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Originally Posted by But
That assumes a compatibilist meaning of free will, doesn't it?
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It doesn’t actually assume compatibilism; it’s simply a logical demonstration that there can be no conflict between what we call determinism and what we style free will. Swartz himself writes that while the solution can be seen as “compatibilist” in a certain sense, this sense seems kind of superfluous, like saying that “doubts and itches should co-exist.” Why shouldn’t doubts and itches co-exist? I think the Swartzian
logical reconstruction of the age-old problem is best described as
eliminativist, rather than compatibilist: There is no threat of
incompatibilism in the first place, any more than one should worry about incompatibilism between doubts and itches.