You can do this where the probabilities are not the result of reasoning. — Terrapin Station
But you have mentally assigned the probabilities based on prior beliefs, and this determines your choice. — Relativist
If a reason is a reason there is no choice, right? — Heiko
A reason can be a cause, a motive (which is basically a teleological cause), or an explanation. What are you addressing by “a reason”? — javra
A reason as such. — Heiko
It seems that any deliberative choice is fully determined by brain states — Noah Te Stroete
I believe brain states as well as mental states are fully determined. — Noah Te Stroete
beliefs, memories, moods, and needs — Noah Te Stroete
That thought-experiment, though, of you being the same person in a different world and making a different choice - I can easily imagine that. One interesting analogy here would be twin studies. As you probably know, twins often share very many elements of their life-stories, even when they’ve been separated at birth. But it’s still not hard to envisage cases in which one twin makes a decision that causes their life to diverge wildly from that of their twin - like, kill someone, or something. So what is choice being ‘determined’ by? — Wayfarer
I didn’t pay back my student loans, but that “choice” was fully determined by circumstances beyond my control. The stress of living in the ghetto where gunshots rang outside, drug deals in the parking lot outside my window, the paper-thin walls that made it impossible to differentiate outside voices from the voices inside my head; all contributed to my already fragile mind (I have schizoaffective disorder), fully determining my need to be proclaimed disabled and unable to work. In no possible universe given all of these factors as still holding true would I be able to work. So, I reject your view that “intelligible” actions are not fully determined. — Noah Te Stroete
I didn’t pay back my student loans, but that “choice” was fully determined by circumstances beyond my control. The stress of living in the ghetto where gunshots rang outside, drug deals in the parking lot outside my window, the paper-thin walls that made it impossible to differentiate outside voices from the voices inside my head; all contributed to my already fragile mind (I have schizoaffective disorder), fully determining my need to be proclaimed disabled and unable to work. In no possible universe given all of these factors as still holding true would I be able to work. So, I reject your view that “intelligible” actions are not fully determined. — Noah Te Stroete
But there also are cases where we hold that, although external circumstances account causally for the agent having made a bad choice, this influence on her action isn't best construed as a factor that severely diminished the agent's ability to do the right thing but rather is better construed as having provided an occasion for the agent to display a character flaw for which she remains responsible. — Pierre-Normand
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