Since the popularity of internet and new communication technologies, the issue of information sharing has become a matter of debate. In digital world, distances are meaningless and Information could be transferred to different parts of the world in few seconds. In this paper we discuss the effect of new technologies on licensed information and copyright law. We take this position that in modern...

A common feature of free will is that a person has choices among alternative actions and chooses the action with the apparently most preferred consequences. In a determinist theory, the mechanism that makes the choice among the alternatives is determinist. The sensation of free will comes from the fact that the mechanism that generates the choices uses a non-determinist theory as a computationa...

‘‘The perfection of a science is shown in the perfection of its language,’’ Condillac said in 1746. A concept that is gaining in popularity and cropping up in scientific articles with increasing regularity is ‘‘compulsivity.’’ Off the cuff, the word ‘‘compulsive’’ makes us think of something that is controlled, repeated, inexorable, repetitive, imperative, stereotyped, and necessary—something y...

An analysis of our commonsense concept of freedom yields two “minimal criteria”: (1) Autonomy distinguishes freedom from compulsion; (2) Authorship distinguishes freedom from chance. Translating freedom into “self-determination” can account for both criteria. Self-determination is understood as determination by “personal-preferences” which are constitutive for a person. Freedom and determinism ...

Whether people believe that they have control over their behaviors is an issue that is centrally involved in definitions of addiction. Our research demonstrates that believing in free will - that is, believing that one has control over one's actions - has societal implications. Experimentally weakening free will beliefs led to cheating, stealing, aggression, and reduced helping. Bolstering free...

1. Explain the difference between scientific and “soft” determinism. 2. What is the one miracle that would happen in a predeterministic universe? 3. Explain the difference between predestination and fatalism. How does the short characterization of the doctrine of fatalism in this chapter differ from the lexical definition of “fatalism”? 4. If our choices are not due to chance, reason, or causes...

Many opponents of free-will libertarianism argue that libertarian free agency is unintelligible. The aim of my talk is to answer them by suggesting that a coherent conception of libertarian freedom is possible if (and, possibly, only if) we adopt dispositionalism as the explanatory framework of human agency. My argument proceeds as follows. First, I classify the existing explanations of human a...

Moral theories typically rest upon the assumption that conscious deliberation plays a causal role in action; however, a growing body of scientific evidence supports a physicalist account of causation that leaves no causal role for mental activity. In response, I develop a moral theory (including moral truth, motivation, and meaning) that excludes considerations of conscious free will. I then co...

I believe that no argument is needed to convince the readers that the so-called “hard determinism,” which rules out free will, and hence also independent personal choice, is incompatible with PEL. On the other hand, the “soft” variety of determinism, known under the name “compatibilism,” is oftentimes claimed to be reconcilable with PEL. According to compatibilism, the assumption that every eve...