Libertarianism is one of the main philosophical positions related to the problems of
free willFree will raises the question whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions, decisions, choices. Addressing this question requires understanding the relationship between freedom and cause, and determining whether the laws of nature are causally deterministic...
and
determinismDeterminism is the view that every event, including human cognition, behavior, decision, and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. With numerous historical debates, many varieties and philosophical positions on the subject of determinism exist from...
, which are part of the larger domain of
metaphysicsMetaphysics investigates principles of reality transcending those of any particular science. Cosmology and ontology are traditional branches of metaphysics. It is concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world...
. In particular, libertarianism, along with other
incompatibilistIncompatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are logically incompatible categories. This could include believing that determinism is reality, therefore free will is an illusion , or that free will is true, therefore determinism is not , or even that neither determinism nor free will...
positions, argues that free will is logically incompatible with a deterministic universe, but that determinism may be false, and that free will is therefore possible. Although
compatibilismIncompatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are logically incompatible categories. This could include believing that determinism is reality, therefore free will is an illusion , or that free will is true, therefore determinism is not , or even that neither determinism nor free will...
, the view that determinism and free will are not logically incompatible, is the most popular position on free will amongst professional philosophers, metaphysical libertarianism is discussed by several philosophers, such as
Peter van InwagenPeter van Inwagen is John Cardinal O'Hara Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He previously taught at Syracuse University and earned his PhD from the University of Rochester under the direction of Richard Taylor and Keith Lehrer...
,
Robert KaneRobert Hilary Kane is an American philosopher. He is Distinguished Teaching Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, and is currently on phased retirement....
,
Robert NozickRobert Nozick was an American philosopher and professor at Harvard University. He was educated at Columbia , where he studied with Sidney Morgenbesser, at Princeton , and Oxford as a Fulbright Scholar. He was a prominent American political philosopher in the 1970s and 1980s...
,
Carl GinetCarl Ginet is a retired professor of philosophy at Cornell University. His work is primarily in action theory, moral responsibility, free will, and epistemology. He joined the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell in 1971 and retired in 1999...
, Hugh McCann,
Harry FrankfurtHarry Gordon Frankfurt is a professor emeritus of philosophy at Princeton University. He previously taught at Yale University and Rockefeller University. He obtained his B.A. in 1949 and Ph.D. in 1954 from...
, Alred Merle, Roderick Chisolm,
Daniel DennettDaniel Clement Dennett is a prominent American philosopher whose research centers on philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science. He is currently the co-director of the Center for Cognitive...
, Timothy O'Connor, Derek Pereboom and
Galen StrawsonGalen John Strawson is a British philosopher and literary critic who works primarily on philosophy of mind, metaphysics , John Locke, David Hume and Kant. He was educated at the Dragon School, Oxford , from where he won a scholarship to Winchester College...
.
The term libertarianism in metaphysical or philosophical sense first was used by late
EnlightenmentThe Age of Enlightenment, or simply The Enlightenment, is a term used to describe a time in Western philosophy and cultural life, centered upon the eighteenth century, in which reason was advocated as the primary source and legitimacy for authority....
free-thinkersFreethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that opinions should be formed on the basis of science, logic, and reason, and should not be influenced by authority, tradition, or any other dogma...
to refer to those who believed in
free willFree will raises the question whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions, decisions, choices. Addressing this question requires understanding the relationship between freedom and cause, and determining whether the laws of nature are causally deterministic...
, as opposed to
determinismDeterminism is the view that every event, including human cognition, behavior, decision, and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. With numerous historical debates, many varieties and philosophical positions on the subject of determinism exist from...
.
Libertarianism is one of the main philosophical positions related to the problems of
free willFree will raises the question whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions, decisions, choices. Addressing this question requires understanding the relationship between freedom and cause, and determining whether the laws of nature are causally deterministic...
and
determinismDeterminism is the view that every event, including human cognition, behavior, decision, and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. With numerous historical debates, many varieties and philosophical positions on the subject of determinism exist from...
, which are part of the larger domain of
metaphysicsMetaphysics investigates principles of reality transcending those of any particular science. Cosmology and ontology are traditional branches of metaphysics. It is concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world...
