The Metaphysical Irrelevance of the Compatibilism Debate (and, More Generally, of Conceptual Analysis)

Southern Journal of Philosophy 47 (1):1-24 (2010)
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Abstract

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 questions—namely, 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.

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Author's Profile

Mark Balaguer
California State University, Los Angeles

References found in this work

Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsibility.John Martin Fischer & Mark Ravizza - 1998 - New York: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Mark Ravizza.
Freedom of the will and the concept of a person.Harry G. Frankfurt - 1971 - Journal of Philosophy 68 (1):5-20.
Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility.Harry G. Frankfurt - 1969 - Journal of Philosophy 66 (23):829-839.
The Significance of Free Will.Robert Kane - 1996 - New York, US: Oxford University Press USA.
Philosophical papers.John Langshaw Austin - 1961 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by J. O. Urmson & G. J. Warnock.

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