Phi2010 Philosophy Research Project. Madison Lee. Free

PHI2010 Philosophy Research Project Madison Lee Free Will, Kevin Timpe As humans, free will is something we commonly assume we have. When evaluating what free will is, we become less certain. David Hume calls it â€Å"the most contentious question of metaphysics.† In simplistic terms, free will is having the ability to determine your own plan of action. There is a relationship between free will and freedom of action and causal determinism that must be evaluated to have a complete understanding of free will. There are compatibilist views that believe in free will and incompatibilist views that imply there is no free will. Free will is also related to both theological determinism and logical determinism. Section 1 †¢ David Hume- â€Å"free will is†¦show more content†¦Section 2 †¢ Faculties Model of the Will -Plato and Aristotle origin -An agent that is free has possession of certain powers or capacities such as growth, reproduction, intellection, and volition -Intellect- rational faculty, power of cognition; evaluates whether an action is â€Å"good or bad† -Having an intellect= having a will -Will- volitional faculty, an appetite for the good; cannot pursue an option that the intellect presents as good in no way; also able to command other faculties such as telling the body to move or the intellect to evaluate something †¢ Hierarchical Model of the Will -Harry Frankfurt, Ekstrom, Fischer, Kane, Pereboom, van Inwagen -Contemporary account, aka â€Å"structuralist† or â€Å"mesh† -Agents have various levels of desires and volitions -Two types of desire: â€Å"first order†- the desire to do an action; example: wanting to exercise; â€Å"second order†- desiring to be a certain type of person that does an action and has those desires; example: wanting to be a person who exercises regularly -Conflicting desires results in making it impossible to satisfy all desires -Volition- a motive that propels the agent to action; first and second order volitions like desires -To have free will, one must have the correct â€Å"mesh† between various orders of desires †¢ Reasons-Responsive View of the Will -A certain level of sensitivity to reasoning must be