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Document Details : Title: Über Willensfreiheit Subtitle: Überlegungen im Anschluss an Hume und Peter Bieri Author(s): BAUMEISTER, Thomas Journal: Tijdschrift voor Filosofie Volume: 72 Issue: 3 Date: 2010 Pages: 497-520 DOI: 10.2143/TVF.72.3.2056205 Abstract : The Humean conflict between freedom and causal necessity has by most contemporary philosophers, also by Peter Bieri, been decided in favor of the necessity-doctrine. This article shows that Bieri fails in his attempt to reconcile determinism with the ascription of responsibility. Furthermore it is argued that the assumption of free acts of choice, which are not necessitated by preceding states of mind, does not necessarily undermine personal responsibility and the rationality of actions. Reasons are 'defeasible' (Anthony Kenny) and can be ranged on a scale from absolutely convincing, to very convincing, to less convincing or even to highly doubtful and risky, and may ask for the personal intervention of the actor in order to become realized, which is especially clear in the case of conflicting reasons which to the actor seem to have equal weight. It is argued that the possibility of such acts is implied in the very nature of reasons and is thus not exposed to the notorious arguments against the ‘freedom of indifference’. |
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