Search

Free will is an intuitive reality that all humans apprehend in their actions. Moral responsibility also stems from this freedom of will. This article first explains that the strong human intuition about free will cannot be dismissed as an illusion. It then examines the notion that a physical being cannot possess free will because it implies the ability to both perform and abstain from an action. In the physical world, all human actions are determined by preceding causes, leaving no room to avoid an action volitionally. Building on this, the article concludes that free will becomes plausible only when rooted in the existence of the soul. Consequently, free will serves as independent evidence for the existence of an immaterial soul. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A common style of argument in the literature on free will and moral responsibility is the Manipulation Argument. These tend to begin with a case of an agent in a deterministic universe who is manipulated, say, via brain surgery, into performing some action. Intuitively, this agent is not responsible for that action. Yet, since there is no relevant difference, with respect to whether an agent is responsible, between the manipulated agent and a typical agent in a deterministic universe, responsibility is not compatible with the truth of determinism. This paper introduces some key types of manipulation cases, the schema for a manipulation argument against compatibilism, the hard‐line/soft‐line categories of responses to manipulation arguments, and various issues that have become important in discussions of manipulation cases and arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On Kant's view, we are rational beings who are morally responsible for our actions. The main goal of this paper is to show that this Kantian view of ourselves is not undermined by the Manipulation Argument, which is currently the biggest challenge to compatibilism. To this end, I argue that a Kantian account of freedom offers a new soft‐line reply to this argument. On this Kantian account, moral responsibility requires not only positive freedom but also negative freedom. An agent is free in the positive sense just in case the agent has the rational capacity to act in compliance with moral norms. And an agent lacks negative freedom regarding their actions when these actions are determined by internal or external factors beyond their rational control. Based on this Kantian account, I provide a principled explanation of why there is a significant difference between manipulated actions and merely causally determined actions regarding moral responsibility. In addition, I bring out the distinctive characteristics of my Kantian account further by comparing it with two competing conceptions of freedom: leeway freedom and sourcehood freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In compatibilists believe that we cannot act freely and be morally responsible for an action in a deterministic world, while compatibilists don’t deny the possibility of free action and moral responsibility for the agent, and they believe that we can find some kind of compatibility between moral responsibility and causal determination. This article will analyze Alfred Mele's zygote argument of manipulation, which is an argument in critique of compatibilism between moral responsibility and the deterministic world. Manipulation argument is an argument based on an agent's intuition of a situation in which the agent is under the control of another person or force. It wants to show that an agent in a manipulated situation, despite satisfying the compatibilists conditions, is not morally responsible for her action, and she is like the agent in a deterministic world.

I analyze the possibility of free-will in the many-worlds interpretation (MWI), arguing for their compatibility. I use as a starting point Nicolas Gisin’s “The Multiverse Pandemic” (preprint , 2022, after Gisin, N., “L’épidémie du multivers”, in “Le Plus Grand des Hasards”, Belin, Paris, 2010), in which he makes an interesting case that MWI is contradicted by our hard to deny free-will. The counts he raised are: (1) MWI is deterministic, forcing choices on us, (2) in MWI all our possible choices happen, and (3) MWI limits creativity, because everything is entangled with everything else. I argue that each of these features of MWI is in fact compatible with more freedom than it may seem. In particular, MWI allows compatibilist free-will, but also free-will very much like the libertarian free-will defined by Chisholm. I argue that the position that alternative choices exist as possibilities does not make sense from a physical point of view, but MWI offers a physical ground for alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Turkey Journal of Theological Studies is the property of Turkey Journal of Theological Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this introduction to a thematic issue dealing with free will, some possibilities of free will in different physical, social, and technological worlds, as well as discussions of the possibilities are considered. What are the possibilities and limitations of free will in various other worlds differing from our world? What are the possibilities and limitations of free will in different species, both in our world and in other hypothetical worlds, including future species, naturally evolving, and artificially modified? What are the possibilities and limitations of free will related to the development of AI? How can the diversity of free will levels in an agent be related to possible levels (depth) of its self-knowledge? What can agents differing in levels of self-knowledge know and think about the issue of free will? How do different societies (social worlds) support and inhibit different manifestations of free will in different areas? What is the role of hard neurodeterminism and "mindless neuroscience" in general neuroscience? What are ethical aspects of the questions, including the initial one: "If a neuroscientist denies free will, how can they write a text of voluntary informed consent and propose to sign it?". