Duns Scotus on free will and human agency

2021 ◽  
pp. 102-121
Author(s):  
Martin Pickavé
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Duns Scotus

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Evan Franklin
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Causal Role ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Agent Causation ◽  
The Right

This chapter lays out the book’s central question: Assuming agency reductionism—that is, the thesis that the causal role of the agent in all agential activities is reducible to the causal role of states and events involving the agent—is it possible to construct a defensible model of libertarianism? It is explained that most think the answer is negative and this is because they think libertarians must embrace some form of agent-causation in order to address the problems of luck and enhanced control. The thesis of the book is that these philosophers are mistaken: it is possible to construct a libertarian model of free will and moral responsibility within an agency reductionist framework that silences that central objections to libertarianism by simply taking the best compatibilist model of freedom and adding indeterminism in the right junctures of human agency. A brief summary of the chapters to follow is given.

Ezekiel’s Map of Future Past

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla Sulzbach
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Urban History ◽  
Sacred Space ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Urban Settings ◽  
Viable Solution ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Temple

Attention to the spatial elements in the book of Ezekiel reveal a coherent plan that maps sin onto the spaces of city and temple which become the focus of correction in the visionary chapters that end the book (chs. 40–48). The book displays great disdain for all urban settings, including foreign cities, for their corrupt politics, trade and crime. These charges especially apply to Jerusalem. The temple also exhibits similar corruption in terms of personnel, iconography and impurity. The final vision reaches back first into the pre-urban history of Judah, the wilderness period, in order to find a setting free from such corruptions, but ultimately it returns to an Eden-like state as the only viable solution to the problems of innate sin and desecration. This is an Eden with no free-will and no human agency, the only way to safeguard sacred space.

scholarly journals Free will, determinism, and intuitive judgments about the heritability of behavior

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily A Willoughby ◽  
Alan C Love ◽  
Matt McGue ◽  
William G. Iacono ◽  
Jack Quigley ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Behavior Genetics ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Genetic Determinism ◽  
Genetic Contribution ◽  
Human Behaviors ◽  
Relative Contribution ◽  
Genes And Environment ◽  
Intuitive Judgments

The fact that genes and environment contribute differentially to variation in human behaviors, traits and attitudes is central to the field of behavior genetics. Perceptions about these differential contributions may affect ideas about human agency. We surveyed two independent samples (N = 301 and N = 740) to assess beliefs about free will, determinism, political orientation, and the relative contribution of genes and environment to 21 human traits. We find that lay estimates of genetic influence on these traits cluster into four distinct groups, which differentially predict beliefs about human agency, political orientation, and religiosity. Despite apparent ideological associations with these beliefs, the correspondence between lay estimates and published heritability estimates for the surveyed traits is large (r = .77). Belief in genetic determinism emerges as a modest predictor of accuracy in these lay estimates. Additionally, educated mothers with multiple children emerge as particularly accurate in their estimates of the genetic contribution to these traits.

Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 209-220
Author(s):  
Junaid Quadri
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
The World ◽  
Short Time

The Conclusion considers the Egyptian intellectual landscape from the perspective of the last Shaykh al-Islām of the Ottoman Empire, Muṣṭafā Ṣabrī. Upon his exile from Istanbul, Ṣabrī spent a short time living in Egypt, concluding that the country had become thoroughly Europeanized. Relying especially on the theological question of free will and predestination, Sabri argued that Egyptian writers’ inclination toward a free will position was an indicator of European dominance. European thinkers had indeed criticized Muslims for being too deterministic in their evaluation of the question; the remainder of the Conclusion examines Egyptian responses to these critiques. Among them was a lecture given by Muḥammad Bakhīt which stressed human agency in the world, an analysis of which once more lays bare Bakhīt’s domestic rivalry with Reformist figures, his reliance on the transregional “social madhhab” in crafting modern solutions, his mode of responding to the challenges posed by colonialism, and his subjection of Ḥanafī tradition to transformation.

scholarly journals Berkeley’s Cartesian Account of Volitional Causation

MANUSYA ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-25
Author(s):  
Genevieve Migely
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Active Substance ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Causal Efficacy ◽  
Ontological Status ◽  
Natural Connection ◽  
Constant Conjunction ◽  
Naturalistic Interpretation ◽  
The One

Although the heart of Berkeley’s philosophy is active substance, some argue that Berkeley’s notion of causation precludes human agency, an undesirable result for Berkeley. In the hope of securing the ontological status of finite substance in Berkeley’s metaphysics, this paper seeks to offer a rather different take on the Cartesian influence supporting Berkeley’s views on the causal efficacy of human spirits. After demonstrating the possibility of a Malebranchian occasionalism in light of Berkeley’s views on necessary connection, a close examination of Berkeley’s works reveals his real stance on what type of connection counts as causal. Employing Descartes’s divinely-established natural connection between a finite will and its effects, Berkeley is able to offer a coherent account of finite causation in the natural world that can accommodate free will. This naturalistic interpretation is able to situate Berkeley as one who is influenced by a Cartesian version of causation (though not the one scholars often attribute to him), but is able to legitimately resist the fall into Hume’s metaphysically empty position on causation as nothing but constant conjunction.

Event Causation and Agent Causation

2001 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. J. Lowe
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Distinct Species ◽  
The Other ◽  
Rational Agent ◽  
Agent Causation ◽  
Intentional Causation

It is a matter of dispute whether we should acknowledge the existence of two distinct species of causation – event causation and agent causation – and, if we should, whether either species of causation is reducible to the other. In this paper, the prospects for such a reduction either way are considered, the conclusion being that a reduction of event causation to agent causation is the more promising option. Agent causation, in the sense understood here, is taken to include but not to be restricted to the intentional causation of an event by a rational agent. But, it is argued, there are certain special features of intentional causation, understood as a sub-species of agent causation, which make the agent-causation approach to human agency a particularly promising one with which to tackle the problem of free will.

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