Aseity And Free Will
I will be arguing against what I will call the “aseity argument”, which dictates that we exist with aseity and, thus, have free will. If we have free will, then, presumably, we are morally responsible. I am agnostic as to who the burden is on to either assert that we do or don’t have free will; to some it is apparent to reason that we have it, to others perhaps not. But to begin the argument the burden will be placed on the free will denier.
I will now define some terms:
Aseity: the quality of being self-derived or originated specifically.
Free will: the ability to choose between different courses of action unaffected by causes external to the will.
Moral responsibility: the idea that certain choices and actions have the quality of being morally relevant; culpability.
Character: one’s predispositions, inclinations, and motivations; the will from which our actions flow.
The following is the “aseity argument”.
1. If I have come into existence, then I have been caused to come into existence by external events that I had nothing to do with.
2. If I have been caused to come into existence by external events that I had nothing to do with, then I am not morally responsible for my initial character.
3. Therefore, if I have come into existence, I am not morally responsible for my initial character.
4. I am not morally responsible for my environment or the laws of nature that prevail in it.
5. If I am not morally responsible for my initial character and not morally responsible for my environment. and the laws of nature that prevail in it, then I am not morally responsible for anything.
6. Therefore, if I have come into existence, I am not morally responsible for anything.
7. I am morally responsible for some things.
8. Therefore I have not come into existence.
This argument supports the following premise:
1. If we have free will, we exist with aseity.
As noted earlier, it may be apparent to reason to some that we have free will. So the assumption that we have free will is prima facie justified:
2. We have free will.
This argument is logically valid and the conclusion is that we exist with aseity, which effectively partitions the will from the laws of cause and effect. Thus, I will deny a premise.
I will dispute premise 5: If I am not morally responsible for my initial character and not morally responsible for my environment and the laws of nature that prevail in it, then I am not morally responsible for anything.
One might argue that the factors outlined in premise 5 are all that affect one’s choices; premise 2 says that we are not morally responsible for our initial character, and what, if not our character, dictates what we will do? Our character is in constant flux, developing due to our own actions and interactions with an environment constrained by physical laws. Our actions and a mix of those factors, for which we are not morally responsible, dictate our character, and through this blend our subsequent character is formed, from which our subsequent actions flow.
I contest this. Even if one is interacting with an environment constrained by physical laws, with a fixed initial character, one could be able to choose freely between alternative courses of action. I argue that this is the case because the aseity argument assumes free will prima facie; it must be assumed that we have those elements of free will not contradicted by 5. While this is not equivalent to having free will, it does mean that people’s choices need to be accounted for as they are not solely the product of the factors outlined in 5, but also the product of something innate or external that allows such choices to be somewhat free. And they undoubtedly affect our decisions, so we must not be morally responsible for others' decisions too if 5 is to be true.
If one says it is innate, then the proponent of the aseity argument will find themselves attempting to prove that we do not have said innate quality that allows us to choose freely between alternative courses of action. Alternatively, they could claim that our ability to choose wholly or somewhat freely exists as derived externally.
If it is derived externally, then the proponent of the aseity argument needs to give a positive account of how, exactly, a level of free choice has been bestowed upon us or linked to us by external causes. If they say through aseity, it is difficult to imagine what external, alien forces could possibly be at work causing people to self-originate. If it is even possible to cause someone to self-originate. Because then they aren’t self-originated.
Furthermore, if the burden of proof is on the proponent of the aseity argument, then:
2. We have free will.
Is not prima facie justified. Therefore, we cannot conclude that we exist with aseity.
A side note: one might think that assuming free will prima facie justifies also assuming that we have absolute moral responsibility, thus negating the whole argument. It doesn’t. It just means that the free will denier has to disprove the argument in which that we have free will is a premise in some manner.
@Bartricks Just let me know if I missed anything or if my definitions aren't precise/adequate. I tried to represent the argument well.
I will now define some terms:
Aseity: the quality of being self-derived or originated specifically.
Free will: the ability to choose between different courses of action unaffected by causes external to the will.
Moral responsibility: the idea that certain choices and actions have the quality of being morally relevant; culpability.
Character: one’s predispositions, inclinations, and motivations; the will from which our actions flow.
The following is the “aseity argument”.
1. If I have come into existence, then I have been caused to come into existence by external events that I had nothing to do with.
2. If I have been caused to come into existence by external events that I had nothing to do with, then I am not morally responsible for my initial character.
3. Therefore, if I have come into existence, I am not morally responsible for my initial character.
4. I am not morally responsible for my environment or the laws of nature that prevail in it.
5. If I am not morally responsible for my initial character and not morally responsible for my environment. and the laws of nature that prevail in it, then I am not morally responsible for anything.
6. Therefore, if I have come into existence, I am not morally responsible for anything.
7. I am morally responsible for some things.
8. Therefore I have not come into existence.
This argument supports the following premise:
1. If we have free will, we exist with aseity.
As noted earlier, it may be apparent to reason to some that we have free will. So the assumption that we have free will is prima facie justified:
2. We have free will.
This argument is logically valid and the conclusion is that we exist with aseity, which effectively partitions the will from the laws of cause and effect. Thus, I will deny a premise.
I will dispute premise 5: If I am not morally responsible for my initial character and not morally responsible for my environment and the laws of nature that prevail in it, then I am not morally responsible for anything.
One might argue that the factors outlined in premise 5 are all that affect one’s choices; premise 2 says that we are not morally responsible for our initial character, and what, if not our character, dictates what we will do? Our character is in constant flux, developing due to our own actions and interactions with an environment constrained by physical laws. Our actions and a mix of those factors, for which we are not morally responsible, dictate our character, and through this blend our subsequent character is formed, from which our subsequent actions flow.
I contest this. Even if one is interacting with an environment constrained by physical laws, with a fixed initial character, one could be able to choose freely between alternative courses of action. I argue that this is the case because the aseity argument assumes free will prima facie; it must be assumed that we have those elements of free will not contradicted by 5. While this is not equivalent to having free will, it does mean that people’s choices need to be accounted for as they are not solely the product of the factors outlined in 5, but also the product of something innate or external that allows such choices to be somewhat free. And they undoubtedly affect our decisions, so we must not be morally responsible for others' decisions too if 5 is to be true.
If one says it is innate, then the proponent of the aseity argument will find themselves attempting to prove that we do not have said innate quality that allows us to choose freely between alternative courses of action. Alternatively, they could claim that our ability to choose wholly or somewhat freely exists as derived externally.
If it is derived externally, then the proponent of the aseity argument needs to give a positive account of how, exactly, a level of free choice has been bestowed upon us or linked to us by external causes. If they say through aseity, it is difficult to imagine what external, alien forces could possibly be at work causing people to self-originate. If it is even possible to cause someone to self-originate. Because then they aren’t self-originated.