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Free will plays a critical role in human motivation. Recent advances in science and technologies have had a significant impact on free will. They have raised serious concerns regarding the threatening effects of such advancements on perceived autonomy. However, there is still a longstanding debate on the existence of free will, known as the problem of free will. Philosophers have provided contrasting views regarding the existence of free will and its relationship with causal determination and mental causation problems. These problems are related to the underlying dualistic approach between mental and physical factors. Similar to the philosophy literature, the motivation literature is concerned with the problem of free will and its influence on motivation and performance. Cognitive evaluation and self-determination theories are the most renowned theories which assert the effect of autonomy (i.e., free will) on intrinsic motivation. However, these theories have mainly focused on the effect of the need for autonomy as an underlying driver of intrinsic motivation. They have not been able to address the fundamental question about the existence of actual free will and its effect on motivation and performance. This is mainly due to their dualistic approach in the form of intrinsic/extrinsic motivation dichotomization. Motivational congruence theory addresses the problem of free will and substantiates its effect by going beyond such a dualistic approach and resolving the related problems of mental causation and causal determination. The theory does this by taking a cotextualist and dialectical approach to the interaction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivational mechanisms and context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, neurophysiological research has pushed the concept of free will towards a reductionist interpretation, largely avoiding the concept of a freely willing agent. This paper explores the ongoing debate surrounding free will, highlighting the contrasting perspectives of determinism, indeterminism (libertarianism), and compatibilism. It questions how individuals, particularly those adhering to deterministic viewpoints, can ethically navigate a world defined by causal relationships. The paper argues that reductionist approaches struggle to account for ethical responsibility and the human experience of making choices. While compatibilism offers a middle ground, asserting that actions in line with one's desires are free and thus ethically accountable, this stance is scrutinized for its potential limitations in answering questions about personal responsibility. Specifically, it is argued that compatibilism may not be the ideal framework for a neurophysiologist confronted with ethical dilemmas, thus leaving room for the re-examination of indeterminism. Through this discussion, the paper aims to contribute to a nuanced understanding of free will that incorporates both the scientific and philosophical dimensions of human decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many years there has been a debate in truthmaking theory between proponents of the substantive and deflationary approaches. Substantivists about truthmaking maintain that we need entities called truthmakers, while deflationists of truthmaking argue that the asymmetric form of the T-schema is sufficient. In contrast to incompatibilists, who argue that one should adopt only one of these approaches, I propose a compatibilist theory of truthmaking in which the two approaches complement each other through the distribution of different functions of truthmaking. I find that this helps to solve the problem of truthmaking of certain contentious truths, such as negative truths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compatibilists aim to solve the causal exclusion problem by arguing that a physical cause and a mental cause are compatible with each other without involving the problematic overdetermination. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, I target at Karen Bennett's (2003, 2008) influential compatibilist strategy—one that rests on the assumption that a mental cause is sufficient for bringing about a physical effect, just as a physical cause is. I argue that, on a plausible physicalist picture, this assumption cannot be established. Second, I propose a weaker and more plausible interpretation of the mental efficacy, which takes a mental cause to be necessary (but not sufficient) for a physical effect in a counterfactual sense. The resulting picture of mental causation avoids the difficulties engendered from Bennett's assumption and delivers fresh resources to solve the exclusion problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study of Paradise Lost , interpreted through the lens of John Milton's treatise De doctrina Christiana , argues that the poet seeks to breathe new life into the tropes of orthodox Christian theodicy by radicalising concepts chosen eclectically from both Reformed and Arminian schools of thought, integrating them within the patchwork of his own idiosyncratic heterodoxies and thus catalysing a fundamentally new theology propelled by his narrative priorities. This approach makes the drama that Milton intuits itself the driver of dogma, which drama allows him to bring God and reader into the same story, under the spell of his own theodical narration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the central problems within the free will debate lies in the apparent incompatibility of an agent's ability to do otherwise and determinism. Recently, compatibilist libertarianism was proposed as an actualist position intended to finally reconcile both. In this article, we argue that in order to maintain consistency, this position must be understood as a variant of classical compatibilism rather than a version of libertarianism. Though this seems to be an undesired consequence for proponents of compatibilist libertarianism, we think that it is not that bad. We show that recent objections to this position can be avoided by embracing its compatibilist nature and argue that a modified version of compatibilist libertarianism might very well be as close to an actualist account of free will in a deterministic world as one can hope for. