I've been thinking lately about the following question:
the Existence Question: does free will exist?
Of course, one's answer to the Existence Question will depend greatly on what one thinks free will is. But there seem to be two different general strategies for trying to answer the Existence Question in the affirmative; these are what I'm calling for now the indirect and the direct approaches.
Direct approaches work as follows. First, one specifies what free will is (e.g., free will is xyz) and then shows how that thing exists (e.g., "Hey look, there's xyz!"). This is how I think of, for example, John Fischer's view. Free will is certain kind of control (guidance control), which we then find in actually existing people. (I know that Fischer's semicompatibilism per se doesn't commit him to the existence of free will, just as it doesn't commit him to the truth of determinism; but it certainly seems to me that Fischer thinks there is guidance control. Please correct me if I'm wrong.)
Indirent approaches are different. After specifying what free will is, they'll argue that it is necessary for some further thing, and then show that that further thing exists. Here are two examples. Van Inwagen argues that free will is necessary for moral responsibility, the existence of which he thinks is evident. Second, a number of scholars argue that free will is necessary for rational deliberation, a process which (though they're not always explicit about this) they think people atleast sometimes engage in.
Any thoughts on the distinction, or the relative merits of these two approaches?
(I'm also thinking of general strategies for answering the Existence Question in the negative, which may also come in direct and indirect varieties. But I need to think about this more before posting something even as preliminary as this.)
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