See also Talk:Free will.
On the difficulties of definition edit
- "What freedom comes to with these problems is much disputed" ("Freedom and Determinism" in the Oxford Companion) However, the article does go on to say that there are two main definitions, namely (1) metaphysical freedom or 'origination', namely the will not being casually determined, and (2) lack of constraint ("the sense of 'free' in which actions must be free in order to be morally responsible is not the sense that involves origination and is opposed to 'caused' or 'determined'. We only need to be free in the sense in which 'free' is opposed to compelled or coerced"). Galen Strawson says "According to compatibilists, freedom is compatible with determinism because freedom is essentially just a matter of not being constrained or hindered in certain ways when one acts or chooses." [1]
- "What about free will? Here it is very difficult to say anything without saying something that will be contested by some philosopher." "So we will not attempt to provide even a rudimentary definition of free will. " [2]
- "‘Free will’ is the conventional name of a topic that is best discussed without reference to the will". [3]
Attempts at definition edit
- SEP (Free Will) the “capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives”.
- SEP (Foreknowledge and Free Will) "if you cannot do otherwise, you will not perform the act freely".
- Arguments for Incompatibilism "It is generally agreed that problems of free will are problems about our capacity or ability or power to perform certain kinds of actions"
- SEP fatalism "An action is free in the required sense if not causally determined and not predetermined by God".
- Catholic Encyclopedia (Free Will) "power of real choice, true ability to determine the course of his thoughts and volitions, to decide which motives shall prevail within his mind, to modify and mould his own character?"
- Peter van Inwagen notes: ... almost all philosophers agree that a necessary condition for holding an agent responsible for an act is believing that the agent could have refrained from performing that act.'" (Dennett, "I could not have done otherwise", quoting Inwagen ""'The Incompatibility of Free Will and Determinism," Philosophical Studies, xxvii, 3 (March 1975): 185-99, p. 188, reprinted in Gary Watson, ed., Free Will (New York: Oxford, 1982): 46-58, p. 50."
- [4] "Just to illustrate, consider this set of propositions as an historically very well known (but by no means uncontroversial) way of formulating the free will problem. Call it the Classical Formulation: "1.Some agent, at some time, could have acted otherwise than she did."
- Anselm definition
- Kane: "the power of agents to be the ultimate creators (or originators) and sustainers of their own ends and purposes".
- Erasmus: "the ability of the human will whereby man can turn toward or turn away from that which leads unto eternal salvation".
- [James Miles: "widely taken to mean freedom of choice, control such that an individual could have acted otherwise, or true origination of action"]
- Nahmias, E., Surveying Freedom. (with Stephen Morris, Thomas Nadelhoffer & Jason Turner). Philosophical Psychology 18(5): 561-584, October 2005 – the experiment asked subjects, in the context of various hypothetical scenarios, whether "they could have done otherwise".
A garden (with some walls) edit
- Libertarianism (metaphysics)
- Free will in antiquity
- Do otherwise in the same circumstances
- Dilemma of determinism
- Freedom of action
- Self-determination (philosophy)
- Predeterminism
- Subject–object problem
- Nomological determinism
- Causal closure
- Enactivism
- Argument from free will
- Libertarianism (metaphysics)
- Bob Doyle (inventor)
- Two-stage model of free will
- Alternative possibilities