Is “Free Will” an Emergent Property of Immaterial Soul? A Critical Examination of Human Beings’ Decision-Making Process(es) Followed by Voluntary Actions and Their Moral Responsibility

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Suresh ◽  
Satya Sundar Sethy
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Emergent Property ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Human Beings

scholarly journals UK consultants’ experiences of the decision-making process around referral to intensive care: an interview study

BMJ Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. e044752
Author(s):  
Kaja Heidenreich ◽  
Anne-Marie Slowther ◽  
Frances Griffiths ◽  
Anders Bremer ◽  
Mia Svantesson
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Intensive Care ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Critically Ill ◽  
Interpersonal Relationships ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Working Environment ◽  
Critically Ill Patient ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Moral Duties

ObjectiveThe decision whether to initiate intensive care for the critically ill patient involves ethical questions regarding what is good and right for the patient. It is not clear how referring doctors negotiate these issues in practice. The aim of this study was to describe and understand consultants’ experiences of the decision-making process around referral to intensive care.DesignQualitative interviews were analysed according to a phenomenological hermeneutical method.Setting and participantsConsultant doctors (n=27) from departments regularly referring patients to intensive care in six UK hospitals.ResultsIn the precarious and uncertain situation of critical illness, trust in the decision-making process is needed and can be enhanced through the way in which the process unfolds. When there are no obvious right or wrong answers as to what ought to be done, how the decision is made and how the process unfolds is morally important. Through acknowledging the burdensome doubts in the process, contributing to an emerging, joint understanding of the patient’s situation, and responding to mutual moral duties of the doctors involved, trust in the decision-making process can be enhanced and a shared moral responsibility between the stake holding doctors can be assumed.ConclusionThe findings highlight the importance of trust in the decision-making process and how the relationships between the stakeholding doctors are crucial to support their moral responsibility for the patient. Poor interpersonal relationships can damage trust and negatively impact decisions made on behalf of a critically ill patient. For this reason, active attempts must be made to foster good relationships between doctors. This is not only important to create a positive working environment, but a mechanism to improve patient outcomes.

Fate and Foreknowledge in Greek Philosophy

2021 ◽  
pp. 53-72
Author(s):  
Claire Hall
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Ethical Considerations ◽  
Logical Problem ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Future Contingent ◽  
The Future ◽  
Human Autonomy

The majority of this chapter focuses on Greek philosophical approaches to fate and foreknowledge. To understand the background of Origen’s thought on these topics, we must distinguish between three distinct types of problem: a) logical problems that concern the possibility of making true statements about the contingent future, b) the problem of how human beings can be held morally responsible for their actions if their actions are fated, and c) the problem of how human beings can choose freely between courses of action if God (or the gods) can have foreknowledge of the future. This chapter shows where and why these conceptions of fate, prophecy, and human autonomy differ, and why these distinctions matter. First, it examines the puzzles set and answered by Aristotle concerning the logical problem of future contingent statements. Then it explores some of the terminological difficulty in talking about ‘free will’ in the Greek context. Next it examines Stoic and Platonist discussions about choice and autonomy, which focus primarily on ethical considerations. Finally, it argues that Origen’s framing of these issues was heavily influenced by his pagan near-contemporary Alexander of Aphrodisias. The chapter ends with a survey of some other early Christian texts on autonomy and moral responsibility that show the Christian context in which Origen was arguing and sets the stage for the argument that Origen deviates significantly from his Christian contemporaries.

Can Libertarians Make Promises?

2004 ◽  
Vol 55 ◽  
pp. 217-241
Author(s):  
Alfred Mele
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Free Action ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Van Inwagen ◽  
Peter Van Inwagen

Libertarians hold that free action and moral responsibility are incompatible with determinism and that some human beings occasionally act freely and are morally responsible for some of what they do. Can libertarians who know both that they are right and that they are free make sincere promises? Peter van Inwagen, a libertarian, contends that they cannot—at least when they assume that should they do what they promise to do, they would do it freely. Probably, this strikes many readers as a surprising thesis for a libertarian to hold. In light of van Inwagen's holding it, the title of his essay—‘Free Will Remains a Mystery’—may seem unsurprising.

