Abstract
Peter van Inwagen, the chief architect of contemporary
incompatibilists thesis denies that the laws of nature, the events that happen
in the distant past, and their consequences are “up to us”. The
incompatibility of “alternate possibilities” with determinism, therefore, rules
out Compatibilism. The paper takes account of the Consequence Argument,
the Mind Argument and the Origination Argument in order to contrast the
positions upheld by the incompatibilists and the compatibilists as are stated
in the free will determinism debate. In this regard, the views of Harry
Frankfurt, R.E.Hobart, Kadri Vihvelin and Joseph Keim Campbell have
been evaluated. Notwithstanding the success or otherwise of the new
incompatibilists project, it has, nevertheless, been able to point out the
significance of problems concerning the nature of causation, human agency,
counterfactuals, and laws of nature. An interesting comparison between a
hard determinist, Ted Honderich, a soft determinists John Martin Fischer
and a libertarian, Robert Kane has been undertaken to highlight the divert of
philosophical views on the issue under discussion. Dennett’s condition for
free will that one “Could Have Done Otherwise”, however, comes to a
controversial conclusion regarding the moral responsibility for an act if that
act was causally undetermined. Hence, the controversy about
incompatibility of free will and determinism re-ignited by Peter van
Inwagen continues unabated.
Naheed Saeed . (2013) PETER VAN INWAGEN’S ‘DEFENSE OF INCOMPATIBILISM’ RECONSIDERED , Al-Hikmat: A Journal of Philosophy, Volume 33, Issue 01.
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