green numbers give full details | back to texts | unexpand these ideas
| 3444 | If actions are not caused by other events, and are not causeless, they must be caused by the person |
| Full Idea: If the action is not caused by some other event, and it is not causeless, this leaves the possibility that it is caused by something else instead, and this something can only be the agent, the man. | |||
| From: Roderick Chisholm (Human Freedom and the Self [1964], p.28) |
| 3446 | For Hobbes (but not for Kant) a person's actions can be deduced from their desires and beliefs |
| Full Idea: According to Hobbes, if we fully know what a man desires and believes, and we know the state of his physical stimuli, we may logically deduce what he will try to do. But Kant says no such statements can ever imply what a man will do. | |||
| From: Roderick Chisholm (Human Freedom and the Self [1964], p.32) |
| 9268 | If free will miraculously interrupts causation, animals might do that; why would we want to do it? |
| Full Idea: Chisholm holds the quaint doctrine that human freedom entails an absence of causal determination; a free action is a miracle. This gives no basis for doubting that animals have such freedom; and why would we care whether we can interrupt the causal order? | |||
| From: comment on Roderick Chisholm (Human Freedom and the Self [1964]) by Harry G. Frankfurt - Freedom of the Will and concept of a person §IV | |||
| A reaction: [compressed] Chisholm is the spokesman for 'agent causation', Frankfurt for freedom as second-level volitions. I'm with Frankfurt. The belief in 'agents' and 'free will' may sound plausible, until the proposal is spelled out in causal terms. |
| 3442 | Responsibility seems to conflict with events being either caused or not caused |
| Full Idea: The free will problem is that humans seem to be responsible, but this seems to conflict with the idea that every event is caused by some other event, and it also conflicts with the view that the action is not caused at all. | |||
| From: Roderick Chisholm (Human Freedom and the Self [1964], p.24) |
| 3443 | Desires may rule us, but are we responsible for our desires? |
| Full Idea: If a flood of desires causes a weak-willed man to give in to temptation, …the question now becomes, is he responsible for the beliefs and desires he happens to have? | |||
| From: Roderick Chisholm (Human Freedom and the Self [1964], p.25) |
| 3445 | Causation among objects relates either events or states |
| Full Idea: Between natural objects we may say that causation is a relation between events or states of affairs. | |||
| From: Roderick Chisholm (Human Freedom and the Self [1964], p.28) |