I want moral responsibility to be a tangible thing. That would make me happy, — ToothyMaw
I’ll begin with the typical incompatibilist argument regarding free will:
1. A person acts of her own free will only if she is its ultimate source.
2. If determinism is true, no one is the ultimate source of her actions.
3.Therefore, if determinism is true, no one acts of her own free will. — ToothyMaw
But imagine that we have not come into being but exist with aseity. We know already that some things that exist must have this status, else we will find ourselves having to posit an infinity of prior causes. So, that some things exist with aseity is certain. There is no incoherence, then, in supposing that we ourselves might have that status. — Bartricks
re PAP: it's surely open to both compatibilist and incompatibilist readings. So, although it is highly plausible that free will does involve having alternative possibilities, this leaves open whether the alternatives need to be unconditional or conditional. So I do not think one can get to the incompatibilist conclusion in a non-question begging way by means of PAP. — Bartricks
Supposing that we might have the status of aseity because aseity is possible for some things is different from demonstrating that people do not come into existence, — ToothyMaw
Furthermore, even if people did exist with aseity, external factors would still affect their decisions if determinism is true; — ToothyMaw
It isn't plausible; it is how free will is defined according to an indeterminist view. And I say later in the OP that I am referring to free will in the indeterminist sense with PAP. — ToothyMaw
Determinism: the doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will. — ToothyMaw
1. If we have free will, we exist with aseity
2. We have free will
3. Therefore we exist with aseity — Bartricks
What is plausible is the claim that if your decisions are 'wholly' the product of external causes, then one is not responsible. — Bartricks
Unless we exist with aseity everything we do will trace to external causes (a premise I take it you are sympathetic to) — Bartricks
That's question begging. There is a vast literature on how best to understand 'could have done otherwise'. There are conditional and unconditional interpretations. The conditional interpretation is compatible with determinism, the unconditional is not. If you just stipulate that you are assuming the truth of the unconditional reading, then you are just stipulating that compatibilism is false, which is question begging. — Bartricks
That's question begging. There is a vast literature on how best to understand 'could have done otherwise'. There are conditional and unconditional interpretations. The conditional interpretation is compatible with determinism, the unconditional is not. If you just stipulate that you are assuming the truth of the unconditional reading, then you are just stipulating that compatibilism is false, which is question begging. — Bartricks
It seems to be a circular argument - attempting to prove that we do not come into existence by assuming we have free will, only to claim that because we don't come into existence we have free will. — ToothyMaw
1. No one has power over the facts of the past and the laws of nature.
2. No one has power over the fact that the facts of the past and the laws of nature entail every fact of the future (i.e., determinism is true).
3. Therefore, no one has power over the facts of the future. — ToothyMaw
no one could have acted differently in any way, and a number of compatibilists do indeed assume that moral responsibility requires different possibilities. — ToothyMaw
1. If we have free will, we exist with aseity. — Bartricks
if everything we do is a product of matters for which we are not morally responsible, then we are not morally responsible for anything we do — Bartricks
If we have been caused by external events, then we are not morally responsible for our initial character — Bartricks
If we have come into existence, then everything we do is a product of initial character, environment and laws of nature, none of which we are in any way morally responsible for — Bartricks
A) If we have come into existence, then we have been caused to come into existence by events external to ourselves
B) If we have been caused by external events, then we are not morally responsible for our initial character — Bartricks
That argument is unsound. Premise 1 is false. If we exist with aseity then we did have power over facts of the past, for there was never a time when we did not exist. — Bartricks
I have an issue with this; one could not be self-originated yet have free will. They just aren't responsible for their coming into existence. They can still be the ultimate source of their own actions without aseity: — ToothyMaw
Initial character might constrain one's choices insofar as it limits what choices are available to one, but one could still be free to choose between all of the alternatives available to them in an unconditional sense. And a lack of aseity only means that one is not responsible for their initial character, nothing else. — ToothyMaw
It then follows from what I have written above that having free will does not mean one must exist with aseity. Thus, premise (1) is unsupported. — ToothyMaw
Maybe you did have power over the facts of the past, but you do not have power over the facts of the past in the present, which is what that means. — ToothyMaw
Thus, the burden of proof is shifted to the compatibilist to prove determinism wrong in order to hold people morally responsible for acts.
This leads to a gray zone in which it is uncertain if people can be held culpable, and it seems to me that until it is proven that determinism is false we should withhold judgement on whether or not people can be held morally responsible for their actions.
Therefore, if we have come into existence, we are not morally responsible for anything we do — Bartricks
I) Therefore, if we have come into existence, we do not have free will. — Bartricks
If we have free will, we exist with aseity. — Bartricks
The conclusion does not follow because you must specify that external factors such as environment and laws of nature, as you do in an earlier premise, also contribute to a lack of moral responsibility. — ToothyMaw
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