Could You Have Thought Differently? An Argument Against Free Will

IF 1.6 4区 心理学 0 PHILOSOPHY Journal of Consciousness Studies Pub Date : 2023-06-01 DOI:10.53765/20512201.30.5.009
Nicolas Alzetta
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Abstract

This paper develops a new argument against free will, understood as the principle of alternative possibilities (PAP). This principle has been central in debates around free will and moral responsibility; however, it is almost always stated in terms of bodily rather than mental action, and it is therefore mainly understood as the possibility to physically act differently, rather than to think differently. The argument presented here is aimed at the latter, which is termed the possibility of alternative thought (PAT). It argues on psychological grounds that it is impossible for a subject to think differently than it does in a given situation. First, I make the possibility of alternative thought explicit, explain what it means for a self to entertain a thought (or conscious content), and I define a notion of conscious control that is required for the argument. I then offer a taxonomy of content types, based on how they are being controlled. In the third section, I analyse the scenarios of content generation for each type of content, to determine whether they can satisfy the PAT. It will be shown that this cannot be the case.
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你会有不同的想法吗?反对自由意志的论证
本文提出了一个新的反对自由意志的论点,被理解为替代可能性原理(PAP)。这一原则一直是围绕自由意志和道德责任的辩论的核心;然而,它几乎总是以身体而不是精神的行为来表述,因此它主要被理解为身体上不同行为的可能性,而不是不同思考的可能性。这里提出的论点是针对后者的,这被称为替代思想的可能性(PAT)。它从心理学的角度认为,一个主体不可能在特定的情况下有不同的想法。首先,我明确了替代思想的可能性,解释了自我接受思想(或有意识的内容)意味着什么,并定义了论证所需的有意识控制的概念。然后,我将根据内容类型的控制方式对其进行分类。在第三部分中,我分析了每种类型内容的内容生成场景,以确定它们是否能够满足PAT。将会证明这是不可能的。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
2.00
自引率
14.30%
发文量
58
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