David Hunt - Free Will and Personal Agency

Personal agency is a state, the capacity of individuals to affect things. Free will is a mental faculty of various strengths. What's the relationship between free will and personal agency? It would seem that strong personal agency depends on a robust kind of free will, which makes an analysis of how they articulate especially important.



David Hunt is a professor and Department Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Whittier College in Whittier, CA.


Closer to Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[davidsfuntimes]

I love Robert's inquisitive mind about everything. That is why I enjoy his podcasts. I think his genuine skepticism and reasoning appeals to many.

[jinks]

It's good to see John Malkovich finally asking the big questions.

[nisarabro]

An Excellent Program, my most Favorite .

[Portland]

Who else thought that was John Malkovich in the thumbnail 🤣

PS. Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself 🤣🤙🏽🤙🏽

[jamesruscheinski]

Thank you for providing platform to discuss situation

[evanjameson]

Who says God is all knowing and omniscient?? I read the bible backwards and forwards and NEVER took anything said in it that he already knows the outcome--God is on another level but it doesn't mean that he already knows exactly how it will all turn out--why create in the first place if you already know the end game?.. I think God did the best he could with the creation out of it's earliest beginnings and he is actually a part of the earliest evolutions--OLDER, Wiser, steeped in knowledge but I can't see the argument that God already has ALL the answers--and I don't see how this diminishes God in any way that he isn't ALL knowing. I believe there is absolutely a God/Higher Power that set in motion what we know and understand through consciousness--it's UNREAL, beyond measure and yet it is IN MOTION and the end game is a LONG WAYS away..

[psy-boparadox]

Oh, I thought this was John Malkovich!

[jamesruscheinski]

Political government practices not an internal democracy / republic that serves the nation or state, rather an external democracy / republic that is above nation and state; and which proceeds on the basis that a nation or state serve political government, whether federal or international

[perrydoerr]

Wow...The assertions are flying. Begin with something you know nothing about and say it all comes from that. Wow.

[apparentbeing]

There can't be free will before you know good and evil and that's why I just don't get this forbidden fruit case.

[jamesruscheinski]

Agency from consciousness to subjective awareness to free will to natural choice (personal)?

[earthjustice]

Why would we want to explain human agency by using an imaginary concept?

[stephenlawrence]

It's quite simple, we're agents because we act because we want certain consequences.
No reason to mix agency up with free will. Free will is the idea that we could do otherwise. Two totally distinct things.

[MarcVL]

The problem with a concept of free will is that it can lead to an infinite regress. So you have no external constraints on your ability to do what you want to do. But can you really choose to want what you want? Maybe, but even if we allow for this, it'd be pretty difficult. & then, can we really choose to want to choose to want different things? It shouldn't be ruled out, but each step further is tougher on credulity. This is not to say that the freedom of our will & subsequent choices can be dismissed. But I do think whatever freedom of will can exist has to either exist at the very most fundamental level(s), common to all matter & energy, or else be ultimately fictions or illusions. You can't patchwork or emerge things like subjective conscious experience & true free will from things that lack those qualities.

[bluelotus]

In this world we can only choose to ride the wheel of karma or the chariot of dharma. As far as karma is concerned, it's a huge hank whose threads only God can handle. And he does so in a neutral way, without interfering with our choices and their consequences. Of course he delivers us proper knowledge through his messengers, but we must be ready to accept it.

[jammin]

Our consciousness experiences
for- knowledge when conserving your own reflection.
How/Could consciousness react, if only observing our own reflection, throughout reality.?
not simulation, maybe we are in a reflection.. Deep deep deep as always, thank you closer to truth

[trojanhorse]

Well, metaphysical matters such as free will cannot be approached scientifically or rationally, simply because it's beyond rationality, despite *the flawed* *experiment of Benjamin Libet*
*allegedly on free will.*

The closest one can get to approaching that is through higher levels of consciousness.
*Steve Taylor* talked about that on
*Scientific American, * under the title:
*How a Flawed Experiment “Proved” That Free Will Doesn’t Exist.*

[Bassotronics]

He hit the nail on the head when he mentioned God knowing everything but not knowing our future outcome to bring forth judgment.

[jamesruscheinski]

Also wish had more time to write about terminating external dictatorship of federal / international political government; really like doing it

[heresa_notion_]

My goals define me, but there are higher-order goals, such that if lower-order goals are seen to conflict with the higher-order ones, at some future time, the lower ones can change. Free-will is the execution of the goals in my goal set to the extent that I'm able, but some of my goals are vague (abstract), so there's some flexibility (uncertainty) in how to meet them. This requires active exploration. Finally, determinism is what I have to exploit when I make a choice in executing a goal. I couldn't do anything without determinism, actually, and I'm ok with my goals determining me, because they're me.