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent paper, Christian List (2014) has argued for the compatibilism of free will and determinism. Drawing on a distinction between physical possibility (used in defining determinism) and agential possibility (used in defining free will), List constructs a formal two-level model in which the two concepts are consistent. This paper's first contribution is to show that though List's model is formally consistent, philosophically it falls short of establishing a satisfactory compatibilist position. Ensuingly, an analysis of the shortcomings of the model leads to the identification of a controversial epistemological assumption implicit in the statements of both compatibilist and incompatibilist positions. Arguing that this assumption is not currently satisfied, the paper's second contribution is to show that neither the compatibilist nor the incompatibilist position is presently well-founded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vicarious responsibility exists. It is (also) a species of moral responsibility. Nevertheless, it is seldomly discussed or considered as such in the main debates within moral philosophy. This article presents a case for the relevance of vicarious moral responsibility to several of these discussions. It seeks to provide new insights for the debate between historicism and structuralism and presents a further case for distinguishing between various facets of moral responsibility. Furthermore, the article demonstrates that an agent need not enter into the relation of vicarious responsibility freely in order to be responsible. This idea then allows us to present new cases for compatibilism, demonstrating the consistency of moral responsibility with determinism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the end of the 20th century, a discipline of Buddhist ethics was formed in English-speaking countries, within the framework of which a community of closely interacting researchers is engaged in the comprehension and systematization of ethical positions within Buddhism, often resorting to the use of analytical philosophy tools. One of the directions within the discipline of Buddhist ethics is an attempt to embed the ethical content of Buddhism in a contemporary Western European philosophical context and to put before it questions characteristic of Western philosophy, for example, the questions of moral responsibility, free will and determinism. While some researchers believe that Buddhist texts reflect a compatibilist position, others see Buddhist ethical position as resembling incompatibilism. The first problem faced by Buddhist researchers interested in this topic is that Buddhism does not have a concept of “free will” similar to the one that exists in Western philosophy. Nevertheless, contemporary theorists believe that classical Buddhism contains enough material to allow for a conversation about causality and responsibility. The purpose of this research is to substantiate the possibility of discussing free will in the context of the ethics of Buddhism. In order to do this the research examines the key provisions of Buddhist teaching relevant in the context of free will: dependent arising, absence of self and karma. It is noted that one of the reasons for the difference in the conclusions of researchers of Buddhist ethics regarding the issue of free will and moral responsibility in Buddhism are the peculiarities of Theravada and Mahayana and their particular texts different theorists mainly refer to.

This article critically examines the experimental philosophy of free will, particularly the interplay between ordinary individuals' compatibilist and incompatibilist intuitions. It explores key insights from research studies that propose "natural compatibilism" and "natural incompatibilism". These studies reveal a complex landscape of folk intuitions, where participants appear to exhibit both types of intuitions. Here, we examine error theories, which purport to explain the coexistence of apparently contradictory intuitions: the Affective Performance Error hypothesis, the "Free Will No Matter What" hypothesis, the Bypassing hypothesis, and the Intrusion hypothesis, and the article explores the cognitive errors that could shape individuals' inconsistent perceptions of free will. We then explore three possibilities regarding folk intuitions: most individuals may hold either compatibilist or incompatibilist intuitions, both simultaneously, or neither. Our aim is to deepen the understanding of the complex dynamics of intuitions about free will, and we close with suggestions for future studies in experimental philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I present an overview of the life and work of Donald MacCrimmon Mackay, a distinguished Christian polymath who made significant contributions across a number of domains in science and philosophy in the middle part of the 20th Century, and the centenary of whose birth was in 2022. After a brief biographical sketch, we will review his contribution to theology & science, the main ones of these being: complementarity, an innovative concept relating information and matter, and mind and brain; and logical indeterminism, a proposed solution to the problem of free will and determinism. I hope that this overview will stimulate interest in, and further exploration of, his ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Michael