Once More on the Free Will Defence

1974 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Axel D. Steuer
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Religious Thought ◽  
Considerable Portion ◽  
Christian Understanding

In responding to the problem that evil poses for belief in the existence of an omnipotent and all good deity, a number of Christian philosophers have followed Augustine in making the free will defence (FWD) the foundation of their theodicies. The FWD seems to be well suited for the important role it has played in Christian religious thought. Not only does it admit the reality of evil in God's world, but it also proposes to free God from moral responsibility for at least a considerable portion of that evil. A few philosophers, e.g. Terence Penelhum, have even argued that ‘… the Christian theist is committed to some form or other of the free will defence …’ because of the Christian understanding of the nature of God and man. Whether or not this is true, the argument that it was not possible for God to create free human beings without permitting some degree of evil in his world (the FWD) has been sufficiently influential that those sceptics who have intended to show that the reality of evil makes theism an intellectually indefensible position have usually felt compelled to treat it. For similar reasons, a number of theistic philosophers have felt obligated to defend the FWD against such sceptical attacks.

scholarly journals Free Will Skepticism and Personhood as a Desert Base

2009 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 489-511 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Vilhauer
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Substantial Role ◽  
Free Will Skepticism ◽  
Will Theory

In contemporary free will theory, a significant number of philosophers are once again taking seriously the possibility that human beings do not have free will, and are therefore not morally responsible for their actions. (Free will is understood here as whatever satisfies the control condition of moral responsibility.) Free will theorists commonly assume that giving up the belief that human beings are morally responsible implies giving up all our beliefs about desert. But the consequences of giving up the belief that we are morally responsible are not quite this dramatic. Giving up the belief that we are morally responsible undermines many, and perhaps most, of the desert claims we are pretheoretically inclined to accept. But it does not undermine desert claims based on the sheer fact of personhood. Even in the absence of belief in moral responsibility, personhood-based desert claims require us to respect persons and their rights. So personhood-based desert claims can provide a substantial role for desert in free will skeptics’ ethical theories.

scholarly journals A Turing test for free will

2012 ◽  
Vol 370 (1971) ◽  
pp. 3597-3610 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seth Lloyd
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Decision Maker ◽  
Turing Test ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Theory Of Computation ◽  
Alan Turing ◽  
The World ◽  
Decision Making Processes

Before Alan Turing made his crucial contributions to the theory of computation, he studied the question of whether quantum mechanics could throw light on the nature of free will. This paper investigates the roles of quantum mechanics and computation in free will. Although quantum mechanics implies that events are intrinsically unpredictable, the ‘pure stochasticity’ of quantum mechanics adds randomness only to decision-making processes, not freedom. By contrast, the theory of computation implies that, even when our decisions arise from a completely deterministic decision-making process, the outcomes of that process can be intrinsically unpredictable, even to—especially to—ourselves. I argue that this intrinsic computational unpredictability of the decision-making process is what gives rise to our impression that we possess free will. Finally, I propose a ‘Turing test’ for free will: a decision-maker who passes this test will tend to believe that he, she, or it possesses free will, whether the world is deterministic or not.

scholarly journals Forcing techniques & Neuroscience

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Bestue
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
General Concept ◽  
Extreme Value ◽  
Final Outcome ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Transfer Of Knowledge ◽  
Complex Mechanisms

Although we might think our decisions determine the final outcome of certain situations, magicians show us this is not always the case. Over the centuries, magicians have developed numerous forcing techniques to determine the final outcome of certain decisions that are perceived as “free choices'' by the spectators. It has been hypothesized that forcing techniques could be of extreme value to explore both decision making process and free will. Unfortunately, the knowledge of forcing techniques is restricted to magicians, who usually study them from a practical perspective instead of a psychological one. As this hinders the transfer of knowledge between the fields, in this work, I present an accurate explanation of the general concept of “forcing technique” together with a discussion of their possible applications to neuroscience. Moreover, I present a framework of cognitive processes exploited by forcing techniques to illustrate they are complex mechanisms that different branches of neuroscience can study. This work provides a background for the application of this ecological tool in the neuroscience of decision making and the sense of free will.

