Ecmandu: This reply of yours is what’s called a thread killer. It’s so stupid, that nobody sees a point to reply anymore. Excepting this post to teach you another posting forum term.
Peacegirl: Then the thread will die a natural death! But it is you that’s the poor loser, not me!
Compatibilism works perfectly well as long as neither free will or determinism are regarded as absolute
As absolute free will would invalidate determinism and absolute determinism would invalidate free will
What actually exists in reality is limited free will and limited determinism so compatibilism is the norm
The freedom to make decisions between some possibilities is evidence that free will exists
What does not exist though is absolute free will because there are restrictions on what decisions can be made
Not everything that is actually possible will always be considered because of moral or psychological objections
Surreptitious: The freedom to make decisions between some possibilities is evidence that free will exists
Peacegirl: Being free to make decisions gives you the ability to choose without external force but you are controlled internally the minute you make a decision one way or the other, granting you no free will whatsoever
Surreptitious: What does not exist though is absolute free will because there are restrictions on what decisions can be made
Not everything that is actually possible will always be considered because of moral or psychological objections
Peacegirl: Just because a choice is available doesn’t make it possible in reality. If you are restricted due to moral or psychological objections, you are not free to choose freely because free will implies you can choose what is distasteful in spite of a better option in your eyes. IOW could you kill someone who did nothing to hurt you if you had the option not to kill? Show me how free you are. If you were free you could choose either option equally with no compulsion either way, which is impossible given my example.
You make a decision and then you choose to stick to it of your own free will so it is not something that is imposed
Free will therefore does not invalidate the need to have to make decisions or else you would never make any at all
You cannot freely choose anything which violates your own moral code but you can everything else
Free will is therefore not absolute but conditional and it is within that domain that free will exists
What would a rock need… what kind of property… to have some freewill?
I say ‘some’ because it’s become a trend around here to believe that people can have a little freewill rather than a lot… or be somewhat determined rather than completely. This is of course due to a misunderstanding of what ‘absolute’ means… and more importantly, when and to what it can be meaningfully applied. While I am baffled by this strange use of the concept, I’m obliged to play along at the moment and ask: what would it take for a rock to ‘sorta’ have freewill?
You cannot freely choose anything which violates your own moral code but you can everything else
Free will is therefore not absolute but conditional and it is within that domain that free will exists.
Peacegirl: You can’t have free will some of the time. It doesn’t work that way, just like you can’t be a little bit pregnant. But its really not a problem to say you were free to choose something. Everybody gets it even though nothing is actually done of your own free will. That being said, the importance of this debate revolves around moral responsibility. I have yet to show how the truth of determinism doesn’t lessen responsibility; it increases it.
It would if determinism was absolute as then one could not be responsible for any decisions they made
But it is not absolute as free will exists so we have to therefore accept responsibility for all our choices
Please hear me out! This discovery is a two-sided equation which I haven’t been able to explain since everyone throws in their views. This absolving of responsibility if will is not free has been a stumbling block for centuries. If we can’t blame people for hurting others, and we must excuse them, then they can easily get away with anything they want. But the truth is you can’t have both free will and determinism. One cancels out the other. IOW, you can’t be able to have done otherwise and not be able to have done otherwise. It’s a complete contradiction. So how is this resolved? Compatibilism doesn’t work because the compatibilist who said the wrongdoer chose freely (due to the lack of heavy restraints such as addiction or OCD and is therefore responsible) could not have chosen freely. So where do we go from here? Is anyone interested in this discovery or are people just interested in the old debate which has gotten us nowhere?