Furthermore, if the burden of proof is on the proponent of the aseity argument, then:
2. We have free will.
Is not prima facie justified. Therefore, we cannot conclude that we exist with aseity.
A side note: one might think that assuming free will prima facie justifies also assuming that we have absolute moral responsibility, thus negating the whole argument. It doesn’t. It just means that the free will denier has to disprove the argument in which that we have free will is a premise in some manner.
@Bartricks Just let me know if I missed anything or if my definitions aren't precise/adequate. I tried to represent the argument well.
Comments (85)
As I said in the moral responsibility thread, it is not clear to me on what grounds 5 can reasonably be denied. For if 2 is granted, then one accepts that if one is not morally responsible for that which caused one's initial character, then one's non-responsibility for the cause transfers to the effect. If one grants that - and that certainly seems self-evidently true to my reason - then surely one must accept it when more causes for which one is not responsible are added? I mean, if I am not morally responsible for C when it is wholly the product of A - something for which I am in no way morally responsible - then surely I remain non-responsible for C if it is the product of A and B, if A and B are factors for which I am in no way morally responsible?
Perhaps all this does is show that 2 should not be granted either - that we can be morally responsible for our initial characters despite the fact they were created by causes for which we had no moral responsibility. But I can't se any reason why 2 should not be granted, given it seems self-evident to reason.
Perhaps one might object that when it comes to 5, although we are not morally responsible for our natures or the environment and laws of nature prevailing in it, we can nevertheless be morally responsible for what these things produce, namely our actions, provided they are produced in the right kind of way.
But I find that a kind of magic and on its face implausible.
As to the claim that we are morally responsible (and thus do exist with aseity) - well, as philosophers we should follow arguments where they lead. The conclusion - that we exist with aseity - is inconsistent with naturalism about us, but so much the worse for naturalism.
Too many - including too many contemporary philosophers - see in philosophy nothing more than a tool that should be pressed into the service of rationalizing conventional beliefs, whatever they may be. And so as naturalism is the prevailing worldview of the present day, at least among the thinking classes, philosophical arguments are considered good if they support the naturalization of some feature of reality, and absurd or questionable if they do not. But that's not good reasoning: that's not to follow an argument where it leads, but is instead to set limits in advance on where it can go.
So, I really do not see any good grounds for denying either that moral responsibility requires aseity, or for denying that we actually possess that feature.
I doubt babies have an “initial character”. You develop a personality/character as you grow up.
Quoting ToothyMaw
Would be the premise to attack really yes. What exactly counts as “environment” or “external”? Because some folks around here like to count their own bodies and brains and “environmental” and “external” to them, so anything those bodies and brains do, they are somehow not responsible for. I don’t know why people do that.
And then they’re surprised at how it turns out they’re not responsible for anything. That’s because “They” themselves cause nothing in their own setup. Their bodies are “external” to “them” so what the heck does “them” do? When you externalize the source of your agency you’ll end up with the conclusion that you’re just a helpless watcher who has no control over anything that happens. But why would you externalize the source of your agency. “Your honor, I didn’t punch the man, it was my fist the punched him see? I had no choice in the matter!”
Quoting ToothyMaw
Yup. That would be the normal reaction. Not what Bartricks is doing, saying “Yup, this goes against countless laws of conservation that we have derived, but so much worse for science! My armchair is a better source of knowledge”
I quite agree with your diagnosis of the main problem but it seems to me that the underlying assumptions that yield this sort of externalization of the human power of agency are shared by @Bartricks and @ToothyMaw. See the latter's original post in the previous thread. This leads @ToothyMaw to conclude that moral responsibility couldn't be ascribed to agents if determinism turned out to be true. In the ensuing discussion, @Bartricks correctly points out that indeterminism wouldn't be of any help either. So, he proposes the ascription of aseity to human beings in order to make free will and responsibility compatible both with determinism and with indeterminism. Relaxing some of the causal assumptions that yield an implausible externalization of agency might be another way to achieve the same result.
I totally acknowledge this here:
Quoting ToothyMaw
My reply is that you don't account for the effect of other's free choices, something that follows from assuming free will to support your premise:
Quoting ToothyMaw
Can we establish if this is the case? It seems as if you accept it here:
Quoting Bartricks
But I want some confirmation before moving forward.
Quoting khaled
There is undoubtedly a certain measure of initial character that is, if not predetermined, then factored into one's development from one's birth. Thus, that doesn't seem to be a good point to me; I only defined aseity as being self-originated, not totally self-sufficient, which is how it is used in its positive sense. But I am not using it that way here.
@Bartricks @Pierre-Normand @khaled
Quoting Pierre-Normand
I don't see how this would be different from some sort of indeterminism, which would have you going against the PAP. And even if you claim that that is question begging and that compatibilist ideas of free will sidestep the PAP, you have to come up with a positive account of agency compatible with determinism that gives us moral responsibility, not just a new definition for "free will". This seems impossible to me unless you can address the following two arguments:
1. No one has power over the facts of the past and the laws of nature.
2. No one has power over the fact that the facts of the past and the laws of nature entail every fact of the future (i.e., determinism is true).
3. Therefore, no one has power over the facts of the future.
1. We have free will only if we have power over the facts of the future.
2. No one has power over the facts of the future.
3. Therefore, we do not have free will.
Furthermore, in terms of the aseity argument, the application of these two arguments is not question begging imo because the point of the aseity argument, as you point out, is to show how free will can be compatible with determinism and indeterminism; determinism is essentially assumed in premises 5 and 6, in addition to an indeterministic view of free will in 2. I am essentially making an effort to show that:
Quoting ToothyMaw
is false. You cannot presuppose that we have aseity to deny these two arguments, because they attack a premise necessary for the conclusion that we exist with aseity.
The idea of "having power over the facts of the future" seems a little obscure to me. I would rather rely on the more straightforward definition that you gave in the opening post of your previous thread:
"Free will: the ability to both choose between different alternative courses of actions and to act free of external causes."
I think a thick embodied view of human agency doesn't comport well with the idea that past facts about you, your own body, character, cognitive abilities and dispositions, etc., all constitute 'external causes' of your actions just because they lay in your past. On closer analysis, the idea seems nonsensical. This was the thrust of @khaled's post and I quite agree with him. For an embodied human agent to act in the world doesn't consist in the agent stepping outside of her own embodiment, as it were, and for her to control the role her own body (and brain) plays in the causal chain of physical events. Acts of agency rather consist for an embodied person to play such an ineliminable causal role in the chain of intelligible events (i.e. intentional actions and their intended or foreseeable consequences).
