A Metaphysics For Freedom by Helen Steward

[Philosophy Now]

We exercise free will this issue as Les Reid defends A Metaphysics For Freedom.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/105/A_ ... en_Steward

[HexHammer]

What an appaling bad babble and talkative scribble.

Helen and Les Reid is utterly clueless about modern understanding of anything relevant, what she says about chemicals in the brain could describe anything, but nothing specific.

Completely unscientific and only resembles an autistic fairytale novel trying to describe what they think freedom of will is.

I did bad in school, but these retards makes me look like a genius.

It was already scientifically tested in the mid 30'ies that people had indeed free will, but in very limited form that could easily manipulated. So it's conditionally.

These articles really needs peer review, not by the usual cozy chatters, but from someone that just has an ounce of intellect and knowledge.

[Ginkgo]

Libertarianism is not an argument for free will, it is an argument for why people should have free will. The introduction of the term "settle" and "agency' does nothing to change this.

Libertarianism is not an argument for anything, other than the right of the self-legislating individual to come up with whatever their intellect dictates. If their intellectual product is in conflict with knowledge that has already been accumulated then too bad for the collective wisdom.

[HexHammer]

Ginkgo

What do you rate this articles?

[Ginkgo]

Ginkgo

What do you rate this articles?

The article itself is well written. However, I strongly disagree with Steward because she is clearly talking a nonsense. If she thinks it is possible to somehow marry Hegel's moral philosophy and biology then she is deluded. It is like any stripe of libertarianism...A NONSENSE.

Sorry about that , but I don't like libertarianism as a philosophy.

[RickLewis]

Libertarianism is not an argument for free will, it is an argument for why people should have free will. The introduction of the term "settle" and "agency' does nothing to change this.

Libertarianism is not an argument for anything, other than the right of the self-legislating individual to come up with whatever their intellect dictates. If their intellectual product is in conflict with knowledge that has already been accumulated then too bad for the collective wisdom.

Hi Ginkgo,

I think that libertarianism as a theory of action (i.e. the claim that we have free will and our actions are not determined by prior physical causes) is completely different from libertarianism as a theory (or ideology?) in political philosophy, which is what you seem to be describing in your second paragraph above.

John Stuart Mill made a big deal of this distinction in the opening words of his essay "On Liberty", which are:

"THE SUBJECT of this Essay is not the so-called Liberty of the Will, so unfortunately opposed to the misnamed doctrine of Philosophical Necessity; but Civil, or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual. "

http://www.bartleby.com/130/1.html

I'm not clear why libertarianism as a political doctrine would have any connection with libertarianism as a theory of action. It just seems like an unfortunate coincidence that they both have the same name.

[Ginkgo]

Libertarianism is not an argument for free will, it is an argument for why people should have free will. The introduction of the term "settle" and "agency' does nothing to change this.

Libertarianism is not an argument for anything, other than the right of the self-legislating individual to come up with whatever their intellect dictates. If their intellectual product is in conflict with knowledge that has already been accumulated then too bad for the collective wisdom.

Hi Ginkgo,

I think that libertarianism as a theory of action (i.e. the claim that we have free will and our actions are not determined by prior physical causes) is completely different from libertarianism as a theory (or ideology?) in political philosophy, which is what you seem to be describing in your second paragraph above.

John Stuart Mill made a big deal of this distinction in the opening words of his essay "On Liberty", which are:

"THE SUBJECT of this Essay is not the so-called Liberty of the Will, so unfortunately opposed to the misnamed doctrine of Philosophical Necessity; but Civil, or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual. "

http://www.bartleby.com/130/1.html

I'm not clear why libertarianism as a political doctrine would have any connection with libertarianism as a theory of action. It just seems like an unfortunate coincidence that they both have the same name.

Thanks for the correction.