/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

(part 1)

Here's my best shot

Free will requires two things. That the actors action was up to them , and that they could have done otherwise.

Under materialistic determinism , the events of the future are wholly dependent upon on the events of the past and the laws of physics(D.1). Thus mental states leading to actions are subject to this and ergo no free will.

However, it may be the case that the deterministic principal of 'D.1' is false. Perhaps the future is not determined by a long cause and effect chain. (Quantum might suggest this). Further more , if the soul exists then it , as a supernatural entity , rather than a natural one (thus subject to D.1) , may not be subject to D.1. now if this is the case then origin of cause for the agents actions may be internal and not external. Furthermore, if certain views of psychology are correct then the brain can be rewired , thus a perhaps can be involved in self crafting . This also means that the actions I make now and determined in the past , but also my past decisions, so in someway I decide who I am. If this is true also , then my actions could have been otherwise. (Also meaning I'm morally responsible).

So we need a soul , the power to self author , and maybe quantum.

>>694344

Any argument for free will is an argument for God.

Only God can be beyond determinism, so only human, created in his likeness.

Once you prove God, you prove freewill.

Man has free-will: otherwise counsels, exhortations, commands, prohibitions, rewards, and punishments would be in vain.

In order to make this evident, we must observe that some things act without judgment; as a stone moves downwards; and in like manner all things which lack knowledge.

And some act from judgment, but not a free judgment; as brute animals. For the sheep, seeing the wolf, judges it a thing to be shunned, from a natural and not a free judgment, because it judges, not from reason, but from natural instinct. And the same thing is to be said of any judgment of brute animals.

But man acts from judgment, because by his apprehensive power he judges that something should be avoided or sought. But because this judgment, in the case of some particular act, is not from a natural instinct, but from some act of comparison in the reason, therefore he acts from free judgment and retains the power of being inclined to various things. For reason in contingent matters may follow opposite courses, as we see in dialectic syllogisms and rhetorical arguments.

Now particular operations are contingent, and therefore in such matters the judgment of reason may follow opposite courses, and is not determinate to one. And forasmuch as man is rational is it necessary that man have a free-will.

Like the problem of consciousness, questions concerning free will are nearly impossible to answer because they require a vantage at least one level removed from that of reality in order to definitively prove. By no means is the following thought experiment from the philosopher Harry Frankfurt a proof, but it demonstrates that what is probably most important to human free will is the assumption of moral responsibility, not the ability to choose from a set of alternatives. This weakens the force of the determinist's position against proponents of the common sense view of free will.

>Donald is a Democrat and is likely to vote for the Democrats; in fact, only in one particular circumstance will he not: that is, if he thinks about the prospects of immediate American defeat in Iraq just prior to voting. Ms White, a representative of the Democratic Party, wants to ensure that Donald votes Democratic, so she secretly plants a device in Donald's head that, if activated, will force him to vote Democratic. Not wishing to reveal her presence unnecessarily, Ms White plans to activate the device only if Donald thinks about the Iraq War prior to voting. As things happen, Donald does not think about Iraq prior to voting, so Ms White thus sees no reason to activate the device, and Donald votes Democratic of his own accord. Apparently, Donald is responsible for voting Democratic although, owing to Ms. White's device, he lacks freedom to do otherwise.

"If Frankfurt is correct in suggesting both that Donald is morally responsible for voting Democratic and that he is not free to do otherwise, moral responsibility, in general, does not require that an agent have the freedom to do otherwise. Thus, even if causal determinism is true, and even if determinism removes the freedom to do otherwise, there is no reason to doubt that people can still be morally responsible for their behavior."

This seems obvious after the fact, because intent is so essential to human behavior. It's not enough that a person choose a certain way. His intentions would also have to be in agreement with the act.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_cases

>>694654

…(continuing) But as for my response to the video, it was more or less semantics in my opinion.

In the video, they had a clip of Sam Harris saying we have to make the right choices and choices that improve ourselves further from there, but that were we got here was influenced by outside events. The contemporary everyday understanding of Free Will doesn't really reject this. We make decisions and those decisions are likely going to be in reaction to where we're at and how we got there. The free will part comes in the ability to make decision at all, which we can and do all the time.

I get the impression that Determinists draw their understanding of Free Will not from everyday usage of "ability to make choice" but a philosophical conundrum of "if it's possible to make an action right now free of ANY outside influences". An definition and argument which most aren't coming from, but are lump towards anyway because of Determinists are determined to use this overly dramatic understanding of Free Will to club anyone who normally thinks Free Will as the very basic and common ability deciding on things.

This is discounting the few extreme people out there who think their blameless of their actions because everything is determined. Not sure what to say to those guys other than their nuts.