PHIL 1100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Stanford Prison Experiment, Compatibilism

• School: Cornell University
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHIL 1100
• Professor: Karen Bennett

Document Summary

Issues with stace argument (the psychological background of a choice determines free will) Pros: praise/blame (free will and moral responsibility), intuitive to an extent. Problem cases: mental illness, forced psychological states (stanford prison study), addiction. Taylor neuroscientist case (external forces are controlling your desires) Therefore stace"s definition is necessary but not sufficient to determine what is free. Not just any action that caused by a psychological state counts as free, but it is a subset of actions caused by psychological state and needs other condition. First order (any desire that you have/can clash with each other) versus second order desires (volitions, a desire to have certain first order desires constitute your will or motivate you to act, metadesires) I could desire to want to want to study, yet not want to study. Frankfurt argues that only humans have second order desires. Wanton: people who do not have second order desires; neonates/animals.