RE: Determinism, Free Will and Paradox
January 17, 2015 at 2:02 pm
(This post was last modified: January 17, 2015 at 2:04 pm by Whateverist.)
Is free will an absolute and necessary category? Or is it an idea that evolved in the context of human affairs? I'm told, but don't care enough to check for myself, that it evolved in the course of Christian debates. If so, it would be interesting to know if it has also occurred in societies dominated by other religious paradigms.
It is at least an idea that depends on the ordinary idea of free choice versus constrained choice. It then gets distorted to be mean something like can you choose what it is you choose. But with that we've left the sure ground of common speech for something contrived and strange. We've moved from a context that makes sense to one that might not.
Must I provide evidence that my unconstrained choice wasn't inevitable? Fortunately not, since there isn't any way to do that. The ordinary sense of free will as unconstrained choice which even a child can understand is not invalidated by our failure to prove that our preferences are not preordained. I actually fancy that my choices are more or less predictable as they reflect the life history and experience of one particular self, my own. And I don't accept that the self which I am is something imposed upon me, whether or not I can give any evidence for that position.
It is at least an idea that depends on the ordinary idea of free choice versus constrained choice. It then gets distorted to be mean something like can you choose what it is you choose. But with that we've left the sure ground of common speech for something contrived and strange. We've moved from a context that makes sense to one that might not.
Must I provide evidence that my unconstrained choice wasn't inevitable? Fortunately not, since there isn't any way to do that. The ordinary sense of free will as unconstrained choice which even a child can understand is not invalidated by our failure to prove that our preferences are not preordained. I actually fancy that my choices are more or less predictable as they reflect the life history and experience of one particular self, my own. And I don't accept that the self which I am is something imposed upon me, whether or not I can give any evidence for that position.