scholarly journals Whose morality? Which rationality? Challenging artificial intelligence as a remedy for the lack of moral enhancement

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Silviya Serafimova
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Intelligent Agents ◽  
Machine Ethics ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
First Order ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Act Utilitarianism ◽  
Implicit And Explicit

Abstract Moral implications of the decision-making process based on algorithms require special attention within the field of machine ethics. Specifically, research focuses on clarifying why even if one assumes the existence of well-working ethical intelligent agents in epistemic terms, it does not necessarily mean that they meet the requirements of autonomous moral agents, such as human beings. For the purposes of exemplifying some of the difficulties in arguing for implicit and explicit ethical agents in Moor’s sense, three first-order normative theories in the field of machine ethics are put to test. Those are Powers’ prospect for a Kantian machine, Anderson and Anderson’s reinterpretation of act utilitarianism and Howard and Muntean’s prospect for a moral machine based on a virtue ethical approach. By comparing and contrasting the three first-order normative theories, and by clarifying the gist of the differences between the processes of calculation and moral estimation, the possibility for building what—one might call strong “moral” AI scenarios—is questioned. The possibility of weak “moral” AI scenarios is likewise discussed critically.

Where Governmentality Ends: Border Control Officers and Deportations of Sojourners in Israel

2011 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oded Korczyn
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The State ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Border Control ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Course Of Action ◽  
Shed Light

AbstractThis paper will shed light on the deportation process of visaless sojourners staying and working in Israel. I will explain how state bureaucrats, specifically border control officers of the Enforcement Unit of the Interior Ministry (in Hebrew,hamemune al bikoret hagvulot beyekhidat ha'akhifa, misrad hapnim) are able to conduct activities that cause suffering to sojourners while still viewing themselves as moral human beings, by breaking down the decision-making process into a series of dichotomic categories, by defining Zionism as a context that justifies deportation, and by governing their emotions. I claim that in Israel, state bureaucrats view sojourners as unmanageable and incorrigible. Consequently, deportation becomes a logical course of action. Such an approach, which stresses the bureaucratic aspect of national projects, enables a better understanding of how the “State” is able to perform large-scale projects that cause suffering to individuals.

Public Administration: An Islamic Sufi Approach

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 22-40
Author(s):  
Bijan Bidabad
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Hierarchical Organization ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Value System ◽  
Organizational Goals ◽  
Decision Making Problem ◽  
Organization Framework ◽  
And Control

Along with comparing public administration affairs in traditional political, genuinely religious, patrimonial, and charismatic systems, we deal with decision-making problem, and along with mentioning decision-making methods in modern mathematics, the decision making process on the basis of personal value system will be under considerations. If the human beings’ value system moves from caring material affairs towards concerning spiritualties, the consequences of decision-making process would be improved. In establishing management and making hierarchical organization, the more the rate of discipline and ration, the organization framework would become more consolidated. The basic skeleton of an organization includes division of labor, authority, and responsibility, hierarchical relationships of different job categories in the organization, and the qualifications of relationships are of the other items that are being considered in this paper. Mutual understandings and beliefs of members of the organization in approaching organizational goals and their moral commitments to preserve organization's benefits would reduce the costs of supervision and control in organizations including visible and invisible costs, and methods for providing these conditions in Sufism are achieved via purification of the self for every single of the individuals. Meritocracy and favoritism are other discussed topics in this paper. In conclusion, fifty rules for public administration affairs are presented which have been raised by His Excellency Haj Zein ul-Abedin Shirvani, a Sufi Master of two centuries ago.  

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