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The question of freedom of human action within the causal necessity of the
physical world involves intense philosophical debate. Freedom of action is
believed to be an uncaused freedom in so far as it involves accountability of an
individual’s voluntary deeds. However, given that all the events in nature are
causally necessitated by other physical events, it is hard to defend an uncaused
freedom of action. Compatibilism attempts to reconcile freedom and causation
by projecting the idea of an unconstrained freedom while rejection the idea of
an uncaused freedom. Thus, the compatibilist philosophers contend that our
deliberations and ensuing actions are free even if they are caused by external
events, as far as we can act as we want. In case we act against our wants, in a
constrained or compelled situation, we may not be free. However, freedom
within the causal necessity seems impossible. For, even where one may willingly
act as one wants, without constraint, the chain of causality may render it
necessitated, and thus predictable. Thus, freedom to act as one wants further
requires ‘freedom to act otherwise than what one wants’. So, we are back to the
age old dilemma of an uncaused freedom against the causal necessity of
physical nature! If one could not have acted otherwise than what one did, there
is no distinction left between constrained and unconstrained actions. Thus, the
possibility of ‘acting otherwise’ by ‘thinking otherwise’ without being caused to
do so by factors beyond reason, is the prerogative of a rational agent, without
which actions are indistinguishable from natural events.
Zahoor H. Baber. (2012) COMPATIBILISM AND THE POSSIBILITY OF ALTERNATIVE ACTIONS, Journal of Social Science and Humanities, Volume 51, Issue 2.
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