june

can you elaborate on that?

agreed. there are lots of ideas to dance with in this thread also i want to re-iterate the definition "michaelfcp"' provided for free will, which was:"We were free to behave differently than we did in the past"i don't think you can put it more succinctly than that

wait, why wouldn't "circumstance" be a form of coercion? coercion to me is, at it's root, about unwanted imposition upon a person (i think that's a fairly succinct description).it's about the victim, it's about the person being imposed upon -- the means in which they are imposed upon is entirely arbitrary.what difference is it to have a stranger shoot you in the head and to be in a "circumstance" in which you develop cancer? both are imposed, and both are life threatening.. so what real distinction is there to make here? it does seem to me that 'nature' is the biggest coercive force we know... it kills us through diseases, illnesses, hunger, thirst, natural disasters etc. etc... all forces which have racked up immense death tolls... these are not acts of coercion that deserve just as much attention, if not likely more, than 'person-to-person' acts?

animals have access to future acknowledge just like us, they are just less capable. an animal can hear a noise (say, it's 'owners' voice) and use past associations to "acknowledge" what that noise represents (friendly, no danger, etc.). isn't this a form of "pull", as you described it? if so, it just seems like the difference between animals and humans are their capabilities, and so i'm not sure where the "free will" comes into your exampleand with that in mind: a-causal? but isn't all information (which inc. "ideals" and "universals"), and even the capability to comprehend that information, derived from the 'external' world? so can you explain how or in what way"free will" gives people access to "ideals" and "universals"... what do you mean by this?

i'm don't believe this is the issue at hand, to be honest (or at least not in regards to this topic).stefan stated that 16 year olds are 10 years away from full brain development, and so they can not make rational decisions in regards to who they have relations with. these claims were not gender specific -- they were age specific.

i thought my point was self-evident, apologies. i find stefan's comments beizzarre because he seems to thoroughly condemn relations between old & young people, and even goes so far to say that "how can you expect a 16 year to make that kind of decision, their brain still has 10 more years of development to got through" (paraphrasing).so it seems like a huge contradiction with his prominment stance and respect for "voluntary choice", because how can he advocate voluntary choice and then condemn it in this situation? and even go to say that a 16 year old "cannot" make such a decision at all because they brains aren't developed enough (does that mean 16 year olds don't have voluntary choice?)?

personally i found stefan comments on this topic to be totally bizarre, considering his unequivocal advocation and respect for "voluntary choice"

but aren't there previous causal reasons of why you lifted your arm? for instance, you may have been sitting in an uncomfortable position and your body feels a certain way, and thus the arm gets lifted; or you thinking about this discussion on free will makes you want to prove free will, and so you do a random act to try and prove your free will (like lifting your arm). or are you implying that you thinking about lifting your arm is the absolute causal starting point of your arm being lifted?

i think that's a good idea

voluntarism shouldn't simply be about a person having a literal choice of "job; starvation; leave town". i think that's an incredibly sick notion that is used to evade culpability and suppress the bearing of circumstance: "oh that person chose to be a prostitute, so it's all good."true voluntarism isn't about a person having a literal choice, true voluntarism is about having a wealth of options to choose from.

OP, this thread has garnered many responses and arguments from various angles; do you feel a sufficient definition of "free will" has been provided?

no. because since his anxiety is the result of those variables, then once the variables change, so does his reaction (to something other than the anxiety he had previously)i think the most important perspective to view this topic from is from the perspective of solutions. what solutions does the avenue of free will offer? free will says a person is 100% responsible for their actions, because they have this incorruptible orb in them that is always representative of their 'true' choice, so any choice anybody makes can only be traced back to that person -- not their environment, not their abusive home, not their lack of food and water, not the fact that they've just lost a loved one. none of that can be accounted for with free will, because the buck stops at the person. this is why free will can not lead to solutions, because it does not account for everything that is causing the problem. imagine if there is a child in a violent home, a person with a deterministic perspective can say to this child: "your home is a violent and dangerous place, not only will you physically suffer, but over time you will also be degraded mentally. you should remove yourself from that environment, because it will cause your self-integrity to be compromised over time." this quote recognises that environmental factors (the violent home) will have negative influences upon a person and will impair their "free choice" (so to speak), and so the solution that can be proposed is to remove oneself from that violent home to avoid such consequences.the free will perspective however cannot propose such a solution, because free will implies that a person's mental state is uncompromisable (and thus always responsible), so warning a person that their violent home will cause them to be mentally compromised doesn't make any sense, because it's essentially acknowledging that their "free will" is corruptible, and thus won't necessarily be "free" at all.

