سازگارگرایی

In compatibilists believe that we cannot act freely and be morally responsible for an action in a deterministic world, while compatibilists don’t deny the possibility of free action and moral responsibility for the agent, and they believe that we can find some kind of compatibility between moral responsibility and causal determination. This article will analyze Alfred Mele's zygote argument of manipulation, which is an argument in critique of compatibilism between moral responsibility and the deterministic world. Manipulation argument is an argument based on an agent's intuition of a situation in which the agent is under the control of another person or force. It wants to show that an agent in a manipulated situation, despite satisfying the compatibilists conditions, is not morally responsible for her action, and she is like the agent in a deterministic world.

Hume takes a compatibilist view in the debate on liberty and necessity. In his view, we need both “necessity” and “liberty” for moral responsibility. In this paper, at first, I will clarify Hume’s path to accomplishing his project. Then, I will explain the classic interpretation of Hume’s compatibilism according to which, in Hume’s view, it is the external compulsion that conflicts with free will rather than causation itself. Then, I will try to explain Botterill’s interpretation of Hume’s compatibilism. Botterill claims that Hume’s focus is on what he calls intentional agency or liberty 2. Finally, I will try to show that Hume’s project still faces difficulties, even if we accept Botterill’s account of Hume’s compatibilism. Although in his view, Hume’s emphasis is on agency, determinations of the will, and intention, it does not still respond to our concern about other possibilities. This interpretation also does not show that intentional agency is compatible with the broad determinism that governs an agent’s psychological states and passions.

In the Islamic philosophy and western philosophy, there are various explanations of the consistency between causal necessity and free will. The soul’s agency by manifestation for hierarchal willpowers, presented by Mulla Sadra as an explanation for this consistency, has considerable similarity to the view presented by Harry Frankfurt and Gary Watson (as another type of hierarchal approaches). These similarities are as follows: the role of hierarchal willpowers in strengthening human’s identity, the role of higher order willpowers in controlling the willpowers of the lower order and human’s actions, the hierarchal desires leading to a deep self as the main controller of those desires and willpowers, and no interference of the alternative possibilities (the possibility of available options) in the reality of free will. The important difference between Mulla Sadra’s approach and the two other approaches is that in Frankfurt and Watson’s approach, human’s deep self (as the ultimate origin of willpower) is not truly an essential thing; and this causes their hierarchal approach not to offer an acceptable answer for the drawback of vicious circle of willpowers; but in Mulla Sadra’s approach, this deep self is truly an essential thing that causes the hierarchal willpowers not to continue infinitely. Therefore, while Mulla Sadra’s approach enjoys the merits of Frankfurt and Watson’s approach in explaining the optional nature of willpower and controlling the desires, it lacks their drawback and is a more proper approach for consistency.

In the cognitive sciences, two distinct theories have been proposed about the structure of the human mind, both of which are evolutionary but also different. One of them is the theory of evolutionary psychology and its related claim to the massive modularity hypothesis, which considers the mind as a set of modules. Another is the simple heuristic and its related claim to the existence of an adaptive toolbox in cognitive methods that assigns mind guidance to the existence of a set of heuristics. Both theories seek to explain cultural diversity by applying these modules/ heuristics. Although proponents of each do not routinely mention the existence of another theory, both theories, both the massive modularity hypothesis and the existing idea of heuristics in the mind, seek to provide explanations not only from an evolutionary perspective but also in comparative psychology (Which compares the behavior of non-human species) are also acceptable. They also want to explain how cognitive processes are processed in our minds. However, at first, there are reasons to think that these theories offer explanations of human cognition that are incompatible with each other or undermine each other. What is challenged in this article is how a human being, who has always been influenced by a variety of heuristics, cognitive biases, and irrationality in reasoning, judgment, and decision-making during the process of evolution, can have a massive modular cognitive structure in its mind. And be organized to have a logical function

Free will is one of the philosophical topics that have important and significant functions in the humanities, and is one of the theoretical foundations of the humanities. Various forms of free will have been provided; each of these forms has functions in the humanities that are completely different from other functions of the other form. One of these functions is the use of legal theories about the punishment of offenders. In this paper, after introducing different theories of free will and two major legal theories about punishment (Retributivism and Utilitarianism) , the ratio of different forms of the free will to the legal theories of punishment is measured and the result is obtained that the legal theory Retributivism is based solely on an incompatible form of free will, and it is only this type of freedom can apply the theory of punishment; contrary to the legal theory of Utilitarianism, which is non-conditioned to free will, and all the different forms, and even the attitude of hard determinism, can use this theory of punishment. According to this result, Mulla Sadra's view was drawn on punishment, and it was clear that he - as a Compatibilist philosopher - did not deny the ability to praise and deserve punishment; but in a diminishing approach, he reduces the concentration of these concepts in an incompatible intellectual system and reduces them in the sense that it can be used in the system of Compatibilism; this has led him to be very similar in terms of practical functions, to the theories of Utilitarian punishment.

