4 ms·

And that Hobbesian definition was ignorant of modern neuroscience.

• brownbat 8y ago
  Modern neuroscience wouldn't tell you very much that's useful about external forces. All Hobbesian free will is committed to is that being chained to a wall changes your circumstances. Being kidnapped deprives you of meaningful options. There is a separate version of free will that insists that agents are the ultimate cause of their actions, rather than mediated causes, which would not be consistent with determinism. But that is not the only definition of free will (and I don't think a very common one, except by incompatabilists). A lot of this hinges on what people actually mean by the individual phrases. If you sometimes engage in deliberation, and sometimes deliberation changes your mind, then even if that deliberation would have always inevitably come out the same way, you still know that in those cases deliberation affected your subsequent actions. Your deliberation (informed though it may be by external factors) is sufficient for most sensible versions of agency. (EDITED to be more comprehensive.)