S. Moore defends the ideas of free will and responsibility, especially in relation to criminal law, against several challenges from neuroscience. I agree with Moore that morality and the law presuppose a commonsense understanding of humans as rational agents, who make choices and act for reasons, and that to defend moral and legal responsibility, we must show that this commonsense understanding remains viable. Unlike Moore, however, I do not think that classical compatibilism, which is based on a conditional understanding of the ability to do otherwise, provides a sufficiently robust account of free will, even when it is amended as Moore suggests. I argue that free will and responsibility can be defended more robustly by observing that, at the level of agency, there can be alternative possibilities and mental causation in a stronger sense than recognized by classical compatibilism, even if physical determinism is true. Moore's arguments could thus be strengthened by embracing this compatibilist libertarian position. At the same time, I note that, although the idea of responsibility is robustly defensible, there are independent reasons for rejecting a retributivist approach to punishment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper probes the relation between the metaphysics of human freedom and the Rothbardian branch of Austrian economics. It transpires that Rothbard and his followers embrace metaphysical libertarianism, which holds that free will is incompatible with determinism and that the thesis of determinism is false as pertaining to human action. However, as we demonstrate, their economics with its reliance on value scales requires for its tenability compatibilist freedom. Moreover, we attempt to show that the notion of value scales (or preferences) postulated by them implies that value scales are determinative of choices people make. We contend that it is for this reason that the said Austrians should jettison their metaphysical libertarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a new argument for compatibilism about moral responsibility by drawing attention to some overlooked implications of incompatibilism. More specifically, I argue that incompatibilists are committed to some unsavory claims about pairs of agents in deterministic worlds. These include comparative claims about moral responsibility, blameworthiness, desert, punishment, and the fittingness of reactive attitudes. I argue that we have good reasons to reject such comparisons because they fail to account for key differences between deterministic agents. This provides us with reason to embrace compatibilism and reject incompatibilism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commentators on P.F. Strawson's reactive attitudes emphasize the opposition between the participant and objective attitudes. This tendency overlooks Strawson's attempt to mitigate what he saw as "a crude opposition" between these two perspectives. Strawson called attention to phenomena involving the "half-suspension" of reactive attitudes, or the "straddling" of the objective and participant stances in order to diminish this crudity. This has been largely ignored in the literature, and as a result, the phenomena that Strawson mentions are poorly understood. Drawing on the work in the philosophy of emotion by Amélie Rorty and a multidimensional account of the reactive attitudes, we provide a framework to explain how such a half-suspension is possible and highlight some of its more prominent features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brian Cutter (Analysis 77: 278-287, 2017) argues that one of the most prominent versions of the consequence argument—viz., Peter van Inwagen’s (An Essay on Free Will. Oxford University Press, 1983) ‘Third Formal Argument’—does not support an incompatibility thesis that every paradigmatic compatibilist would reject. Justin Capes (Thought 8: 50-56, 2019) concedes Cutter’s conclusion concerning van Inwagen’s Third Formal Argument and tries to meet the important challenge that Cutter issues at the end of his paper—viz., articulate a promising version of the consequence argument whose conclusion is an incompatibility thesis that every paradigmatic compatibilist would reject. After arguing that Capes’s response to Cutter’s challenge fails, I meet Cutter’s challenge by presenting and discussing a version of the consequence argument that focuses on ordinary human agents in circumstances that are ordinary for human agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. Modern discussions about free will are reduced to the confrontation between compatibilism and incompatibilism. The desire of the former to connect the free will of the individual with physical conditioning actualizes the problem of responsibility for the moral actions performed by the individual. Theoretical analysis. The main socio-philosophical reflections on liberty and responsibility in the context of the 17th century liberalism theory are analyzed. The concepts of T. Hobbes, J. Locke and B. Spinoza are interpreted through the prism of the rational justification of liberty, understanding the correlation between a person’s choice and his actions. The paradigm of new thinking, created by liberal philosophers, made it possible to assess the meaning of freedom in a fundamentally different way – from the point of view of the interaction between an individual and society. A comparative analysis of the provisions on free will allows us to assert the aggravation of the problem of moral responsibility, caused by the rational awareness of free action criteria. Conclusion. The ideas of classical liberal-thinking philosophers acted as a theoretical foundation in the development of the compatibilism concept, the supporters of which associated freedom with necessity. Thus, we can talk about the continuity outlined back in antiquity – from freedom as a “cognized necessity” to its understanding as free will.

