Determined to Come Most Freely

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 272-297
Author(s):  
James N. Anderson ◽  
Paul Manata
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
To Come ◽  
Opening Up ◽  
Libertarian Free Will ◽  
Rule Out

It is commonly held that Calvinism is committed to theological determinism, and therefore also to compatibilism insofar as Calvinism affirms human freedom and moral responsibility. Recent scholarship has challenged this view, opening up space for a form of Calvinism that allows for libertarian free will. In this article we critically assess two versions of ‘libertarian Calvinism’ recently proposed by Oliver Crisp. We contend that Calvinism (defined along the confessional lines adopted by Crisp) is implicitly committed to theological determinism, and even if it were not so committed, it would still rule out libertarian free will on other grounds.

Is Punishment Morally Justified? Developing Nietzsche's Critique of Compatibilism in The Wanderer and His Shadow, Section 23

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 420-436
Author(s):  
GUY ELGAT
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Immoral Action ◽  
Libertarian Free Will ◽  
The Wanderer

ABSTRACT:Nietzsche is mostly known for denying moral responsibility on account of lack of libertarian free will, thus betraying an incompatibilist approach to moral responsibility. In this paper, however, I focus on a different, less familiar argument by Nietzsche, one that I interpret as a critique of a compatibilist conception of moral responsibility. The critique shows why punishment and our moral sanctions in general are morally unjustified by the compatibilist's own lights. In addition, I articulate what I call Nietzsche's explanatory challenge, which challenges the compatibilist to explain the performance of an immoral action without appealing to conditions that would exempt or excuse the wrongdoer or otherwise relieve the wrongdoer from responsibility and would thus make punishing the wrongdoer morally unjustified. By drawing on the work of R. Jay Wallace, I reconstruct Nietzsche's anticompatibilist argument and defend it against four possible objections.

Parables of Freedom and Necessity

1996 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-58
Author(s):  
Abdelwahab M. Elmessiri
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Modern Time ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Thematic Relations ◽  
Narrative Poem

EpilogueGeoffrey Chaucer’s ‘The Frankeleyn’s Tale” and Bertold Brecht’sThe Exception and the Rule seem to have very little in common. Chaucer’smedieval narrative poem tries to follow the norms of its genre andfulfiil the reader’s expectations, whereas Brecht’s modernist experimentalplay violates many of the rules of drama laid down by Aristotle and otherclassical critics. It deliberately shocks the reader out of any facile identificationwith the characters as well as any willing suspension of disbelief.But despite their many obvious differences, this study argues that theirsimilarities are quite relevant and significant. Both works deal with thethemes of human freedom, moral responsibility, and ability to transcend.These are among the major themes of literature throughout time-butthey have acquired particular poignancy in our modern time with the riseand gradual unfolding of what I term the “Paradigmatic sequence of secularization.”Since the terms “paradigm” and “secularism” are alreadyquite problematic, and to talk of “a paradigmatic sequence of secularization”is even more so, some kind of clarification and even redefinition isin order.ParadigmsWhen a critic singles out two literary works for comparison, thechoice is not guided by some universally established objective rules, butrather dictated by a certain set of assumptions, norms, criteria, biases, andso on. When he/she engages in the critical act itself, pointing out structuraland thematic relations (of similarity and dissimilarity), he/she does ...

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.

Reactive Attitudes Revisited: A Modest Revision

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Deigh
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Reactive Attitudes

The essay offers an interpretation of P. F. Strawson’s “Freedom and Resentment” on which attributions of moral responsibility presuppose a practice of holding people morally responsible for their actions, and what explains the practice is our liability to such reactive attitudes as resentment and indignation. The interpretation is offered to correct a common misinterpretation of Strawson’s essay. On this common misinterpretation, attributions of moral responsibility are implicit in the reactive attitudes of resentment and indignation, and consequently our liability to these attitudes cannot explain these attributions. The reason this is a misinterpretation of Strawson’s essay is that Strawson’s compatibilist solution to the free will problem requires that our liability to the reactive attitudes be conceptually prior to our attributions of moral responsibility.

Intellectual Difficulty and Moral Responsibility

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter considers the relationship between intellectual difficulty and moral responsibility. It focuses on this question: if it is difficult for us to come to believe the truth about some matter, and we do not in fact come to believe it, so that we are ignorant of that matter, does that affect our responsibility if we then act from our ignorance? Answering this question requires getting clearer on both intellectual difficulty and moral responsibility for actions done from ignorance. This chapter takes up both tasks, distinguishing three different kinds of intellectual difficulty—skill-related difficulty in performing, effort-related difficulty in performing, and difficulty in trying—and two different families of views regarding moral responsibility: agential control views and agential revelation views. The chapter then considers the interaction between these different kinds of intellectual difficulty and these different views of moral responsibility, focusing particularly on the familiar case of the Ancient Slaveholder.

Erasmus versus Luther: A Contemporary Analysis of the Debate on Free Will

2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-335
Author(s):  
Aku Visala ◽  
Olli-Pekka Vainio
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Philosophical Theology ◽  
Contemporary Debate ◽  
Will And Grace ◽  
To Come

SummaryIn this article, we will use contemporary analytic tools to make sense of the main arguments in the classic debate on free will between Erasmus of Rotterdam and the Reformer Martin Luther. Instead of offering another exegesis of these texts, we put forward an analysis that links this historical debate with contemporary discussions on free will and grace in philosophical theology. We argue that the debate was ultimately about how three theological core claims are related to one another: the Anti-Pelagian Constraint (humans are incapable of willing any good, in order to come to faith), the Responsibility Principle (humans are morally responsible in the eyes of God) and human free will. Erasmus attacks Luther by arguing that the Responsibility Principle cannot be maintained without free will, while Luther responds by arguing that Erasmus must reject free will, because it is in conflict with the Anti-Pelagian Constraint. Luther is then left with the dilemma of justifying the Responsibility Principle without free will – a task, which in our estimation, fails. In the concluding section of the article, we point out some continuities and discontinuities between the contemporary debate and that of Luther and Erasmus.

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