Name: 決定論 vs 自由意志クラッシュコースの哲学#24 (Determinism vs Free Will: Crash Course Philosophy #24)
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T06:27:16.000Z
Duration: 10 min 26 s
Description: VoiceTubeの動画で発音を聞きながら英語表現を覚えよう！学べる英語：

基礎受動態

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Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you love your father.

By which I mean, you want him to be alive.

And let’s also assume that you don’t have any attachments to your mother that you might describe as... romantic.

Well, guess who thought felt the same way about his parents? Oedipus.

According to ancient Greek legend, when Oedipus was born,

a prophecy foretold that he would kill his father and marry his mother.

So his father left baby Oedipus in the wilderness, assuming he would die,

and the prophecy would then not come true.

But instead, the abandoned baby was discovered and raised by another family.

As an adult, Oedipus learned of the prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother.

So, not knowing he was adopted, he left his adoptive parents in order to avoid fulfilling that prophecy,

figuring that if he wasn’t near them, it couldn’t come true.

Lo and behold, as he was trying to flee his fate, Oedipus killed a stranger in a fit of rage,

who turned out to be the father he had never met.

He then proceeded to marry the dead man’s widow,

who was actually his mother, though he didn’t know it.

Needless to say, this is a fate that, needless to say, any of us would like to avoid.

But for philosophers, the whole point of the story of Oedipus is: there is no escaping fate.

I mean, on the one hand, most of us have the clear sense that we are.

We feel like we make all sorts of decisions that lead to both beliefs and actions that are wholly of our own choosing.

I had oatmeal this morning because I felt like it.

This view – that humans are capable of entirely free actions – is known as libertarian free will.

And to be clear, libertarian free will is nothing like political libertarianism.

Both views get their name from the word liberty,

but political libertarians are all about freedom from government intervention,

while people who accept libertarian free will could be anything from political libertarians to socialists.

They just think that, metaphysically, we can act freely.

So a lot of us figure that our thoughts and actions are free.

But, most of us also believe that every effect has a cause,

And that everything that happens now, in the present,

is the necessary result of events that occurred in the past.

And many of the people watching this probably think that they believe in both things;

that many of your actions are free, and that the world is governed by cause and effect.

But, it turns out, you can’t rationally hold both views.

Because, traditionally, libertarians have defined free actions according to what’s known as the Principle of Alternate Possibilities.

That might sound like the plot device for a sci-fi show,

but this principle says that an action is free only if the agent

– that is, the person doing the thing – could have done otherwise.

Determinism, by contrast, doesn’t allow options.

It holds that every event is caused by a previous event.

Which means that an agent can never have done anything other than what they did,

But let’s look at these two options more closely.

Libertarianism says that my decision to eat oatmeal this morning

wasn’t necessarily caused by anything that happened before it.

Instead, it could have been the result of non-physical events

– specifically, my own thoughts – that originated right at that point.

I ate oatmeal because I decided to eat oatmeal!

But libertarianism runs counter to what we know about the workings of the physical world,

So libertarians need a way to account for their view.

One way they do that is by making a distinction between what’s known as event causation, and agent causation.

Event causation means that no physical event can occur without having been caused by a previous physical event.

So, many libertarians concede that the physical world itself is deterministic.

Like, a baseball is flying through the air because someone hit that ball with a bat.

But many libertarians also argue that there’s such a thing as agent causation,

which says that an agent – a being propelled by a mind –

can start a whole chain of causality that wasn’t caused by anything else.

So, the person who hit the ball most likely did so because they just decided to do it.

By this logic, agents have the ability to affect the causal chain of the universe.

But, many philosophers find this idea untenable.

Where would these free decisions, the ones that launch entirely new causal chains, come from, they ask?

What would compel an agent to make one decision, and not another?

And if you can answer those questions – if you can explain what would cause an agent to act –

Then well, you’ve just reinforced the position that actions are caused, rather than free.

The fact is, it’s pretty difficult to find arguments that support libertarian free will.

The best argument in favor of it seems to be that it just feels an awful lot like we’re free.

And libertarians argue that we shouldn’t discount the legitimacy of our own personal, subjective experiences –

so if we feel so free, we should seriously consider the possibility that we are.

That point has a certain intuitive appeal.

But if you can’t come up with an argument to defend your feeling,

then good philosophical reasoning recommends that you reject it,

or at least withhold judgment until you can get some evidence together.

So now let’s see if the hard determinists can do any better.

18th century French philosopher Baron D’Holbach said that none of our actions are actually free.

D’Holbach believed that everything that’s happening right now is the result of an unbroken chain of events.

Everything, he said, is the inevitable result of what came before.

Our actions are caused in the same way that, say, home runs are caused by bats hitting balls,

or tornadoes are caused by warm air systems hitting cool air systems in the right conditions.

This means that humans and our actions are just part of the physical world, bound by its physical laws.

This belief is often explained through a view known as reductionism.

Reductionism is the view that all parts of the world, and of our own experience,

can be traced back – or reduced down – to one singular thing.

So, for example, you see your mind as being capable of making free decisions.

You think that what goes on in your head when you make a choice is not at all like bats and balls.

But, well, mental states are brain states, or at least they’re tied directly to your brain.