scholarly journals Neuroscience and the possibility of locally determined choices: Reply to Adina Roskies and Eddy Nahmias

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcelo Fischborn
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Local Determination ◽  
Libertarian Free Will

In a previous paper (Fischborn, 2016), I argued that neuroscience and psychology could in principle undermine libertarian free will by providing support for a subset of what I called ‘statements of local determination’. I also argued that Libet-style experiments have not so far supported statements of that sort. In a commentary to the paper, Adina Roskies and Eddy Nahmias (2016) accept the claim about Libet-style experiments, but reject the claim about the possibilities of neuroscience. Here I explain why I still disagree with their conclusion, despite being sympathetic to a lot of what they say in support of it.

A New Argument Against Libertarian Free Will?

Analysis ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 76 (3) ◽  
pp. 296-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Widerker
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Libertarian Free Will

scholarly journals To Be Able To, or To Be Able Not To? That is The Question

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 13-32
Author(s):  
Nadine Elzein ◽  
Tuomas K. Pernu
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Alternative Possibilities ◽  
Transcendental Argument ◽  
Ought Implies Can ◽  
Libertarian Free Will

A type of transcendental argument for libertarian free will maintains that if acting freely requires the availability of alternative possibilities, and determinism holds, then one is not justified in asserting that there is no free will. More precisely: if an agent A is to be justified in asserting a proposition P (e.g. "there is no free will"), then A must also be able to assert not-P. Thus, if A is unable to assert not-P, due to determinism, then A is not justified in asserting P. While such arguments often appeal to principles with wide appeal, such as the principle that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’, they also require a commitment to principles that seem far less compelling, e.g. the principle that ‘ought’ implies ‘able not to’ or the principle that having an obligation entails being responsible. It is argued here that these further principles are dubious, and that it will be difficult to construct a valid transcendental argument without them.

Providence, Freedom, and Human Destiny

1990 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Talbott
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Moral Evil ◽  
Specific Region ◽  
Universal Love ◽  
The Gift ◽  
Good For ◽  
Love Of God ◽  
Libertarian Free Will ◽  
Traditional Doctrine ◽  
Human Destiny

According to some theists, God will never completely destroy moral evil or banish it from his creation entirely; instead, he will eventually confine moral evil to a specific region of his creation, a region known as hell, and those condemned to hell, having no hope of escape from it, will live out eternity in a state of estrangement from God as well as from each other. Let us call that the traditional doctrine of hell. Elsewhere I have argued that any form of theism which includes such a doctrine, even one that tries to preserve consistency by denying the universal love of God, is in fact logically inconsistent. But moderately conservative theists, as I have called them, have an argument for the traditional doctrine that some have found convincing, one that emphasizes libertarian free will. The argument is this. Because God is perfectly loving, he wills the good for every created person and wills the redemption of all who have fallen into evil; but because he has also given his loved ones the gift of freedom and some of them in fact exercise their freedom to reject him forever, it is simply not within his power, even as an omnipotent being, to redeem all of those who fall into evil. According to moderately conservative theists, therefore, the following hypothesis, which I shall call the Rejection Hypothesis (RH), is at least possibly true:(RH) Some persons will, despite God's best efforts to save them, freely and irrevocably reject God and thus separate themselves from God forever.

The religious adequacy of free-will theism

2002 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-61
Author(s):  
DAVID M. CIOCCHI
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Current Work ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Principal Practices ◽  
The Common ◽  
Will Theory ◽  
Petitionary Prayer ◽  
Libertarian Free Will

In this paper I question the claim that the increasingly popular position known as ‘free-will theism’ or ‘the open view of God’ supports a rich religious life. To do this I advance a notion of ‘religious adequacy’, and then argue that free-will theism fails to be religiously adequate with respect to one of the principal practices of the religious life – petitionary prayer. Drawing on current work in libertarian free-will theory, I consider what are likely the only two lines of defence free-will theists might use in response to my argument. I argue that these defences either fail or have features that make them unacceptable to free-will theists. I then suggest that this failure with petitionary prayer is an instance of a larger problem for free-will theism, that the position's distinctive views often differ more dramatically from the common beliefs and practices of most believers than is usually recognized or acknowledged. I conclude that free-will theism can support a rich religious life only for those who make the requisite changes in belief and practice, including changing their expectations about petitionary prayer.

scholarly journals The problem of evil and moral indifference

1999 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-345
Author(s):  
TIM MAWSON
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
General Nature ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
Moral Qualities ◽  
Moral Indifference ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Libertarian Free Will

In this paper, I argue that if the libertarian free will defence were seen to fail because determinism were seen to be true, then another solution to the problem of evil would present itself. I start by arguing that one cannot, by consideration of agents' choices between morally indifferent options, reach any conclusion as to these agents' moral qualities. If certain forms of consequentialism were false, determinism true, and if there were a God who chose to create this universe, then His choice would have been between such options. Consideration of the general nature of the universe God putatively chose to create would not then license any conclusion as His moral qualities.

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