So, it may be the case that past physical facts, and the laws of physics, determine all the future physical facts (let us suppose). That would not imply that the conjunction of those facts and those deterministic laws determine what intelligible human actions those future physical facts materially realize. If the human agent acts in the light of reasons that she has (or takes herself to have) for doing what she does, then the past facts that were obtaining before she deliberated what to do may have been constraining what the range of her opportunities were, and also constraining the limits of her deliberative abilities (as well as enabling them). But what determines what she intentionally does is her own act of practical deliberation. The specific nature of this action, described in high-level intentional terms, may supervene on some set of physical facts about her bodily movements and brain activity. But the higher level intentional action (which may or may not be praiseworthy or blameworthy) that those lower level physical facts happen to materialy realize isn't set by the laws of physics. That's because the laws of physics are silent regarding what bodily motions constitute intelligible actions, and what good or bad reasons for acting are.
I am not sure I follow. By 6 it has been established that aseity is necessary for moral responsibility/free will. But 6 doesn't tell us anything about what is in fact the case. It just tells us that a necessary ingredient for free will is aseity. 7 then asserts that we are morally responsible.
As I understand you, you are now asking for evidence that 7 is true. I think there's good evidence that 7 is true, but even if there was not, that wouldn't do anything to challenge anything upstream of 7.
My evidence that 7 is true is that our reason represents it to be. That is, the reason of literally billions of people. Perhaps our reason is malfunctioning on this matter and we are subject to a systematic rational illusion of free will. But that is not the default - far from it. The burden of proof is squarely on the one who wishes to deny that things are as they appear to be, and as we appear - and here we are talking about rational appearances, which is what all evidence claims are ultimately an appeal to - to be morally responsible, it is the denier of 7 who owes the arguments.
I will change my definition in the OP. I had the previous definition in mind. Sorry.
With the previous definition in mind, one's control over one's actions entails control over the facts of the future; they can bring about future outcomes with their free choices. Not to mention the first argument implies that one couldn't have done otherwise, and if one couldn't have done otherwise one does not have free will according to my definition of free will. I'll try to now respond to you without any straw manning, as you were responding to something a little different.
Quoting Pierre-Normand
Quoting Pierre-Normand
It seems there is a confusion of "physical facts" and just "facts". A fact could entail that an action was performed, whereas a physical fact could be gravity's existence or a brain state.
What if a serial killer reflects upon his despicable acts and thus chooses to work towards redeeming himself? He is playing an ineliminable role in a causal chain in the act of reflecting on intelligible previous actions, but these actions are still fixed - as facts that he now has no power over - directly affecting a new, intelligible action (that is the result of an intent derived from previous facts). In this example his deliberation supervenes on previous facts; he is acting with the intent to redeem himself, but it doesn't change the facts of the past, which do not themselves change because of his deliberation. Thus his current intent, which results in an action, is resulting from a fact of the past that he cannot control. That seems to me to be external causation without any disembodiment.
Even if we must be the judges of what an intelligible action is, that doesn't mean that what we are judging to be an action isn't a small portion of a universe subject to the laws of cause and effect.
Please read my whole post; I outline an argument against the premise that we have free will later on.
I do not follow you on this at all. If someone comes into existence, it really doesn't matter at all whether they came into existence gradually or all of a sudden, the fact will remain that they are the product of external causes. And that's sufficient to establish that they are not morally responsible for how they are.
If we have come into being, then there's a real question about exaclty when 'we' come on the scene. But this doesn't in any way allow you to escape confronting the issue: which is that we will nevertheless have come into being as a product of causes for which we are in no way morally responsible.
There are two issues: what's needed for free will and do we have it?
The argument up to 6 establishes what's needed: aseity. If you challenge 7 you are not challenging that we need aseity, you are challenging that we have it.
Premise 1 is false if the aseity argument goes through. So you're begging the question. Until or unless you provide independent grounds for thinking a premise in the aseity argument is false, you're not entitled to assume premise 1 in the above argument is true.
Yes.
What you're saying is that free will requires having some control over the facts of the past.
I agree!! That's precisely what aseity delivers.
So we agree about that. But you're then just asserting that we do not have that control - and thus asserting that we do not exist with aseity - and concluding that we lack free will.
I'm saying that we do have free will and thus we do have control over some of the facts of the past and thus we must exist with aseity.
You, then, are just denying that we have free will, whereas I am saying that we have it.
But my claim - that we have free will - is supported by reason, whereas yours - that we lack free will - is not. Thus you need an argument.
No, free will requires power over the facts of the future; you would need to have magical abilities to be able to alter the facts of the past in the present, which is what
Quoting ToothyMaw
means. It doesn't say "no one had power over the facts of the past."
Correction: aseity
I mean maybe you are forgetting, but my position originally was that we have no basis for the concept of moral responsibility. It is enough for me to show that we don't have aseity according to you.
You don't seem to understand the point: if we exist with aseity, then there was never a time when all the facts of the past were ones for which we were not morally responsible.
So again, 'if' we exist with aseity, then premise 1 of your argument is false.
Again: this was your argument:
Quoting ToothyMaw
Premise 1 is false. That means the argument is unsound. You can't now just assert that no one has power over the facts of the future: they do. Premise 1 is false. So your conclusion - 3 - has not been established.
What's my evidence that we exist with aseity - and thus that premise 1 of your argument is false? It is that we are morally responsible.
You are denying that we are morally responsible. I want an argument for that which doesn't simply assume it.
This, for example, is not a good argument:
1. We are not morally responsible
2. therefore, we are not morally responsible.
Yet that's what your argument amounts to.
So this premise - my premise 7 - is default justified and you're not entitled to reject it without an argument: I am morally responsible for some things.[/quote]
Your only basis for rejecting 7 is that you think no-one is responsible for facts of the past. But will be false if we exist with aseity, yes?
And do we exist with aseity?
Well, if we're morally responsible we do.
And we appear to be morally responsible.
Thus, we are justified in concluding that we exist with aseity.
I'm not forgetting anything. You can't escape having a burden of proof just by being the first to say something.
The reason of virtually everyone represents them to be morally responsible for what they do. That means that we have unbelievably powerful prima facie evidence that we are morally responsible.
I keep stressing this, but you don't seem to register it.
You have the burden of proof.
I have provided independent evidence that moral responsiblity requires existing with aseity.
That doesn't by itself show that we do or that we do not. It just shows that aseity is a vital ingredient of moral responsibility.
Until or unless you can refute that argument, the point holds.
But, importantly, the combination of the aseity argument and the fact we have evidence that we do have moral responsibility now constitutes evidence that we 'do' exist with aseity.
For example, ginger cake contains ginger in some form. Let's imagine that's true. Well, then if I have excellent evidence that there's a ginger cake in my cupboard, then I have excellent evidence that there is ginger in some form in my cupboard. That's how I'm arguing.
