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From: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: freedom and reason (attn russ, rich, & laura)
Message-ID: <150@ubvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 1-Apr-85 15:49:14 EST
Article-I.D.: ubvax.150
Posted: Mon Apr  1 15:49:14 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 7-Apr-85 04:55:32 EST
References: <362@aesat.UUCP> <5272@utzoo.UUCP> <137@ubvax.UUCP> <861@wucs.UUCP>
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> In article <137@ubvax.UUCP> tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) writes:
> >Another funny assumption of this free will debate is that free will
> >is a possession, some kind of {meta}physical capacity in us.  That can't
> >be!  Free will is a *relation* between a person and her world (world: some
> >bounded space-time continuum of possibility).  The question "does man
> >have free will" should be answered, "depends on who and where -- which
> >man[persons] and what world[worlds]".
> >Tony Wuersch
> 
> Which person, yes, but which world, I'm not so sure.  Couldn't the same
> constitution of me (my body), subject to the same physical laws, exist
> in a "world" in which many other things were different?  It seems to me
> that in any such world, "I" would have exactly the same amount of free
> will as I do in the actual world.
>
> 	"ICONBUSTERS!"			--President, ICONBUSTERS,
> 					Paul V. Torek, wucs!wucec1!pvt1047

If I'm tied up in a chair and gagged in some other world, my constitution
might be the same but I would lack free will.  "Agency" implies a agent
whom a world reacts to.  It implies some means of control over the world;
as Nozick said, "Just because determinism is true doesn't mean thermostats
don't control temperature."  If an agent is bound from reacting to the
world in a manner meaningful and significant to the agent, then that agent
lacks free will.  Free will thus depends on the structure of the world.

I'm not proposing mine as THE definition of free will; I don't think
philosophy works that way.  I am proposing it as a reasonable definition,
one which helps us develop a sense of free will which we can use in our daily
life to make our lives better and happier.  ("Sense" as in 'sense and
reference', please)

As an Aristotelian naturalist, creating useful distinctions such as a pragmatic
definition of free will is what I take to be the business of good philosophy.

Tony Wuersch
{amd,amdcad}!cae780!ubvax!tonyw