This paper seeks to explain and evaluate, by an analytic method, the conflict between determinism and free will from the viewpoint of two physicalist reductionist philosophers, namely, Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris. Dennett is a compatibilist philosopher who tries to show compatibility between determinism and free will, while Sam Harris is a non-compatibilist philosopher who turns to determinism with the thesis that our thoughts and actions have been pre-determined by the neurobiological events associated with them, and thus, considers free will to be an illusion. Therefore according to him, we are not the authors of our thoughts and actions.  However, Dennett tries to establish the existence of free will through the use of concepts like control and deliberation and defends ‘free will worth wanting’. Therefore, if we take the agency of the agent and the absence of determinism as two criteria for free will, Dennett accepts both and Harris denies them; since there is neurobiological determinism, and all of Dennett's deliberations, etc. are also determined neurobiologically. Between the two conditions of free will, Dennett accepts that the origin of action must be in the agent; however, he refutes the condition of alternate possibilities, establishing his view based on a causal theory. As a Neo-Darwinist, he explains human beings’ physical and mental phenomena based on evolution theory and despite accepting causal determinism, he shows how the agent can still have agency in decisions and actions. As a result, he does not consider determinism to requisite compulsion. In his philosophical system, one can change the future that has not yet taken place. This decision-making regarding the future takes place through the process of deliberation, which has a special place in Dennett’s view. On the other hand, by adhering to Libet’s neurological experiments, Harris refutes both conditions of free will and considers the cause of all human being actions to arise from activities of the brain and concludes that one cannot have any conscious control over one’s actions. As a result, he emerges as a non-compatibilist determinist. In both his works, The Moral Landscape and Free Will, Harris addresses the topic of free will. In Free Will, he criticizes the view of compatibilists like Dennett, who responds to those criticisms in his article, ‘Reflections on Free Will, Review of Sam Harris’ Free Will’. Like Harris, Dennett too addresses free will in his two important books, Elbow Room and Freedom Evolves. Following an analysis of the views of Dennett and Harris and explaining the criticisms of the two regarding each other, the present article will show that neither Dennett, considering the rest of the elements of his philosophical views in philosophy of mind and philosophy of action can well justify compatibilism, nor can Harris, considering his neurological approach defend his determinist idea. The conflict that is present in Dennett’s views causes his explanation of the agent being the origin of his action to also be indefensible. Furthermore, due to the incompatibility of the different elements of his view and the vagueness of his idea regarding the effect of unconscious intentions on action, Harris too is placed in a weak position. In contrast to Harris’ supposition, a human is not “a puppet [who] is free as long as he loves his strings”; rather, a human chooses, makes decisions and acts according to his own will. As a result, despite the objections that apply to both philosophers, Dennett’s view is more acceptable than Harris’ in terms of the effort to justify free will; even though neither have been apparently successful in defending their own ideas.

This article examines Manuel Vargas’s revisionism, which is a theory of free will as a condition of moral responsibility. In this theory, both diagnos tic and prescriptive account of free will and moral responsibility in commonsense are explained. The diagnos tic account describes commonsense beliefs about free will and moral responsibility and prescriptive account aims to tell us how we ought to think about free will and moral responsibility. Commonsense intuitions about free will are Incompatibilis t and especially Libertarianis t. But prescriptive account can’t be Libertarianism, since it has to assume indeterminism specifically in the subjective decision-making process, and this goes beyond the available evidences. It also can’t be Eliminativism, because we can revise common sense about these things, in a way that to be consis tent. The prescriptive account is a kind of Compatibilism, free will, in this regard, is the ability to recognize moral considerations and guide their behavior in the light of these considerations. At the end, Vargas’s use of Consequence Argument, citing empirical evidence, the use of a Compatibilis t concept of can and relying on Libertarianis t norms for interpretation his Prescriptive account has been criticized.

Humanities discuss human voluntary action, hence the man's free will is the most important basis for distinguishing the humanities from the natural sciences. In view of the fact that there are, in general, two Compatible and Incompatible versions of free will, it is necessary, in general, to consider the ratio of different perspectives on the distinction of the humanities from the natural sciences with these two general statements of free will, in this way the humanities and sciences Naturally, they define their relationship between their last and next, according to the free will's statements. This paper, by descriptive-analytic method, examines the role of different statements of free will in the distinction between humanities and natural sciences, and concludes that the intrinsic distinction of the humanities from the natural sciences is possible only on the basis of an Incompatible narrative, and the attitude of Compatibility can not distinguish the human sciences from the natural sciences, except through exogenous factors.

