Chong-Fuk Lau

Lecture 10
November 26, 2020

PHIL 1110
Introduction to Philosophy
哲學概論
Benjamin Libet’s Experiment
Who decides? You or Your Brain?
Readiness Potential
Free Will and Detterminism
• Traditional Conditions
• Spontaneity: self-determination
• Contingency: not being determined
• Rationality: acting for reasons
• Determinism: Laplace’s Demon
• “We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect
of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at any
given moment knew all of the forces that animate nature and
the mutual positions of the beings that compose it, if this
intellect were vast enough to submit the data to analysis, could
condense into a single formula the movement of the greatest
bodies of the universe and that of the lightest atom; for such an
intellect nothing could be uncertain and the future just like the
past would be present before its eyes.”
What does “free” mean?
• Which one is an free action?
1. You cough and sneeze.
2. You are physically forced to do x.
3. Gun to your head, and you are told to do x.
4. You kill your brother during your sleepwalk.
5. You go to a coffee shop and order a cup of coffee.
6. You fall asleep and snore during my lecture.
7. Your mobile rings and you talk to your boy or
girlfriend during my lecture.
• Freedom to act according to your own motivation
• First-order Desire vs. Second-order Desire
Different Concepts of Freedom
• Two Concepts of Freedom
• Incompatibilist freedom (or liberty of indifference): An
action is free, if it is not causally determined.
• Compatibilist freedom (or liberty of spontaneity): An
action is free, if one is not compelled to act contrary to
his will. The action can be causally determined.
• Can free will be compatible with determinism?
• Compatibilism: It is possible for an action both to have
a determining cause and be free. Contingency is not a
necessary condition for freedom.
• Soft determinism: A compatibilist view according to
which determinism is true and human actions are free.
Theories of Freedom
Is determinism true?
Is free Will
compatible with
determinism? Yes No

Yes: Soft
Compatibilism Determinism

No: Hard
Libertarianism
Incompatibilism Determinism
Moral Philosophy
• Freedom and Moral Responsibility
• Moral Relativism?
• Is-Ought Distinction
• Tolerance and Respect
• Morality and Religion
• It is right because God commands it, or God
commands it because it is right?
• Morality vs. Legality
• Immoral → Illegal? Illegal → Immoral?
• Laws: Need, Acceptance, Enforceability…
• Moral Principle vs. Moral Intuition
Basics
• Principle of Reciprocity: “The Golden Rule”
• “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
• “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
• 孔子：「己所不欲，勿施於人。」
• Major Theories (of Normative Ethics)
• Deontology ( 義務論 ): Duties and Rights
• Consequentialism ( 後果論 ): Outcome of Actions
• E.g. Utilitarianism ( 效益主義 )
• Virtue Ethics ( 德行倫理學 ): Character of Actors
Readings
• Rachels, Problems from Philosophy, Chapters 8 & 9.
• Nagel, What Does It All Mean?, Chapter 6.