discovery of real quantum mechanical indeterminism in the early twentieth century.
Note that the action itself is just as predetermined as the will, since all events are causally linked in a chain going back to the beginning of the universe. So the idea of human freedom as absence of coercion (so-called "negative freedom") is unsatisfying. Immanuel Kant called it a "wretched subterfuge," and William James called it a "quagmire of evasion" and "soft" determinism
By contrast with mere freedom of action, freedom of the will is the positive freedom to do otherwise in the same circumstances. This requires alternative possibilities for thought and action that Hobbes and Hume denied could exist. It implies the existence of absolute chance in the universe, which they thought impossible since all events have necessary causes. And it implies more than one possible future, which may conflict with religious views of God's foreknowledge. Hobbes called free actions "voluntary" and the actor a "free agent." He said:
Hobbes was the modern inventor of compatibilism, the idea that necessary causes and voluntary actions are compatible. (In antiquity, compatibilism was first proposed by the Stoic Chrysippus)
David Hume agreed: Elizabeth Anscombe wrote an essay on "Soft Determinism," in which she said, perhaps simply agreeing with Hume's view on prisioners in chains, "Everyone will allow that 'A can walk, i.e. has freedom of the will in respect of walking' would be gainsaid by A's being chained up." Rogers Albritton severely criticized Anscombe in his 1985 presidential address to the Western division of the American Philosophical Association - "Freedom of Will and Freedom of Action." He clearly distinguished freedom of action (the freedom to do what we will) from freedom of the will itself. Most philosophers seem to think it quite easy to rob the will of some freedom. Thus Elizabeth Anscombe, in an essay called "Soft Determinism," appears to suppose that a man who can't walk because he is chained up has lost some freedom of will. He "has no 'freedom of will' to walk," she says, or, again; no "freedom of the will in respect of walking." "Everyone will allow," she says, "that 'A can walk, i.e. has freedom of the will in respect of walking' would be gainsaid by A's being chained up." And again, "External constraint is generally agreed to be incompatible with freedom", by which she seems to mean: incompatible with perfect freedom of will, because incompatible with freedom of will to do, or freedom of the will in respect of doing, whatever the constraint prevents.Albritton made it very clear that we could will something even if it proved impossible to do. "Where there's a will, there just isn't always a way," as he put it. But I do want to dispute, first, what Anscombe thinks "everyone will allow." I don't allow it. I don't see (do you?) that my freedom of will would be reduced at all if you chained me up. You would of course deprive me of considerable freedom of movement if you did that; you would thereby diminish my already unimpressive capacity to do what I will. But I don't see that my will would be any the less free. What about my "freedom of will to walk," you will ask (or perhaps you won't, but there the phrase is, in Anscombe's essay); what about my "freedom of the will in respect of walking"? I reply that I don't understand either of those phrases. They seem to me to mix up incoherently two different things: free will, an obscure idea which is the one I am after, on this expedition, and physical ability to walk, a relatively clear idea which has nothing to do with free will.
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