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InTheEndEntropyWins t1_j1yoiop wrote

The article stumbles upon the correct approach of compatibilism, but just finds it unsatisfying without explaining why. It's like someone saying they find 2+2=4 unsatisfying and discounting it.

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>Compatibilists will argue that freedom merely consists of the absence of compulsion. In other words, if an agent can do whatever they please, they are free and therefore the appropriate target of praise or blame, even if determinism is true. This sort of solution essentially splits freedom into two concepts: the type of freedom we recognize in everyday life, and freedom from the laws of causality. Since the latter is impossible, it makes no sense to draw any kind of moral consequence from it, and one must therefore focus on the former. This is rather unsatisfying because it feels like the philosophical version of a shoulder shrug.

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VitriolicViolet t1_j21v8gh wrote

thats the entire free will v determinism debate in a nutshell.

both sides just hand wave compatibilism away when it not only makes sense but works. both sides of the debate have a deepseated need for humans to be special, one side thinks we have a soul and thus libertarian free will and the other believes we are mere passengers along for a ride. both require dismissing reality to believe (the focus on magic free will is pointless in the extreme, may as well debate the afterlife for all the practical effect either side would ultimately have).

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