Abstract
In this paper I discuss naturalistic, transcendentalist and ethical approaches to the problem of free will. After a brief introduction to the libertarian/compatibilist debate, I show in what sense the notion of determinism and indeterminism on which it is based presupposes a philosophical position on the nature of laws of nature. After introducing van Inwagen’s consequent argument, I argue that Humean attempt to solve it fails it because the humean approach to laws is untenable and because the laws of nature do not depend on us in the sense advocated by humeans. In the last part of the paper, I claim that and ontology of dispositions opens the way to what is most important in human freedom, namely the ability to act in a certain way as in virtue centered morality, and in the capability approach already defended by Sen and Nussbaum.
This work has been supported by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research through the PRIN 2017 program “The Manifest Image and the Scientific Image” prot. 2017ZNWW7F_004.
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Notes
- 1.
The literature on the best system analysis is immense. Usually Mill and Ramsey are considered the originators of the account. More recently, the view has been expanded and articulated in particular by Lewis 1973, 1983, 1986 and 1994. By doing injustice to many important contributors, here I will just list Loewer (1996) and, more recently, Callender and Cohen (2009). For of one of the most complete accounts of Lewisian’s approach to chance, see Hoefer (2019).
- 2.
The expression is Dennett’s (1983).
- 3.
- 4.
An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed…nothing would be uncertain … . (Laplace, 1951, p. 4, my italics)
- 5.
This conception of laws as axiomatic systems combining simplicity and strength has been famously advanced by Lewis (1973, p. 73)
- 6.
See Esfeld 2020, p. 65.
- 7.
For an irreducibly stochastic interpretation of quantum theory, see Ghirardi, Rimini and Weber (1986).
- 8.
- 9.
This example is Kane’s.
- 10.
Assuming that the evolution of the process of coin tossing is indeterministic, which is not.
- 11.
Balaguer 2010, p. 73. There are some differences with Kane’s notion of self-forming actions on which I cannot enter.
- 12.
For an opposite position, see Stanford (2006).
- 13.
For the usefulness of inconsistent science, see Vickers (2013).
- 14.
See also Weinert (1995).
- 15.
“Scientific determinism is the doctrine that the state of any physical system at any given future instant of time can be predicted … by deducing the prediction from theories… .”(Popper 1982, p. 36)
- 16.
Here I ignore the difference between stable determinism and chaotic determinism.
- 17.
The claim that the algebraic approach is sufficient to regard quantum field theory as axiomatized is not uncontroversial.
- 18.
Newton (1726), Law 1, 416.
- 19.
For a more articulated justification of these five points, see Dorato (2005).
- 20.
For the current purpose, there is need to enter into details to distinguish among these notions.
- 21.
The antireductionist camp also includes views claiming that laws are contingent relations of necessity between properties, explaining the repeatable character of regularities (see Armstrong, 1983; Dretske, 1977; Tooley, 1977) Within this conception, laws exist, so that it cannot be used to attack the consequence argument
- 22.
Quantum mechanics requires a more detailed treatment, since quantum measurements typically do not reveal preexisting values of the measured system.
- 23.
I owe this objection to Carl Hoefer.
- 24.
See among other text, Buchanan A, Brock D, Daniels N, Wikler D (2000).
- 25.
Frankfurt distinguishes between first order desires and first order will: “it is having second order volitions, and not having second-order desires generally, that I regard as essential to being a person (Frankfurt 1982 in Watson p. 86). Smith et al. prefer to naturalize the concept of will by identifying it with a concept of a desire than that is stronger than any other desire that a persona may have in a certain moment “I say that to be a value means to be that which we desire to desire. Then to be a value-to be good, near enough-means to be that which we are disposed, under ideal conditions, to desire” (Smith et al. 1989, p. 116). I treat ‘will’ and ‘desire’ as interchangeable.
- 26.
Via complex but effective “spiritual exercises”, Hadot (1995) shows how effective stoic teaching was in learning to want what we don’t want.
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Dorato, M. (2022). The Consequence Argument and an Ontology of Dispositions. In: Austin, C.J., Marmodoro, A., Roselli, A. (eds) Powers, Time and Free Will. Synthese Library, vol 451. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92486-7_12
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