The free-will defence (FWD) holds that the value of significant free will is so great that God is justified in creating significantly free creatures even if there is a risk or cert
This paper argues that if creatures are to have significant free will, then God's essential omni-benevolence and essential omnipotence cannot logically preclude Him from creating a
The rootedness of freedom in the truth has been a constant and central theme in the writings of John Paul II. Already in 1964, as a young bishop at Vatican II, Karol Wojtyla critic
For Thomas Aquinas, as for Aristotle, doing moral philosophy is thinking as generally as possible about what I should choose to do (and not to do), considering my whole life as a f
The familiar claim that free will is a necessary condition for moral responsibility (see Moral Agency; Responsibility) links free will to ethics. Whether the claim is true depends
‘Free will’ is the conventional name of a topic that is best discussed without reference to the will. Its central questions are ’What is it to act (or choose) freely?’, and ’What i
Awareness of man's freedom and dignity, together with the affirmation of the inalienable rights of individuals and peoples, is one of the major characteristics of our time. But fre
Liberty, the highest of natural endowments, being the portion only of intellectual or rational natures, confers on man this dignity - that he is "in the hand of his counsel"(1) and
It is fundamental to the idea of moral responsibility that human agents are capable of free choice because one cannot be reasonable blamed for something one could not do or could not refrain from doing. While it is generally recognised that they can be subject to psychological and physical compulsions, or have their power of choice undermined by indoctrination and intoxication, it is commonly believed that unless impeded they can choose to act or not to act. Against this stands the challenge of determinism, the claim that every event is caused by a prior event which necessitates its occurrence. If the action of raising one’s hand was caused by a prior event, and that by a prior event, etc. then the sources of the hand-raising quickly move beyond the agent and into the far past. Some advocates of freedom reject determinism, others try to reconcile some sense of choice with it.