Are we free to break the laws?

Theoria 47 (3):113-21 (1981)
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Abstract

I insist that I was able to raise my hand, and I acknowledge that a law would have been broken had I done so, but I deny that I am therefore able to break a law. To uphold my instance of soft determinism, I need not claim any incredible powers. To uphold the compatibilism that I actually believe, I need not claim that such powers are even possible. My incompatibilist opponent is a creature of fiction, but he has his prototypes in real life. He is modeled partly after Peter van Inwagen and partly on myself when I first worried about van Inwagen's argument against compatibilism.

Author's Profile

David K. Lewis
PhD: Harvard University; Last affiliation: Princeton University

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