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PreviewAdvancedSpecial charactersHelpHeadingLevel 2Level 3Level 4Level 5FormatInsertLatinLatin extendedIPASymbolsGreekGreek extendedCyrillicArabicArabic extendedHebrewBanglaTamilTeluguSinhalaDevanagariGujaratiThaiLaoKhmerCanadian AboriginalRunesÁáÀàÂâÄäÃãǍǎĀāĂ㥹ÅåĆćĈĉÇçČčĊċĐđĎďÉéÈèÊêËëĚěĒēĔĕĖėĘęĜĝĢģĞğĠġĤĥĦħÍíÌìÎîÏïĨĩǏǐĪīĬĭİıĮįĴĵĶķĹĺĻļĽľŁłŃńÑñŅņŇňÓóÒòÔôÖöÕõǑǒŌōŎŏǪǫŐőŔŕŖŗŘřŚśŜŝŞşŠšȘșȚțŤťÚúÙùÛûÜüŨũŮůǓǔŪūǖǘǚǜŬŭŲųŰűŴŵÝýŶŷŸÿȲȳŹźŽžŻżÆæǢǣØøŒœßÐðÞþƏəFormattingLinksHeadingsListsFilesDiscussionReferencesDescriptionWhat you typeWhat you getItalic''Italic text''Italic textBold'''Bold text'''Bold textBold & italic'''''Bold & italic text'''''Bold & italic textDescriptionWhat you typeWhat you getReferencePage text.<ref>[https://www.example.org/ Link text], additional text.</ref>Page text.[1]Named referencePage text.<ref name="test">[https://www.example.org/ Link text]</ref>Page text.[2]Additional use of the same referencePage text.<ref name="test" />Page text.[2]Display references<references />↑ Link text, additional text.↑ Link text===Compatibilism=== {{Main|Compatibilism}} [[File:Thomas Hobbes (portrait).jpg|upright|thumb|[[Thomas Hobbes]] was a classical compatibilist.]] Compatibilists maintain that determinism is compatible with free will. They believe freedom can be present or absent in a situation for reasons that have nothing to do with metaphysics. For instance, [[courts of law]] make judgments about whether individuals are acting under their own free will under certain circumstances without bringing in metaphysics. Similarly, [[political liberty]] is a non-metaphysical concept.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Rawls |first1=John |title=Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical |journal=Philosophy & Public Affairs |date=1985 |volume=14 |issue=3 |pages=223–251 |jstor=2265349 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2265349 |access-date=4 December 2023 |issn=0048-3915}}</ref> Likewise, some compatibilists define free will as freedom to act according to one's determined motives without hindrance from other individuals. So for example Aristotle in his ''[[Nicomachean Ethics]]'',<ref>{{Cite book |author-link= Susan Sauvé Meyer|last=Meyer |first=Susan Sauve |title=Aristotle on Moral Responsibility |year=2012 |location=Oxford}}</ref> and the Stoic Chrysippus.<ref>[[Susanne Bobzien|Bobzien, Susanne]], ''Freedom and Determinism in Stoic Philosophy'', Oxford 1998, Chapter 6.</ref> In contrast, the [[incompatibilism|incompatibilist]] positions are concerned with a sort of "metaphysically free will", which compatibilists claim has never been coherently defined. Compatibilists argue that determinism does not matter; though they disagree among themselves about what, in turn, ''does'' matter. To be a compatibilist, one need not endorse any particular conception of free will, but only deny that determinism is at odds with free will.<ref name="CompSEP">{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Compatibilism |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2004/entries/compatibilism/ |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |edition=Summer 200 |last1=McKenna |first1=Michael|date=2004 }}</ref> Although there are various impediments to exercising one's choices, free will does not imply freedom of action. Freedom of choice (freedom to select one's will) is logically separate from freedom to ''implement'' that choice (freedom to enact one's will), although not all writers observe this distinction.<ref name="OConnor"/> Nonetheless, some philosophers have defined free will as the absence of various impediments. Some "modern compatibilists", such as [[Harry Frankfurt]] and [[Daniel Dennett]], argue free will is simply freely choosing to do what constraints allow one to do. In other words, a coerced agent's choices can still be free if such coercion coincides with the agent's personal intentions and desires.<ref name="DD1">{{cite book |author=Dennett, D. |year=1984 |title= Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting |publisher= Bradford Books |isbn=978-0-262-54042-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P4NtNzOKxycC}}</ref><ref name=Frankfurt>{{cite journal | doi=10.2307/2024717 | last1=Frankfurt |first1= H. | year=1971 | pages=5–20 |title= Freedom of the Will and the Concept of the Person | issue=1 | volume=68 |journal=Journal of Philosophy |jstor= 2024717 }}</ref> ====Free will as lack of physical restraint==== Most "classical compatibilists", such as [[Thomas Hobbes]], claim that a person is acting on the person's own will only when it is the desire of that person to do the act, and also possible for the person to be able to do otherwise, ''if the person had decided to''. Hobbes sometimes attributes such compatibilist freedom to each individual and not to some abstract notion of ''will'', asserting, for example, that "no liberty can be inferred to the will, desire, or inclination, but the liberty of the man; which consisteth in this, that he finds no stop, in doing what he has the will, desire, or inclination to doe{{sic}}<!