Changes

: I like the first sentence, bu I find the rest confusing.  It seems to be starting with the assumption that determinism is the opposite of free will, then redefines free will to be determinism!  This means that it's not actually the opposite after all, but simply another name for the same thing.  [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 11:03, 14 September 2008 (EDT)

: I like the first sentence, bu I find the rest confusing.  It seems to be starting with the assumption that determinism is the opposite of free will, then redefines free will to be determinism!  This means that it's not actually the opposite after all, but simply another name for the same thing.  [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 11:03, 14 September 2008 (EDT)

:: Yeah sorry, I should've made that clearer but I hoped I could leave it a little implicit. Essentially Hume draws a distinction between two kinds of freedom - freedom of action and freedom of will. The former is the freedom to do as you choose (i.e. it would be compromised if you were in jail or tied up or something), and the latter is the freedom to determine your own will. Hume says that confusion between these two terms is at the root of many discussions of free will, since often people use free will to mean the latter thing when in reality it doesn't make much sense - either things are determined or they are random (because of cause and effect). Is that at all clear? --[[User:Sam99foster|Sam99foster]] 11:58, 14 September 2008 (EDT)

:: Yeah sorry, I should've made that clearer but I hoped I could leave it a little implicit. Essentially Hume draws a distinction between two kinds of freedom - freedom of action and freedom of will. The former is the freedom to do as you choose (i.e. it would be compromised if you were in jail or tied up or something), and the latter is the freedom to determine your own will. Hume says that confusion between these two terms is at the root of many discussions of free will, since often people use free will to mean the latter thing when in reality it doesn't make much sense - either things are determined or they are random (because of cause and effect). Is that at all clear? --[[User:Sam99foster|Sam99foster]] 11:58, 14 September 2008 (EDT)

::Re-reading myself I really don't think it is. When people talk about lack of free will negating morality, they mean lack of freedom of will (as opposed to of action). Hume says that lack of freedom of will results in randomness, because thought processes are subject to the same laws of cause and effect as any other event. So an apple falling is caused by gravity or something else, and if its caused by nothing then the occurrence must be random; and the same with decisions, which are caused by a variety of external stimuli.

::Re-reading myself I really don't think it is. When people talk about lack of free will negating morality, they mean lack of freedom of will (as opposed to of action). Hume says that lack of freedom of will results in randomness, because thought processes are subject to the same laws of cause and effect as any other event. So an apple falling is caused by gravity or something else, and if its caused by nothing then the occurrence must be random; and the same with decisions, which are caused by a variety of external stimuli.--[[User:Sam99foster|Sam99foster]] 12:03, 14 September 2008 (EDT)