{"id":12617,"date":"2009-05-24T17:31:39","date_gmt":"2009-05-24T17:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/05\/24\/the-belief-in-libertarian-free-will-as-a-lifeenhancing-illusion\/"},"modified":"2009-05-24T17:31:39","modified_gmt":"2009-05-24T17:31:39","slug":"the-belief-in-libertarian-free-will-as-a-lifeenhancing-illusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/05\/24\/the-belief-in-libertarian-free-will-as-a-lifeenhancing-illusion\/","title":{"rendered":"The Belief in Libertarian Free Will as a Life-Enhancing Illusion"},"content":{"rendered":"

William James famously characterized the true as the good in the way of belief. But is knowledge of the truth in every case life-enhancing?  Does knowing the truth always contribute to human flourishing?  Or is it rather the case that to live well with ourselves and others, to be happy, to flourish, requires the maintenance of certain life-enhancing illusions?  Nietzsche raised these questions and he may have been the first to raise them.  They are hard to dismiss.<\/font><\/p>\n

Consider libertarian free will (LFW).  It is a difficult notion.  Many find it incoherent.   Suppose it is.  Then, whether or not determinism is true, LFW cannot exist.  Compatibilist construals of free will, however, do not seem to supply an adequate notion of moral responsibility.  Suppose this is so, and that only LFW supplies an adequate notion of moral responsibility.<\/font><\/p>\n

One might then be tempted to adopt the position <\/font>Saul Smilansky<\/font><\/a> calls "illusionism." This is the view that the illusory belief in LFW is positive and useful.  "Humanity is fortunately deceived in the free will issue, and this seems to be a condit<\/span>ion of civilized morality and personal value." See <\/font>Free Will, Fundamental Dualism, and the Centrality of Illusion<\/font><\/a>, sec. 3.2.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

William James famously characterized the true as the good in the way of belief. But is knowledge of the truth in every case life-enhancing?  Does knowing the truth always contribute to human flourishing?  Or is it rather the case that to live well with ourselves and others, to be happy, to flourish, requires the maintenance of certain … Continue reading “The Belief in Libertarian Free Will as a Life-Enhancing Illusion”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[301],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-free-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12617\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}