Somewhere Hume says it is conceivable that at least one thing can come into being without a cause, and he illustrates this claim, I believe, with the example of a rabbit that at one moment is not imagined to be somewhere (i.e., at whatever location one is imagining) and at the next moment is in full view. Hume thinks this illustrates the possible event of a thing coming to be without a cause. But it seems to me that it might equally be an example of creatio ex nihilo.
Here is a summary and comments on the essay Freedom and Resentment by PF Strawson. He makes some great points, and when he is wrong, it is in such a way as to clarify things a great deal. My non-deterministic position is much better thanks to having read this. I’ll summarize it in this post and respond in a later one. In a nutshell: PFS first argues that personal resentment that we may feel toward another for having failed to show goodwill toward us would have no problem coexisting with the conviction that determinism is true. Moral disapprobation, as an analog to resentment, is likewise capable of coexisting with deterministic convictions. In fact, it would seem nearly impossible for a normally-constituted person (i.e., a non-sociopath) to leave behind the web of moral convictions, even if that person is a determinist. In this way, by arguing that moral and determinist convictions can coexist in the same person, PFS undermines the libertarian argument ...
Comments