Laws Mind And Free Will

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Laws, Mind, and Free Will

Author : Steven Horst
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 292 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2011-03-11
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780262294799

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Laws, Mind, and Free Will by Steven Horst Pdf

An account of scientific laws that vindicates the status of psychological laws and shows natural laws to be compatible with free will. In Laws, Mind, and Free Will, Steven Horst addresses the apparent dissonance between the picture of the natural world that arises from the sciences and our understanding of ourselves as agents who think and act. If the mind and the world are entirely governed by natural laws, there seems to be no room left for free will to operate. Moreover, although the laws of physical science are clear and verifiable, the sciences of the mind seem to yield only rough generalizations rather than universal laws of nature. Horst argues that these two familiar problems in philosophy—the apparent tension between free will and natural law and the absence of "strict" laws in the sciences of the mind—are artifacts of a particular philosophical thesis about the nature of laws: that laws make claims about how objects actually behave. Horst argues against this Empiricist orthodoxy and proposes an alternative account of laws—an account rooted in a cognitivist approach to philosophy of science. Horst argues that once we abandon the Empiricist misunderstandings of the nature of laws there is no contrast between "strict" laws and generalizations about the mind ("ceteris paribus" laws, laws hedged by the caveat "other things being equal"), and that a commitment to laws is compatible with a commitment to the existence of free will. Horst's alternative account, which he calls "cognitive Pluralism," vindicates the truth of psychological laws and resolves the tension between human freedom and the sciences.

Mind, Brain, and Free Will

Author : Richard Swinburne
Publisher : Oxford University Press (UK)
Page : 252 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2013-01-17
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780199662579

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Mind, Brain, and Free Will by Richard Swinburne Pdf

Richard Swinburne presents a powerful new case for substance dualism and for libertarian free will. He argues that pure mental events (including conscious events) are distinct from physical events and interact with them, and claims that no result from neuroscience or any other science could show that interaction does not take place. Swinburne goes on to argue for agent causation, and claims that it is we, and not our intentions, that cause our brain events. It ismetaphysically possible that each of us could acquire a new brain or continue to exist without a brain; and so we are essentially souls. Brain events and conscious events are so different from eachother that it would not be possible to establish a scientific theory which would predict what each of us would do in situations of moral conflict. Hence, we should believe that things are as they seem to be: that we make choices independently of the causes which influence us. It follows that we are morally responsible for our actions.

Free Will

Author : Sam Harris
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 96 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2012-03-06
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781451683400

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Free Will by Sam Harris Pdf

From the New York Times bestselling author of The End of Faith, a thought-provoking, "brilliant and witty" (Oliver Sacks) look at the notion of free will—and the implications that it is an illusion. A belief in free will touches nearly everything that human beings value. It is difficult to think about law, politics, religion, public policy, intimate relationships, morality—as well as feelings of remorse or personal achievement—without first imagining that every person is the true source of his or her thoughts and actions. And yet the facts tell us that free will is an illusion. In this enlightening book, Sam Harris argues that this truth about the human mind does not undermine morality or diminish the importance of social and political freedom, but it can and should change the way we think about some of the most important questions in life.

Laws and Freedom, digital original edition

Author : Steven Horst
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 58 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2014-01-10
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780262319720

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Laws and Freedom, digital original edition by Steven Horst Pdf

If the mind and the world are entirely governed by natural laws, there seems to be no room left for free will to operate. In this BIT, Steven Horst offers an account of laws that is compatible with claims for libertarian free will. He argues that one can embrace the truth of individual laws, or indeed any set of such laws, without any implication of determinism, because the idealization conditions of each law are essentially open-ended.

Why Free Will Is Real

Author : Christian List
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 225 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2019-05-06
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780674239814

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Why Free Will Is Real by Christian List Pdf

A crystal-clear, scientifically rigorous argument for the existence of free will, challenging what many scientists and scientifically minded philosophers believe. Philosophers have argued about the nature and the very existence of free will for centuries. Today, many scientists and scientifically minded commentators are skeptical that it exists, especially when it is understood to require the ability to choose between alternative possibilities. If the laws of physics govern everything that happens, they argue, then how can our choices be free? Believers in free will must be misled by habit, sentiment, or religious doctrine. Why Free Will Is Real defies scientific orthodoxy and presents a bold new defense of free will in the same naturalistic terms that are usually deployed against it. Unlike those who defend free will by giving up the idea that it requires alternative possibilities to choose from, Christian List retains this idea as central, resisting the tendency to defend free will by watering it down. He concedes that free will and its prerequisites—intentional agency, alternative possibilities, and causal control over our actions—cannot be found among the fundamental physical features of the natural world. But, he argues, that’s not where we should be looking. Free will is a “higher-level” phenomenon found at the level of psychology. It is like other phenomena that emerge from physical processes but are autonomous from them and not best understood in fundamental physical terms—like an ecosystem or the economy. When we discover it in its proper context, acknowledging that free will is real is not just scientifically respectable; it is indispensable for explaining our world.

