Deliberation and Metaphysical Freedom
نویسندگان
چکیده
Proponents of the “Belief in Ability Thesis” (BAT) maintain that one deliberates about whether to perform a given action only if one believes that one can perform the action in question. In An Essay on Free Will, Peter van Inwagen endorsed BAT and deployed it in an argument for the incompatibility of deliberation and consistent belief in the nonexistence of free will. Van Inwagen’s argument attracted considerable discussion and criticism. More recently, in Rationality in Action, John Searle has revived discussion of BAT and related issues. Taken together, these works have prompted a good deal of philosophical reflection on BAT and related theses in recent years. The time has come for an overview and evaluation of some of the major discussions of BAT. We begin by clarifying BAT’s content. We then describe and assess a selection of attempted counterexamples to BAT. We argue that the examples are not counterexamples to BAT. We then discuss and critically evaluate some alternative (to BAT) theses expressing distinct doxastic necessary conditions on deliberation. The theses we discuss have been proposed by various authors as possible substitutes for BAT. We evaluate the theses and also the suggestion that the theses serve as replacements for BAT.We reject the proposed substitution theses.We close with some remarks about the positive case for BAT.
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