Counterfactuals Compatibilism and Rational Choice

UC Berkeley (Video)

There is a puzzle about counterfactuals that parallels a more familiar puzzle about free will. The familiar puzzle is the apparent incompatibility between free will and determinism. Robert Stalnaker, Professor of Philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, argues, first, that the general puzzle gives us reason to look more closely at the details of the semantics for counterfactuals, and second, that the parallel with the standard argument for incompatibilism (labeled ‘the Consequence Argument’) gives us reason to look more closely at the central role of counterfactuals in practical reasoning. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Humanities] [Show ID: 37310]