What you're doing is arguing like this: there's no ginger in any form in the cupboard. As there is no ginger in any form in the cuboard, there can't be any ginger cakes in the cupboard and anyone who says "but what about that apparent ginger cake in the cupboard - the one virtually everyone perceives to be there when they look?" is begging the question.
No, they're not begging the question. There appears to be a ginger cake in the cupboard. To reject such appearances on the basis of no more than your theory, is to have stopped following evidence: it is to have assumed how things are and then to have interpreted the data through the prism of your theory. That's perverse. That's to have allowed the tail to wag the dog.
The evidence - prima facie, defeasible evidence, no doubt - is that we are morally responsible and that being morally responsible requires existing with aseity. Thus, we have prima facie evidence that we exist with aseity.
Quoting Bartricks
Then I'll change my argument.
1. No one has power over the facts of the past and the laws of nature.
2. No one has power over the fact that the facts of the past and the laws of nature entail every fact of the future (i.e., determinism is true).
3. Therefore, no one has power over the facts of the future.
1. If we do not have power over the facts of the future we cannot choose to do otherwise.
2. No one has power over the facts of the future.
3. Therefore, we cannot choose to do otherwise.
4. We have free will only if we can choose to do otherwise.
5. Therefore, we do not have free will.
Is this logically invalid? I think not. Dispute a premise.
I don't really care.
Not to say I'm some psychopath out to fuck everything up; I just want to actually get to the bottom of this.
The representations of our reason is what evidence consists of.
So, what evidence do I have that this argument is valid:
1. If P, then Q
2. P
3. Therefore Q
Well, that my reason and the reason of virtually everyone else represents it to be.
So, if you don't care what our reason represents to be the case, then you're not interested in following evidence. That is, you're not really interested in what's true.
What do you want from reasoning? To have an echo chamber in which you just hear your own view bounced back at you, or genuinely to find out how things are with reality? If the latter than you must follow reason, not yourself.
Now it isn't seriously in dispute that the reason of most people represents them to be morally responsible.
So it isn't seriously in dispute taht we have powerful prima facie evidence that we are morally responsible (and thus, by extension, that we possess whatever moral responsibility requires).
You need countervailing evidence that we lack moral responsibility. That is, you need to find even more powerfully self-evident premises that, together, contradict the premise that we are morally responsible. Simply not caring is not evidence.
Premise 1 is false. I keep saying this.
Premise 1 is false if we exist with aseity!
And I disputed that we have free will, so unless you can find a flaw in my argument you cannot say it is false because we exist with aseity. Unless you just assume that we have it. And it sounds like that is what you are doing.
You are obviously no longer being serious, if you ever were.
I don't think you understand what aseity involves. It means I was not created. It means I've always been in existence. It means there was never a time when I did not exist. So it means that there was never a time when facts outside my control caused my existence. It means, in other words, that premise 1 of your argument is false.
So if you think premise 1 if your argument is true, you need to provide evidence that I - we - do not exist with aseity.
And to do that you need either to provide independent evidence that we are not morally responsible (evidence that does not simply assume we do not exist with aseity - for that would be question begging), or independent evidence that we do not exist with aseity.
You have done none of these things and so I think you simply do not understand either aseity or the dialectic.
I was distinguishing facts from laws because of the way deterministic systems usually are defined. I took 'facts about the past' to include all the physical states of matter that, in conjunction with the laws of physics, would uniquely determine a future course of events. It's because higher level facts, or states, (such as biological, psychological or social facts) are taken to supervene on physical states that physical determinism is taken to entail universal determinism. (Facts about some level B are said to supervene on facts about some level A if there can't be any B-level difference without there also being some A-level difference. Furthermore, physicalists usually hold that all high level empirical domains supervene on the physical domain.)
Back to the serial killer: I am happy to grant you that, on the assumption that determinism is true, the serial killer couldn't possibly have done something different than what she actually did without there being something in her past (either in her environment or about herself) that would have been different. It doesn't logically follow from this statement that, therefore, she could not have done something different. Concluding this would be an instance of the modal fallacy. The modal fallacy takes the form:
1) necessarily(P implies Q)
2) P
3) therefore, necessarily(Q)
The conclusion (3) would logically follow if the second premise were replaced by (2b) "necessarily P".
So, is there something about the killer's rational or moral character, at the time when she readies herself to act, that in conjunction with the laws of nature, determine that she will kill someone and that is necessarily a feature of her character? Only on that condition is it possible to logically infer that she could not possibly have done otherwise than what she actually did.
Yes, I was not making anything hinge on the possibility of rational agency being gradually rather than suddenly acquired. My concern rather is about the way embodied rational agents relate themselves to time, in practical deliberation, after they have acquired rational autonomy. I am perfectly happy to grant you that they aren't responsible at all for the happy circumstance of their having been brought (either gradually or suddenly) into a state where they were first endowed with powers of rational deliberation. Only after they have become autonomous (to some degree) can they be held responsible for their actions. I may bring a caveat, though, since it also can be warranted to hold responsible children, who are not yet autonomous, as a matter of proleptic attitude, in order to help shape their behavioral dispositions in a way that favors their acquisition of rational autonomy.
Yes, this is granted. But when we blame people, we are blaming them for their choices, and for the characters that they have displayed through making those choices, when they already were in possession of some powers of rational agency. We are not blaming them for their having had flawed characters when they first became rational agents. I would also grant that we can sometimes be warranted in evoking unhappy initial character shaping circumstances as excuses, or partial excuses (and hence attenuation of personal responsibility), for subsequent unhappy life turns; but only in some cases, and to limited degrees.
Yes, but what it takes to be autonomous is what's at issue. My argument appears to demonstrate that it requires aseity and thus that one cannot 'become' autonomous. For to be autonomous in the way presupposed by moral responsibility requires that one's actions 'not' be the product of external causes (not wholly, anyway). Which they will be, of course, if one has come into being. So by suggesting that though one is not responsible for hte way that one is, one can nevertheless 'become' autonomous is already to have begged the question. If there is no false premise in my argument, then the very idea of 'becoming' autonomous is confused.
To be autonomous - to be truly the director of one's self - requires aseity. Then there is 'what' one is morally responsible for. And that can change over time and change with the acquisition of powers of reason. Plausibly one will not be morally responsible for defying Reason until one starts to hear her. But it would be a mistake to think that it was hearing Reason that made one autonomous. One was autonomous already, it is just that by coming to hear Reason one's autonomy now makes one responsible for how one responds.
Quoting Pierre-Normand
Yes, but that's not inconsistent with my argument. I have not argued that aseity is sufficient for moral responsibility, only that it is necessary.
