Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos  This does not clarify whether you have a libertarian or compatibilist view of free will.
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I've explained what free will means. Whether it is libertarian or compatibilist depends on what one means by these terms.
Let's take compatibilism first. It claims that determinism and free will are not mutually exclusive. But this of course depends on what you mean by "determinism". If you mean that physical reality is
governed by physical laws, or that all change in the world is brought about by the innate power of physical processes, then of course it is abundantly clear that free will is
not compatible with determinism.
If by "determinism" you mean that physical laws merely
describe physical processes, and that causality is merely a conjunction of events like Hume argued, then free will
is compatible with determinism.
Thus all physical things/processes might be conscious to a certain degree and physical laws merely describe their freely chosen behaviour. Thus the Earth orbits the Sun because it wishes to do so.
So my notion of free will may or may not be compatibilist depending on what you mean by "determinism".
Libertarian? To quote
mszlazak who in turn is quoting some anonymous author. "Imagine two parallel universes, identical in every detail, and imagine a man in each universe, identical in their character and knowledge and desires and everything else, standing in totally identical circumstances. Now imagine that one of these men chooses to kill his wife, but the other man chooses not to".
This author is claiming that those who subscribe to libertarian free will must agree that it is possible for one man to kill his wife but the other wouldn't. In that case I do not subscribe to libertarian free will.
So perhaps it's the case that I neither subscribe to compatibilism or libertarianism.