-- sic, that is how Hobbes wrote it; don't change to "do". -->."<ref name="Hobbes">Hobbes, T. (1651) ''Leviathan'' [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3207/3207-h/3207-h.htm Chapter XXI.: "Of the liberty of subjects"] (1968 edition). London: Penguin Books.</ref> In articulating this crucial proviso, [[David Hume]] writes, "this hypothetical liberty is universally allowed to belong to every one who is not a prisoner and in chains."<ref name="Hume">Hume, D. (1740). ''A Treatise of Human Nature'' Section VIII.: "[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4705/4705-h/4705-h.htm Of liberty and necessity]" (1967 edition). [[Oxford University Press]], Oxford. {{ISBN|0-87220-230-5}}</ref> Similarly, [[Voltaire]], in his ''[[Dictionnaire philosophique]]'', claimed that "Liberty then is only and can be only the power to do what one will." He asked, "would you have everything at the pleasure of a million blind caprices?" For him, free will or liberty is "only the power of acting, what is this power? It is the effect of the constitution and present state of our organs." ====Free will as a psychological state==== Compatibilism often regards the agent free as virtue of their reason. Some explanations of free will focus on the internal causality of the mind with respect to higher-order brain processing – the interaction between conscious and unconscious brain activity.<ref name=Baumeister>{{cite book |title=Oxford Handbook of Human Action |chapter=Chapter 23: Free Willpower: A limited resource theory of volition, choice and self-regulation |author1=Roy F Baumeister |author2=Matthew T Galliot |author3=Dianne M Tice |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zFP1AZYlNmcC&pg=PA487 |pages=487 ''ff'' |editor1=Ezequiel Morsella |editor2=John A. Bargh |editor3=Peter M. Gollwitzer |isbn=978-0-19-530998-0 |year=2008 |publisher=Oxford University Press |edition=Volume 2 of Social Cognition and Social Neuroscience | quote=The nonconscious forms of self-regulation may follow different causal principles and do not rely on the same resources as the conscious and effortful ones.}}</ref> Likewise, some modern compatibilists in [[psychology]] have tried to revive traditionally accepted struggles of free will with the formation of character.<ref name=Baumeister0> {{cite book |title=Oxford Handbook of Human Action |chapter=Chapter 23: Free Willpower: A limited resource theory of volition, choice and self-regulation |author1=Roy F Baumeister |author2=Matthew T Galliot |author3=Dianne M Tice |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zFP1AZYlNmcC&pg=PA487 |pages= 487 ''ff'' |editor=Ezequiel Morsella |editor2=John A. Bargh |editor3=Peter M. Gollwitzer |isbn=978-0-19-530998-0 |year=2008 |publisher=Oxford University Press |edition=Volume 2 of Social Cognition and Social Neuroscience |quote=Yet perhaps not all conscious volition is an illusion. Our findings suggest that the traditional folk notions of willpower and character strength have some legitimate basis in genuine phenomena.}} </ref> Compatibilist free will has also been attributed to our natural [[sense of agency]], where one must believe they are an agent in order to function and develop a [[theory of mind]].<ref name="Smilansky2000">{{cite book|author=Saul Smilansky|title=Free Will and Illusion|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uPUTQq7CUfwC|access-date=6 February 2013|year=2000|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-825018-0|page=96}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Gallagher | first1 = S. | year = 2000 | title = Philosophical conceptions of the self: implications for cognitive science | journal = Trends in Cognitive Sciences | volume = 4 | issue = 1| pages = 14–21 | doi=10.1016/s1364-6613(99)01417-5| pmid = 10637618 | s2cid = 451912 }}</ref> The notion of levels of decision is presented in a different manner by Frankfurt.<ref name=Frankfurt/> Frankfurt argues for a version of compatibilism called the "hierarchical mesh". The idea is that an individual can have conflicting desires at a first-order level and also have a desire about the various first-order desires (a second-order desire) to the effect that one of the desires prevails over the others. A person's will is identified with their effective first-order desire, that is, the one they act on, and this will is free if it was the desire the person wanted to act upon, that is, the person's second-order desire was effective. So, for example, there are "wanton addicts", "unwilling addicts" and "willing addicts". All three groups may have the conflicting first-order desires to want to take the drug they