Andrei Buckareff - 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.

Andrei A. Buckareff is an Associate Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. His research focuses on metaphysical and epistemological issues in Philosophy of Action, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Religion.

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.

[Brian-]

I have to admit, that guys explanation about free will went right over my head.

[ReynaSingh]

More videos like this. Debates on free will need to be more clearly defined

[hayzelwashington]

This dude was everywhere with his answers

[ernestweber]

I propose a thought experiment. Let's say you have three doors to choose from then pick and open a door. How can you know that this was a choice of free will regardless of the reasons for your choice? All you get is a retrospective post-rationalizations about the potential choices you could have made. In that case, in order to even test that you have actual free will you would need two things: a time machine and a memory wipe. Then you could go back and choose again without memory influencing that decision. There are a myriad of variables that would also influence that initial decision and what led up to it.

[Robert.Marshall]

Thhank you for sharing this. Andrei is a bit confusing in his explinations. Not because of the depth of free will and personal agency, but the way he stumbles through the explination at a fast pace. I'm sure it all makse sence in his mind. Good thing Robert is there to catch the confusing narrative and try to help organize it and go back to the initial points.

[chayanbosu]

We must have free will because without free will we can not explain moral values at least we can not decide what is good or what is bad? Free will indicates that we are different from a machine and we are human beings not animals.

[kipponi]

Robert said, "Now I don't understand anything"". Count me too.

[andrewmasterman]

The crux of it is - is there anything / agent that is capable of producing any sort of outcome / action that was not limited by or causally influenced by prior conditions.

[mattsigl]

Freedom is possibility to intend different outcomes coming into being. Will is the power to actually intend one of the outcomes in a way that cannot be wholly predicted from prior causes with the choice functioning as the sufficient causal condition which actualizes the engagement of an intention. Compatabilism cannot possibly hold in this very clear definition because compatabilism always locates the determining factor outside the agent, whether it’s because it denies the reality of real objective freedom about the possibility of different intentions being actualized or denies the real objective freedom about the will to select which intention it wants to endorse with action.

[Cruchnggr]

We don't freely choose what reasons/justifications pop up in our mind when considering our following actions, and our considered reasons aren't free from underlying emotions.

[aaronjennings]

Morality requires wisdom, which is the zenith of knowledge.

[RememberThisBrand]

You will know if you truly believe what you believe after engaging with an interlocutor Robert’s caliber.

[aaronjennings]

To be a person within the field of consciousness describes the soul or psychological parameters of personality, which help to define the ego, but not the choices which are caused by the circumstances demanding them.

[aaronjennings]

Agency implies an aspect of consciousness that describes a fundamental proto-consciousness.
One might refer to it as a template of consciousness.
This suggests that consciousness has a root. It's an elemental aspect of creation, not a product of one's choosing.
In short, your choices are a result of a fundamental foundation of mind.

[chrisgervais]

Not on my will but on higher will those words will make you understand what free will truly is!!! Divine source is what carries you!! The mind itself is what controls you😮

"Endorsement" is advertising language. My capacity is fine, thank you.

[patientson]

An active SOHA (Sole-to-head approach) - it is most be reasonable within the entire being - Stealth-like. Choose the one that makes you look stupid in the eyes of many but with few matters a whole lot.

[-by-_Publishing_LLC]

You cannot discuss *free will* without also discussing *determinism* and vice versa. If there existed only one or the other, then there wouldn't be anything for us to discuss. The oppositional condition wouldn't exist to force us into the conversation. The fact that we can even discuss these two conditions proves that both conditions exist as per the *3rd Law of Existence.*

Existence operates via a dichotomic template which establishes *conceivability:* quark-antiquark, matter-space, life-death, up-down, black-white, love-hate, good-evil, theism-atheism, democrat-republican, ... the list goes on and on. That's why I can *boldly claim* that our existence is a balanced combination of "deterministic events" and our "free-willed responses."

After all, I'm either *right* or *wrong* on this, ... correct?

[kakhaval]

Agency?? estate agents, employment agents...

[Robinson-]

Interesting, as this gets close between making a distinction between determinism and free will. You can have choices as an agent, but still be part of physical determinism. They are two seperate things, even though fundamentally or reductionally one is dependent on the other