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This 6 page paper discusses the issues of free will and determinism as proscribed and argued by Dr. Richard Taylor in his book, Metaphysics. Quotes cited from text. Bibliography lists 1 source.
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6 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_MBfreewill.rtf
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capacities. However, according to some theorists, and Richard Taylor, in particular, free will is an illusion, an elaborate lie that we tell to ourselves. This is not a new question.
Philosophers seem to have been debating it for years. Basically, Taylor is an incompatabilist in that he does not believe that one can have determinism and free will happening at
the same time. In Chapter 19, The Case for Materialism, he shows that the more that mankind learns about the physical world the more this dichotomy between determinism and free
will is exposed. What this viewpoint seems to boil down to is how one considers human beings. Is a human being a moral agent, or more a fully
natural entity? These may sound like the same thing, but it truly would be like comparing the actions of dogs and the actions of humans. Dogs, especially male dogs, for
example, simply must urinate on every available surface within a given radius. They cannot help themselves. Whereas, Man has the option. If a human male urinates on every available object
within a given radius of his own home, then he did so out of a conscious decision. Therefore, he made a moral choice. In other words, the man was not
only capable of the action, but capable of free action. The man had control over the act; the dog did not. However, just the opposite can be considered to be
true if one falls into the determinist camp. The determinists believe that mankind is just a much an agent of his environment and chemical make-up as the rest of the
animals on the planet, that the arrogant assumption that because mankind has a brain, he is somehow above cause and effect is a false belief. So the question
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