In defence of free will: Difference between revisions

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Notice that whilst that irreducible choice itself could have been made otherwise (and thus is not ''necessitated''), it is also not disconnected from the context - both inner and outer to the chooser - in which it occurs (and thus is not ''arbitrary''): indeed, unless the chooser ''freely chooses'' to make an explicitly "random" choice, the decision is made in part on the basis of - and thus is causally (though, through the person's will, in a contingent rather than a necessitated sense) connected to - that context.

Another point worth making is that on this view, S1 and S2 are themselves contingent outcomes of the chooser's will, and are thus ''themselves'' free choices (which ~~can~~, too, ~~break down~~ into fundamentally irreducible free choices), and, in this sense, are no different in causal nature than S3 and (the abstracted aggregate) C.

Another point worth making is that on this view, S1 and S2 are themselves contingent outcomes of the chooser's will, and are thus ''themselves'' free choices (which break down, too, into fundamentally irreducible free choices), and, in this sense, are no different in causal nature than S3 and (the abstracted aggregate) C.

Now, even though, hopefully, the preceding has opened up to some readers the possibility of contingent events (choices in particular) compatible with genuine free will, an external resource which might also be of assistance in this respect is:

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 Notice that whilst that irreducible choice itself could have been made otherwise (and thus is not ''necessitated''), it is also not disconnected from the context - both inner and outer to the chooser - in which it occurs (and thus is not ''arbitrary''): indeed, unless the chooser ''freely chooses'' to make an explicitly "random" choice, the decision is made in part on the basis of - and thus is causally (though, through the person's will, in a contingent rather than a necessitated sense) connected to - that context.
-Another point worth making is that on this view, S1 and S2 are themselves contingent outcomes of the chooser's will, and are thus ''themselves'' free choices (which can, too, break down into fundamentally irreducible free choices), and, in this sense, are no different in causal nature than S3 and (the abstracted aggregate) C.
+Another point worth making is that on this view, S1 and S2 are themselves contingent outcomes of the chooser's will, and are thus ''themselves'' free choices (which break down, too, into fundamentally irreducible free choices), and, in this sense, are no different in causal nature than S3 and (the abstracted aggregate) C.
 Now, even though, hopefully, the preceding has opened up to some readers the possibility of contingent events (choices in particular) compatible with genuine free will, an external resource which might also be of assistance in this respect is: