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LOCATION:Howison Library
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DTEND:20090312T180000
DTSTART:20090312T161000
UID:philosophy.berkeley.edu:events:459
DTSTAMP:20091124T030738
DESCRIPTION:Hume argued that freedom\, or ‘liberty’\, could be reconciled w
 ith determinism or ‘necessity’ once we appreciate that freedom consists in 
 having one’s actions determined by one’s own desires and decisions.  This ‘
 compatibilist’ conception of freedom has had numerous distinguished defende
 rs\, from Hobbes\, Locke and Hume to Donald Davidson\, Hilary Bok and Danie
 l Dennett.  But Kant thought that Hume’s theory was a “wretched subterfuge”
 \, and the incompatibilist position has also had many able defenders.  Over
  the past twenty years\, it has been supported by David Wiggins\, Carl Gine
 t\, Peter van Inwagen and others by use of the “consequence argument”.  Bas
 ically\, the argument is that one cannot change the past\, nor the laws of 
 nature\; so\, if the laws of nature and the past entail that one will\, say
 \, scratch one’s head at t\, one cannot refrain from scratching one’s head\
 , for to do so would be to ‘render false’ the laws of nature\, or true stat
 ements about the past.  The argument has been impressively elaborated with 
 notation drawn from modal logic\, presented in several versions\, and bolst
 ered with all sorts of auxiliary arguments and examples.\n\nMany thoughtful
  philosophers have thought that the consequence argument\, if it does not c
 onclusively establish incompatibilism\, at least has led us to a ‘dialectic
 al stalemate’.  Thus John Fischer is a ‘semi-compatibilist’: determinism is
  incompatible with the freedom to do otherwise than one does\, but not with
  moral responsibility for what one does.  Manuel Vargas has claimed that th
 e compatibilist position should be defended only as a revisionist strategy.
 \n\nI will argue that the consequence argument fails\, and there is no stal
 emate.  Central to my argument will be a distinction between applying conce
 pts to phenomena and thinking about phenomena via concepts.  I will also ma
 ke a number of other more or less plausible distinctions.\n\nThe most acces
 sible versions of the consequence argument are probably the essays by van I
 nwagen and Wiggins in Gary Watson’s popular anthology FREE WILL.  Ginet’s p
 resentation in ON ACTION is admirably clear.\n\nPrevious stuff I have writt
 en on this topic can be found on [my website](http://www-csli.stanford.edu/
 ~jperry/) by following the link to philosophical essays.\n
SUMMARY:Philosophy Colloquium\nJohn Perry\nFreedom and the Consequence Argu
 ment
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