Manuel Vargas’s Revisionism theory about free will and moral responsibility

Document Type : علمی - پژوهشی

Authors

University of Isfahan, faculty of Literature and Humanities , Department of Islamic Philosophy and Kalam

Abstract

Manuel Vargas’s Revisionism is a theory about free will and moral responsibility which emphasizes the application of the system of responsibility in the human community and its role in regulating and directing the behavior of humans. Revisionism must show that this theory is plausible in comparison to other competing theories. The plausibility of this theory depends on consistency with scientific investigations and normative adequateness. Revisionism first examines and criticizes the rival theories. Incompatibilists believe that causal determinism and free will are not compatible, and we cannot be morally responsible in the causal determined world. Regarding this response, Libertarianists believe that, given the incompatibility of these two, we have free will, and human decisions are not determined, and the Eliminativists believe that, given the incompatibility of these two, and the truth of causal determinism, we have no free will and moral responsibility. From the Libertarianism’s point of view, each person is naturally Incompatibilist and Libertarianist, according to his usual intuitions. This places the burden of reasoning on the opponents of Libertarianism, because they are opposed to ordinary intuitions and commonsense.
There are two accounts of free will and moral responsibility: diagnostic and prescriptive. The diagnostic account describes commonsense beliefs about free will and moral responsibility. And prescriptive account aims to tell us how we ought to think about free will and moral responsibility. Vargas agrees with Libertarianists that the commonsense intuitions about free will are Incompatibilist. Vargas proposes three categories of considerations that, if considered together, is a strong reason for the incompatibilism about free will and moral responsibility. These three are the famous philosophical arguments, empirical evidence and historical and cultural history. These three are the famous philosophical arguments, empirical evidence, and cultural and religious history. For famous philosophical arguments, the Consequence Argument is mentioned, which is an indirect argument in defense of incompatibilism. Vargas makes different use of this argument. He thinks that the easiness and naturalness of an incompatibilist reading of this argument is the reason for the commonsense is incompatiblist about free will and moral responsibility.
Prescriptive account isn’t Eliminativism, because we can revise our conventional understanding of these things, it was modified in a way that is not difficult. Because it can be corrected by revising our commonsense. The prescriptive account is a kind of compatibilism, free will, in this regard, is the ability to recognize moral considerations and guide their behavior in the light of these considerations.
An important objection to Vargas is that the concept of easiness and naturalness of an incompatibilist reading of consequence argument is not clear. There is also another major criticism about the empirical evidence that Vargas has invoked: There is some evidence that contradicts his claim. It is also a mistake to use the current norms: Vargas himself has argued that the cultural and religious background, which is Libertarianist, has a fundamental role in the formation of norms, if so, how these norms are explained in the context of the revisionist theory?

Keywords


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