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Front Page  Titles (by Subject) Freedom & Determinism - Literature of Liberty, Autumn 1980, vol. 3, No. 3
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Freedom & Determinism - Leonard P. Liggio, Literature of Liberty, Autumn 1980, vol. 3, No. 3 [1980]Edition used:Literature of Liberty: A Review of Contemporary Liberal Thought was published first by the Cato Institute (1978-1979) and later by the Institute for Humane Studies (1980-1982) under the editorial direction of Leonard P. Liggio.
Part of: Literature of Liberty: A Review of Contemporary Liberal Thought, 20 vols. 19781-982
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Freedom & Determinism
“Freedom, Determinism and Character.” Mind 89(January 1980):106–13. The author argues that the sense in which actions flow from character traits points to a problem for those “incompatibilists” who think that there is an incompatibility between determinism and freedom. While some compatibilists have made arguments similar to Sankowski, he differs from them since he does not believe that actions must be causally determined by character in the sense of a universal law (“if p, then q”) in order for free action to flow from character. A person's character is such that many, but not all, acts freely follow from it. If the incompatibilists were right, as we move from acts which are not predictable in practice to acts which are more or less predictable, we should find that we consider such acts or agents less free. In fact, we do nothing of the kind. The incompatibilists may reply that the only determination at issue is that of universal causal law, so that predictability which occurs as a result of character traits is irrelevant. But this reply is wrong: if necessity is held to cancel out freedom, what difference should it make whether the necessity is of the kind that occurs in universal causal laws or in looser claims about character traits? The incompatibilists' position is based on the alleged fact that factors outside a person's control generate a necessity which cancels out freedom. If this is the position, then there is a slippery slope regarding the type of necessity about which incompatibilists worry. The incompatibilist reply fails and the argument retains its force.  |