. In particular, libertarianism, along with other
incompatibilistIncompatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are logically incompatible categories. This could include believing that determinism is reality, therefore free will is an illusion , or that free will is true, therefore determinism is not , or even that neither determinism nor free will...
positions, argues that free will is logically incompatible with a deterministic universe, but that determinism may be false, and that free will is therefore possible. Although
compatibilismIncompatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are logically incompatible categories. This could include believing that determinism is reality, therefore free will is an illusion , or that free will is true, therefore determinism is not , or even that neither determinism nor free will...
, the view that determinism and free will are not logically incompatible, is the most popular position on free will amongst professional philosophers, metaphysical libertarianism is discussed by several philosophers, such as
Peter van InwagenPeter van Inwagen is John Cardinal O'Hara Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He previously taught at Syracuse University and earned his PhD from the University of Rochester under the direction of Richard Taylor and Keith Lehrer...
,
Robert KaneRobert Hilary Kane is an American philosopher. He is Distinguished Teaching Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, and is currently on phased retirement....
,
Robert NozickRobert Nozick was an American philosopher and professor at Harvard University. He was educated at Columbia , where he studied with Sidney Morgenbesser, at Princeton , and Oxford as a Fulbright Scholar. He was a prominent American political philosopher in the 1970s and 1980s...
,
Carl GinetCarl Ginet is a retired professor of philosophy at Cornell University. His work is primarily in action theory, moral responsibility, free will, and epistemology. He joined the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell in 1971 and retired in 1999...
, Hugh McCann,
Harry FrankfurtHarry Gordon Frankfurt is a professor emeritus of philosophy at Princeton University. He previously taught at Yale University and Rockefeller University. He obtained his B.A. in 1949 and Ph.D. in 1954 from...
, Alred Merle, Roderick Chisolm,
Daniel DennettDaniel Clement Dennett is a prominent American philosopher whose research centers on philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science. He is currently the co-director of the Center for Cognitive...
, Timothy O'Connor, Derek Pereboom and
Galen StrawsonGalen John Strawson is a British philosopher and literary critic who works primarily on philosophy of mind, metaphysics , John Locke, David Hume and Kant. He was educated at the Dragon School, Oxford , from where he won a scholarship to Winchester College...
.
The term libertarianism in metaphysical or philosophical sense first was used by late
EnlightenmentThe Age of Enlightenment, or simply The Enlightenment, is a term used to describe a time in Western philosophy and cultural life, centered upon the eighteenth century, in which reason was advocated as the primary source and legitimacy for authority....
free-thinkersFreethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that opinions should be formed on the basis of science, logic, and reason, and should not be influenced by authority, tradition, or any other dogma...
to refer to those who believed in
free willFree will raises the question whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions, decisions, choices. Addressing this question requires understanding the relationship between freedom and cause, and determining whether the laws of nature are causally deterministic...
, as opposed to
determinismDeterminism is the view that every event, including human cognition, behavior, decision, and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. With numerous historical debates, many varieties and philosophical positions on the subject of determinism exist from...
. The first recorded use was in 1789 by William Belsham in a discussion of free will and in opposition to "necessitarian" (or determinist) views. Metaphysical and philosophical contrasts between philosophies of necessity and libertarianism continued in the early 19th century.
Overview
Metaphysical libertarianism is one philosophical view point under that of incompatiblism. Libertarianism holds onto a concept of free will that requires the individual to be able to take more than one possible course of action under a given set of circumstances.
Accounts of libertarianism subdivide into non-physical theories and physical or naturalistic theories. Non-physical theories hold that a non-physical
mindMind is the aspect of intellect and consciousness experienced as combinations of thought, perception, memory, emotion, will and imagination, including all unconscious cognitive processes. The term is often used to refer, by implication, to the thought processes of reason. Mind manifests itself...
overrides physical causality, so that physical events in the brain that lead to the performance of actions do not have an entirely physical explanation. This approach is allied to mind-body
dualismDualism denotes a state of two parts. The word's origin is the Latin duo, "two" . The term 'dualism' was originally coined to denote co-eternal binary opposition, a meaning that is preserved in metaphysical and philosophical duality discourse but has been diluted in general or common usages.-Moral...
in
philosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
. According to this view, the world is not believed to be closed under Physics. An extra-physical will is believed to play a part in the decision making process. According to a somewhat related theological explanation, a
soulThe soul, in many religions, spiritual traditions, and philosophies, is the spiritual and eternal part of a living being, commonly held to be separable in existence from the body; distinct from the physical part. It is typically thought to consist of ones consciousness and personality, and can be...
is said to make decisions and override physical causality.