But I don't see how my argument:
Quoting ToothyMaw
is an instance of the modal fallacy, even if my serial killer example might not be absolute proof that we cannot choose to do otherwise if we have no power over the facts of the future. The facts of the future are directly the result of our actions, which, given how I defined character, are indeed features of our character, or will, which must exist independent of external causes to be free. Our previous character, and thus actions, are the result of factors external to ourselves, so our choices and the resultant actions cannot be free (determinism is true). It seems undeniable to me then that our own actions are facts of the future that we must not have control over unless we could could have acted differently then we did due to a factor that is not external. To presume that one could have acted differently due to a difference in character that is not external to the will, however, is to assume that determinism is false. It follows that since determinism is true, premise 2 is supported, along with 1. 4 must also be true, as it is derived from my definition of free will. Thus, my argument applies.
I wonder why you are favoring this form of the argument for incompatibilism, starting with a premise denying control over facts of the future, over the more commonly encountered versions of van Inwagen's consequence argument, which rather start with the much more uncontroversial premise that no one has power over facts of the past. Van Inwagen then has to make use of the so called Rule Beta in order for his argument to carry through without relying on a modal fallacy (also called the fatalist fallacy, in this context: asserting that whatever was the case in the past necessarily was the case).
Rule Beta asserts that from N(p) and N(p implies q), we may infer N(q),
where the operator N signifies 'No one ever has any power over...'
You can refer to Kadri Vihvelin's SEP article for a detailed statement and discussion of van Inwagen's argument.
The manner in which you formulate your own argument appears to straddle the compatibilist with the burden of demonstrating not only that agents can have power over their own choices, and hence also over the future consequences of their choices, but that, in addition, they must demonstrate that such a power must somehow consist in an ability to make the future different than what it actually is. But that's not what (most) compatibilist ever have set out to demonstrate. They rather want to say that although what the future facts actually are may be fully determined by the actual past (and the laws of nature), this determination is mediated in part by the choices agents make unconstrained (or not fully constrained) by facts external to their own power agency. Furthermore, on a conditional reading of the principle of alternative possibilities, it remains true that if the agents had made different choices (counterfactually) then the future (and the past!) would have been different (still counterfactually).
I think this misconstrues the compatibilist claim regarding PAP. When the compatibilist claims that, on her conditional reading of it, the PAP is satisfied by her (compatibilist) conception of free agency, she isn't claiming that the agent had the power to change her own character from what it actually was, at the time when she deliberated or acted. This would indeed involve a denial of determinism. The compatibilist rather is claiming that although facts of the actual past entail the actual facts about the character of an agent, and also entail that her power of agency was actualized in the specific way that is actually was, nevertheless, counterfactually, the agent's character could have been different and hence her power of agency could have been actualised differently. That may seem to be a distinction without a difference for an incompatibilist who assumes that agents have no power over 'the past' (and hence over the characters that they actually have when they start deliberating practically). But the incompatibilist conception of 'the past', and of the past 'circumstances' of an agent, violate the compatibilist conception of embodied agency. It seems to be relying on construing our own bodily and cognitive features and abilities as 'circumstances' externally constraining our actions, whereas the compatibilist insists that they are part of us. In other words, they aren't determining us to act in specific ways, they rather are us determining (not in an instantaneous present instant but in the fullness of time) how to act.
Quoting Pierre-Normand
I actually make use of that argument. Check out one of my earlier posts. The argument I gave depends on the one in the SEP article.
Yes, I had read most of the post in this and in the previous thread. But in that case, if you rely on the idea of the fixity of the past to infer that agents lack power over present and future facts, you also have to justify some analogue to van Inwagen's Beta Rule in order that your argument not exemplify the modal (or fatalist) fallacy. When it is made explicit that you are reliant on such a rule, and you've explained the nature of the N operator that you are making use of, it may become apparent that you are tacitly assuming an implausibly thin conception of the power of human agency in the way @khaled had suggested.
I have a reply to this, but first I'll fix my argument.
1. No one has power over the facts of the past and the laws of nature.
2. No one has power over the fact that the facts of the past and the laws of nature entail every fact of the future (i.e., determinism is true).
3. Therefore, no one has power over the facts of the future.
This is valid because of the following rule:
N(p)
N(p entails q)
N(q)
Where the operator N means "no one has any power over over"
@Pierre-Normand Is this valid?
Your argument, so far as I had understood it, basically amounts to a combination of van Inwagen's argument for incompatibilism and Galen Strawson's 'Basic Argument' (a regress argument) for the impossibility moral responsibility. You accept the validity of both (while qualifying the first) but deny the soundness of the second. You assert the existence of human responsibility (and hence also of free will) as a premise and then turn Strawson's modus ponens into your own modus tollens. Strawson's argument tacitly assumes the lack of aseity (since his regress stops at a time before the agent was morally autonomous) and concludes to the lack of moral responsibility. While you are accepting the validity of this argument, your are postulating the negation of his conclusion (to a lack of responsibility) to infer the falsity of his tacit premise (the lack of aseity). That is fine, as far as the logic of your argumentation goes. However, if we deny the implausibly thin conception of agency that both van Inwagen's and Strawson's arguments seem to be relying on, then you can't rely on their modus ponens to ground your modus tollens. If Q does not logically follow from P, then not(P) does not logically follow from not(Q) either. Aseity might still be able to ground free will and moral responsibility (although I'm still rather unclear how it does so) but it's not logically required to do so even on the assumption of physical determinism.
Yes, thank you. Now it is valid. It's a good starting point. It now remains to be elucidated what "having the power over..." means exactly in such a way that the two premises are true and this operator represents a plausible conception of the power of human agency. One question that can be asked is how very much your "power over" something is restricted when those past facts about yourself that you presently lack "power over" are both (1) partially constitutive of who you are and (2) contribute to the determination of the future. In other words, the argument may be trading on a equivocation between your "present self" (who allegedly lacks power over facts of the past) and yourself as an embodied animal characterised as having temporally protracted dispositions (and therefore whose very existence reaches into the past). Put yet in another way, even though the argument is sound in yielding the conclusion that your "present self" can't change the actual future into some alternative future, how does that imply anything about someone (i.e. an embodied agent who didn't exist exclusively in an instantaneous present moment) lacking the ability to set this future in accordance with her will?
Should it be
Quoting ToothyMaw
or:
N(p)
N(p entails all q)
N(q)
I'm thinking if it's to be a general rule it's the first one.
I'm not sure I understand the second one. Since p and q are propositional variables, they can represent the conjunction of all the statements of 'fact' that are true at a time -- what is also called 'a past' or 'a future'. (or also, of course 'a past in conjunction with the laws of nature')
I have absolutely no background in logic at all. I'm just learning as I'm going. But that makes sense. I'll think on your last post.
I suppose it is implausible to assert that one's current character is a blend of all of the factors external to their wills and their interactions with these external factors (environment, laws of nature, initial character)? It does seem odd, as one's previous character affects one's previous actions and thus current character, and is not really external to their will according to the compatibilist. If the will is externalized then one's current character results directly from one's previous character and one's current character is pretty much predetermined and there is no agency at all. No one would have any power over anything they do. .
