[MD] Freewill

[david buchanan]

dmb said to Steve:
Well, as I see it, you are maintaining a very weak position in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.



Steve replied:
...I also think that _you_ are "maintaining a very weak position in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary" or I wouldn't still be holding my view in opposition to yours. Like you, I have frequently been surprised in this conversation when you did not find my arguments compelling.


dmb says:
I cannot think of any evidence at all, let alone overwhelming evidence. What evidence do you think you have?  Also, I have been explaining exactly why I do not even find your arguments coherent, let alone compelling. But you're not presenting any evidence for your side and you're not dealing with the criticisms either. FOR EXAMPLE, against the advice of the Stanford Encyclopedia (Which is strong textual evidence), you have defined both horns too rigidly and too narrowly. Thus one of your main positions hinges on move that is deemed to be bogus by highly respected encyclopedia of philosophy. 

The Stanford encyclopedia on Free Will:
"It would be misleading to specify a strict definition of free will since in the philosophical work devoted to this notion there is probably no single concept of it. For the most part, what philosophers working on this issue have been hunting for, maybe not exclusively, but centrally, is a feature of agency that is necessary for persons to be morally responsible for their conduct."

In the following comments, it seems pretty clear to me that you have merely side-stepped this evidence and the argument that goes with it. 

Steve replied:
...I am an a-determinist as well as an a-free-wilist, but that doesn't mean that I deny these concepts in all _possible_ ways that someone may decide to use them. I deny them in the usual ways that they are used. And I am not just talking about SOM. I am just talking about the way the word "free will" is used in sentences such as "I have the ability to exercise my free will in making deliberate moral choices upon reflection."  The MOQ version of "free will" doesn't fiction in language in the usual way, I think it would be better not to call it that.


dmb says:

Your argument here just doesn't amount to much. You're only saying that the MOQ's reformulation of "free will" would put that term to work in a way that is different from the way it is usually used. I can't think of an unsnarky way to say this but is that the whole point? Yes, of course the MOQ's reformulation is different. See, the effect of insisting on the old meaning of "free will" is to force that term back into the rejected metaphysical framework. The problem is, that's just not what anyone here is talking about and you know that.

Something just came up. Gotta go. To be continued....