are addicted to and to not want to take it. The first group, ''wanton addicts'', have no second-order desire not to take the drug. The second group, "unwilling addicts", have a second-order desire not to take the drug, while the third group, "willing addicts", have a second-order desire to take it. According to Frankfurt, the members of the first group are devoid of will and therefore are no longer persons. The members of the second group freely desire not to take the drug, but their will is overcome by the addiction. Finally, the members of the third group willingly take the drug they are addicted to. Frankfurt's theory can ramify to any number of levels. Critics of the theory point out that there is no certainty that conflicts will not arise even at the higher-order levels of desire and preference.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Watson |first=D. |title=Free Will |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1982 |location=New York}}</ref> Others argue that Frankfurt offers no adequate explanation of how the various levels in the hierarchy mesh together.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Fischer |first1=John Martin |title=Responsibility and Control: An Essay on Moral Responsibility |last2=Ravizza |first2=Mark |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1998 |location=Cambridge}}</ref> ====Free will as unpredictability==== In ''[[Elbow Room (Dennett book)|Elbow Room]]'', Dennett presents an argument for a compatibilist theory of free will, which he further elaborated in the book ''[[Freedom Evolves]]''.<ref name="DD2">Dennett, D. (2003) ''Freedom Evolves''. Viking Books. {{ISBN|0-670-03186-0}}</ref> The basic reasoning is that, if one excludes God, an infinitely powerful [[demon]], and other such possibilities, then because of [[chaos theory|chaos]] and epistemic limits on the precision of our knowledge of the current state of the world, the future is ill-defined for all finite beings. The only well-defined things are "expectations". The ability to do "otherwise" only makes sense when dealing with these expectations, and not with some unknown and unknowable future. According to Dennett, because individuals have the ability to act differently from what anyone expects, free will can exist.<ref name="DD2"/> Incompatibilists claim the problem with this idea is that we may be mere "automata responding in predictable ways to stimuli in our environment". Therefore, all of our actions are controlled by forces outside ourselves, or by random chance.<ref name="Kaney">Kane, R. ''The Oxford Handbook to Free Will''. Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|0-19-513336-6}}.</ref> More sophisticated analyses of compatibilist free will have been offered, as have other critiques.<ref name="CompSEP" /> In the philosophy of [[decision theory]], a fundamental question is: From the standpoint of statistical outcomes, to what extent do the choices of a conscious being have the ability to influence the future? [[Newcomb's paradox]] and other philosophical problems pose questions about free will and predictable outcomes of choices. ====The physical mind==== {{See also|Neuroscience of free will}} [[Compatibilist]] models of free will often consider deterministic relationships as discoverable in the physical world (including the brain). Cognitive [[Naturalism (philosophy)|naturalism]]<ref name=naturalism>A key exponent of this view was [[Willard van Orman Quine]]. See {{cite encyclopedia |title=Willard van Orman Quine |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2010/entries/quine/ |author=Hylton, Peter |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2010 Edition) |editor= Edward N. Zalta |date=Apr 30, 2010}}</ref> is a [[physicalism|physicalist]] approach to studying human [[cognition]] and [[consciousness]] in which the mind is simply part of nature, perhaps merely a feature of many very complex self-programming feedback systems (for example, [[neural networks (biology)|neural networks]] and [[Cognitive robotics|cognitive robots]]), and so must be studied by the methods of empirical science, such as the [[Behavioural sciences|behavioral]] and [[cognitive science]]s (''i.e.'' [[neuroscience]] and [[cognitive psychology]]).<ref name=Peruzzi/><ref name=physicalism> A thoughtful list of careful distinctions regarding the application of empirical science to these issues is found in {{cite encyclopedia |author=Stoljar, Daniel |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2009/entries/physicalism/#12 |title=Physicalism: §12 – Physicalism and the physicalist world picture |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2009 Edition) |editor=Edward N. Zalta |date=Sep 9, 2009 }}</ref> Cognitive naturalism stresses the role of neurological sciences. Overall brain health, [[substance dependence]], [[Long-term depression|depression]], and various [[personality disorders]] clearly influence mental activity, and their impact upon [[Volition (psychology)|volition]] is also important.