evaluation of Van Inwagen's consequence argument Versus moral responsibility

Document Type : Original Article

Abstract

Abstract
The consequence indirect argument on the strength of the principle of alternative possibilities (PAP) seeks to establish that causal determinism is incompatible with moral responsibility. So on the one hand, it claims that causal determinism will cause human actions arising from past events and the laws of nature and thus we have no alternative possibilities of any sort. On the other hand it insists that human moral responsibility depends on such freedom of choice and action for activity in counterfactual sequence. Thus, from the perspective of Van Inwagen, drawing of a determined world that in which a moral agent can meaningfully be held morally responsible for what he does or does not would be impossible. In this paper, we will explain and evaluate two components of Van Inwagen's claim within the framework of Islamic philosophy and Frankfurtian rule.
Keywords: Consequence argument. Van Inwagen. Moral responsibility. Principle of alternative possibilities. Frankfurtian rule.

Keywords

Main Subjects


 
-         ابن‌سینا، حسین بن عبدالله، النجاة، ج2، دانشگاه تهران، تهران، 1379.
-         سرل، جان، اختیار و عصب زیست‌شناسی: تأملاتی درباره اراده آزاد، زبان و قدرت سیاسی، ترجمه محمد یوسفی، ققنوس، تهران، 1392.
-         سهروردی، شهاب الدین یحیی، مجموعه مصنفات، ج2، تصحیح و تحقیق هنری کربن، انتشارات انجمن اسلامی فلسفه ایران، تهران، 1396ق .
-         ملاصدرا، محمد بن ابراهیم، الحکمة المتعالیة فی الاسفار العقلیه الاربعة، ج6 و 7، دارالمعارف الاسلامیة، تهران، 1383ق .
-         ملاصدرا، محمد بن ابراهیم، المبدأ و المعاد، ج 1، تصحیح محمد ذبیحی و جعفر شاه‌نظری، بنیاد حکمت اسلامی صدرا، تهران، 1381.
-          Dennett, Daniel C. (1984), Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will, Worth, Wanting, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
-           Fischer, John Martin and Ravizza Mark (1998), Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsibility, Cambridge University Press, New York.   
-           Fischer, John Martin and Ravizza Mark (1991), “Responsibility and Inevitability,” Ethics 101: 258–78.
-          Frankfurt, Harry (1969), “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibilities,” Journal of Philosophy 66: 829–39. .
-          Frankfurt, Harry (1971), “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person,” Journal of Philosophy 68: 5–20 .
-          Ginet, Carl (1966), “Might We Have No Choice? ,” in ed. K. Lehrer, Freedom and Determinism, Random House, New York.
-          James, William (1907), The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, Longmans Green and Co., New York.
-           Kane, Robert (1998), The Significance of Free Will, Oxford University Press, New York.
-          Lamb, James (1993), “Evaluative Compatibilism and the Principle of Alternative Possibilities,” Journal of Philosophy 90: 517–27.
-          Lehrer, Keith (1976), “‘Can’ in Theory and Practice: A Possible Worlds Analysis,” in eds. Myles Brand and Douglas Walton, Action Theory: Proceedings of the Winnipeg Conference on Human Action, D. Reidel, Dordrecht.
-          McKenna, Michael S. (1997), “Alternative Possibilities and the Failure of the Counterexample Strategy,” Journal of Social Philosophy 28: 71–85 .
-          Mele, Alfred (2006), Free Will and Luck, Oxford University Press, New York.
-          Pereboom, Derk (2003), Living without Free Will, Cambridge University Press, New York.
-           Perry, John (2004), “Compatibilist Options,” in eds. Joseph Keim Campbell, Michael   O’Rourke, and David Shier, Freedom and Determinism, Bradford/MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
-          Robinson, M. (2012), “Modified Frankfurt-type examples and the flickers of freedom,”Philosophical Studies 157: 58–72.
-          Speak, D. (2002),“Fanning the flickers of freedom,” American Philosophical Quarterly 39 : 112–32.
-          Taylor, Richard (1974), Metaphysics, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs NJ.
-          Van Inwagen, Peter (1978), “Ability and responsibility,”The Philosophical Review 87: 201–24.
-           Van Inwagen, Peter (1980), “The Incompatibility of Responsibility and Determinism,” in eds. Michael Bradie and Myles Brand, Action and Responsibility , Bowling Green Studies in Applied Philosophy, vol. 2, Bowling Green, Bowling Green State University Press, OH.
-          Van Inwagen, Peter (1996), An Essay on Free Will, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983; Robert Kane, The Significance of Free Will, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
-          Widerker, David (2000), ‘‘Frankfurt’s Attack on the Principle of Alternative Possibilities: A Further Look,’’ Philosophical Perspectives 14: 247–61.
-           Widerker, David (2002), “Farewell to the Direct Argument,” Journal of Philosophy 6: 316–24.