this topic is expressed when it is relevant; firstly in the thread in which dsayers first made his/her claim, and recently when dsayers has explained his/her definition of property rights whilst excluding (purposefully or not) his/her very claim that "selfownership requires reason".also, i would very much like to see these proofs in support of dsayers claim that selfownership requires the ability to reason (which legitimizes violence upon those who cannot reason by the way, such as newborn babies and the mentally incapacitated.). PM is fine.

thanks. your opinion is shared with me as i too would like to hear more responses on this topic, because it may shatter the concept of property rights entirely (what good is property rights if it fully permits, without recourse, the rape and murder of newborn children?). although it should be noted that the claim "selfownership requires the ability to reason" was only claimed by the board member dsayers, and may not represent the position of others.

oh wow, thanks for your responses, i had no idea that babies having no free will was a generally supported position in the free will debate!this position then brings a question to the forefront... because if a baby only gains free will through the external forces of experience and knowledge then their free will must then be limited to that experience and knowledge. eg. a person who is born into a highly racist family and community can only have free will inside these 'walls' of racist experiences and knowledge. so therefore, what "responsibility" could this person be held accountable for, when their choices (say, physically and verbally abusing a certain race) are predicated by the external forces of particular limited experiences and knowledge.so the question to ask is: how responsible can a person be for their actions if their "free will" is wholly predicated upon their limited experience and knowledge?

but are our thoughts and "ideal standards" not limited by our knowledge? for example this definition would then imply that a newborn baby has no free will because it can not "compare" ideas, in fact it doesn't really have ideas or "ideals" to begin with because it's knowledge intake is severely limited.

"It doesn't interfere with their right to self ownership or breach their property rights. Any such claim is logically contradictory (and insane) because the claim itself demands interference with the other persons self-ownership and property rights (assuming you apply the same standard)."you are arguing against a basic tenant of selfownsership, which is that your choices are indeed limited as you cannot "interfere" with the property rights of others. you claim this is insane and contradictory, but if it isn't followed then property rights may aswell not exist. what are these "norms" and "implicit contracts" and why are they the deciding factor for what constitutes as a property violation? specifically, what determines the point of when a person's sound turns from not violating property rights to violating property rights?

whoa. property rights demands the "interference" of one's selfownership by limiting his choices to not being allowed to interfere with the property rights of others. that is basic tenant of selfownership. to argue otherwise is to argue against property rights themselves.

they are going to argue that the noise other people are making is interfering with their right to self-ownership and also that it is breaching the property rights of their home. again you just say "no" but give no explanation. if it is not a violation of property rights please explain why instead of just saying "no".the rest of your response is an attempt to argue from effect rather than first principles.

what about if they're in their own home, and they hear people making noise outside. is that a breach of property rights, upb etc?

i too would like to hear your proof of this claim.if self-ownership is the right to have "full exclusive rights of control over one's body", then forcing someone to listen to your words seems immoral to me. by definition you are breaching their exclusive rights to have control over their body, and so anything else after that violation is only a matter of degree (whether it's talking, touching, pushing etc.)

part responsible, yes.

direct or indirect does not, nor can not, matter, as it is still your effect that is interfering with other peoples free will. so a person turning on a deafening loud speaker is still responsible for making people deaf, because even though he didn't literally make the sounds, he still initiated the speakers which did. to say otherwise, and to take it literally, would be like saying: "i planted and denoted a bomb, but i am not responsible for the deaths, the bomb is" which obviously is rather absurd.

again dsayers you are stating an incomplete description of your version property rights, because you claim that some people are fundamentally different, in that some can reason, and some can not. and those who cannot reason do not have self-ownership, and thus theft, assault, rape and murder become legitimate upon such people.source: http://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/38964-nap-vs-moral-dilemma-solved/ either you stand by your claim that it is fully justified within property rights to murder and rape newborn children, or you change your position

i'm just trying to wrap my head around kevin's perspective. kevin doesn't say that abuse "determines exactly what they'll do each second", but he does say that abuse causes certain behaviour.the problem i have with kevin's claim is that if it's the abuse causing the behaviour, then how can the person 'acting' that behaviour be held as responsible? they could not, of course, because that behaviour is being directly caused by the abuse -- as kevin has stated.--, and thus not by 'themselves' or their 'free choice'.hopefully kevin is able to clear up this discrepancy