a tippling philosopher

Showing Tag: "determinism "free will"" (Show all posts)

Determinism vs compatibilism: abrogation vs moral responsibility?

Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, May 26, 2012, In : Philosophy 
I have been discussing with someone about moral responsibility with regards to determinism, free will and compatibilism. 

Compatibilists often claim, as per David Hume, that the agent has free will because they are not being physically coerced to do something by another agent. However, a hard determinist such as myself will simply claim that that coercion is internal, and not external. The causal process is what makes an agent do something, and this may take its form in other agents, genetics,...
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Being nice is genetically determined?

Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Tuesday, April 10, 2012, In : Science 

Born Nice? Peoples' Niceness May Reside in Their Genes, Study Finds

ScienceDaily (Apr. 10, 2012) — It turns out that the milk of human kindness is evoked by something besides mom's good example. Research by psychologists at the University at Buffalo and the University of California, Irvine, has found that at least part of the reason some people are kind and generous is that their genes nudge them toward it.


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Jedward - evidence for determinism

Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, October 29, 2011, In : Philosophy 


 

 

I am going to use an unlikely tool to show the philosophical veracity of determinism – the belief that we have no free will. The evidence I am going to bring to the stand is / are Jedward. For those who don’t know them, they were X-Factor sensations from Ireland – identical twins who are so similar you just can’t tell them apart. And they do EVERYTHING together.

 

So, let’s look at free will. I do not want to get into the intricacies of free will here (you can read my book...


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