Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Jun 30, 2022 5:30 pm
Strong, hard , or all the same, there is no Free Will i.e. an intention that's entirely free from causes of it.
Well, you have to define "cause" when you say that.
Determinism says there are no authentic causes that are not previously merely material. None.
So there are no
volitional "causes" of anything. "Choice" only means a link in a chain of material causes...not that you, Belinda, are initiating anything from yourself. Not anything.
Also "free" is ambiguous there. You seem to think it must mean, "devoid of input from anything but volition." But no believer in free will thinks that's what it means. For them, "free will" or better "volition," can include
some prior factors -- even material ones -- so long as those factors are not the DETERMINATIVE cause of a particular choice. So long as that's the case, the choice remains, by their understanding, sufficient to merit the label "free choice."
So a choice when you go into the grocery store, and a combination of your stomach acid (material) and your aesthetic preferences (volitional) are involved in your selection of one head of lettuce over another, that is sufficient for people to call that choice "free."
A Determinist has to say that only the stomach acid (or other strictly material precursor) explains why you ended up with that head of lettuce and not another. "You" didn't choose it at all: the materials "chose" it for you.
In short, the Deterministic position is
exclusive of free will. The free will position is
inclusive of both volition and material causes.