Experimental philosophy of freedom

http://pantheon.yale.edu/~jp677/Jonathan_Phillips_files/Freedom.doc.pdf

Experimental philosophers take on one of philosophy's most revered figures, Aristotle, by seeing if ordinary people agree with Aristotle's conclusions about when one is forced to do something and when one does it freely.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Experimental Philosophy
• Ram Neta
• Philosophy

[amabodei]

Great video, In the first instance, he was "forced" by his concept of "value" - eg. the value of the cargo over the value of his life. In the second, he was not forced because the value of throwing his wife over equaled the value of sinking in the ship. (unless he disliked her of course) The Captain acted out of his own assesment of value. His concept of value is the framework in which he may or may not be free. But he is still ultimately free to decide whether to obbey the principals of value.

[MigDanskeren]

It's irrelevant if we here forced or not, both actions were wrong. in case (A) He destroyed his wife's property and should pay retribution when he returns home if she so insists. In case (B) he committed murder and should be punished accordingly.

Honestly, I don't understand why this would be considered a difficult philosophical question.

[WYATTSHOW1]

@jivediscodan I don't know, I just used it to describe the sense in which we can predict possible futures, and choose which possibilities we can eliminate by our action or inaction. This sort of thinking about possible futures that can be avoided offers a form of soft free will, because we can at least avoid the futures we foresee and DON'T want, without eliminating room for 'FATE'. 'Forced' describes a situation in which all futures are equivalent, and no action can change it.

[renumeratedfrog]

My personal intuition that the captain wasn't forced to do anything in either cases. He chose it.

[Mike10four]

This is a poor example for “experimental philosophy of freedom.” See my channel video for a better example.

[jivediscodan]

@WYATTSHOW1 I haven't heard of the term "outcome avoidance." What does that originate from?

[ajdc88]

I can't take the hypotheticals seriously. The production value of this clip is too distracting.

[WYATTSHOW1]

The captain was forced in neither case, he was merely exercising his power of outcome avoidance (aka free will). In both cases he lost weight from the boat to avoid sinking, but in neither case was his hand forced. I don't see that the moral issue weighs in at all on whether he was forced in either case. He could only be forced if the boat sank anyway, and he was forced to swim!

[zvorran]

i answered no to both. the question asked if the captain was forced to do an action. all actions are assumed voluntary if not there is something else that limits our actions. thus there must be something actively forcing someone to do something. gravity forces us to come back to the ground when we jump. matter forces us to not go through walls. someone could force you to do something you normally wouldnt do. many people fail to answer to question as it is, and not what they think it is.

[mrdavidn3]

when asking 'which is more valuable, a human life or cargo?' are most people 'forced' to answer 'human life'. what does 'forced' mean when choosing your own life vs. cargo? is 2+3 'forced' to be 5? when something is the right answer, it is what it is...where does force come in?