Yup!
Looks like moral responsibility might exist!
I mean maybe I will have to admit it exists
That's cool. In care you're interested, the published positive account that has seemed the most convincing to me so far, is Victoria McGeer's, in her recent paper Scaffolding agency: A proleptic account of the reactive attitudes
I'll check it out. To be honest, I don't read nearly as much as I should. And I'm often intimidated by rigorous arguments. But I'll try to get through it if I can get it free somewhere.
When it comes to Van Inwagen, I am not so sure. You're focussing on Van Inwagen's incompatibilism. However, I am agnostic on whether incompatibilism or compatibilism is true (for I am arguing that aseity is necessary for moral responsibility, not that it is sufficient - so I leave open that it may still be the case that alternative possibilities of the indeterministic kind are also needed if one is to be morally responsible for one's actions.....though I am a long way from being convinced about that).
What I do share with Van Inwagen is a belief that it is more plausible that we have free will and are morally responsible than that free will requires indeterminism. As I understand him, he has argued that if determinism could somehow be established to be true, then he would simply conclude that compatibilism is true, rather than abandon belief in free will. That is, he would give up his incompatibilism over the reality of moral responsibility. He believes the reality of moral responsiblity is more clear and distinct than any theory about what moral responsibility requires.
And that seems quite right: it is, after all, demonstrably more manifest to our reason that we have free will and are morally responsible than it is that free will requires this or that metaphysical thesis to be true. It seems absurd to think that incompatibilism is more obviously true than that we have free will; the reverse is clearly the case. And so anyone who, after concluding that free will requires x, then concludes that as we lack x we lack free will, is someone who is allowing the weaker overrule the stronger.
I apply that to my own view as well, of course. It is much more powerfully self-evident that I am morally responsible than that moral responsibility requires aseity. I think it demonstrably does require aseity - I have yet to hear any reason to think it doesn't - but I accept that its requiring aseity is less powerfully self-evident than the reality of our moral responsibility itself. And thus if it was established that we do not exist with aseity, I would take this to constitute evidence that free will does not require it.
That, however, is not our situation. The situation is that we have an argument - the aseity argument - that appears to establish that moral responsibility requires aseity. Every premise in that argument is well supported. And aseity is something we possibly are, as we know on independent grounds that at least some things must exist in that way.
This, combined with the fact we so obviously are morally responsible gets me to my conclusion.
You have said that Strawson assumes a 'thin' conception of agency (and so by extension, so do I). I do not really know what you mean by that. But I stress, aseity is a necessary condition, not sufficient. By making aseity necessary I am adding, not subtracting from an account of what moral responsibilty conferring agency involves. For I am saying that in addition to whatever reason-responsiveness conditions the compatibilist or incompatibilist says are necessary, aseity is needed as well.
I wasn't aware of that. Thanks for pointing it out. I'm going to read his 2008 paper How to Think about the Problem of Free Will in order to better understand his conception of the most plausible compatibilist account that he'd be willing to endorse if determinism were established to be true. I'll then come back to you to address the remainder of your post.
Oh, I see. Thanks. I'll probably have a look at that too, as well as Lewis's Are we free to break the laws?
How is it implausible? It clearly 'is' the case if you have come into being. There's no way around it.
Imagine we're making a soup. We start with a saucepan of water. Is that the soup? No. We add some ingredients - some stock, some herbs, some onion etc. Adding each one affects the flavour. And how that affect the flavour, let us imagine, depends on what flavour it had when they were added. Okay.
Now, perhaps it is not clear when, exactly, we have a soup on our hands. But that's irrelevant. The fact remains that the soup did not create itself, yes? Even though it acquired a flavour and the flavour it had affected how other ingredients affected it, at no point does this mean that the soup was not a product of external causes.
That's obvious. And it is no less obvious when it isn't a soup, but a body. So, if you accept that if you're not responsible for A and A is causally responsible for B, then you have to accept that you're not responsible for your body if you came into being. And if your mind is part of your body, then you're not responsible for your mind - not responsible for it being the kind of mind that produces this or that decision under this or that circumstance.
Does it make a dot of difference if indeterminism is involved? Nope. Just imagine it was indeterministic what flavour the soup would have. Is it now true that the soup creates itself? If the soup had a mind could it now be morally responsible for its flavour? No, the idea is absurd.
So, while it may - perhaps - be a requirement of responsible agency that one have an ability to do otherwise of a kind only indeterminism can facilitate, the fact remains that this will do nothing in terms of making one morally responsible if one does not already satisfy the aseity requirement.
Eating a healthy diet is good for long life. But if you're dead already there's no point in forcing vegetables into your corpse, is there? Likewise, unless you exist with aseity you can have all the abilities to do otherwise you like, you're dead responsibility wise.
Again, so far I have not heard a single good objection to any of the premises of the aseity argument. Rather, it is just being ignored and focus is transferring to abilities to do otherwise. They're beside the point. Like I say, it's like discussing what the best diet may be for the corpse in front of you.
As if the cake analogy wasn't enough.
I can't really dispute the aseity argument, but I can dispute whether or not we have aseity, and I think that if you agree that our initial, current, and future character is solely the product of external causes, then the argument:
1. No one has power over the facts of the past and the laws of nature.
2. No one has power over the fact that the facts of the past and the laws of nature entail every fact of the future (i.e., determinism is true).
3. Therefore, no one has power over the facts of the future.
4. If we do not have power over the facts of the future we cannot choose to do otherwise.
5. No one has power over the facts of the future.
6. Therefore, we cannot choose to do otherwise.
7. We have free will only if we can choose to do otherwise.
8. Therefore, we do not have free will.
applies. There are definitely objections to this argument, but they don't include assuming that we have aseity, because I'm attacking one of the premises necessary for showing that we have aseity.
If the aseity argument cannot be refuted - and as yet I see no grounds for thinking any of its premises are false - then aseity has been shown to be required for moral responsibility. And you accept this.
Well, moral responsibility is something we have excellent evidence we possess. The reason of virtually all of us represents us to be morally responsible. What better evidence can we have that we are morally responsible?
So, it follows that we exist with aseity. That is, the evidence that we are morally responsible is, by extension, evidence that we exist with aseity.
What you're doing is arguing that we are not morally responsible on the basis of an argument that has a premise - premise 1 - that is false if we exist with aseity. So you're not providing evidence that we lack aseity, you're just assuming we lack it.