Explanations of libertarianism, which do not involve dispensing with
physicalismPhysicalism is a philosophical position holding that everything which exists is no more extensive than its physical properties; that is, that there are no kinds of things other than physical things...
, require physical indeterminism. This is because physical determinism under the assumption of physicalism implies that there is only one possible future which is not compatible with libertarian free will. Some explanations involve invoking
panpsychismPanpsychism, in philosophy, is either the view that all parts of matter involve mind, or the more holistic view that the whole universe is an organism that possesses a mind . It is thus a stronger and more ambitious view than animism or hylozoism, which holds only that all things are alive...
, the theory that a quality of
mindMind is the aspect of intellect and consciousness experienced as combinations of thought, perception, memory, emotion, will and imagination, including all unconscious cognitive processes. The term is often used to refer, by implication, to the thought processes of reason. Mind manifests itself...
is associated with all particles, and pervades the entire universe, in both sentient and non-sentient entities. Other approaches do not require free will to be a fundamental constituent of the universe; ordinary randomness is appealed to as supplying the "elbow room" believed to be necessary by libertarians. Free
volitionVolition or will is the cognitive process by which an individual decides on and commits to a particular course of action. It is defined as purposive striving, and is one of the primary human psychological functions...
is regarded as a particular kind of complex, high-level process with an element of indeterminism. An example of this kind of approach has been developed by
Robert KaneRobert Hilary Kane is an American philosopher. He is Distinguished Teaching Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, and is currently on phased retirement....
. Although at the time C. S. Lewis wrote
Miracles,
Quantum MechanicsQuantum mechanics is a set of principles describing the physical reality at the atomic level of matter and the subatomic . These descriptions include the simultaneous wave-like and particle-like behavior of both matter and radiation...
(and physical
indeterminismIndeterminism is a philosophical position that maintains that some form of determinism is incorrect: that there are events which do not correspond with determinism .While the ontological determinism rules out the chance, theorizing that the becoming is only by necessity, the...
) was only in the initial stages of acceptance, he stated the logical possibility that if the physical world was proved to be indeterministic this would provide an entry (interaction) point into the traditionally viewed closed system, where a scientifically described physically probable/improbable event could be philosophically described as an action of a non physical entity on physical reality (noting that under a physicalist point of view the non physical entity must be independent of the self identity or mental processing of the sentient being).
Robert Nozick
Nozick puts forward an indeterministic theory of free will in
Philosophical ExplanationsPhilosophical Explanations is a wide-ranging metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical treatise written by Robert Nozick and published in 1981.-The Parthenon Model and non-coercive philosophy:...
.
When human beings become agents through reflexive self-awareness, they express their agency by having reasons for acting, to which they assign weights. Choosing the dimensions of one's identity is a special case, in which the assigning of weight to a dimension is partly self-constitutive. But all acting for reasons is constitutive of the self in a broader sense, namely, by its shaping one's character and personality in a manner analogous to the shaping that law undergoes through the precedent set by earlier court decisions. Just as a judge does not merely apply the law but to some degree makes it through judicial discretion, so too a person does not merely discover weights but assigns them; one not only weighs reasons but also weights them. Set in train is a process of building a framework for future decisions that we are tentatively committed to.
The life-long process of self-definition in this broader sense is construed
indeterministicallyIndeterminism is a philosophical position that maintains that some form of determinism is incorrect: that there are events which do not correspond with determinism .While the ontological determinism rules out the chance, theorizing that the becoming is only by necessity, the...
by Nozick. The weighting is "up to us" in the sense that it is undetermined by antecedent causal factors, even though subsequent action is fully caused by the reasons one has accepted. He compares assigning weights in this deterministic sense to "the currently orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics", following
von NeumannJohn von Neumann was a Hungarian American mathematician who made major contributions to a vast range of fields, including set theory, functional analysis, quantum mechanics, ergodic theory, continuous geometry, economics and game theory, computer science, numerical analysis, hydrodynamics John...
in understanding a quantum mechanical system as in a superposition or probability mixture of states, which changes continuously in accordance with quantum mechanical equations of motion and discontinuously via measurement or observation that "collapses the wave packet" from a superposition to a particular state. Analogously, a person before decision has reasons without fixed weights: he is in a superposition of weights. The process of decision reduces the superposition to a particular state that causes action.