Are the meanings of “chance” and “guidedness” consistent? The goal of this article is toprovide an affirmative answer to this question and thereby defend compatibilism (or accommodationism), which is the position that evolutionary theory and interventionist theism can coexist harmoniously. Compatibilists, such as van Inwagen (2003), Bartholomew (2008), Dowe (2011), Bradley (2012), and Sober (2014) argue that certain components or features of the biosphere exhibit both chancy and divinely guided aspects. What is chance?The concept of chance, in its scientific sense, is closely related to the concept of probability. One can interpret the probabilities used in scientific theories ontologically. If so, by “chance” we mean whatever objective property in the world the term “ontological probability” picks out (Suárez, 2022).[1] The received view suggests that chance and randomness are identical but technically speaking, “chance” describes the process that leads to the production of an outcome, while the term “random” describes the outcome itself.(Von Mises’ definition of randomness): A sequence, such as a sequence of zeroes and ones, is considered random when no successful gambling strategy can be made to predict the next number in the sequence. In other words, a sequence is random if it cannot be exploited by a gambling system for prediction. (Eagle, 2021)Furthermore, “chance” is often used synonymously with “coincidence.” Coincidence refers to the co-occurrence of two independent deterministic chains of events. In this sense, being chancy implies having a cause. Sometimes “chancy” is used synonymously with “accidental.” In this sense, a chance event does not possess a specific purpose. It is important to note that not every coincidence is considered an accident (Dowe, 2011).Genetic mutations serve as quintessential examples of chance events in evolutionary theory, as they do not occur in response to environmental threats or opportunities faced by species. In other words, there is no statistical relationship or correlation between the usefulness to a particular species of a potential mutation and the probability of that mutation occurring.The compatibility of “chance” and “guidedness”The incompatibilist might argue that chance processes cannot be divinely guided because the very meaning of being guided is not compatible with the meaning of being chancy. In response, van Inwagen (2003) points out that 1) the term “chancy” has multiple meanings, such that (2) some of these meanings can coexist with the idea of being guided, and (3) the meaning of “chancy” relevant to evolutionary theory falls within this category. Therefore, the argument just presented is not valid. Van Inwagen believes that the compatibilist perspective favors considering “chance” as coincidence. Being a coincidence requires having a cause, but having a cause does not necessarily imply having a purpose or being divinely guided. The question facing the compatibilist is whether chance is compatible with being divinely guided. Hence, van Inwagen mistakenly conflates having a cause with being guided.However, van Inwagen's approach can be modified. There are meanings of “chance” and “guided” according to which these two concepts can be considered compatible. To illustrate this, let’s consider a chain of events as follows:Mutation 1, the occurrence of feature 1 in species A; mutation 2, the occurrence of feature 2 in species B; mutation 3, the occurrence of feature 3 in species A; mutation 4, the occurrence of feature 4 in species C, and so on.This chain is random in the sense that knowing one part of it does not allow for predictions of the next event with significant probability. Genetic mutations are chance events; there is no statistical correlation between the usefulness of a particular mutation and the probability of its occurrence. If such a correlation existed, probabilistic predictions would be possible. However, it can still be argued that this chain is guided, meaning that its members are deliberately chosen by an intelligent agent. Having a pattern is a property that describes the relationship among the members of the sequence while being deliberately chosen is a property that results from the fact that each member, and consequently the whole sequence, is somehow related to an external entity, say an intelligent agent.Thus, there is no prima facie contradiction in considering a sequence of events to be random and at the same time divinely guided. One might object that although it may not seem contradictory at first, no truly random sequence can be guided. However, it remains unclear what kind of argument could support this claim solely through an analysis of the meanings of “chance” and “guidedness.” One might argue that being random suggests a lack of direction while being guided requires having a specific direction. Alternatively, one might argue that being random implies that attempting to regenerate the same sequence via a chance process would most likely fail, whereas being guided suggests otherwise. While these objections carry weight, they all require an additional premise beyond the mere meanings of “chance” and “guidedness.”One way to understand “chancy” as opposed to “guided” is to define chance within the incompatibilist sense as follows:The incompatibilist meaning of “chancy”: not being intentionally brought about by an intelligent agent, either human or non-human, nor being necessitated by the laws of nature. (van Woudenberg, 2013)In this sense, a chance event cannot be guided. However, it is worth noting that evolutionary theory itself does not make any claims about intentional agency. The defender of the incompatibilist meaning seems to have assumed ontological naturalism, but not methodological naturalism. It is evident that ontological naturalists tend to favor the incompatibilist meaning. Van Inwagen (2013) highlights that methodological naturalism does not necessitate a scientific theory to explicitly deny the existence and effects of supernatural agents. If a methodological naturalist wishes to adopt the incompatibilist meaning, she or he must make an additional argument that goes beyond merely considering the meanings of “chance” and “guidedness”. [1]. For a defense of the existence of chance in the world, see van Inwagen (1995), Sober (2010), Bradley (2012), and Emery (2022).