I derived this from your argument, so if anything is wrong just say so (this is my first try at an argument like this):
1. It is logically necessary that((FW => A) => U)
2. N((FW => A) => U)
3. A <=> U (A is materially equivalent to U)
4. N((FW => U) => U) (from 2 and 3)
5. Therefore, it is logically necessary that((FW => U) => U)
N is the operator “no one has any power over” (which signifies “is logically necessary”)
U is moral responsibility
A is aseity
FW is free will
This argument (derived from 5 and your own argument for aseity) is fallacious:
1. It is logically necessary that((p => q) => q)
2. p & q
3. Therefore, it is logically necessary that q
Here is an example of said argument that is obviously fallacious:
1. You have no power over the fact that if you put out cookies and milk for Santa, he will eat them.
2. You put out cookies and milk for Santa.
3.Therefore, you have no power over whether or not Santa eats the cookies and milk.
In order for the Santa argument not to be fallacious you must have a rule that accounts for the fact that the past might have been different; you couldn't have not put out the cookies and milk, but even so, that doesn't mean you cannot deliberate and take actions that lead to Santa not eating the cookies. So, again, you must come up with a rule that allows one to infer that the future follows directly from past events we have no control over.
But this is just an example put in terms of an argument you have used. The main point is that your argument for aseity is fallacious, I think.
Don't tear me apart, I'm correcting my earlier post
But you earlier agreed that it was deductively valid. I did not invoke necessity.
Here is the argument:
1. If I have come into existence, then I have been caused to come into existence by external events that I had nothing to do with.
2. If I have been caused to come into existence by external events that I had nothing to do with, then I am not morally responsible for my initial character.
3. Therefore, if I have come into existence, I am not morally responsible for my initial character.
4. I am not morally responsible for my environment or the laws of nature that prevail in it.
5. If I am not morally responsible for my initial character and not morally responsible for my environment. and the laws of nature that prevail in it, then I am not morally responsible for anything.
6. Therefore, if I have come into existence, I am not morally responsible for anything.
7. I am morally responsible for some things.
8. Therefore I have not come into existence.
There's no fallacy there. No premise says 'if this, necessarily that'. They just say 'if this, then that'.
You need to deny a premise.
I don't dispute that argument. The argument I dispute is formed from this:
1. If we have free will, we exist with aseity
2. We have free will
3. Therefore, we exist with aseity
According to the aseity argument you outlined in you latest post, it is logically necessary that if we have free will, we exist with aseity, and, thus, are morally responsible. (it is logically necessary that((FW => A) =>MR))
I mean, we have no control over whether or not we have free will, and thus exist with aseity, and thus have moral responsibility. How could we control those things? If we could, then maybe we could just wish away our moral responsibility or something.
Unless I'm mistaken you do indeed use the argument:
1. If we exist with aseity, we have free will.
2. We exist with aseity.
3. Therefore, we have free will.
4. If we have free will, we are MR.
5. Therefore, we are MR.
You also use this one:
1. If we have free will, we exist with aseity
2. We have free will
3. Therefore, we exist with aseity
The first premise of the first one correctly asserts that aseity => free will, while the first premise of the second correctly asserts that free will => aseity.
Thus, since both premises are true, aseity <=> free will.
The expression ((A => FW) => U) is implicit in the first argument outlined in this post that you use. (FW is free will, U is MR, A is aseity)
The following argument is analogous to the first one outlined in this post that you use:
1. A => FW
2. A
3. Therefore, FW
4. FW => U
5. Therefore U
If that is true, and considering the implicit expression, then this is essentially the metalogic (I think I'm using that word correctly) you are using to support your MR argument:
1. It is logically necessary that(FW => U)
2. FW
3. Therefore, it is logically necessary that(U)
which is fallacious.
I mean I could say:
1. It is logically necessary that(if one makes a crappy analogy, then they should be ashamed of themselves).
2. One makes a crappy analogy.
3. It is logically necessary that(one should be ashamed of themselves).
How on earth is 3 a logical necessity? Maybe you should just grow a thick skin and not give a shit what people think of your crappy analogies. You are presuming something is logically necessary based on the logical necessity of its constituents; there could indeed be a world in which moral responsibility is nonexistent, even if some things are logically necessary for it to exist.
If you say that it is not logically necessary that we are morally responsible, then there must be alternatives to being morally responsible by us existing with aseity (the only way we can have moral responsibility). But you have demonstrated that the only alternative is a deterministic view that negates both agency and any sort of moral culpability. I don't see how you can square the two without us existing with aseity.
Quoting ToothyMaw
The argument assumes we are morally responsible and have free will and concludes that we exist with aseity.
I did not say 'necessary' once. So you're introducing the notion of necessity, not me. It is not present in my argument. I do not believe in necessary truths. The argument I made was deductively valid and all of its premises are true, or at least are far more reasonably believed than disbelieved. So its premises are 'true' (not 'necessarily' true, just true) and its conclusion is too. Not necessarily: it just is.
You also seem to be confusing the claim that aseity is required for moral responsibility with the different claim that if we exist with aseity we 'are' morally responsible.
I have not made that claim. Something could exist with aseity yet not be morally responsible. It is the reverse that I deny.
You're the one committing fallacies. This:
1. If P, then Q
2. Q
3. therefore P
is fallacious. Yet that's how you're reasoning. For my argument establishes the truth of this premise:
1. If we are morally responsible, we exist with aseity
But you've reasoned like this:
2. We exist with aseity.
3. Therefore we are morally responsible
That's a fallacious argument and it is no argument I made. Note, my claim is that aseity is needed for moral responsibility, but that does not entail that it is sufficient.
Again, this is how I have reasoned:
1. If we are morally responsible, we exist with aseity
2. We are morally responsible
3. Therefore, we exist with aseity
Presumably what you are doing is arguing that despite existing with aseity, we lack moral responsibility because we did not choose to exist with aseity - is that correct? That's what this suggests.
Quoting ToothyMaw
You're assuming, falsely - indeed, absurdly - that to be morally responsible we need to have 'control' over everything that contributes to our decisions. That's ridiculous and has no support from our reason.
Take an everyday example: John says "P" and that annoys me and I punch him. Am I morally responsible for punching him? Intuitively, yes. What about the fact - the obvious fact - that I had no control over John saying "P"? Can I appeal to that as an excuse? No, nobody in their right mind would accept that as an excuse, even though it is obviously true that I lacked control over John saying "P".
What's needed for moral responsibility - as my argument shows - is not control over everything, but the power truly to originate one's decisions.
So you are saying that if we have free will we are morally responsible, right? I assume that that is what you mean. Furthermore, how does that argument mean that if we exist with aseity then we are morally responsible? You said yourself that it is only necessary, not sufficient. So I don't see how it goes both ways, unless there is another argument you are leaving out.
No, I argued that aseity implies free will, which then implies moral responsibility. You use this premise:
Quoting Bartricks
To support the assertion that we have free will. There must be an argument saying that aseity implies free will if the premise 1 of your moral responsibility argument is true. Furthermore, if that argument exists, and if free will implies moral responsibility, then I don't see how my argument is fallacious.
