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‘Possible For’ and ‘Possible That’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

John Westwood
John Westwood*
Affiliation:
5659 King's Road Vancouver, B.C., V6T 1 K9
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Extract

In this century, much of the discussion of the free will problem has centered around the conditional analysis of ‘can’. Following G.E. Moore, most compatibilists have based their position on the supposition that to say a person could have acted otherwise is simply to say that he would have acted otherwise, if he had chosen (or willed) to. Most incompatibilists have rejected this supposition, arguing that it must not only be true that a person would have acted otherwise if he had chosen (or willed) to, but that it must also be true that the person could have chosen (or could have willed) otherwise than he did. I think that incompatibilists are right here. The question whether determinism entails lack of free will comes down to the question whether determinism entails that no one could have chosen (or could have willed) otherwise than he did.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , June 1981 , pp. 271 - 284
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1981

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References

1 Moore, G.E. Ethics (Oxford: Oxford U. P. 1966) Ch. 6.Google Scholar

2 See, for example, Chisholm, Roderick ‘J.L. Austin's Philosophical Papers,’ Mind 73 (1964) 20–25.Google Scholar

3 In (McDermott, J. ed. The Writings of William James, (New York: The Modern Library 1968)Google Scholar) 587-610.

4 Wiggins, David ‘Towards a Reasonable Libertarianism’ in Honderich, Ted ed. Essays on Freedom of Action (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1973) 33–61.Google Scholar

5 This argument is from Taylor, Richard Action and Purpose (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall). See especially 168-82.Google Scholar

6 See David Wiggins, op. cit.

7 See, for example, Campbell, C.A. ‘Is ‘freewill’ a Pseudo-problem?’ Mind 60 (1951) 451.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., 451-52.

9 David Wiggins, op. cit.

10 Richard Taylor, op. cit., 54.

11 David Wiggins, op.cit., 61 and infra, 278-9.

12 White, Alan R. Modal Thinking (Ithaca: Cornell U. P. 1975) Ch. I.Google Scholar

13 G.E. Moore, op. cit., 110.

14 David Wiggins, op. cit., 61.

15 G.E. Moore, op. cit., 110.

16 C.A. Campbell, op. cit., 451.

17 There are intimations of this reply in William James, op. cit., 587–97.