Steve said: ...The fact that humans are agents--that we make choices--does not do anything to link free will and morality. Choices are necessary for morality, but whether our choices are free in some meaningful sense can be held as a separate question.
dmb says: This issue is covered in the opening paragraph of Stanford's article on "Free Will". We have been going round and round and can't seem to agree on the most basic terms and ideas involved. You think I'm being a dick about it, but from my perspective I have been exercising the patience of a saint. From my perspective, you are being unbelievably incorrigible. I'm trying to make a simple and hardly disputable point over and over and over and over again and it just doesn't register. You keep missing the same simple point now matter how many different ways I put or how many sources I show you that are also making that point. It's a lot like Abbot and Costello's "Who's on first?", except it's not funny. Look at the first sentence of this first paragraph from this highly respected encyclopedia of philosophy. That first sentence should be enough to tell you why your claim (above) is simply wrong. Why can you not see this? It says that the term "Free will" means the capacity of an agent to choose. You are simply denying that free will means what all the sources say it means. Repeatedly and in the face of many, many explanations and argument to the contrary. Let's step back for a moment to try to unblock this obstacle (before my head explodes), please. Read the following paragraph and then tell me what you think it says. I think it says that you are mistaken about the meaning of free will, agency, choice and morality. If we can't agree on the meaning of these terms then communication is not possible, as is the case now, apparently. What does this paragraph mean to you, Steve? Stanford BEGINS its article on Free Will: “Free Will” is a philosophical term of art for a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives. Which sort is the free will sort is what all the fuss is about. (And what a fuss it has been: philosophers have debated this question for over two millennia, and just about every major philosopher has had something to say about it.) Most philosophers suppose that the concept of free will is very closely connected to the concept of moral responsibility. Acting with free will, on such views, is just to satisfy the metaphysical requirement on being responsible for one's action. (Clearly, there will also be epistemic conditions on responsibility as well, such as being aware—or failing that, being culpably unaware—of relevant alternatives to one's action and of the alternatives' moral significance.) But the significance of free will is not exhausted by its connection to moral responsibility. Free will also appears to be a condition on desert for one's accomplishments (why sustained effort and creative work are praiseworthy); on the autonomy and dignity of persons; and on the value we accord to love and friendship. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
