Hi dmb,
On Sat, Aug 27, 2011 at 1:48 PM, david buchanan <[email protected]> wrote: > > 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. ... > 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. Steve: No, it doesn't. You need to read more carefully. In fact I can't see how could possibly take that sentence to be _supporting_ rather than specifically _refuting_ your claim here. Maybe my emphasis added below will help you get the point of this quote you provided: It says. "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." You see? It is not at all taken for granted that the capacity of rational agents to choose is equivalent to free will. That capacity is deemed in this quote as _insufficient_ for free will which is rather a _"particular sort"_ of this capacity. Further, it says "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." First of all, the fact that merely most rather than _all_ philosophers taking this view should tell you that the link between free will and moral responsibility is _not_ a logical necessity that forces the mind of all true rational thinkers to agree with you on the matter. Secondly, the word "metaphysical" should be a big red flag here for you. We debated long and hard to agree that neither of us or any Pirsigian or pragmatist ought to take free will as a metaphysical matter. It is those that seek a metaphysical basis for human freedom that assert free will as the supposedly needed foundation for moral responsibility. Those people aren't us. We MOQers and pragmatists aren't in the category "most philosophers." Best, Steve 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
