A Can of Worms
In "The Incompatibility of Free Will and Determinism" [1], Peter van Inwagen argues that if the universe is deterministic, then free will does not exist. (He is silent about whether the universe is in fact deterministic and about whether free will in fact exists.) This is in contrast to...
Summary: | In "The Incompatibility of Free Will and Determinism" [1], Peter van Inwagen argues that if the universe
is deterministic, then free will does not exist. (He is silent about whether the universe is in fact deterministic
and about whether free will in fact exists.) This is in contrast to the compatibilist position, which holds that
free will and determinism are not contradictory. Briefly, van Inwagen's argument is that when an agent with
free will performs some action, she (by definition of "free will") could have performed a different action. But
in a deterministic universe, acting a different way requires either altering the past or violating the laws of
physics. So van Inwagen concludes that the free agent could have either altered the past or violated the laws
of physics. Finally, van Inwagen says that it is obvious that nobody can alter the past, and by definition of
the phrase "law of physics", nobody can violate the laws of physics either. So our hypothetical free agent in
a deterministic universe cannot exist. |
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