The Copeland Argument
"Incompatibilists are people who believe that the truth of neurophysiological determinism is incompatible with the existence of free will. Arguments like the one about Peter are their stock in trade. I want to suggest to you that there is in fact no incompatibility. Even if Peter is a deterministic system it remains the case that he and he alone was the author of his decision, and that his beliefs, desires and so forth been appropriately different he would have decided differently Deterministic Peter's decision was surely both caused and free--free in that it was caused by Peter's own beliefs, desires, inclinations, etc." (J. Copeland, 1993, p. 149).
References
Copeland, Jack. 1993. Artificial Intelligence: A Philosophical Introduction. Blackwell Publishers. |