PHIL 101 Lecture Notes - Kleptomania, Hard Determinism, Methamphetamine
Document Summary
Distant causation argument: an argument for hard determinism. P1: an agent performs an action freely, that agent is responsible for that action. P2: agents are not responsible for actions caused by factors outside their control. P3: every action an agent performs is caused by factors outside of their control. Soft determinists have new definitions for free action . Hume on soft determinism: an agent performs freely if it could have done otherwise if agent had wanted to. Their desires can be determined but as long as the actions emanate from the desires, the actions are free. Unfree: human chained to the floor and couldn"t leave if he wanted to. Free: not chained and could leave if wanted to. Objections to hume: locke"s locked room: where a person wakes up in a small room that is locked from the outside, but he decides to stay voluntarily. Intuitively, the agent is free, but since he couldn"t have done otherwise,