PHL101Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Compatibilism, Heredity, Moral Responsibility
Document Summary
We think that at least sometimes we manage to act freely. Choice one acts freely only if one has the power to act otherwise. Control one acts freely only if one has the power to determine which actions one performs. It is plausible that one can be morally responsible for an action only if one acted freely in performing it. Our sense of ourselves as agents leading purposeful lives seems to presuppose it. The philosophical problem of free will is that free will, upon reflection, can seem impossible. Why exactly this is can be brought out by looking at two other problems, the problem of free will and determinism and the problem of free will and indeterminism. Do not confuse determinism with fatalism, the view that nothing one does now can make a difference to what happens in the future. Do not confuse determinism as ayer seems to do with the claim that every event has a cause.