The Way We Become Free (original) (raw)
Related papers
Freedom and temporal perspective
Minerva - An Internet Journal of Philosophy, n. 17, pp. 121-70 (FREE ACCESS), 2013
The contemporary debate on free will is essentially constructed around an opposition between determinism and indeterminism, and the possibility of reconciling either ontology with freedom itself. The present paper is an attempt at circumventing this ontological aut-aut by introducing the principle that the observer’s temporal perspective is relevant to whether an action is regarded as free, and by arguing that the two rival views share the same perspective. I then proceed to expound the theoretical advantages of this time-sensitive approach, which allows a fresh look on specific points of the free will debate that have long reached a deadlock, as well as some of its most significant shortcomings. Dealing with the latter, I sketch out an original conception of free agency which I describe as 'rational creation', and briefly underscore some aspects of this view that would deserve further investigation.
Freedom and the Phenomenology of Agency
Free action and microphysical determination are incompatible but this is so only in virtue of a genuine conflict between microphysical determination with any active behavior. I introduce active behavior as the veridicality condition of agentive experiences (of oneself as active) and of perceptual experiences (of others as active) and argue that these veridicality conditions (a) are fulfilled in many everyday cases of human and non-human behavior and that they (b) imply the incompatibility of active behavior with microphysical determination. The main purpose of the paper is to show that the view proposed about active behavior leads to a natural compromise between libertarianism and compatibilism, which avoids the flaws of both positions while preserving their central insights.
Oscar Burton, 2024
This short essay examines the mechanics of free will and proves the validity of a free will compatibilist model. I then explore its humanist ramifications in an attempt to provide guidance for an ever freer world.
Consciousness and Free Will: A Critique of the Argument From Introspection
One of the main libertarian arguments in support of free will is the argument from introspection. This argument places a great deal of faith in our conscious feeling of freedom and our introspective abilities. People often infer their own freedom from their introspective phenomenology of freedom. It is here argued that from the fact that I feel myself free, it does not necessarily follow that I am free. I maintain that it is our mistaken belief in the transparency and infallibility of consciousness that gives the introspective argument whatever power it possesses. Once we see that consciousness is neither transparent nor infallible, the argument from introspection loses all of its force. I argue that since we do not have direct, infallible access to our own minds, to rely on introspection to infer our own freedom would be a mistake.
Does Freedom Contradict Causal Exhaustion? – A Critical-epistemological Resolution
If one wants the empirical reality, one has to (1) admit freedom (viz., self-awareness in Dignāga) and (2) give up the world in itself as ultimate cause (viz., Nāgārjuna). Then, one has to admit (1) epistemology is prior to ontology and (2) practice (freedom) is prior to theory (cognitive reality). Such priority should be on behalf of truth and we the best can only adopt it as an attitude; we should not take it in time (in reality/convention/appearance) or in logic. When one is in a moral situation or in the dying breath, if one could persist and stay also in freedom in stead of only in reality (the object-oriented desire), that must be much nicer, both on behalf of ethics and soteriological concerns, not for the sake of faith or ideal only. Life-and-death, or fear, etc., are resulting cognitions; freedom and each of them, distinct from each other though, do not contradict each other; they do not remove each other. To misidentify resulting cognitions as the cause of human being is the root of all fears and vexations. To put freedom and phenomenal causal exhaustion in the same field of force and make them contradictory is one of the most troublesome, rooted confusions in humanity.