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Originally Posted by braindamage351
I really don't want to read through all of those posts, so let's get out what we know:
- There are two possibilities: strict causality or randomness
- In randomness you have no control over what is going to happen, and so you do not have free will.
- In order to make a choice there must be multiple possible courses of action. In strict causality there is only one possible outcome, and so there is no choice.
- No choice = no free will
That's about as simple as it's going to get. Criticize from there if there are any faults.
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Every one of these propositions is false sadly:
1) there are more than two possibilities (but of course only one actuality). There is ideterninacy, hard/soft determinism, necessitarianism, fatalism, and all imply, and assume, different things. See any decent intro to philosophy.
2) It has yet to be shown that randomness isn't compatible with control. Perhaps that's what control means, randomness attributed to the body...
3) To make a choice there must be multiple courses of action yes, but which one of these is taken will obviously have to have been caused (or motivated; same thing). This doesn't bring causation and choice into conflict at all. Choice describes a state prior to action with its possible outcomes, causality manifests itself afterwards with the actual act that does occur.
No choice = no free will is about right. But choices can be caused and still be examples of a freely willing being. I choose this BECAUSE of that. I am still acting freely on a motive.