Recent content by rhutchin

I see LFW as being necessary for moral agency and moral agency does not exist where decisions are determined. Where compatibilism allows for internal wants/desires to affect moral decisions, LFW apparently cannot allow that. Under LFW, a person must be able to choose otherwise or to act...

The definitions of free will are what I have run into. I think they tell us little. When people use them, they seem to take on a magical, undefinable meaning. I started with: Libertarian Free Will -The ability to consciously select between realizable alternatives By "realizable...

The last statement seems to be an opinion. I don't see where it has been shown to be true.

For what you say to be true, I think we need definitions of Libertarian Free Will and Incompatibilism. From the discussion here, I don't think those definitions exist. All we have are two labels and statements of how people want each to relate to the other. I have sought to work out a...

I don't think the process you have put forth has really accomplished anything. All it did was create two labels and declare that they are incompatible because one is false and presumably, the other is true. We don't know what those things are that you have labeled. You could have called them...

"...experience laid down as memory function (past experience)" is also information. So, basically, your point is that genetics determines "what" people decide and not just "how." However, different decisions can reflect the different information that people have with genetics affecting "how" a...

And different inputs (information) result in people behaving in different ways.

The key term you use is "inputs." That's information and new information changes the "information state" of the mind/brain. Without "inputs" to the mind/brain, there would be nothing on which to decide. It is not a matter of "shaping and forming the mind;" information gives the mind/brain...

I think there is more than adapting to social conditions involved here. For example, suppose a person prefers to steal what he needs rather than get a job, earn money, and purchase what he needs. Yet, if someone steals from him, he calls the police and has the thief prosecuted. The person...

This just seems to be saying that our minds use the information available to it to make decisions. This information may be considered consciously or unconsciously. That would make decision-making dependent on information and that need for information to make decisions causes it to be...

I'd like to see an example that actually achieves choices that are not deterministic. Coercion avoids choices that a person is forced to make when they would have made a different choice. However, one may be compelled to make a choice that they want to make simply because it is the desired...

I don't see that decisions are made outside the context of something to gain (benefits exceed the costs). Something compels that a choice be made; that something is the gain perceived from the choice made. The choice made is active in that future events proceed from that choice. So, the...

The only right derived from nature is the right to life. Having imparted this right, nature then requires that one die. Death can be by natural causes, at the hand of others, or at one's own hand and a person has a varying ability to determine which way death comes. To determine how one will...

That's basically what I said - except in reverse order. So, what's the point?? That one's "feelings" should prevail over rational decision making?

OK. I think the effect is that benefits (even if only perceived) exceed the costs. At the least, the person reasons that no harm results from the decision. I still do not understand what people mean by compatibilist free will beyond the idea that decisions are not coerced. That leads me to...