Robert Kane
Kane is one of the leading contemporary philosophers on
free willFree will raises the question whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions, decisions, choices. Addressing this question requires understanding the relationship between freedom and cause, and determining whether the laws of nature are causally deterministic...
. Advocating what is termed within philosophical circles "libertarian freedom", Kane argues that "(1) the existence of alternative possibilities (or the agent's power to do otherwise) is a necessary condition for acting freely, and (2) determinism is not compatible with alternative possibilities (it precludes the power to do otherwise)". It is important to note that the crux of Kane's position is grounded not in a defense of alternative possibilities (AP) but in the notion of what Kane refers to as ultimate responsibility (UR). Thus, AP is a necessary but insufficient criterion for free will. It is necessary that there be (
metaphysicalMetaphysics investigates principles of reality transcending those of any particular science. Cosmology and ontology are traditional branches of metaphysics. It is concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world...
ly) real alternatives for our actions, but that is not enough; our actions could be random without being in our control. The control is found in "ultimate responsibility".
Ultimate responsibility entails that agents must be the ultimate creators (or originators) and sustainers of their own ends and purposes. There must be more than one way for a person's life to turn out (AP). More importantly, whichever way it turns out must be based in the person's willing actions. As Kane defines it,
In short, "an agent must be responsible for anything that is a sufficient reason (condition, cause or motive) for the action's occurring."
What allows for ultimacy of creation in Kane's picture are what he refers to as "self-forming actions" or SFAs — those moments of indecision during which people experience conflicting wills. These SFAs are the undetermined, regress-stopping voluntary actions or refrainings in the life histories of agents that are required for UR. UR does not require that
every act done of our own free will be undetermined and thus that, for every act or choice, we could have done otherwise; it requires only that certain of our choices and actions be undetermined (and thus that we could have done otherwise), namely SFAs. These form our character or nature; they inform our future choices, reasons and motivations in action. If a person has had the opportunity to make a character-forming decision (SFA), he is responsible for the actions that are a result of his character.
Critique
Randolph ClarkeRandolph Clarke is a Professor of Philosophy at Florida State University. His interests are human agency, particularly intentional action, free will, and moral responsibility....
objects that Kane's depiction of free will is not truly libertarian but rather a form of compatibilism. The objection asserts that although the outcome of an SFA is not determined, one's history up to the event
is; so the fact that an SFA will occur is also determined. The outcome of the SFA is based on chance, and from that point on one's life is determined. This kind of freedom, says Clarke, is no different than the kind of freedom argued for by compatibilists, who assert that even though our actions are determined, they are free because they are in accordance with our own wills, much like the outcome of an SFA.
Kane responds that the difference between causal indeterminism and compatibilism is "ultimate control — the originative control exercised by agents when it is 'up to them' which of a set of possible choices or actions will now occur, and up to no one and nothing else over which the agents themselves do not also have control". UR assures that the sufficient conditions for one's actions do not lie before one's own birth.
Galen StrawsonGalen John Strawson is a British philosopher and literary critic who works primarily on philosophy of mind, metaphysics , John Locke, David Hume and Kant. He was educated at the Dragon School, Oxford , from where he won a scholarship to Winchester College...
holds that there is a fundamental sense in which
free willFree will raises the question whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions, decisions, choices. Addressing this question requires understanding the relationship between freedom and cause, and determining whether the laws of nature are causally deterministic...
is impossible, whether
determinismDeterminism is the view that every event, including human cognition, behavior, decision, and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. With numerous historical debates, many varieties and philosophical positions on the subject of determinism exist from...
is true or not. He argues for this position with what he calls his "basic argument", which aims to show that no-one is ever ultimately morally responsible for their actions, and hence that no one has free will in the sense that usually concerns us. In its simplest form, the Basic Argument runs thus:
- We do what we do, in a given situation, because we are what we are.
