Position
Libertarian Free Will
Genuine choice is real; the will is not necessitated.
Classification
- Position level
- specific
- Domains
- Ethics , Metaphysics
Overview
Libertarians accept the hard determinist's premise that freedom and determination cannot coexist, and reject the other half: at least some choices are genuinely open, so determinism is false of human action. The support usually offered is the deliberating agent's own standpoint, in which alternatives present themselves as really available, together with the practices of praise and blame that appear to presuppose it.
The standing difficulty is to say what an undetermined choice would be. If a decision is not settled by the agent's reasons and character, it is not obvious how it is settled by the agent at all rather than simply happening — the objection that indeterminism buys randomness where it was meant to buy control.
Position on
Incompatible positions
- Compatibilism
Question scope: Free Will
- Hard Determinism
Question scope: Free Will