Causes, Laws, and Free Will

Author : Kadri Vihvelin
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 295 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2013-06-27
Category : Law
ISBN : 9780199795185

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Causes, Laws, and Free Will by Kadri Vihvelin Pdf

This book rescues compatibilists from the familiar charge of 'quagmire of evasion' by arguing that the problem of free will and determinism is a metaphysical problem with a metaphysical solution. There is no good reason to think that determinism would rob us of the free will we think we have.

Thinking about Free Will

Author : Peter van Inwagen
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 241 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2017-03-16
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781107166509

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Thinking about Free Will by Peter van Inwagen Pdf

This volume brings together van Inwagen's most significant essays in this major field, addressing key topics and including two entirely new chapters.

Freewill and Responsibility (Routledge Revivals)

Author : Anthony Kenny
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 64 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2011-01-31
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781136816215

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Freewill and Responsibility (Routledge Revivals) by Anthony Kenny Pdf

This reissue was first published in 1978. Anthony Kenny, one of the most distinguished philosophers in England, explores the notion of responsibility and the precise place of the mental element in criminal actions. Bringing the insights of recent philosophy of mind to bear on contemporary developments in criminal law, he writes with the general reader in mind, no specialist training in philosophy being necessary to appreciate his argument. Kenny shows that abstract distinctions drawn by analytic philosophers are relevant to decisions in matters of life and death, and illustrates the philosophical argument throughout by reference to actual legal cases. The topics he covers are of wide general interest and include: mens rea and mental health, strict liability, freedom and determinism, duress and necessity, intoxication and irresistible impulse, intention and purpose, murder and rape, punishment and deterrence, witchcraft and supernatural beliefs.

Nature's Challenge to Free Will

Author : Bernard Berofsky
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 289 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2012-01-05
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780199640010

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Nature's Challenge to Free Will by Bernard Berofsky Pdf

This book offers a defense of humean compatibilism, which bases the belief in the compatibility of free will and determinism on David Hume's idea that laws do not uphold the existence of necessary connections in nature.

Laws, Mind, and Free Will

Author : Steven W. Horst
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 292 pages
File Size : 52,5 Mb
Release : 2011
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780262015257

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Laws, Mind, and Free Will by Steven W. Horst Pdf

An account of scientific laws that vindicates the status of psychological laws and shows natural laws to be compatible with free will. In Laws, Mind, and Free Will, Steven Horst addresses the apparent dissonance between the picture of the natural world that arises from the sciences and our understanding of ourselves as agents who think and act. If the mind and the world are entirely governed by natural laws, there seems to be no room left for free will to operate. Moreover, although the laws of physical science are clear and verifiable, the sciences of the mind seem to yield only rough generalizations rather than universal laws of nature. Horst argues that these two familiar problems in philosophy--the apparent tension between free will and natural law and the absence of "strict" laws in the sciences of the mind--are artifacts of a particular philosophical thesis about the nature of laws: that laws make claims about how objects actually behave. Horst argues against this Empiricist orthodoxy and proposes an alternative account of laws--an account rooted in a cognitivist approach to philosophy of science. Horst argues that once we abandon the Empiricist misunderstandings of the nature of laws there is no contrast between "strict" laws and generalizations about the mind ("ceteris paribus" laws, laws hedged by the caveat "other things being equal"), and that a commitment to laws is compatible with a commitment to the existence of free will. Horst's alternative account, which he calls "cognitive Pluralism," vindicates the truth of psychological laws and resolves the tension between human freedom and the sciences.

Causes, Laws, and Free Will

Author : Kadri Vihvelin
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 248 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2013-05-06
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780199795253

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Causes, Laws, and Free Will by Kadri Vihvelin Pdf

Common sense tells us that we are morally responsible for our actions only if we have free will -- and that we have free will only if we are able to choose among alternative actions. Common sense tells us that we do have free will and are morally responsible for many of the things we do. Common sense also tells us that we are objects in the natural world, governed by its laws. Nevertheless, many contemporary philosophers deny that we have free will or that free will is a necessary prerequisite for moral responsibility. Some hold that we are morally responsible only if we are somehow exempt from the laws of nature. Causes, Laws, and Free Will defends a thesis that has almost disappeared from the contemporary philosophical landscape by arguing that this philosophical flight from common sense is a mistake. We have free will even if everything we do is predictable given the laws of nature and the past, and we are morally responsible whatever the laws of nature turn out to be. The impulses that tempt us into thinking that determinism robs us of free will spring from mistakes -- mistakes about the metaphysics of causation, mistakes about the nature of laws, and mistakes about the logic of counterfactuals.

