PHIL 2003 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Hard Determinism, Compatibilism, Inductive Reasoning
25 May 2016
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Ceteris paribus, the explanation that preserves more of what we already have good reason to believe is the better explanation. Thus, conservation allows us better to avoid conflicting evidence for our explanations, and hence better to satisfy the no falsification criterion when it comes to our inferences to the best explanation. Data: we seem to have free choice, determinism seems to be true. [o]ur friend the amateur magician tells us what card we have drawn. Perhaps by luck, one chance in fifty-two; but this conflicts with our reasonable belief, if all unstated, that he would not have volunteered a performance that depended on that kind of luck. Perhaps the cards were marked; but this conflicts with our belief that he had no access to them, they being ours. Perhaps he peeked or pushed, with help of a sleight-of-hand; but this conflicts with our belief in our perceptiveness.
