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Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are mutually compatible and that it is possible to believe in both without being logically inconsistent. [1] As Steven Weinberg puts it: "I would say that free will is nothing but our conscious experience of deciding what to do, which I know I am experiencing as I write this review, and this experience is not invalidated by the ...
Compatibilism itself may occupy any of the nine positions, that is, there is no logical contradiction between determinism and free will, and either or both may be true or false in principle. However, the most common meaning attached to compatibilism is that some form of determinism is true and yet we have some form of free will, position (3). [46]
Free will in antiquity is a philosophical and theological concept. Free will in antiquity was not discussed in the same terms as used in the modern free will debates, but historians of the problem have speculated who exactly was first to take positions as determinist, libertarian, and compatibilist in antiquity. [1]
[11] [12] As philosophers adjusted Lehrer's original (classical) definitions of the terms incompatibilism and compatibilism to reflect their own perspectives on the location of the purported "fundamental divide" among free will theorists, the terms incompatibilism and compatibilism have been given a variety of new meanings.
It is considered central to the field of ethics because of its role in enabling deliberate action. A recurring question in Western philosophical tradition is about free will—and the related, but more general notion of fate—which asks how the will can truly be free if a person's actions have either natural or divine causes determining them.
Alongside Aristotle's ethics, the Stoic tradition forms one of the major founding approaches to virtue ethics. [2] The Stoics are especially known for teaching that "virtue is the only good" for human beings, and that external things, such as health, wealth, and pleasure, are not good or bad in themselves ( adiaphora ) but have value as ...
Other approaches do not require free will to be a fundamental constituent of the universe; ordinary randomness is appealed to as supplying the "elbow room" believed to be necessary by libertarians. Free volition is regarded as a particular kind of complex, high-level process with an element of indeterminism.
The notion of free will has become an important issue in the debate on whether individuals are ever morally responsible for their actions and, if so, in what sense. Incompatibilists regard determinism as at odds with free will, whereas compatibilists think the two can coexist. Moral responsibility does not necessarily equate to legal ...