About us
We are a group that discusses questions in the Philosophical way of examining the question for built-in assumptions. We meet to learn from each other's perspectives.
We are part of a worldwide movement, called Public Philosophy, to bring philosophical discussion out of academia and to the general public. Socrates Café is part of this same movement.
Upcoming events
20
![[fusion event]Category Topic Transhumanism](https://secure.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/8/2/6/7/highres_433953383.jpeg)
[fusion event]Category Topic Transhumanism
10113B Seattle Slew Lane, Laurel, MD, USWe do two types of meetups -- Pre-planned topics, which feature a page or two seed discussion, with multiple discussion queue questions, and Category topics, which are a general category, for which members then post specific questions with whatever background is needed to provide context.
This meetup is a category topic.
We meet in person and online.
In person will be at 10113 Seattle Slew Lane. This meetup location does not have sufficient chairs for all of us, so it is advisory to bring a portable chair. The location also does not have food for sale. I will bring several large pizzas, and will request $2/slice. One pizza will be vegetarian. Tap water is available, please bring any other drinks desired.
Online will be: https://teams.live.com/meet/93583191724730?p=hY3jxVvnOciVl2aRn59 attendeesBaltimore Philosophy Discussion: Free Will
Panera Bread, 3600 Boston St, Baltimore, MD, USWelcome to the first Baltimore discussion held by the Philosophy Cafe of Central Maryland! Meetings in Baltimore will be once a month, perhaps more often if there is interest.
For our first topic, we're doing the classic philosophy topic: free will.
Optional Reading:
https://iep.utm.edu/freewill/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/Free Will
Introduction
Whenever someone mentions philosophy, free will is one of the first concepts that comes to mind. The reason for this is unsurprising, we make choices all the time, or at least we seem to, and when we look for something to think about and study, our choices are one of the most immediate and important examples available.Historically, there have been many descriptions of free will. Some believed that a notion of goodness was crucial to free will. Plato considered freedom to be the ability to control oneself and aim for goods such as justice, wisdom, and courage instead of serving base desires and passions. Aristotle considered the ability to cultivate virtues as vital to free will. Thomas Aquinas believed that free will requires both a rational desire, a desire which an agent reasons as good, and the means to satisfy those desires.
Others focused on an agent’s desires regardless of goodness. Thomas Hobbes and David Hume claimed that free will only requires that there are no external impediments to an agent doing what he wants to do.
Currently, a widespread definition of free will among professional philosophers is that it’s the level of control over actions which is necessary for moral responsibility. While there is dispute over this definition, (like many definitions in philosophy) it’s a workable one.Free Will and Determinism:
A prominent debate regarding free will is whether it is compatible with determinism. Determinism can be understood as a form of causation in which only one effect can follow from a prior cause. This is in contrast to indeterministic or probabilistic causation, in which a cause can have multiple possible effects.If determinism is true, human actions would be the inevitable results of prior states of the universe. Even so, compatibilists assert that that free will is possible in a deterministic universe. On the other hand, incompatibilists believe that free will requires determinism to be false.
Involved in this debate is the concept of the ability to do otherwise. Compatibilists usually assert that the ability to do otherwise is either not necessary for free will or that this ability still exists even with determinism.A thought experiment known as a Frankfurt case is meant to question the necessity of the ability to do otherwise. Suppose an assassin has a sniper rifle aimed at a target. This assassin has a very unique brain implant he is unaware of. If he shoots and kills the target, the implant stays inactive. However, if he tries to avoid shooting the target, the implant takes over his arm, aims at the target, and shoots. No matter what, the assassin shoots the target, but it may seem that he’s morally responsible and exercising free will if he shoots the target without the implant activating.
As a result of cases like these, compatibilists tend to offer conceptions of free will such as the ability of an agent to act based on their desires, intentions, and reasoning. However, this opens up the possibility that coercion and certain forms of manipulation count as free will. For example, if someone is mugged, they may give up their belongings because they desire to avoid being harmed, but this can be argued to not be a freely willed action. Or if a gene that guarantees violent behavior is implanted in a person before their birth, it may be that their violent behavior is not freely willed.
In contrast, incompatibilists offer accounts of free will which require indeterminism. Two major accounts of this kind are: first, that freely willed actions are ultimately sourced from the agent and second, that actions are non-deterministic results of prior causes.
The agent being the ultimate source of their actions requires that the agent’s actions not be the result of anything external to the agent.
Proponents of this view sometimes claim that reasons explain actions without causing them. This may also require a view of an agent as something apart from a physical universe, such as possessing an immaterial soul which acts as the ultimate source of their actions. After all, if an agent is purely the result of physical interactions in the universe, then so might their actions.Event-causal free will instead requires that the agent’s action be a non-deterministic result of causes external to the agent. Some defenders make similar requirements as compatibilists that the agent act for reasons of their own, but they also tend to add it needs to be physically possible for the agent to avoid a specific action by either not acting or choosing a different action.
Discussion Questions:
- Does compatibilism or incompatibilism seem more plausible?
- Is there a better definition of free will than one which ties it to moral responsibility?
- Is there an “internal sense” that we have free will and can it be trusted?
- Even if free will doesn’t exist, can practices such as incarceration and punishment still be justified?
- Are humans the only animals with free will?
6. How could we recognize free will in other species?
1 attendee[fusion event]Category Topic
10113B Seattle Slew Lane, Laurel, MD, USWe do two types of meetups -- Pre-planned topics, which feature a page or two seed discussion, with multiple discussion queue questions, and Category topics, which are a general category, for which members then post specific questions with whatever background is needed to provide context.
This meetup is a category topic.
We meet in person and online.
In person will be at 10113 Seattle Slew Lane. This meetup location does not have sufficient chairs for all of us, so it is advisory to bring a portable chair. The location also does not have food for sale. I will bring several large pizzas, and will request $2/slice. One pizza will be vegetarian. Tap water is available, please bring any other drinks desired.
Online will be: https://teams.live.com/meet/93583191724730?p=hY3jxVvnOciVl2aRn52 attendees
Past events
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