Freedom of Will and Freedom of Action

2013 ◽  
pp. 339-354
Author(s):  
Rogers Albritton
Keyword(s):  
Freedom Of Will ◽  
Freedom Of Action

Freedom of Action and Freedom of Will

1964 ◽  
Vol 61 (14) ◽  
pp. 405
Author(s):  
Irving Thalberg
Keyword(s):  
Freedom Of Will ◽  
Freedom Of Action

Will, the

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Pink
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Freedom Of Will ◽  
Decision Making Capacity ◽  
The Will ◽  
To Come ◽  
Free Actions ◽  
Freedom Of Action

As traditionally conceived, the will is the faculty of choice or decision, by which we determine which actions we shall perform. As a faculty of decision, the will is naturally seen as the point at which we exercise our freedom of action – our control of how we act. It is within our control or up to us which actions we perform only because we have a capacity to decide which actions we shall perform, and it is up to us which such decisions we take. We exercise our freedom of action through freely taken decisions about how we shall act. From late antiquity onwards, many philosophers took this traditional conception of the will very seriously, and developed it as part of a general theory of specifically human action. Human action, on this theory, is importantly different from animal action. Not only do humans have a freedom of or control over their action which animals lack; but this freedom supposedly arises because humans can act on the basis of reason, while animal action is driven by appetite and instinct. Both this freedom and rationality involve humans possessing what animals are supposed to lack: a will or rational appetite – a genuine decision making capacity. From the sixteenth century on, this conception of the will and its role in human action met with increasing scepticism. There was no longer a consensus that human action involved mental capacities radically unlike those found in animals. And the idea that free actions are explained by free decisions of the will came to be seen as viciously regressive: if our freedom of action has to come from a prior freedom of will, why shouldn’t that freedom of will have to come from some yet further, will-generating form of freedom – and so on ad infinitum? Yet it is very natural to believe that we do have a decision making capacity, and that it is up to us how we exercise that capacity – that it is indeed up to us which actions we decide to perform. The will-scepticism of early modern Europe, which persists in much modern Anglophone philosophy of action, may then have involved abandoning a model of human action and human rationality that is deeply part of common sense. We need to understand this model far better before we can conclude that its abandonment by so many philosophers really was warranted.

scholarly journals FREEDOM OF WILL AND CULPABILITY

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 385-388
Author(s):  
Sebastião Pinto ◽  
ROSALINA ALVES NANTES
Keyword(s):  
Self Determination ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Freedom Of Will ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Freedom Of Action

Unlike animals (which are programmed by nature), the human being, at birth, brings with him an innate characteristic: freedom of action. In our legal-criminal system, after completing 18 years, the individual acquires the fullness of that freedom and, consequently, the capacity for culpability. This is because, from this age, it is assumed that the person achieves so-called self-determination, that is, the ability to direct alone to his own actions according to the formation of his independent will. In other words: legally it no longer requires the guidance of parents or guardians to direct their conduct. You have complete freedom of action.

DIMENSIONS OF RESPONSIBILITY: FREEDOM OF ACTION AND FREEDOM OF WILL

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (01) ◽  
pp. 114-131
Author(s):  
Robert Kane
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Alternative Possibilities ◽  
Freedom Of Will ◽  
Freedom Of The Will ◽  
Ultimate Responsibility ◽  
The Will ◽  
Legal Contexts ◽  
Freedom Of Action

Abstract:In this essay, I distinguish two dimensions of responsibility: (i) responsibility for expressing the will (character, motives, and purposes) one has in action (voluntarily and without constraint) and (ii) responsibility for having the will one expresses in action. I argue that taking both of these dimensions into account is necessary to do full justice to our understanding of moral responsibility and our ordinary practices of holding persons responsible in moral and legal contexts. I further argue that the distinction between these dimensions of responsibility is importantly related to understanding age-old debates about the freedom of the will. For the first dimension of responsibility is historically related to the freedom of action—the power to freely express the will one already has in action. While the second dimension is historically related to the freedom of the will—the power to freely form or shape that will one may later express in action. And I argue that while the freedom of action so defined may be compatible with determinism, the freedom of will, and the deeper responsibility associated with it for forming one’s own will, which I call “ultimate responsibility,” are not compatible with a thoroughgoing determinism. In arguing throughout the essay for these claims and for the need to take into account both of these dimensions to do full justice to our understanding of moral responsibility, I consider ordinary practices of holding persons responsible in a variety of moral and legal contexts, discussing in the process H. L. A. Hart’s “fair opportunity to avoid wrongdoing” criterion for assessing responsibility and blame in legal and criminal contexts, the relevance of recent experimental studies about folk intuitions concerning assessments of responsibility and blame, Harry Frankfurt’s critique of the “principle of alternative possibilities,” the distinction between “will-settled” and “will-setting” actions, and contemporary critiques of the very possibility and intelligibility of an ultimate responsibility for forming one’s own will that would be incompatible with determinism.

