Philosophy Ch. 6

Principle of Universal Causation (PUC)

every event has a cause that fully determines it

Baron d’Holbach

believes in determinism and the PUC

Pierre Laplace

created vthe idea of Laplace’s demon

Laplace’s demon

a hypothetical entity that has complete knowledge of how the universe will play out with determinism

determinism

all human actions are fully determined by preceding actions

Patricia Smith Churchland

believes in determinism but also recognizes you have your own wants and desires

Sam Harris

while you may feel you could have made a different choice there’s no way to go back and change the choice you made

post-hypnotic suggestion

when you are hypnotized you feel like you made the choice all on your own, when in reality you were hypnotized to make that choice

libertarianism

there are multiple possible options you could’ve made under the same set of factors

indeterminists

claim that free (libertarian) actions occur without any determining cause

William James

free (libertarian) choices happen by chance

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

uses possible worlds as a metaphor to help readers understand that a different choice could have been made

David Lewis

believes there must be other possible worlds

Robert Chisholm

actions are caused by the agent, and they could’ve chosen to make something else happen

agent causation

a person chooses to do one thing rather than the other, so they are the sole cause of the resulting action

compatibilism

an action is free if it results from a person’s beliefs and desires without external force

compatibilsts

both the PUC and free will are true

incompatibilists

believe the PUC and free will are incompatible and cannot both be true

W. T. Stace

believes in compatibilism because it’s consistent with how the terms free and unfree are used in everyday language

Harry Frankfurt

distinguishes between first and second order desires

first order desire

a desire for particular things or states of affairs (ice cream, world peace)

second order desire

a desire to have a particular desire (a desire to desire studying for exams)