tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post3318337389427399601..comments2024-03-27T20:37:09.185-05:00Comments on Alexander Pruss's Blog: More on chance and compatibilismAlexander R Prusshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-23714280403325725802011-07-27T18:39:34.876-05:002011-07-27T18:39:34.876-05:00Dan:
Well, there is a sense in which this argumen...Dan:<br /><br />Well, there is a sense in which this argument leaves the randomness objection alone: it just extends this to an objection to us having free will, whether or not determinism is true. It's just that once it's extended that far, the Moore shift is the way to go. That we're free is more obvious than that freedom requires lack of the sort of "chanciness" that free will involves on any view that is close to the empirical facts.Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-81454650058934023692011-07-27T18:36:30.940-05:002011-07-27T18:36:30.940-05:00Alex,
Right, that was the line of thought I meant...Alex,<br /><br />Right, that was the line of thought I meant to pick out by the "explanation not entailing" label. Explanation can't entail if we are to believe the PSR (as the doctrine of creation suggests we should) and we are to avoid modal fatalism.Dan Johnsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02835173769166916525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-19069948195287552492011-07-26T09:54:40.237-05:002011-07-26T09:54:40.237-05:00Dan:
Of course the really big problem for the ran...Dan:<br /><br />Of course the really big problem for the randomness worry is that unless we have too much modal collapse, God had better be able to create differently.Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-3772535967704733372011-07-26T09:52:58.426-05:002011-07-26T09:52:58.426-05:00Heath:
I think the libertarian can accept 1, too....Heath:<br /><br />I think the libertarian can accept 1, too. Decisions are influenced by a variety of factors that shift the probabilities. The decision D is weakly counterfactually dependent on the factor F, in the sense that:<br /> ~(if F did not occur, D would occur).<br /><br />(Strong counterfactual dependence would be: if F did not occur, D would not occur.)<br /><br />I think the second order move is implausible in general. There are, no doubt, many such factors in decision-making and we have no idea what they all are. Before the study came out, many judges did not know that this was the case, and some of them were epistemically justified in not knowing this.Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-41645594088005823352011-07-25T12:06:04.292-05:002011-07-25T12:06:04.292-05:00This stuff is really good, Alex. Another nail in t...This stuff is really good, Alex. Another nail in the coffin of the randomness objection to libertarianism (the other is your stuff about explanation not entailing, especially in the case of God's actions). My prospects for resurrecting that objection are dimming by the minute, though I've not given up hope. Of course, my reasons for being a compatibilist are theological in nature, not the randomness objection, and those remain untouched by this line of thinking.Dan Johnsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02835173769166916525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-66297584599256468962011-07-25T09:40:37.249-05:002011-07-25T09:40:37.249-05:00I can imagine two sorts of compatibilist reply to ...I can imagine two sorts of compatibilist reply to this line (which is pretty good). <br /><br />1) "Externalism." We just say that even though judges are influenced by their meal schedule, they made the decision, and are responsible for it. That is, we embrace a luck element to responsibility. Insofar as the libertarian is devoted to avoiding luck elements in responsibility, this is not a reply the libertarian can accommodate.<br /><br />2) "Second-order." We say that, although most judges allow themselves to be influenced by their meal schedule, this is the sort of thing that is in principle under their control. That is, they can monitor their eating so as not to introduce unfairness into sentencing, or with a program of fasting can learn to mitigate the effects of hunger on their sentencing. Consequently they are responsible for the degree to which they lack control over their sentencing behavior. The difference with the libertarian, in this case, is that insofar as libertarian indeterminancy is fundamental and ineliminable, there is no analogous way to exercise greater control over how much of it there is. That is, there is no content to the notion of a libertarian agent gaining greater control over his indeterministic actions.Heath Whitehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13535886546816778688noreply@blogger.com