Sunday, July 16, 2017

Swerve, Free Will, Responsibility

The roots of the Free Will vs. Determinism debate are Aristotle's attempts to distinguish voluntary from involuntary behavior, in order to establish criteria for the assignation of responsibility.  Now, abstracting the terms of the debate from that context can distort their relation.  For example, on the one hand, in themselves, Chance and Free Will are each anti-Deterministic.  But, on the other, behavior that is either accidental or a product of external forces is often absolved of responsibility, while that conduct is deliberate is usually regarded as sufficient grounds for credit or blame.  In other words, restored to context of Responsibility, Swerve, i. e. random deviation, and Free Will are antithetical, despite the Lucretian thesis that the former is the source of the latter.

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