Free Will Pessimism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Russell
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Sources Of Resistance ◽  
The Core ◽  
Free Will Skepticism

The core aim of this paper is to articulate the essential features of an alternative compatibilist position, one that is responsive to sources of resistance to the compatibilist program based on considerations of fate and luck. The approach taken relies on distinguishing carefully between issues of skepticism and pessimism as they arise in this context. A compatibilism that is properly responsive to concerns about fate and luck is committed to what is described as free will pessimism, which is to be distinguished from free will skepticism. The conclusion reached is that critical compatibilism and free will pessimism should not be understood as providing a solution to the free will problem but rather as a basis for rejecting the assumptions and aspirations that lie behind it. This approach reveals not a (skeptical) problem waiting to be solved but a (troubling) human predicament that needs to be recognized and acknowledged.

Free Will Pessimism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Russell
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Sources Of Resistance ◽  
Free Will Skepticism

This chapter articulates the essential features of an alternative compatibilist position, one that is responsive to sources of resistance to the compatibilist program based on considerations of fate and luck. Issues of skepticism and pessimism are carefully distinguished as they arise in this context. A compatibilism that is properly responsive to concerns about fate and luck is committed to free will pessimism, distinct from free will skepticism. Critical compatibilism and free will pessimism should not be understood as providing a solution to the free will problem but rather as a basis for rejecting the assumptions and aspirations that lie behind it—assumptions and aspirations that have been shared by all the major parties involved in this debate. The stance of free will pessimism recognizes not a (skeptical) problem waiting to be solved but a (troubling) human predicament that needs to be recognized and acknowledged.

P. F. Strawson’s Free Will Naturalism

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joe Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Reactive Attitudes ◽  
Rational Justification ◽  
The Core ◽  
Free Will Skepticism

This is an explication and defense of P. F. Strawson’s naturalist theory of free will and moral responsibility. I respond to a set of criticisms of the view by free will skeptics, compatibilists, and libertarians who adopt the core assumption: Strawson thinks that our reactive attitudes provide the basis for a rational justification of our blaming and praising practices. My primary aim is to explain and defend Strawson’s naturalism in light of criticisms based on the core assumption. Strawson’s critiques of incompatibilism and free will skepticism are not intended to provide rational justifications for either compatibilism or the claim that some persons have free will. Hence, the charge that Strawson’s “arguments” are faulty is misplaced. The core assumption resting behind such critiques is mistaken.

scholarly journals Taking Free Will Skepticism Seriously

2012 ◽  
Vol 62 (249) ◽  
pp. 833-852 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Vilhauer
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Free Will Skepticism

Hard-Incompatibilist Existentialism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derk Pereboom ◽  
Gregg D. Caruso
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Meaning In Life ◽  
Criminal Behavior ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Causal Efficacy ◽  
Derk Pereboom ◽  
Free Will Skepticism ◽  
The Will

Derk Pereboom and Gregg Caruso’s chapter on hard-incompatibilist existentialism explores the practical and existential implications of free will skepticism, focusing on punishment, morality, and meaning in life. They consider two different routes to free will skepticism: the route that denies the causal efficacy of the types of willing required for free will, which receives impetus from pioneering work in neuroscience, and the route that does not deny the causal efficacy of the will but instead claims that, whether deterministic or indeterministic, it does not achieve the level of control to count as free will. They argue that while there are compelling objections to the first route, the second remains intact and that free will skepticism allows for adequate ways of responding to criminal behavior—in particular, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and alternation of relevant social conditions—and that these methods are both morally justified and sufficient for good social policy.

scholarly journals Free Will Skepticism in Law and Society: An Overview

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregg D. Caruso ◽  
Elizabeth Shaw ◽  
Derk Pereboom
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Law And Society ◽  
Free Will Skepticism

Free Will Skepticism and Criminal Behavior

2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregg D. Caruso ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Criminal Behavior ◽  
Free Will Skepticism

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 Sloboda indiferentnosti Ockhamov pojam slobode i iz njega proizlazeći moralni sustav prema Servaisu Pinckaersu

2017 ◽  
Vol 72. (3.) ◽  
pp. 316-316
Author(s):  
Tadija Milikić
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Moral Obligation ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
The Core ◽  
Moral Reality ◽  
Moral System ◽  
Theological Thought ◽  
Insight Into

The article strives to contribute to our grasp of Ockham’s concept of free will, notably from the perspective of the Belgian moral theologian Servais Pinckaers and his historical research in the field of Catholic morality. The first section of the article gives a brief insight into the historical context of Ockham’s moral–theological thought, while the remaining two sections which comprise the central part of the article, highlight the dismantling of the classic and the construction of a new moral system. Explained therein is the way in which Ockham’s voluntaristic concept of free will enables us to grasp moral obligation as the core and most crucial of moral issues, which determines the very essence of morality, and provides us with an understanding of moral reality in its entirety, that is, as a whole and also in its integral elements.

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