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Tommy Blanchard's avatar

This Blanchard guy sounds cool

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Plasma Bloggin''s avatar

> As I’ve written before, however, this style of compatibilism has pretty much been debunked, since someone wanting to do otherwise is just as susceptible to determinism, and so redirecting the origin of freedom to whatever someone wanted to do ultimately doesn’t accomplish very much, philosophically. Or, as I’ve put it before, “[W]ho gives a shit if you wanted to do otherwise when what you wanted to do was also predetermined?”

I don't think this debunks classical compatibilism at all. In fact, it's just a circular argument. Who cares if what you wanted to do is predetermined? The entire conceit of classical compatibilism is that this doesn't matter.

Classical compatibilism doesn't hold that the origin of freedom is in being free to want certain things - it holds that the origin of freedom is in being able to do what you want, regardless of how what you want was determined.

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