The Obligation Dilemma

ISBN: 9780190050856 出版年：2019 页码：321 Haji, Ishtiyaque Oxford University Press

I motivate a dilemma to show that nothing can be obligatory for anyone regardless of whether determinism or indeterminism (the falsity of determinism) is true. The deterministic horn, to which prime attention is directed, exploits the thesis that obligation requires freedom to do otherwise. Since determinism precludes such freedom, it precludes obligation too. The indeterministic horn allows for freedom to do otherwise but assumes the burden of addressing whether indeterministically caused choices or actions are too much of a matter of luck to be obligatory for anyone. I critically discuss a response to the deterministic horn that invokes the distinction between alternatives compatible with determinism (weak alternatives) and those incompatible with determinism (strong alternatives).