Integrating Safety-II into Safety Management

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toni Wäfler ◽  
Rahel Gugerli ◽  
Giulio Nisoli
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factor ◽  
Safety Factor ◽  
Safety Management ◽  
Management Systems ◽  
Safety Management Systems ◽  
Safety Science ◽  
Human Failure ◽  
The Given ◽  
Freedom Of Action

We all aim for safe processes. However, providing safety is a complex endeavour. What is it that makes a process safe? And what is the contribution of humans? It is very common to consider humans a risk factor prone to errors. Therefore, we implement sophisticated safety management systems (SMS) in order to prevent potential "human failure". These SMS provide an impressive increase of safety. In safety science this approach is labelled "Safety-I", and it starts to be questioned because humans do not show failures only. On the contrary, they often actively contribute to safety, sometimes even by deviating from a procedure. This "Safety-II" perspective considers humans to be a "safety factor" as well because of their ability to adjust behaviour to the given situation. However, adaptability requires scope of action and this is where Safety-I and Safety-II contradict each other. While the former restricts freedom of action, the latter requires room for manoeuvring. Thus, the task of integrating the Safety-II perspective into SMS, which are traditionally Safety-I based, is difficult. This challenge was the main objective of our project. We discovered two methods that contribute to the quality of SMS by integrating Safety-II into SMS without jeopardizing the Safety-I approach.

Anticompetitive Effects in EU Competition Law

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Ibáñez Colomo
Keyword(s):  
Competition Law ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Time Variable ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
Open Questions ◽  
Eu Competition Law ◽  
Competitive Disadvantage ◽  
Probability Threshold ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Freedom Of Action

Abstract This article examines the meaning and scope of the notion of anticompetitive effects in EU competition law. It does so by bringing together several strands of the case law (and this across all provisions, namely Articles 101 and 102 TFEU and merger control). The analysis is structured around a framework that considers the main variables that shape the notion in practice: the time variable (actual or potential effects); the dimensions of competition and the counterfactual; the meaning of effects and the probability threshold (plausibility, likelihood, certainty). The exercise shows that it is possible to discern a concrete meaning to the notion of anticompetitive effects. Some central questions, including the role and operation of the counterfactual and the threshold of effects, have already been answered by the Court of Justice. In particular, it has long been clear that anticompetitive effects amount to more than a mere competitive disadvantage and/or a limitation of a firm’s freedom of action. The impact on equally efficient firms’ ability and/or incentive to compete would need to be established. At the same time, some open questions and some potential areas of friction (relating, inter alia, to stakeholders’ tendency to conflate appreciability and effects) remain. These are also discussed.

The Reign of Mary Tudor: Historiography and Research

1989 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 547-558 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Loades
Keyword(s):  
Full Measure ◽  
Royal Commission ◽  
English Reformation ◽  
Mary Tudor ◽  
Great Harm ◽  
Freedom Of Action

Mary made the unfortunate mistake of antagonizing her successor, without being able to impose any limitations upon her freedom of action. Writing in 1557 the Venetian ambassador, Giovanni Michieli, observed “although it is dissembled, it cannot be denied that [the queen] displays in many ways the scorn and ill will she bears her [Elizabeth]….” The younger woman reciprocated such feelings in full measure, and a few days before her accession, when there was no longer any need to be discreet, the Count of Feria reported, “She is highly indignant about what has been done to her in the queen's lifetime….” Such personal antagonism may not go far in explaining Elizabeth's decision to reverse so many of her sister's policies, but it certainly helps to account for the animus that the new queen's most trusted servants so quickly developed against their predecessors. In the last days of 1558 a royal commission was issued “to discover by what means the realm hath suffered great harm” under the previous regime, and soon came up with a long list of secular and ecclesiastical grants. Most of the latter were immediately resumed in the succeeding Parliament. It was to be another quarter of a century before Elizabeth finally emerged as the winner, and Mary as the loser, of the English reformation struggle, but those in power after 1558 did not wait to celebrate their victory.

Coercive Persuasion As a Specific Type of Violence in Criminal Law

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-72
Author(s):  
Carlos Bardavío Antón
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Comparative Law ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
Physical Injury ◽  
Comprehensive Understanding ◽  
Legal Doctrine ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Freedom Of Will ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Regulatory Problems

The field of cults, and that of destructive or coercive cults in particular, has received little attention from the perspective of criminal law doctrine. Supporters of such groups often claim to be victims of a violation related to freedom of will. In this article, I consider various methodologies and manipulation techniques used by such groups and suggest that comparative law, criminal definitions, and regulatory problems provide the basis for a more comprehensive understanding of criminal phenomenology that includes these concerns: the loss of freedom through coercive persuasion, and thus being the victim of a crime, or through becoming an instrument for the commission of crimes ordered by third parties. Research shows that the conventional definition of crime against freedom of will and physical injury is inadequate. I posit that a new approach to legal doctrine and criminal classification is required to fight against new crime phenomenology. I propose a criminal classification aimed at considering coercive persuasion as a crime, and a definition for the criminalization of certain organizations that engage in willful misconduct or reckless conduct.

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