[MD] Free Will

[X Acto]

Steve said:
Playing the causation game doesn't depend on any particular 
metaphysics. But once you start looking for explanations in terms of 
causes, the serpent of causation is found to run over everything.

Matt:
That's a good way of putting it.  One of the most powerful, succinct 
statements of this view--that once you start "playing the causation 
game" the viewpoint of morality based on free will seems to 
disappear before your very eyes--is Thomas Nagel's "Moral Luck."  
Nagel ultimately believes morality does need a notion of free will, but 
he nevertheless acknowledges how paradoxical the Kantian 
framework is (which he considers necessary to morality).  The idea 
is that free will is flexed when you have _control_, and Nagel's point 
is that when you look too close, you don't have control over much.

Ron:
Epictetus contributes much to this discussion. I think ethical development
is the assertion of control in our lives. When we assert control we assert 
ourselves as reasoning human beings, when we look close we must take
care that we must concern ourselves with that which can control, that ethical
acts emerge from making such distinctions.

as Stanford enclopedia of philosophy cites:
"The linchpin of Epictetus' entire philosophy is his account of what 
it is to be a human being; that is, to be a rational mortal creature. 
“Rational” as a descriptive term means that human beings have the 
capacity to “use impressions” in a reflective manner. Animals, 
like humans, use their impressions of the world in that their behavior 
is guided by what they perceive their circumstances to be. But human 
beings also examine the content of their impressions to determine whether 
they are true or false; we have the faculty of “assent” (1.6.12-22).
Assent is regulated by our awareness of logical consistency or 
contradiction between the proposition under consideration and
 beliefs that one already holds: when we are not aware of any 
consideration, we assent readily, but when we perceive a conflict
 we are strongly constrained to reject one or the other of the
 conflicting views (2.26.3). Thus Medea kills her children because 
she believes it is to her advantage to do so; if someone were to 
show her clearly that she is deceived in this belief, she would 
not do it (1.28.8). Our hatred of being deceived, our inability to 
accept as true what we clearly see to be false, is for Epictetus 
the most basic fact about human beings and the most promising (1.28.1-5)."


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