[MD] "Could have acted differently" v. "the extent to which we perceive DQ"

[Steven Peterson]

Hi dmb,

On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 6:03 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Okay MOQers, take a look at what sort of conversation I've been having with Steve...
>
> dmb said:...Free will is just another way to say that you could have acted differently. Free will is, as my dictionary puts it, "the ability to act one's own discretion". As I have already said many times, that is all I mean by free will.  ...
>
>
> Steve said to dmb:
> ... you insist on a "something extra," as I keep trying to point out to you. You seem to believe that not only must we be free to choose what we want, we must be free to want what we want. But that leads to the sort of regress...
>
>
> dmb says:
> Please notice that Steve has characterized my position as exactly the opposite of what I plainly and explicitly said. If anyone knows how to communicate effectively with someone like that, please step up and show me how because I don't see how it can be done.


Steve:
Is this your way of saying that you've changed your mind, and you now
see Parfit as having given sufficient support for moral
responsibility? Before you were saying something very different. You
now see "I could have acted differently if I had wanted to" as free
will _even if_ "what I want" is causally determined? That still counts
as free will in your book? If some says, "I am free to choose whatever
I want, but what I want is causally determined," that counts as free
will to you? Are you sure there is no "something extra" that you need
to add to "the ability to do you you want" to count as sufficient for
free will in your view? No "something extra" you insist on adding???

Ok, then what was all that business about "value determinism"?

Regards,
Steve