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Originally Posted by Francisco
Encyclopedia, Columbia University Press: "Free will, in philosophy, the doctrine that an individual, regardless of forces external to him, can and does choose at least some of his actions."
Can and does. Not could but didn't.
(But then philosophers in general do sometimes appear incoherent, especially to their fauxs, no pun intended.)  |
I see you're still having trouble comprehending what you've read. It's equally important that the individual can choose, but does not choose, what he does not do. If an individual cannot choose anything other than the actions they actually do choose, they do not actually have a choice, because they could not have chosen to act differently.
So your observation that an indiviual can do actions and does do actions doesn't reveal anything about wether the individual is doing those actions by choice. Choice requires multiple actions that can be done, of which some are chosen not to be done. If you could not have actually done anything other than what you did do, you never had a choice.
Here, I'll try to make it easier.
I take no issue with the statement that a free individual can chose and does choose some of the ways he does act.
This is because it in no way contradicts the statement that a free individual can choose but does not choose some of the ways he does not act.
As a style tip, encyclopedia are not the best source for an appeal to authority-- especially general encyclopedia billed as authority on a specific subject.
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Originally Posted by Zyr
"Could have acted differently" - No person would act any differently in the same situation, becuase whatever their reasons, they would be the same, and thus, the thought process that leads them to that decision will be the same.
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Even if someone will make a given choice when presented with a given situation, the part that makes the choice a free one is that they could have chosen differently. They won't choose differently, but they can. The conflation of "would" and "could" is a significant error.
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Originally Posted by asaris
Anyway, given this, it seems clear that the essence of free will must be that our actions are up to us.
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I'd agree with that, but "up to us" is too ambiguous for philosophical analysis.