The Illusion of Conscious Will

Author : Daniel M. Wegner
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 725 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2003-08-11
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780262290555

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The Illusion of Conscious Will by Daniel M. Wegner Pdf

A novel contribution to the age-old debate about free will versus determinism. Do we consciously cause our actions, or do they happen to us? Philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, theologians, and lawyers have long debated the existence of free will versus determinism. In this book Daniel Wegner offers a novel understanding of the issue. Like actions, he argues, the feeling of conscious will is created by the mind and brain. Yet if psychological and neural mechanisms are responsible for all human behavior, how could we have conscious will? The feeling of conscious will, Wegner shows, helps us to appreciate and remember our authorship of the things our minds and bodies do. Yes, we feel that we consciously will our actions, Wegner says, but at the same time, our actions happen to us. Although conscious will is an illusion, it serves as a guide to understanding ourselves and to developing a sense of responsibility and morality. Approaching conscious will as a topic of psychological study, Wegner examines the issue from a variety of angles. He looks at illusions of the will—those cases where people feel that they are willing an act that they are not doing or, conversely, are not willing an act that they in fact are doing. He explores conscious will in hypnosis, Ouija board spelling, automatic writing, and facilitated communication, as well as in such phenomena as spirit possession, dissociative identity disorder, and trance channeling. The result is a book that sidesteps endless debates to focus, more fruitfully, on the impact on our lives of the illusion of conscious will.

Free Will and the Law

Author : Allan McCay,Michael Sevel
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 387 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2019-02-21
Category : Law
ISBN : 9781317132967

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Free Will and the Law by Allan McCay,Michael Sevel Pdf

This volume brings together many of the world’s leading theorists of free will and philosophers of law to critically discuss the ground-breaking contribution of David Hodgson’s libertarianism and its application to philosophy of law. The book begins with a comprehensive introduction, providing an overview of the intersection of theories of free will and philosophy of law over the last fifty years. The eleven chapters collected together divide into two groups: the first five address libertarianism within the free will debate, with particular attention to Hodgson’s theory, and in Part II, six contributors discuss Hodgson’s libertarianism in relation to issues not often pursued by free will scholars, such as mitigation of punishment, the responsibility of judges, the nature of judicial reasoning and the criminal law process more generally. Thus the volume’s importance lies not only in examining Hodgson’s distinctive libertarian theory from within the free will literature, but also in considering new directions for research in applying that theory to enduring questions about legal responsibility and punishment.

Free Will

Author : Meghan Griffith
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 162 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 2013
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780415562195

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Free Will by Meghan Griffith Pdf

The question of whether humans are free to make their own decisions has long been debated and it continues to be a controversial topic today. In Free Will: The Basics readers are provided with a clear and accessible introduction to this central but challenging philosophical problem. The questions which are discussed include: Does free will exist? Or is it illusory? Can we be free even if everything is determined by a chain of causes? If our actions are not determined, does this mean they are just random or a matter of luck? In order to have the kind of freedom required for moral responsibility, must we have alternatives? What can recent developments in science tell us about the existence of free will? Because these questions are discussed without prejudicing one view over others and all technical terminology is clearly explained, this book is an ideal introduction to free will for the uninitiated.

Four Views on Free Will

Author : John Martin Fischer,Robert Kane,Derk Pereboom,Manuel Vargas
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2009-02-04
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781405182041

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Four Views on Free Will by John Martin Fischer,Robert Kane,Derk Pereboom,Manuel Vargas Pdf

Focusing on the concepts and interactions of free will, moralresponsibility, and determinism, this text represents the mostup-to-date account of the four major positions in the free willdebate. Four serious and well-known philosophers explore the opposingviewpoints of libertarianism, compatibilism, hard incompatibilism,and revisionism The first half of the book contains each philosopher’sexplanation of his particular view; the second half allows them todirectly respond to each other’s arguments, in a lively andengaging conversation Offers the reader a one of a kind, interactive discussion Forms part of the acclaimed Great Debates in Philosophyseries