<ref name=Baumeister /> For example, an [[substance abuse|addict]] may experience a conscious desire to escape addiction, but be unable to do so. The "will" is disconnected from the freedom to act. This situation is related to an abnormal production and distribution of [[dopamine]] in the brain.<ref name=Volkow> {{cite book |title=Science In Medicine: The JCI Textbook Of Molecular Medicine |chapter=The addicted human brain: insights from imaging studies |author1=Nora D Volkow |author2=Joanna S Fowler |author3=Gene-Jack Wang |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ykvt1S9n8V0C&pg=PA1061 |pages=1061 ''ff'' |isbn=978-0-7637-5083-1 |year=2007 |publisher=Jones & Bartlett Learning |editor1=Andrew R Marks |editor2=Ushma S Neill }} </ref> The neuroscience of free will places restrictions on both compatibilist and incompatibilist free will conceptions. Compatibilist models adhere to models of mind in which mental activity (such as deliberation) can be reduced to physical activity without any change in physical outcome. Although compatibilism is generally aligned to (or is at least compatible with) physicalism, some compatibilist models describe the natural occurrences of deterministic deliberation in the brain in terms of the first person perspective of the conscious agent performing the deliberation.<ref name=Baumeister2 /> Such an approach has been considered a form of identity dualism. A description of "how conscious experience might affect brains" has been provided in which "the experience of conscious free will is the first-person perspective of the neural correlates of choosing."<ref name=Baumeister2 /> Recently,{{when|date=August 2018}} [[Claudio Costa (philosopher)|Claudio Costa]] developed a neocompatibilist theory based on the causal theory of action that is complementary to classical compatibilism. According to him, physical, psychological and rational restrictions can interfere at different levels of the causal chain that would naturally lead to action. Correspondingly, there can be physical restrictions to the body, psychological restrictions to the decision, and rational restrictions to the formation of reasons (desires plus beliefs) that should lead to what we would call a reasonable action. The last two are usually called "restrictions of free will". The restriction at the level of reasons is particularly important since it can be motivated by external reasons that are insufficiently conscious to the agent. One example was the collective suicide led by [[Jim Jones]]. The suicidal agents were not conscious that their free will have been manipulated by external, even if ungrounded, reasons.<ref>Claudio Costa. ''Lines of Thought: Rethinking Philosophical Assumptions'' CSP, 2014, Ch. 7</ref> ====Non-naturalism==== {{distinguish|Religious naturalism}} Alternatives to strictly [[Naturalism (philosophy)|naturalist]] physics, such as [[mind–body dualism]] positing a mind or soul existing apart from one's body while perceiving, thinking, choosing freely, and as a result acting independently on the body, include both traditional religious metaphysics and less common newer compatibilist concepts.<ref name=mnn>{{cite web |last1=Ridge |first1=Michael |title=Moral Non-Naturalism |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-non-naturalism/ |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=3 June 2019 |date=3 February 2014}}</ref> Also consistent with both autonomy and [[Darwinism]],<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lemos |first1=John |title=Evolution and Free Will: A Defense of Darwinian Non–naturalism |journal=Metaphilosophy |date=2002 |volume=33 |issue=4 |pages=468–482 |doi=10.1111/1467-9973.00240 |language=en |issn=1467-9973}}</ref> they allow for free personal agency based on practical reasons within the laws of physics.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Nida-Rümelin |first1=Julian |title=The Reasons Account of Free Will A Libertarian-Compatibilist Hybrid |journal=Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie |date=1 January 2019 |volume=105 |issue=1 |pages=3–10 |doi=10.25162/arsp-2019-0001 |s2cid=155641763 |language=en}}</ref> While less popular among 21st-century philosophers, non-naturalist compatibilism is present in most if not almost all religions.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Stump |first1=Eleonore |editor1-last=Howard-Snyder |editor1-first=Daniel |editor2-last=Jordan |editor2-first=Jeff |title=Faith, Freedom, and Rationality |date=1996 |publisher=Rowman and Littlefield |location=Lanham, MD |pages=73–88 |chapter=Libertarian Freedom and the Principle of Alternative Possibilities}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. 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