Van Inwagen Free Will Analysis

The Mystery of Free Will and Moral Responsibility We all seem to think that we make decisions on our own and have the ability to choose from making different decisions. We do what we want to do because it seems as if we have many options to choose from to be in control of our own destiny. The basic question of the mystery of free will is that, “Are we able to really make our own decisions or are the decisions we make already predetermined (with it being inevitable of us making that certain decision)?” Our futures seem to be undetermined and have an infinite amount of possibilities of which we are able to choose freely among. Think of your life as a garden of forking paths with each path being a certain decision you make that affects your
This leads us to another central issue, which is: “Can free will and determinism co-exist?” The two ways philosophers go about considering this question is either with a ‘yes, they can co-exist’ or ‘no, they cannot.’ If you were to believe that, yes, free will and determinism can
In his argument, Van Inwagen explains that if determinism is true, then our acts are just a consequence of the laws of nature and events in the remote past. And since it’s not up to us what went on before we were born nor what the laws of nature are, the consequences of these things (including our present acts) are not up to us (PowerPoint 1, Slide 23). In short, he explains that if determinism were to be true then no one would ever or has ever made a choice on their own about anything. So if no one has power over the facts of the past and the laws of nature and that no one has the power of the fact that the facts of the past and laws of nature entail that only future is possible, therefore, no one has power over the facts of the future. To further demonstrate his reasoning of the consequence argument, Van Inwagen created the No Choice Principle (NCP). In this example, let ‘p’ = “Plato died long before I was born.” Let ‘q’ = “I never met Plato.” Now, if I have no choice about ‘p’ and no choice about the fact that (if ‘p’ is true, then ‘q’ is necessarily true. Therefore, I have no choice about ‘q’ (PowerPoint 1, Slide 26). How can one have a choice about something that is inevitably going to happen if one has no choice about it happening? Van Inwagen’s consequence argument is based on the NCP. Now, if determinism and free will can co-exist (Compatibilism is true) then the No