The purpose of this article is to criticize Daniel Dennett's main argument which has been formulated to explain and justify the compatibility of Human's mental phenomena, particularly his free will, with causal determinism on the basis of ontological naturalism (Physicalism). The article begins with the formulation of this argument. Then, the theories of naturalism and evolution as the backgrounds of Dennett's thesis are explained. Dennett tries to justify the premises of his argument by a novel interpretation of casual determinism based on a difference between casual determinism and inevitability. Finally, it is shown that Dennett's solution for making a compatibility between free will and causal determinism is insufficient and unsatisfactory, and, thus, he has not solved the deep and historical problem of compatibilism.

In this paper، we present four philosophical approaches and their prominent advocates toward the problem of relationship between Darwinian evolution and theistic beliefs: (1) Atheistic Inconsistency: there is a deep conflict between Darwinian evolution and theism; among atheists، Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett could be regarded as the best representatives in this branch. (2) Theistic Inconsistency: A deep conflict could also be seen among theists، M. H. Tabātabā’ī’s Quranic exegesis is one of the most significant sources in this regard from Islamic side، correspondent to the same in other theistic religions. (3) Theistic Consistency: There is a concord between theism and Darwinian evolution; we have considered Alvin Plantinga and Murtazā Mutaharī in this category. (4) Reductionist Consistency: Theism and Darwinian evolution، or science and religion in general، are two different and noncompeting levels of explanation; John Haught advocates such reductionist consistency between science and religion. Having mentioned the four above classes and a few of many representatives of each category and some important questions toward these approaches، we have attempted to show that the alleged consistency between theistic beliefs and Darwinian evolution by the principle of natural selection fails.

Free will، as the most pivotal human feature، on the one hand، has been considered، in the West، as the most fundamental condition of moral responsibility، and، on the other، based on the world being deterministic، has opposed determinism. A group of morality philosophers، believing in this opposition، have given the verdicts of exclusiveness to these two concepts، and another group، aiming to solve or repulse this opposition، have tried، with different methods، to make free will and determinism compatible، and they have proposed different statements regarding compatibility. The most important statement has been put forward by John Martin Fisher who suggests semi-compatibility. In his works، he regards free will in moral responsibility as a guiding control and does not consider alternative possibilities. The example of Frankfurt and other similar ones have been highly useful to Fisher in rejecting alternatives. In this paper، after briefly explaining the example of Frankfurt، Fisher’s semi-compatibility will be elaborated. Eventually، it appears that، although Fisher’s understanding has many advantages compared to other statements of compatibility، his ideas are more inclined toward determinism.

With no doubt, the element by which we are permitted to admire or blame one for his good or bad actions is freedom. But what the essence of freedom is and how human being can get it, in a world governed by causal determinism, are two questions which most moral philosophers in west have discussed. In this regard some of them believe that compatibility between freedom and causal determinism is impossible, so they have denied one of them in the favor of the other and have established incompatibilism. In contrary, some others, from modern era up now, have tried to make them compatible, in order to revival moral responsibility and prevent from falling in randomness. This view has been called compatibilism. This article studies compatibilism from the viewpoints of philosophers’ such as Hobbes, Hume, Ayer, Frankfurt, Watson, Wolf and Fischer. Finally this paper it cleared that despite the rightness of compatibilism, because of their unsuccessfulness in proposing a true explanation of human freedom and moral responsibility, compatibilists have failed to show that this view is reasonable and justified.

This paper studies the conformity and consistency between Islam and Islamic philosophy through clarifying the existing views in Islamic philosophy in the past and present. Here, the writer initially introduces the two important and key approaches of conformity and consistency. Then, after explaining the theoretical and practical problems of the school of conformity, he votes for the consistency approach. He also deals with the religious or non-religious nature and features of Islamic philosophy.

One of the important questions in philosophy of mind concerns nature of mental intentional states and the way to determine them. Some experiences such as that of twin earth confirm externalism in contents, in the sense that at least in some cases content is determined by external, environmental, and most likely social and historical facts. On the other hand, it is intuitively accepted that we have a distinct (and free from experience) access to the contents of our own ideas. But compatibility between distinct access and externalism is controversial. After some prefatory notes concerning externalism and knowledge of the soul, one of the arguments for their incompatibility (argument of gradual change) will be introduced in the present article; then two objections against this argument will be described and discussed: in the first one and through an study of the theory, alternatives of the claim “second order content is determined based on the first order content” are considered as confirming subject’s knowledge of the contents of his own thought; and the other does not regard internalism as being based on evidence; and thus does not accept theoretical efficiency of the alternative introduced in internalism. Then, it is shown that if those who believe in these critiques manage to ascribe to the subject knowledge of the content of his own thought, that is a knowledge which requires justification. Then, having separated negative and positive independence of a justified belief from experimental facts, the author shows that argument of gradual change rejects only negative independence; and knowledge of the mind may be still regarded in the positive sense as being independent from experience.