- In order to be ultimately responsible for what we do, we have to be ultimately responsible for what we are — at least in certain crucial mental respects.
- But we cannot, as the first point avers, be ultimately responsible for what we are, because, simply, we are what we are; we cannot be causa sui
Causa sui denotes something which is generated within itself. This concept was central to the works of Spinoza, Freud, and Ernest Becker, where it relates to the purpose that objects can assign to themselves...
.
- Therefore, we cannot be ultimately responsible for what we do.
In his book defending
comaptibilismIncompatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are logically incompatible categories. This could include believing that determinism is reality, therefore free will is an illusion , or that free will is true, therefore determinism is not , or even that neither determinism nor free will...
,
Freedom EvolvesFreedom Evolves is a 2003 popular science and philosophy book by Daniel C. Dennett. Dennett describes the book as an installment of a life-long philosophical project, earlier parts of which were The Intentional Stance, Consciousness Explained and Elbow Room...
, Daniel Dennett spends a chapter criticising Kane's theory. Kane believes freedom is based on certain rare and exceptional events, which he calls self-forming actions or SFA's. Dennett notes that there is no guarantee such an event will occur in an individual's life. If it does not, the individual does not in fact have free will at all, according to Kane. Yet they will seem the same as anyone else. Dennett finds an essentially
indetectable notion of free will to be incredible.
Harry Frankfurt
Frankfurt counterexamplesFrankfurt counterexamples were presented by philosopher Harry Frankfurt in 1969 as counterexamples to the "principle of alternative possibilities" or PAP, which holds that an agent is morally responsible for an action only if they have the option of free will Frankfurt counterexamples (also known...
(also known as Frankfurt cases or Frankfurt-style cases) were presented by philosopher
Harry FrankfurtHarry Gordon Frankfurt is a professor emeritus of philosophy at Princeton University. He previously taught at Yale University and Rockefeller University. He obtained his B.A. in 1949 and Ph.D. in 1954 from...
in 1969 as counterexamples to the "principle of alternative possibilities" or PAP, which holds that an agent is
morally responsibleMoral responsibility can refer to two different but related things. First, a person has moral responsibility for a situation if that person has an obligation to ensure that something happens. Assume that John promises to baby-sit for his neighbour while she goes to a job interview. However, he...
for an action only if they have the option of
free willFree will raises the question whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions, decisions, choices. Addressing this question requires understanding the relationship between freedom and cause, and determining whether the laws of nature are causally deterministic...
(i.e. they could have done otherwise).
The Principle of Alternate Possibilities
The principle of alternate possibilities forms part of an influential argument for the incompatibility of responsibility and causal
determinismDeterminism is the view that every event, including human cognition, behavior, decision, and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. With numerous historical debates, many varieties and philosophical positions on the subject of determinism exist from...
, as detailed below:
- PAP: An agent is responsible for an action only if said agent is free.
- An agent is free only if causal determinism is false.
- Therefore, an agent is responsible for an action only if causal determinism is false.
Traditionally, compatibilists (defenders of the compatibility of moral responsibility and determinism, like
Alfred AyerSir Alfred Jules Ayer , better known as A. J. Ayer or "Freddie" to friends, was a British philosopher known for his promotion of logical positivism, particularly in his books Language, Truth and Logic and The Problem of Knowledge .Ayer was the Grote Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic at...
and
Walter Terence StaceWalter Terence Stace was a British civil servant, educator and philosopher who wrote on Hegel and Mysticism.-Biography:...
) try to reject premise two, arguing that, properly understood, free will is not incompatible with determinism. According to the traditional analysis of free will, an agent is free to do otherwise when he would have done otherwise had he wanted to do otherwise. Agents may possess free will, according to the conditional analysis, even if determinism is true.
Frankfurt's objection
From the PAP definition "a person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise", Frankfurt infers that a person is not morally responsible for what he has done if he could
not have done otherwise — a point with which he takes issue: our theoretical ability to do otherwise, he says, does not necessarily make it
possible for us to do otherwise.
Frankfurt's examples are significant because they suggest an alternative way to defend compatibilism, in particular by rejecting the first premise of the argument. According to this view, responsibility is compatible with determinism because responsibility does not require the freedom to do otherwise.