Define aseity, then.
Then you understood what I was trying to say enough to realize that I was accusing you of a modal fallacy, and that that was what I was trying to express. You probably could've figured it out. You are assuming that my argument was fallacious while attempting to conceal an important argument that might mean you committed a fallacy.
No, if we are morally responsible, then we have free will.
It is possible to have free will and not be morally responsible (that would be the case if, for example, we had free will but moral nihilism is true).
But if we are morally responsible - and we are - then we have free will.
I keep saying "If P, then Q" and you keep responding "so, if Q then P". No. 'If P then Q' does not entail 'if Q then P'. If we are morally responsible, then we have free will. It doesn't follow that if we have free will we are morally responsible. And if we are morally responsible, we exist with aseity. It does not follow that if we exist with aseity we are morally responsible.
Quoting ToothyMaw
I haven't made that argument! That's the argument 'you' keep making, as if it is mine. My argument estalibhses that if we are morally responsible, we exist with aseity (and as we are morally responsible ,then we do exist with aseity). But it does not show that if you exist with aseity you are morally responsible.
Once more, 'if P then Q', does not entail that 'if Q then P'. If you are a basketball player, then you are tall. It doesn't follow that if you are tall you're a basketball player.
We know a couple of things about this kind of object. We know that some - at least one - must exist. For if everything that exists has been brought into being, then we will find ourselves off on an infinite regress. As there are no actual infinities in reality, we can know that there must exist some things that have not been brought into being. Thus we know that there are objects that exist with aseity.
We also know that at least some of these objects can originate causal chains. For as before, if every cause has an event as a prior cause, then we will be off on another infinite regress of events. Thus some objects must be capable of causing events, directly as it were. That is, they must be able to cause events without being caused to do so. It's known as the power of 'substance causation'.
If we exist with aseity and if we are substance-causes, then we will be the originators of our decisions. That is, the causal chain that explains why we decided as we do will terminate with us. And thus we will be capable of being morally responsible for that decision. (Note, then, the power of substance causation is also needed to have free will and be morally responsible, which just underlines that existing with aseity is not sufficient).
You appear to believe that determinism is a necessary truth, however. Or at least you presume so in your argument. I don't see how you can say that determinism is basically true in your aseity argument to support that we exist with aseity, and then say something like that aseity shows determinism isn't a necessary truth. As far as I can tell, determinism is either true or not true, and if true, it is necessary.
To say that one is not morally responsible for those things seems to me to be rendering them external to the will, and if those are the only things that affect our decisions, as you have indeed implied, then all factors affecting our decisions are external to the will, so determinism, based on how I have defined it, is also implied.
Determinism: the doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will.
Furthermore, your assertion that if we come into existence then we are not responsible for our initial character implies you believe that all other events not related to human action are also determined; our initial character, if it is predetermined, must be the result of causes outside of our control that can be identified with a state of the universe. If said state of the universe is necessarily the result of previous states, and it would have to be for your character to be predetermined, then it seems to follow that determinism is true.
I assume you will dispute my definition of determinism
Quoting ToothyMaw
What I'm saying here is that at some specific way things were in the past at a time t, we can say that what ensues from there that results in one's initial character is fixed as a matter of natural law - in other words predetermined. This follows from the definition of determinism used by the SEP:
Determinism: The world is governed by (or is under the sway of) determinism if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.
Quoting ToothyMaw
correction: later states of the world can be seen as fixing earlier states of the world; I'm no physicist.
Essentially I'm saying this: you claim all of the factors that affect our character, and thus actions, are external to the will. One of those elements, our initial character, if it is to be out of our control, must be the result of factors outside of our character that can be identified with a state of the world. Furthermore, if this state of the world is fixed as a function of previous states of the world that originate with a specific state of the world at some time t, and it would have to be if it were determined, then determinism must be true.
You might ask "well what's to say that it's determined?" Well, if all the external factors that dictate one's character after they have come into existence due to external forces are fixed, and are the only external forces, then why would they not be fixed before those external forces created us? Being created by external forces you have nothing to do with does not dictate a change in the laws of physics in the past - or whether or not it was necessary that it would rain last Monday.
If my reasoning here is faulty just say so.
That's a circular definition as you've included the word 'determined'.
Anyway, no premise in my argument asserted the truth of determinism. And no premise in my argument said anything about necessity (determinism essentially involves a claim about necessity, for if determinism is true then every event that occurs was necessitated by past circumstaces and the laws of nature).
Quoting ToothyMaw
First, if was no an assertion, but a conclusion. Second, it does not imply that at all.
Quoting ToothyMaw
Yes, because it wasn't one. You can't mention the term you're defining in the definiens.
Quoting ToothyMaw
That's not a good definition either, as 'fixed' means 'determined' yes? An event is determined to occur if it is necessitated by the past and the laws of nature.
Again, no premise in any argument I made asserted the truth of determinism. And no premise in any other way asserted a supposed necessary truth. I made no appeal to necessity in anything I argued.
The aseity argument establishes that we exist with aseity. If you think it doesn't, you need to take issue with a premise and to provide independent evidence of its falsity.
That is an idiotic assertion. The word derives itself from the concept in the definition. That's like calling the definition of ornithology circular for having "the science of watching birds" in it.
Er, yes. It's all over the place. I mean, 'faulty' would be kind.
Quoting ToothyMaw
I just can't follow that at all. My view is really not hard to understand. I am arguing that if we have come into existence, then we will not be morally responsible for anything we are or do, for eveything we are and do will be the causal product of factors we were in no way morally responsible for.
That will not be the case if we exist with aseity. Therefore, if we are morally responsible we exist with aseity. And we are morally responsible. Therefore, we do exist with aseity.
It's not hard. I haven't mentioned determinism. I haven't mentioned necessity. i don't know why you're mentioning them.
"You mean a plastic bag? And that I can't reason my way into one?"
No, you can't reason your way out of a paper bag.
"But if a bag is paper, then it is plastic. Here is my definition of a paper bag: a plastic bag. Please tell me if you disagree with my definition".
Yes, I disagree with it. It's not a definition of a paper bag.
"But if you want me to get out of a bag, then I must already be in it".
What?
"Your own argument is that if I am in a paper bag, then I am in a plastic bag, and you want me to get out of it. Please tell me if I am reasoning badly".
Er, yeah, you're not so much reasoning badly as reasoning insanely.
"But here's SEP's definition of a paper bag - a bag that is made of paper".
Yes, so?
"But isn't this your argument 1: bags are necessarily paper, 2, if something is necessarily paper, then it is necessarily plastic. 3. Therefore I am in paper bag.?"
No. That's just mental. What are you on?