[FRIAM] alternative response

[glen∉ℂ]

Nah. I'm not redefining the term at all. The definition I'm using is in the dictionary. It's in the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. It's a common usage and I won't be deprecating it. Just because there's a large body of people talking about 1 tiny subdomain of the term doesn't mean the standard definition should be changed.

On 6/15/20 4:06 PM, Jon Zingale wrote:
> I hesitate to call this free will (except maybe to steal it away from deists
> as SteveG wishes to do with his notion of god), though I do appreciate your
> allusions to free and bound variables. To reiterate once more, before I drop
> the point, *free will* is a limiting notion that became *all the rage* for
> enlightenment thinkers. Much like SteveG sometimes plays a function which
> takes a thing and asks about its opposite, these enlightenment thinkers
> would take a concept, iterate, and ask about the limit. If we agree that a
> discussion of *will* is a discussion of scope (bound versus free) then fine,
> I also see this as useful. *Free will* on the other hand is (at best)
> another unnecessary proxy and (possibly at worst) an unfounded
> generalization. If we scope the conversation to ask to what degree can I
> choose to go to the store, or that frog can choose to jump, or that
> thermostat can choose to regulate, then I feel we are operating within
> meaningful bounds. We can call it agency, or will, or whatever. But perhaps
> we should leave *free will* in a corner somewhere to talk to itself.
> 
> Because *free will* has a meaningful part to play in the history of
> responsibility, the *leaving in a corner* is not so easy with respect to the
> progeny of moral responsibility. Our institutions still doff their hats to
> *free will* and therefore continue to treat it as a viable technology. I
> feel that what makes *free will* a relevant discussion today is that it
> clearly needs to be *deprecated*. The question for me becomes, with what
> should we replace it?