Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-cphqk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-10T03:06:14.976Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Intelligibility and Free Choice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2010

Bernard Wand
Bernard Wand
Affiliation:
Carleton University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Whether or not men have free choice is a question which arises within two distinct moral contexts. At issue in the one is their ability to decide among genuine alternatives; in the other their ability to do what they think they ought to do although their desire to perform their duty is weaker than their desire to do otherwise. The former has to do with moral decision; (he latter with moral effort. Although the two are distinct they are not unrelated. For in any moral decision a fully conscious, or rather self-conscious agent, will always take into account the likelihood of his effort succeeding in action and this will have an important bearing on the decision he makes.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 1 , Issue 3 , December 1962 , pp. 239 - 258
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1962

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See below pp. 256 ff.

2 Cf. Maclntyre, A. C., “Determinism”, Mind, Vol. LXVI, 1957.Google Scholar

3 Ethical and Political Thinking, Oxford, 1947, p. 135.Google Scholar

4 Cf. Evans, J. L., “Choice”, The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. V, 1955.Google Scholar

5 Mind, Vol. LX, 1951.

6 Ibid., pp. 447–450.

7 Ibid., p. 454.

8 Ibid., pp. 454 ff.

9 Scepticism and Construction, London, 1931, Chapt. IV.Google Scholar

10 “A Reply to my Critics”, The Philosophy of G. E. Moore (ed. by Schilpp, P. A.), New York, 1952.Google Scholar

11 “Free-will, Praise and Blame”, Mind, Vol. LXX, 1961.Google Scholar

12 Cf. Foot, Philippa, “Free Will as Involving Determinism”, The Philosophical Review, Vol. LXVI, 1957.Google Scholar

13 Mabbott, J. D., “Freewill and Punishment”, Contemporary British Philosophy, Third Series (ed. by Lewis, H. D.), London, 1956.Google Scholar

14 “Free Will as Involving Determination and Inconceivable without it”, Mind, Vol. XLIII, 1934.Google Scholar

15 Scepticism and Construction, London, 1931, pp. 14a ff.Google Scholar

16 “Determinism, Indeterminism and Libertarianism”, Ethics anil the History of Philosophy, 1952.Google Scholar

17 “My Own Free Will”, Philosophy, Vol. XXXII, 1957.Google Scholar

18 Ibid., p. 36.

19 Free Will and Determinism Yet Again, Belfast, 1957.

20 Of. Barrett, W. B., “Determinism and Novelty”, Determinism and Freedom (ed. by Hook, S.), New York, 1958.Google Scholar

21 Cf. Cranston, M., Freedom, a New Analysis, Part III, London, 1954.Google Scholar

22 Cf. Grunbaum, A., “Causality and the Science of Human Behaviour”, American Scientist, Vol. 40, 1952.Google Scholar

23 Free Will and Determinism Yet Again, p. 21.

24 Ibid., p. 12.

25 Cf. Campbell, “Is Free Will a Pseudo-Problem?”, p. 451.

26 Maclagan, W. G., “Freedom of the Will”, Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume XXV. 1951, p. 196.Google Scholar

27 “Free Will and Punishment”, p. 302.

28 On Selfhood and Godhood, London, 1957, p. 226.Google Scholar