Abstract
This chapter plays a strategic role in the essay and might well be thought of as the linch-pin of my discussion concerning the problem of freedom and determinism. If it can be established that freedom is compatible with a deterministic world, the incompatibilist stance of the hard determinist is rendered nugatory. Furthermore, in a thoroughly deterministic world, libertarian defences of freedom are knocked awry.
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Notes
Cf. D. J. O’Connor, ‘Possibility and Choice’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (Supplementary Volume), 1960, pp. 1–24;
K. Baier, ‘Could and Would’, Analysis Supplement, 1963, pp. 20–9;
K. Lehrer, ‘“Could” and Determinism’, Analysis, 1963–4, pp. 159–60;
W. D. Hudson, Modern Moral Philosophy (London, 1970), pp. 340–5.
Bernard Gert and Timothy Duggan in their ‘Voluntary Abilities’, American Philosophical Quarterly, 1967, pp. 127–35 have, however, argued that there is such an ability as ‘the ability to will’.
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© 1975 Robert Young
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Young, R. (1975). A Compatibilist Defence of Freedom. In: Freedom, Responsibility and God. Library of Philosophy and Religion. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-02190-1_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-02190-1_11
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