The present essay addresses Richard Muller's most recent comments regarding the Reformed Orthodox in comparison with contemporary compatibilism. Muller's work is undeniably excellent. However, it suffers from a considerable weakness. That weakness is his lack of interaction with contemporary compatibilism. This causes him to misunderstand its nature and falsely claim that the Reformed Orthodox cannot be labeled as compatibilists. I argue that a more serious analysis of contemporary compatibilism shows that the Reformed Orthodox are correctly labeled as compatibilists. I do so by examining Muller's main claims as to why the Reformed Orthodox were not compatibilists. In this examination, I argue that he has misunderstood the thesis of compatibilism and confused it with other metaphysical doctrines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to classical Christology, Christ's human will was always in conformity with and never contrary to the divine will. Call this notion 'volitional non-contrariety' (VNC). But theologians disagree over how to explain VNC. In this article, I consider four models of VNC: the Parameter Model, the Beatific Vision Model, the Molinist Model, and the Causal Model. I argue that the Causal Model, coupled with a compatibilist account of freedom, is the best way to understand VNC because libertarian accounts of Christ's human freedom inevitably fail to preserve some other element of classical Christology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contemporary philosophy of action, free will is often discussed and explained in relation to moral responsibility. To understand this relationship, it is first necessary to understand what free will is. Free will generally means that one is in the control of one's own actions and choices. The sense that actions are under one's control is expressed in two ways. The ability to do otherwise for an action depends on the person, and the person is the source of his/her action. At the same time, these expressions also imply that free will is the ability to do otherwise and the source of one's actions. In contemporary philosophy, discussions on free will are mostly based on these two meanings. In particular, there are serious debates regarding the ability to do otherwise for an action that one has already done. The meaning of free will is also important for understanding its relationship with moral responsibility. One of the most important reasons why free will is explained together with moral responsibility is that there can be no moral responsibility when there is no free will. Therefore, explaining the relationship between free will and moral responsibility is important both for a better understanding of them and for understanding current debates. In the contemporary philosophy of action, the relationship between free will and moral responsibility is explained by including determinism. Although determinism has been a strong and influential claim for many years, it has lost its power, especially with some developments in physics that we have seen mostly in the 20th century. This has led to a revival of the debate on whether we have free will, and therefore, whether we can talk about moral responsibility. Moreover, it brought a new perspective to the relationship between free will and moral responsibility within ideas that accept determinism as valid and argue that it is impossible. Today, the relationship between free will and moral responsibility, which is highly debated and has rich literature, continues to be discussed with some understanding. This understanding can be categorized into three headings. These are compatibilism, incompatibilism, and libertarianism. Compatibilism argues that free will is unnecessary for moral responsibility. According to compatibilism, it is almost impossible to escape moral responsibility, but it is not always necessary to have the free will to be morally responsible. A person is morally responsible for what they do, even if they do not do it out of free will. In addition, compatibilism claims that determinism is valid and is not a threat to the existence of free will and moral responsibility. According to compatibilism, in a deterministic world, we have at least some free will and moral responsibilities. Incompatibilism, however, opposes these claims of compatibilism. According to incompatibilism, we cannot talk about moral responsibility without free will. Free-will is a necessary condition for moral responsibility. According to incompatibilists, the mere fact that we sometimes think that we are responsible for our actions is sufficient reason to believe in the existence of free will and moral responsibility. However, according to them, this is not true for determinism. If determinism is accepted as valid, how can we determine our choices and actions and how can we act as we wish? For these reasons, incompatibilism claims that free will and moral responsibility are incompatible with determinism. Libertarianism, which essentially makes the same claim as incompatibilism, argues that when free will is properly understood, it will also be incompatible with determinism. Libertarianism explains these ideas mostly through the idea that free will can do so otherwise. Libertarianism argues that one is responsible for one's actions; however, this responsibility cannot be mentioned when determinism is accepted as valid. The aim of this article is to explain the relationship between free will and moral responsibility with determinism in contemporary philosophy of action through this understanding. The claim in this article is that incompatibilism is a reasonable and acceptable understanding of the relationship between free will and moral responsibility, whereas compatibilism is unlikely to be accepted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because an agent's constitutive luck may seem to preclude free will, it may seem to preclude moral responsibility. An agent is basically morally responsible for performing action A at time t only if there is another possible world with the same past up to t and the same laws of nature in which the agent does not perform A at t. A compatibilist can solve the constitutive luck problem for moral responsibility without worrying about basic moral responsibility. According to compatibilism, if determinism is true, then agents can be morally responsible for performing actions without being basically morally responsible for performing them. But a libertarian who thinks agents can be basically morally responsible for what they do must explain how basic moral responsibility is possible. ACT-endorsing libertarianism can both solve the constitutive luck problem for moral responsibility and explain how agents can be basically morally responsible for what they do. