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Bobber90
Guest
Yes I know, who needs yet another free will thread? Doing it anyway!
Any explanation of your account of free will would be welcome.
Any explanation of your account of free will would be welcome.
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Trevor_Stamm
Guest
Self determinist here, argued by St. Aquinas in his works.
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tonyrey
Guest
Neither determinism nor indeterminism is a rational basis for moral responsibility.
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Bobber90
Guest
It seems like the poll went up before I had finished ruminating over the options, if so feel free to reconsider
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Bobber90
Guest
Woah this poll is a nightmare - I was hoping the results would be grouped to each user. They are grouped to each poll option instead, meaning we have the useless insight into which single statement is the most popular…
Ok, well ignore the presentation of the results and focus on the cluster of answers for each user, because I think there are consistent and inconsistent ways of answering.
For example, I think if free will means the origin of behaviour is inside us and that we could have done otherwise in identical circumstances, then it is not possible in either determinism or indeterminism, which makes me a hard incompatibilist by that definition.
Or I can understand compatibilism with the reverse position on the above, and without moral responsibility.
I do not think it is possible to be a compatibilist and believe that free will requires that the origin of our behaviour is in us, because I see compatibilism as acknowledging the infinitely long causal chain stretching back behind every action. Similarly, I can’t see a compatibilist position where we could have done otherwise if circumstances were identical.
Ok, well ignore the presentation of the results and focus on the cluster of answers for each user, because I think there are consistent and inconsistent ways of answering.
For example, I think if free will means the origin of behaviour is inside us and that we could have done otherwise in identical circumstances, then it is not possible in either determinism or indeterminism, which makes me a hard incompatibilist by that definition.
Or I can understand compatibilism with the reverse position on the above, and without moral responsibility.
I do not think it is possible to be a compatibilist and believe that free will requires that the origin of our behaviour is in us, because I see compatibilism as acknowledging the infinitely long causal chain stretching back behind every action. Similarly, I can’t see a compatibilist position where we could have done otherwise if circumstances were identical.
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Bobber90
Guest
Does that mean you have an opinion on the relation of free will to determinism? In any case, do you think that self-determination says that you could have done otherwise even under identical circumstances? As a self-determinist, do you see the original causes of behaviour as being within yourself?
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Bobber90
Guest
Is either one a basis for free will, or are you surprisingly a hard incompatibilist like me?
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Bobber90
Guest
Clicking on the number by any statement gives you a list of of the users agreeing with each answer. We can analyse people’s accounts of free will in greater depth :extrahappy:
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Aelred_Minor
Guest
Well, I think I’d better give a little explanation for how I voted, especially since I have very little formal education in philosophy and may have misunderstood the range of meanings certain terms may have, such as determinism.
I voted for compatibilism, because I believe that predestination comes logically prior to the free operation of the will. The freedom of the will does not, I think, mean that our choices are free from the chain of causality that begins in God but that the movement of our will is not determined by other created things, either natural or supernatural. As Aquinas said, only God can move the will.
This is why I voted that “Free will means the causal chain culminating in our behaviour can extend outside (e.g. prior to) us”. The causal chain does not extend to inexorable material or spiritual created causes outside one’s will, but does extend to God, and God is prior to ourselves.
I also voted that “Free will requires that we could have done otherwise even if all prior circumstances were identical”, under the assumption that predestination itself and God’s movement or non-movement of the will are not envisioned as part of these circumstances. I think this is a big flaw of Molinism, that it requires that a given person placed in a given external situation can only react one way. It reduces man to the level of a brute animal, enslaved to his automatic responses to external stimuli. It’s ironic that a philosophy apparently invented as an attempt to emphasize free will ends up defining it such that man becomes a mere slave of circumstance.
I also voted that free will entails moral responsibility. Why we would be morally responsible for decisions we were predestined by God to make or not make is obviously a difficult question, but I think the answer lies in, on the one hand, the sovereignty of God, and on the other in how at the level of nature and created grace we really do have the ability to make our own decisions, to accept grace or reject it, to sin or not to sin, free from internal or external creaturely determination.
Unfortunately my internet access is currently very limited, and so my ability to respond to anyone’s responses will likewise be limited.
I voted for compatibilism, because I believe that predestination comes logically prior to the free operation of the will. The freedom of the will does not, I think, mean that our choices are free from the chain of causality that begins in God but that the movement of our will is not determined by other created things, either natural or supernatural. As Aquinas said, only God can move the will.
This is why I voted that “Free will means the causal chain culminating in our behaviour can extend outside (e.g. prior to) us”. The causal chain does not extend to inexorable material or spiritual created causes outside one’s will, but does extend to God, and God is prior to ourselves.
I also voted that “Free will requires that we could have done otherwise even if all prior circumstances were identical”, under the assumption that predestination itself and God’s movement or non-movement of the will are not envisioned as part of these circumstances. I think this is a big flaw of Molinism, that it requires that a given person placed in a given external situation can only react one way. It reduces man to the level of a brute animal, enslaved to his automatic responses to external stimuli. It’s ironic that a philosophy apparently invented as an attempt to emphasize free will ends up defining it such that man becomes a mere slave of circumstance.
I also voted that free will entails moral responsibility. Why we would be morally responsible for decisions we were predestined by God to make or not make is obviously a difficult question, but I think the answer lies in, on the one hand, the sovereignty of God, and on the other in how at the level of nature and created grace we really do have the ability to make our own decisions, to accept grace or reject it, to sin or not to sin, free from internal or external creaturely determination.
Unfortunately my internet access is currently very limited, and so my ability to respond to anyone’s responses will likewise be limited.
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Khalid
Guest
By that, I am a compatibalist who believes the causal chain originates prior to us, but from a certain viewpoint or understanding can be seen as to arise within us (self-determinism), and, given that circumstances are identical, we do not have to be able to make a different choice (although, from some perspectives, if one wants to bring in quantum physics and Schrodinger’s Cat, it may seem that we’d be able to).
So, I’m a “compatibilist compatibilist”, or a “compatibilist’s compatibilist”, the only things I view as incompatible from some frame of reference being complete determinism (whether self-enclosed or not) or complete indeterminism. I essentially assert that there are no quantitative, only subjective or qualitative, differences between all but those three views.
I’m tired and merely stated my beliefs (which are decidedly unique and unorthodox in the philosophical and theological communities, having a good measure of physics education and immersion in variant, i.e. Copenhagen or multiple-worlds, interpretations of quantum physics, and relativity, which, while not true for morals - the so-called situation ethics - doesn’t mean that various frames of reference with subjective and qualitative differences don’t exist) didn’t actually issue any philosophical warrant for my belief, which I hopefully will do later.
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