Quote:
Originally Posted by peacegirl
Quote:
Originally Posted by Spacemonkey
It is a contingent conclusion that we could only have chosen that choice which we actually happened to choose, for there is nothing logically contradictory about our having chosen something else. So if I choose to do X then there is still a logically possible world where I chose Y instead. But if it is a tautology that we always choose in the direction of greater satisfaction, then this is true in all possible words including the one where I chose Y instead of X. That means there is a possible world where your premise is true (we always move in the direction of greater satisfaction), and yet your conclusion is false (for it was not the case that I could only have chosen my real-world actual choice of X). QED. Lessans' 'demonstration' of the falsity of free will is therefore plainly invalid and fallacious.
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Of course it's a contingent conclusion that we chose X. It is impossible to prove that in another world a person could have chosen otherwise; Y instead of X. In a logically possible world (or situation) a person could have chosen Y instead of X, but the contingent conditions would not be the same since X was already chosen. There is nothing logically contradictory about him having chosen something else, but he didn't choose something else because it gave him less satisfaction under the conditions. If that person would have chosen Y, there would be no contradiction at all because that would have been the better choice at that instant. But he didn't choose Y because at that moment X was the preferable choice. You are placing the cart before the horse. If another situation the conditions were such that he chose Y, they would not be the exact contingent conditions that brought a person to choosing X, which is necessary for you to prove that choosing Y was possible at that moment. There is no false conclusion that can be had because there can only be one choice at each moment in time, rendering Y an impossibility. Again, that doesn't mean choosing Y was logically impossible until X was chosen. It also doesn't mean Y is not a perfectly logical choice in the next moment, but you cannot prove that Y could have been chosen after the fact. |
I didn't say it was a contingent conclusion that we choose X. The contingent and fallacious conclusion is that we could not have chosen other than X. In the conceivable situation where I choose Y instead of X, I am still choosing in the direction of greater satisfaction but I do not choose X. Therefore his satisfaction principle alone does not prove that only the actual choice of X is possible. By saying that antecedent conditions would have to have been different you are acknowledging that it is the regular definition of causal determinism, rather than anything to do with satisfaction, which allegedly disproves free will. You are abandoning the idea that the principle of greater satisfaction disproves free will, and instead arguing that we can't choose otherwise given the same set of initial causal conditions. That means his satisfaction principle is irrelevant, and that you are again narrowly focusing only on the libertarian contra-causal kind of free will, rather than the kind of free will which we actually have.