Frankfurt's examples involve agents who are intuitively responsible for their behavior even though they lack the freedom to act otherwise. Here is a typical case:
Donald is a Democrat and is likely to vote for the
DemocratsThe Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. It is the oldest political party in continuous operation in the United States and it is one of the oldest parties in the world. In the U.S...
; in fact, only in one particular circumstance will he not: that is, if he thinks about the prospects of immediate American defeat in
IraqIraq , officially the Republic of Iraq , also known as Mesopotamia, is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert.Iraq shares borders with Jordan to the west, Syria...
just prior to voting. Ms. White, a representative of the Democratic Party, wants to ensure that Donald votes Democratic, so she secretly plants a device in Donald's head that, if activated, will force him to vote Democratic. Not wishing to reveal her presence unnecessarily, Ms White plans to activate the device only if Donald thinks about the
Iraq WarThe Iraq War, also known as the Occupation of Iraq or Operation Iraqi Freedom, is an ongoing military campaign which began on March 20, 2003 with the invasion of Iraq by a multinational force led by troops from the United States and the United Kingdom.Prior to the war, the governments of the United...
prior to voting. As things happen, Donald does not think about the Democrats' promise to ensure defeat in Iraq prior to voting, so Ms White thus sees no reason to activate the device, and Donald votes Democratic of his own accord. Apparently, Donald is responsible for voting Democratic in spite of the fact that, owing to Ms. White's device, he lacks freedom to do otherwise.
If Frankfurt is correct in suggesting both that Donald is morally responsible for voting Democratic and that he is not free to do otherwise, moral responsibility, in general, does not require that an agent have the freedom to do otherwise (that is, the principle of alternate possibilities is false). Thus, even if causal determinism is true, and even if determinism removes the freedom to do otherwise, there is no reason to doubt that people can still be morally responsible for their behavior.
Having rebutted the principle of alternate possibilities, Frankfurt suggests that it be revised to take into account the fallacy of the notion that coercion precludes an agent from moral responsibility. It must be
only because of coercion that the agent acts as he does. The best definition, by his reckoning, is this: "[A] person is not morally responsible for what he has done if he did it "only because
he could not have done otherwise."
See also
- Bayesian inference
Bayesian inference is statistical inference in which evidence or observations are used to update or to newly infer the probability that a hypothesis may be true. The name "Bayesian" comes from the frequent use of Bayes' theorem in the inference process...
- Benjamin Libet
Benjamin Libet was a researcher in the physiology department of the University of California, San Francisco, and a pioneering scientist in the field of human consciousness...
- Free will theorem
The free will theorem of John H. Conway and Simon B. Kochen states that, if we have a certain amount of "free will", then, subject to certain assumptions, so do some elementary particles. Conway and Kochen's paper was published in Foundations of Physics in 2006.-Axioms:The proof of the theorem...
- Monte Carlo method
Monte Carlo methods are a class of computational algorithms that rely on repeated random sampling to compute their results. Monte Carlo methods are often used when simulating physical and mathematical systems. Because of their reliance on repeated computation of random or pseudo-random numbers,...
- Newcomb's paradox
Newcomb's Paradox, also referred to as Newcomb's Problem, is a thought experiment involving a game between two players, one of whom purports to be able to predict the future. Whether the problem is actually a paradox is disputed....
- Stochastic
Stochastic means random.A stochastic process is one whose behavior is non-deterministic in that a system's subsequent state is determined both by the process's predictable actions and by a random element....
- Voluntarism
- Philosophical zombie
A philosophical zombie, p-zombie or p-zed is a hypothetical being that is indistinguishable from a normal human being except that it lacks conscious experience, qualia, or sentience. When a zombie is poked with a sharp object, for example, it does not feel any pain...
Further reading
Libertarian Accounts of Free Will
. Oxford University PressOxford house Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. they are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as OUP's...
: New York, 2003. ISBN 0-19-515987-X
Robert KaneRobert Hilary Kane is an American philosopher. He is Distinguished Teaching Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, and is currently on phased retirement....
The Significance of Free Will.
Oxford University PressOxford house Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. they are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as OUP's...
: New York, 1998. ISBN 0-19-512656-4
External links