Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site wucs.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!wucs!esk
From: esk@wucs.UUCP (Paul V. Torek)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: why Laura can't have gone wrong
Message-ID: <903@wucs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 18-Apr-85 18:28:25 EST
Article-I.D.: wucs.903
Posted: Thu Apr 18 18:28:25 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 19-Apr-85 01:37:59 EST
Reply-To: pvt1047@wucec2.UUCP (Paul V. Torek)
Organization: Washington U. in St. Louis, CS Dept.
Lines: 20

[or, Subject: Re: freedom and reason (attn russ, rich, & laura)]

Laura Creighton writes:
> If I do not have free will then I cannot ``make a mistake'' [...]
Rich Rosen responds:
> All you've shown is that the word "mistake" may be a poor word. [...]
> If by mistake you mean "an error in judgment resulting in negative
> consequences",[...]

Try "wrong judgement/decision" as the meaning of "mistake".  To call
a judgement/decision wrong is to imply that there was a right judgement/
decision that one could have made.  And to say that one ought to avoid
error is to say that one *can* avoid error: "ought" implies "can".  Now
suppose Laura believes she is free.  Could it be that she ought to have
believed the opposite?  No:  her belief is either true or false.  If 
false, then she *couldn't* have come to the true conclusion (that she
was not free).  If true, then she believed what she ought.  So her belief
that she is free cannot be criticized (even if false).
--
We're No. 2 -- we think harder.     --Iconbusters, Inc.