Vital Homework except for those named Jake and wearing stripy pullovers

Free Will & Determinism

1. Why do neither theories of ‘randomness’ or quantum physics support the libertarian case for human beings as self-determining  / autonomous agents?
2. How does Cartesian dualism account for free will? And how does Gilbert Ryle’s notion of ‘the ghost in the machine’ attack Descartes’ claim? 
3. Explain Sartre’s idea of ‘the gap’ - what it is and how it allows for free will. 
4. Why might it be true to say that Sartre’s emphasis is on the future?
5. Why does Patricia Churchland attack libertarian attempt to find ‘causal vacuums’ as ‘flat earth’ philosophy? 

Also I've put a lot of stuff on here recently that I think will help you get some of these ideas straight. Please read it. Above all you must listen to theses podcasts:
Thomas Pink on Free will at  http://cdn1.libsyn.com/philosophybites/PinkMixSes.mp3?nvb=20090516103152&nva=20090517104152&t=05fb3f41be06ea130b9b1


and David Papineau on Physicalism at  http://www.philosophybites.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=242858

Pink & the Animals

You must read the blog on Pink below and the article Thomas Pink on The ethics of humanity and its enemies – the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill before you read this.

The main point of Pink's article (certainly the one we might talk about in the exam) is that; 'given the almost universal academic scepticism about our possession of an actual ability or freedom to determine for ourselves' there is a danger that the ideas promoted by science and many philosophers, about what a human being is and the rights they have, will be redefined in a way that, for Pink, is threatening and dangerous.

His point is that if we come to see human beings as not having free will, as not being autonomous, not having any control over the course of their lives, then their worth, their 'value' seems to be less. Pink fears that this will mean that the vulnerable, the less able, the less skilled, the less productive, will be treated badly.

He also fears that this view of humanity as just another 'animal', just another lump of physical stuff, will encourage what he sees as dangerous genetic experiments.

This is another example of how philosophy and science have huge political implications.

You must read the article to get this. Here's another link to it on my website http://www.mrbrodie.com/Philosophy/Resources,_Essays_%26_Links.html

Jean-Paul Sartre: Existentialism & Libertarianism

Sartre was an existentialist. He believed that 'existence comes before essence'; this means that we are not born with a particular 'nature' but must 'create'  ourselves as we go along. We respond to our experiences of the world, but we are not determined by them, we are free to choose who we are and how we live. Sartre claims that 'man' isn't simply 'what he conceives himself to be, but he is what he wills.' (my emphasis).

Roughly speaking Sartre believes that the very nature of consciousness is what enables human beings to have free will. He thinks that being conscious of - being able to imagine the different possible futures that might come about from different actions, enables us to choose our path.

THE GAP: For Sartre, being conscious of the world seems to allow us to stand back from our lives and interpret them in different ways. This seems to open up a distance between our consciousness and the rest of the 'physical' world. This is what Sartre call 'the gap' and it is the gap that allows us to have free will. Easy.

Although sympathetic to Marx's political philosophy, Sartre reverses Marx's belief that 'life determines consciousness', claiming instead that 'consciousness determines life.'

Whereas Marx believed that the way we think about the world and how we act is determined by our experience of the world, Sartre believed that we choose our experience of the world by the way we think about our place and role in the world.

For Marx the world makes us who we are. For Sartre we make ourselves who we are, and by doing so we make the world. Because he thinks that human beings have free will Sartre can be described as a libertarian, but we should be clear that he is a libertarian for different reasons to Descartes and Thomas Pink.

COWARDS and SCUM

Sartre is rather hard on determinists, he says,

Those who hide from this total freedom ... with deterministic excuses, I shall call cowards. Others, who try to show that their existence is necessary ... I shall call scum.

He claims that there two kinds of 'beings': humans are 'beings for themselves', everything else, rocks, trees are 'beings in themselves.' (He doesn't mention animals!). More of this next year possibly, for now the fact that he thinks consciousness gives us free will is enough.

Please leave a comment if you've read this.