Philosophies of Free Will

What philosophy is more corect regarding free will - determinism or libertarianism? Just looking for a little discussion on each philosophy.

[snowden719]

compatabilism?

[hmkpoker]

oh no, not again...

[Piz0wn0reD!!!!!!]

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What philosophy is more corect...

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since when is philosophy corect or incorect?

[EnderIII]

Part of the difficulty with this question is that it is often phrased in this way, but this doesn't do the complexity of the issue justice. On one hand there is the notion of determinism and indeterminism and on the other there is the notion of free will or not free will. It was long assumed that if determinism was true then it would be obvious that free will was absurd. Compatibilists challenge this notion ( I personally think they are wrong, but it certainly deserves its due consideration). Likewise, it is often assumed that if indeteriminism happens to be an accurate description of how universe happens to be that we therefore must have free will. But this seems also to be flawed.

Indeteriminism is essentially the denial of the thesis of determinism (which phrased in a way that is not complicated unnecessarily with notions of laws of nature or predictive capability is something of the sort that whatever occurs occurs under conditions such that nothing else could have occured) but it is not obvious how this would necessarily entail free will.

Basically, the issue is broken down into two parts: there is a fact of the matter of whether the universe is deterministic or indeterministic (which is largely the province of science and can only be guided by philosophy) with some consideration due to the possibility of the world being macro-deterministic (that is while quantum level phenomena might be indeterministic, on the level we experience, the world is deterministic...)

Then there is the philosophical question of how either of these facts of the matter impacts the notion of free will. Often these two questions are conflated and not considered independent. Compatibilists think that there is no contradiction created between determinism and the notion of free will. Traditional libertarians tend to believe there is such a contradiction and that determinism is in fact not true. Compatibilists tend to think deteriminism is true. Few people are still classified as determinists, but to characterize this group is that they believe that deteriminism is true and that this creates a problem for free will (ie. it isn't compatible with deterimism).

I personally find it likely that free will is an untenable notion regardless of whether the universe is deterministic or indeterminstic, but this may be a result of free will being a poorly defined notion. Much of the problem is uncovering exactly what is meant by the various complex terms that are thrown about rather carelessly from time to time.

In a previous thread, I recommended the Oxford Handbook of Free Will as edited by Kane...and I stand by that for a complete treatment of the subject. Let me know if any of this is unclear and i'll make an attempt to clarify.