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Philosphy Essay 2 - Free Will
Philosphy Essay 2 - Free Will
Philosphy Essay 2 - Free Will
answer.
and its main arguments for why and how moral responsibility and free
philosophical doctrine that denotes the idea that there is only one
physically possible future and that this future is determined by the casual
Therefore, before I began the action of writing this essay, I was already
1
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Compatibilism
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Philosophy 100 Samuel Carey 4491871
that if all events are predetermined by the past, and there is only one
actions as they were not actions of our own free will2. The main obstacle
to the compatibilists approach is that if the laws of nature and the past
determine one possible future, and free will needs two possible choices
to make an action free, it would mean that more than one future is
analysis of the main factors of free will. Some of these would include the
unfree action and what are the possible circumstances that arise to
2
Folke Tersman Lecture Notes, Free Will
3
ibid
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Philosophy 100 Samuel Carey 4491871
logically sound to propose that every cause will have an effect, therefore
Ayer suggests that causality is the main point which proves that the
determinism, then our actions are not predisposed to our actions in the
ones actions were just a matter of chance, then his actions may be
were a matter of chance, then an action that is not based on the chance
that I do one thing rather than another, has to have some casual
4
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Compatibilism
5
Ayer, Freedom and Necessity, p. 116
6
Ayer, Freedom and Necessity, p. 113
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Philosophy 100 Samuel Carey 4491871
moral responsibility.
Ayer proposes that an action is only unfree when the agent inciting the
of a deterministic universe, our actions are of our own free will, and it is
not the prior occurrences that cause this constraint, but rather physical
the duress of a terrorist, who threatens the man with death if he does not
comply with the demands, if the man was to commit the action he is not
morally responsible for his action, as it was not an act of free will, rather
an act of coercion.
possibilities idea that an agent is morally responsible for his action only if
7
Ayer, Freedom and Necessity, p. 113
8
Ayer, Freedom and Necessity, p. 117
9
Frankfurt, Alternative Possibilities and Moral Responsibility, p. 156
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Philosophy 100 Samuel Carey 4491871
that we can still be morally responsible for our actions even if the
shown in; If two brothers where at there local pub, and both were
home and see his wife, while B2 would rather stay at the pub and
continue drinking. If the whether changes and the pub and surrounding
the pub, and because of the snow storm was unable to meet his wife.
if he was not constrained by the snow storm, he would have still stayed
at the pub.
This shows that free will and moral responsibility is in fact compatible
the problem of having free will without two options for an agent to do
10
ibid
11
Frankfurt, Alternative Possibilities and Moral Responsibility, p. 165
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Philosophy 100 Samuel Carey 4491871
determinism and free will. The arguments of Ayer, which entail that
that though it may not be a truth of the world that determinism and free
will exist, in theory, the compatibilism between determinism and free will
is logically plausible.
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Philosophy 100 Samuel Carey 4491871
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