scholarly journals Free will, determinism, and the right levels of description

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Leonhard Menges
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
The Right

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.

Recht und Pflicht – Einschränkungen von Freiheit?

2021 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-113
Author(s):  
Klaus Vieweg
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
The State ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Right To Life ◽  
Emergency Situations ◽  
The Will ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Right

Abstract Can one speak philosophically of a justified limitation of freedom? Hegel’s logically founded definition of free will and his understanding of right and duty can contribute to a clarification of the concept of freedom. Important is a precise differentiation between freedom and caprice (Willkür) – the latter being a necessary but one-sided element of the free will. In caprice, the will is not yet in the form of reason. Rational rights and duties are not a restriction of freedom. Insofar as individual rights can collide (e. g. in emergency situations), there can be a temporary and proportionate restriction of certain rights in favour of higher rights, such as the right to life. Dictatorships are instances of capricious rule which restrict freedom; the rationally designed state, by contrast, restricts only caprice. What is tobe defined are the duties and the rights of the state and the duties and the rights of the citizens.

Value in the Development and Conclusion of Abstract Right

Hegel's Value ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 105-149
Author(s):  
Dean Moyar
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Mutual Recognition ◽  
External World ◽  
Main Concept ◽  
Property Ownership ◽  
Philosophy Of Right ◽  
The Right ◽  
Moral Will

This chapter is a reading of “Abstract Right” that demonstrates the centrality of value and inference to the account. Hegel’s account unfolds private property as the immediate expression of the free will in the external world. When the argument turns toward the use of property, Hegel’s account of value comes to the fore as the universality of property ownership that is implicit in the right to use what one owns. While dealt with only briefly in the published Philosophy of Right, value gets a much more extensive treatment in the 1824–1825 lectures, where it becomes the main concept for understanding the process and result of the alienation of property. The chapter shows that the transition from alienation to contract brings Hegel’s account of mutual recognition to the fore along with an inferential equivalence form of value. Equivalence of value is a central dimension of punishment, but that equivalence can be secured only with the transition to the moral will.

Christian Belief and Moral Philosophy

2020 ◽  
pp. 76-82
Author(s):  
Terence Irwin
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
City Of God ◽  
Divine Grace ◽  
Ancient Ethics ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

Christian literature, from the New Testament onwards, pursues the main themes of ancient ethics, from the theological perspective derived from the Old Testament. Both Jewish and Christian writers defend their moral views by appeal to the natural law and natural reason that the Stoics acknowledge. The Christian Gospel does not reveal the moral law, but (1) makes us aware of how demanding it is, (2) shows us that we cannot fulfil its demands by our own unaided efforts, and (3) reveals that we can keep it through divine help that turns our free will in the right direction. These three claims underlie the Pauline and Augustinian doctrines of divine grace and human free will. Christian ethics looks forward to the ‘City of God’, which cannot be realized in human history. But it also engages with human societies in order to carry out the demands of the moral law.

scholarly journals Free Will and Heutagogy

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. SF80-SF86
Author(s):  
Raz Shpeizer ◽  
Amnon Glassner
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Successful Implementation ◽  
Freedom Of Will ◽  
The Right

In this paper we argue that there are at least two conditions for the adequate realization of the capacity of free will – and thus of the realization of the right to freedom of education – that are missing from Matusov's account, and needed to be integrated with it in order to enable the successful implementation of the right to freedom of education principle. We will then offer a different typology of the field of education, a typology that is complementary, rather than contradictory, to Matusov's typology, and use this typology – especially the concept of heutagogy – to offer a way that optimizes freedom of will in education

Theology and Our Common World

Worldview ◽  
1972 ◽  
Vol 15 (9) ◽  
pp. 22-27
Author(s):  
Carl E. Braaten
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Buridan’S Ass ◽  
Equal Distance ◽  
The Right ◽  
Common World

Medieval schoolmen used to illustrate the problem of free will by telling the story of Buridan's ass. Standing at an equal distance between two bales of hay, the ass died of starvation, unable to decide whether to turn right or left. Modem theology is becoming anemic as it stands indecisively between two extremes. On the right everything is tagged by the prefix “re.” “Re” is going back —return, restore, revive, recover, repristinate. On the left the prefix is “de.” The “de” process is the style of modernist reductionism—demythologizing, desacralizing, dekerygmatizing, dehistoricizing, deeschatologizing. To escape the fate of Buridan's ass, an anemic theology needs another alternative.

FREE WILL, ETHICS, AND HEALTH CARE

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1975 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 186-186
Author(s):  
R. J. H.
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Medical Care ◽  
Free Choice ◽  
The Right ◽  
Fine Adjustment ◽  
Ethical View ◽  
Libertarian View

In a recent volume1 Arrow takes the libertarian view that individuals can and should make a free choice of whether and when they want to get medical care, when given all the information. Pellegrino comments on the limitations of this libertarian view: (1) We are not isolated individuals but social beings whose actions effect others as well as ourselves. (2) Society has now said that it will care for people when sick. But if they are sick because of what they willfully did then should society not provide care? For children it is difficult to argue that they should be punished for their parents' failings. (3) The sick person's ability to deal with "all" the facts is limited, especially so for children. Pellegrino advocates an ethical view of the right to medical care as well as a legal one. " . . . law is the coarse adjustment that guards against the grosser violations of human rights; ethics is the fine adjustment that sets a higher ideal than law can guarantee." It would seem that children should have the right to medical care.

Neurowetenschappen en de Illusie van Vrije Wil

2019 ◽  
Vol 111 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-358
Author(s):  
Lieke Asma
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Unique Contribution ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
The Right ◽  
Acting Agent ◽  
Open Question ◽  
Underlying Processes ◽  
Do The Right Thing ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Susan Wolf

Abstract Neuroscience and the Illusion of Free WillCurrently, few neuroscientists and philosophers still defend the claim that neuroscience has shown the brain ‘decides’ what we do and that free will is an illusion. This does not imply, however, that this kind of neuroscientific research could not say anything about the existence of free will. Neuroscience can offer insights in the unconscious causes and underlying processes of our actions and, because of this, could perhaps show whether we act out of free will or not. In this paper I will argue that in this regard the possibilities of neuroscientific research are limited. I understand free will, in line with Dana Nelkin and Susan Wolf, as the ability to do the right thing for the right reasons. I will show that whether someone acts intentionally, what it is that she is doing, and for which reasons she acts cannot be determined by studying unconscious causes or other unconscious processes related to the action. The action and reason necessarily depend on the perspective of the acting agent. Furthermore, neuroscientific research cannot show us whether the reasons and the actions are right. It could perhaps offer a unique contribution when it comes to the question of whether we are able to the right thing for the right reasons. To what extent it can remains an open question.

Scotus and Ockham

2020 ◽  
pp. 101-108
Author(s):  
Terence Irwin
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Moral Rightness ◽  
Divine Will ◽  
The Will ◽  
Divine Commands ◽  
The Right

Scotus and Ockham reject the Aristotelian outlook, as Aquinas presents it, and develop a voluntarist account of the will and of morality. In their view, determination by practical reason does not ensure free will; a free will must be wholly undetermined by reason. Nor can it be determined by the desire for one’s ultimate good; the impulse towards the right is separate from the impulse towards happiness. If we apply these principles to the freedom of the divine will, we find that God could not be free if the nature of right and wrong were independent of the divine will. We must infer that moral rightness and wrongness are ultimately constituted by divine commands.

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