Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Peter Van Inwagen tries to do an analogy between our choices (either doing
something or thinking about doing it) and those of a traveler poised to
choose between a forking path in his journey. The only roads that the
traveler can actually pick are the ones that are a progression of the path he
is already on. And he compares the choices of the traveler in his path with
our choices that are determined by our past.
He argues that if determinism is false then choosing is the same as taking a
path out of two or more available paths with one road behind us which is an
analogy with our actual past. But if determinism is false then our choices are
nonexistent and we are walking on a path that has no branches, no
alternative routes.
There are indeed other roads that lead to other destinations and if we could
get to one of these paths we would certainly reach a different destination but
if determinism is true then we cannot get to any of those paths from the road
that given the No Choice Principle, determinism implies that there is no free
will; and that is why the compatibilist must reject the No Choice Principle.
In this instance the compatibilist might argue that having a free will with
respect to a specific action entails only that its caused in part by the
naturally-formed metal states of the agent, i.e. intentions, desires etc. to act.
Another possible solution to the problem of free will is stating that there is
free will and there is no determinism. But this also can be problematic.
Recently most believe that the world works in the way that a quantummechanical theory has it; not deterministically, meaning that the laws of
nature are only probabilistic that instead of determining a unique outcome
with the given conditions it only ranks a set of outcomes by the probability of
happening.
This means that when trying to decide between two different courses of
action both a future in which the agent took the first path and a future in
which the agent took the second path are now open.
But the problem lies when considering that the agents behavior is
indeterministic then choosing the first path (or the second for that matter)
would not determine how future actions will be taken, much less the present
one. So by being indeterministic then choosing the first path is nothing more
than an event that happened. Which would be the same if the second path
was taken; meaning that the agent has no influence in his/her behavior in
choosing a certain act.