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anti‐dualistic social ontologies, those highlighting the intrinsic interdependency of agency and structure as two sides of the same coin, are sometimes criticized for failing to provide a satisfactory account of autonomous – capable and free – agency, or even denying the reality of such agency. This paper contests these claims, arguing that anti‐dualistic ontologies only conflict with autonomous agency when the latter is understood in a highly voluntaristic sense, whose ideational roots go to what philosophers of free will call "incompatibilist" intuitions of freedom. Those intuitions suggest that actions (intentions, decisions) ultimately determined by extrinsic causes lack the kind of freedom presupposed by moral responsibility, so when agentive autonomy is presumed to involve such freedom, it does indeed cohere poorly with the anti‐dualistic picture of intrinsically structured agency. Herein, however, an alternative, "compatibilist" notion of autonomy is advanced, such that does not conflict with extrinsic determination and is therefore congruent with anti‐dualistic social ontologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Are the meanings of "chance" and "guidedness" consistent? The goal of this article is to provide an affirmative answer to this question and thereby defend compatibilism (or accommodationism), which is the position that evolutionary theory and interventionist theism can coexist harmoniously. Compatibilists, such as van Inwagen (2003), Bartholomew (2008), Dowe (2011), Bradley (2012), and Sober (2014) argue that certain components or features of the biosphere exhibit both chancy and divinely guided aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Belief in substance dualism, the idea that mind and matter are two different kinds of substances, has been found to be a strong predictor of belief in free will. Why? Here, we test whether believing that mind and matter are different kinds of substance correlates with differences in how people think of free will and/or differences in how people interpret the scenarios used to test their conceptions. We provided participants (N = 515) with two hypothetical scenarios where the world was presented either as deterministic or not and asked them whether they thought that a given decision could be free in that world. Incompatibilist free will requires that determinism, the idea that at any instant only one possible future can follow from the state of the world, is false. Compatibilists hold that free will is possible even if determinism is true. In this study, we investigate if substance dualists are more compatibilist. We find that they are not, and that both dualists and physicalists agree that free will is incompatible with determinism. In addition, we show that dualists and physicalists are equally likely to commit bypassing, i.e., to misinterpret determinism as excluding mental causation. We also show that dualists have a stronger tendency to commit intrusion, i.e., to misinterpret determinism by importing indeterministic metaphysics into their interpretation of deterministic descriptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Felsefe ve Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi (FLSF) is the property of Felsefe ve Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi (FLSF) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper argues that the account of teleology previously proposed by the authors is consistent with the physical determinism that is implicit across many of the sciences. We suggest that much of the current aversion to teleological thinking found in the sciences is rooted in debates that can be traced back to ancient natural science, which pitted mechanistic and deterministic theories against teleological ones. These debates saw a deterministic world as one where freedom and agency is impossible. And, because teleological entities seem to be free to either reach their ends or not, it was assumed that they could not be deterministic. Mayr's modern account of teleonomy adheres to this basic assumption. Yet, the seeming tension between teleology and determinism is illusory because freedom and agency do not, in fact, conflict with a deterministic world. To show this, we present a taxonomy of different types of freedom that we see as inherent in teleological systems. Then we show that our taxonomy of freedom, which is crucial to understanding teleology, shares many of the features of a philosophical position regarding free will that is known in the contemporary literature as 'compatibilism'. This position maintains that an agent is free when the sources of its actions are internal, when the agent itself is the deterministic cause of those actions. Our view shows that freedom is not only indispensable to teleology, but also that, contrary to common intuitions, there is no conflict between teleology and causal determinism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of multiple options for action in a specific situation is essential for choice and deliberation. But what exactly is an option for action? A simple and natural approach to this question is via conditional analyses. While conditional analyses of dispositions and abilities face well‐known objections and are widely considered untenable, I argue that several of these objections do not apply to conditional analyses of options. Others do, but the analyses can be modified or interpreted in a suitable way so as to deal with them. One central difficulty, however, remains and can only partially be resolved. Still, all things considered, the prospects of conditional analyses of options for action are quite good; they should not be lightly dismissed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One debate surrounding Derk Pereboom's (2001, 2014) four-case argument against compatibilism focuses on whether, and why, we judge manipulated agents to be neither free nor morally responsible. In this paper, we propose a novel explanation. The four-case