2017-12-18 at 7:09 PM UTC
Obbe
Alan What?
[annoy my right-angled speediness]
Compatibilists claim that a person is free so long as he is free from any outer or inner compulsions that would prevent him from acting on his actual desires and intentions. The truth however, is that people claim greater autonomy than that.
Our moral intuitions and sense of personal agency are anchored to a felt sense that we are the conscious source of our thoughts and actions. When deciding whom to marry or which book to read, we do not feel compelled by prior events over which we have no control. The freedom that we presume for ourselves and readily attribute to others is felt to slip the influence of impersonal background causes.
But the moment we find that such causes are fully effective, as any detailed account of the neurophysiology of human thought and behaviour would reveal, we can no longer locate a plausible hook upon which to hang out conventional notions of personal responsibility.
