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- Mark Balaguer, The Metaphysical Irrelevance of the Compatibilism Debate (and, More Generally, of Conceptual Analysis).It is argued here that the question of whether compatibilism is true is irrelevant to metaphysical questions about the nature of human decision-making processes-for example, the question of whether or not humans have free will-except in a very trivial and metaphysically uninteresting way. In addition, it is argued that two other questionsnamely, the conceptual-analysis question of what free will is and the question that asks which kinds of freedom are required for moral responsibility-are also essentially irrelevant to metaphysical questions about the nature of human beings.In my reading list | Discuss this article | Edit | Categorize |My bibliography
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Introduction -- Formulating the problem of free will -- The old formulation of the problem of free will -- Compatibilism and the rejection of an intermediate formulation of the problem of free will -- The final (or a new-and-improved) formulation of the problem of free will -- Some remarks on libertarianism -- Synopsis of the book -- Why the compatibilism issue and the conceptual-analysis issue are metaphysically irrelevant -- What determines whether an answer to the what-is-free-will question is correct -- (...)
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| Discuss this article | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: hcc.haifa.ac.il springerlink.com kluweronline.com journals.kluweronline.com ingentaconnect.com | Scholar | More..
| | Other links: hcc.haifa.ac.il springerlink.com kluweronline.com journals.kluweronline.com ingentaconnect.com | Scholar | More.. This paper tries to show that although Carnap's distinction between internal and external questions in terms of a linguistic framework is philosophically important, and that although metaphysical questions are, as Carnap claims, external questions, Carnap's conclusion that all meaningful metaphysical questions are practical questions about language is not justified. This is done in three steps. First, it is argued that it is plausible to suppose that there is for languages a kind of external question other than the one kind Carnap (...)
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Most philosophers now concede that libertarianism has failed as an account of free will. Assuming the correctness of this concession, that leaves compatibilism and hard determinism as the only remaining choices in the free will debate. In this paper, I will argue that hard determinism turns out to be a form of compatibilism, and therefore, compatibilism is the only remaining position in the free will debate. I will attempt to establish this conclusion by arguing that hard determinists will end up (...)
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