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Full Idea
The main recent support for incompatibilism is the 'no choice' argument: we have no choice that the past and the laws of nature entail human actions, we have no choice about what the past or the laws are like, so we have no choice about our actions.
Gist of Idea
Free will and determinism are incompatible, since determinism destroys human choice
Source
Trenton Merricks (Objects and Persons [2003], §6.III)
Book Ref
Merricks,Trenton: 'Objects and Persons' [OUP 2003], p.155
A Reaction
Since I consider free will to be an absurd chimera, I think this argument involves a total misunderstanding of what a 'choice' is. Since the human brain is a wonderfully sophisticated choosing machine, our whole life consists of choices.
| 1837 | We should not refer things to irresponsible necessity, but either to fortune or to our own will [Epicurus] |
| 5971 | Destiny is only a predisposing cause, not a sufficient cause [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| 6214 | Liberty and necessity are consistent, as when water freely flows, by necessity [Hobbes] |
| 12492 | Liberty is a power of agents, so can't be an attribute of wills [Locke] |
| 12493 | A man is free insofar as he can act according to his own preferences [Locke] |
| 19368 | The will determines action, by what is seen as good, but it does not necessitate it [Leibniz] |
| 5031 | Everything which happens is not necessary, but is certain after God chooses this universe [Leibniz] |
| 2223 | Liberty is merely acting according to the will, which anyone can do if they are not in chains [Hume] |
| 3655 | Hume makes determinism less rigid by removing the necessity from causation [Trusted on Hume] |
| 15617 | In abstraction, beyond finitude, freedom and necessity must exist together [Hegel] |
| 6981 | Determinism clashes with free will, as the past determines action, and is beyond our control [Inwagen, by Jackson] |
| 6149 | Free will and determinism are incompatible, since determinism destroys human choice [Merricks] |