argument features cases where an agent is the only individual in her universe who has been manipulated. Let us call manipulation whose scope includes at least one but not all agents existential manipulation. Contrast this with universal manipulation, which affects all agents within a universe. We propose that we find agents in Pereboom's manipulation cases less free and morally responsible in part because they are the target of existential manipulation. We empirically tested this hypothesis and found that people's free will and moral responsibility judgments were sensitive to the scope of manipulation: people judged existentially manipulated agents significantly less free and responsible than universally manipulated agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is common to ascribe agency to some organized collectives, such as corporations, courts, and states, and to treat them as loci of responsibility, over and above their individual members. But since responsibility is often assumed to require free will, should we also think that group agents have free will? Surprisingly, the literature contains very few in-depth discussions of this question. The most extensive defence of corporate free will that I am aware of (Hess [2014], “The Free Will of Corporations (and Other Collectives)”, Philosophical Studies 168 (1): 241–260) rests on a compatibilist understanding which takes reasons-responsiveness and acting from one’s own ‘actional springs’ as key conditions for free will but says little about a condition that free-will libertarians emphasize: the possibility of doing otherwise. In this paper, I will argue that group agents can have free will not only in a (less demanding) compatibilist sense, but also in a recognizably libertarian sense, which includes the possibility of doing otherwise. In developing this account of corporate free will, I will bring together recent work on group agency and recent work on free will. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I recently argued that reductive physicalist versions of libertarian free will face a physical indeterminism luck objection. John Lemos claims that one potential advocate of reductive physicalist libertarianism, Robert Kane, avoids this physical indeterminism luck objection. I here show how the problem remains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we clarify, unpack, and ultimately resist what is perhaps the most prominent argument for the compatibility of free will and determinism: the epistemic argument for compatibilism. We focus on one such argument as articulated by David Lewis: (i) we know we are free, (ii) for all we know everything is predetermined, (iii) if we know we are free but for all we know everything is predetermined, then for all we know we are free but everything is predetermined, (iv) if for all we know we are free but predetermined, then it is really possible that we are, so (v) compatibilism. We uncover how the crucial epistemic modality underlying (iv) must be understood, and contend that, understood this way, the libertarian can resist (iv). Importantly, however, resisting the argument does commit the libertarian to what has been called "flip-flopping"—but we argue that this is perfectly coherent. We conclude by articulating two crucially ways the libertarian can resist the argument, by saying that we can know that determinism is false "from the armchair". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To bolster his consequence argument against David Lewis's rejoinder, Peter van Inwagen uses the concept of miracle. He claims that the Lewisian compatibilist must admit that under determinism, we possess the ability to work miracles par excellence , that is, not just in some purely technical sense of the term. The article argues that van Inwagen's definition of a 'miracle' is too broad even if it is interpreted merely as an explication of one component often thought to be inherent in the religious concept of miracle, namely the concept of an event that breaks the laws of nature. Nomological effects of miracles are not miracles themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many Christian theologians believe in the existence of cases of divine hardening and divine election, where God either actively contributes to human evil or preordains it. God seems to act like a manipulator, who first covertly incites or determines people's evil actions and then condemns those actions and punishes the wrongdoers. I raise three questions regarding such cases: (1) how can humans be responsible for wrongdoings that are determined by God via either direct involvement or predestination; (2) is God justified in using covert manipulation to achieve his goals; (3) how can God judge human evil, if God predestines them or actively incites humans to commit evils? The article outlines two cases of supposed divine manipulation, discusses the general nature of manipulation and then examines each question outlined above. The argument is that the problems surrounding divine manipulation present significant challenges to especially those Christian theists that subscribe to divine determinism. Zusammenfassung: Viele christliche Theologen glauben an die Existenz von Fällen göttlicher Verhärtung und göttlicher Erwählung, in denen Gott entweder aktiv menschliches Übel herbeiführt oder es verurteilt. Gott scheint wie ein Manipulator zu handeln, der Menschen zu bösen Handlungen heimlich anstiftet oder vorherbestimmt und dann diese Handlungen verurteilt und den Übeltäter bestraft. Ich erhebe drei Anfrage an diese Fälle: (1) wie können Menschen für Fehlverhalten verantwortlich gemacht werden, die von Gott entweder durch direkte Einwirkung oder durch Prädestination determiniert sind; (2) ist Gott berechtigt, durch verdeckte Manipulation seine Ziele zu erreichen; (3) wie kann Gott menschliche Übeltaten verurteilen, wenn Gott diese vorherbestimmt hat oder aktiv Menschen angestiftet hat, Böses zu begehen? Der Beitrag skizziert zwei Fälle vermeintlicher göttlicher Manipulation, diskutiert die allgemeine Natur der Manipulation und untersucht dann jede der oben umrissenen Fragen. Es wird argumentiert, dass die Probleme im Zusammenhang mit der göttlichen Manipulation erhebliche Herausforderungen darstellen, insbesondere für jene christlichen Theisten, die sich dem göttlichen Determinismus verschrieben haben. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]