human perfectibility may be regarded as a point in which the most dominant religions of the world meet one another. it, therefore, can be chosen as a start point for religions when taking part in dialogue. there can be found different names for human perfection and perfect man in well-known religions of the east and the west. buddha`s name for perfect man is arhat and free man, confucius` is ta...

‘‘The perfection of a science is shown in the perfection of its language,’’ Condillac said in 1746. A concept that is gaining in popularity and cropping up in scientific articles with increasing regularity is ‘‘compulsivity.’’ Off the cuff, the word ‘‘compulsive’’ makes us think of something that is controlled, repeated, inexorable, repetitive, imperative, stereotyped, and necessary—something y...

Whether people believe that they have control over their behaviors is an issue that is centrally involved in definitions of addiction. Our research demonstrates that believing in free will - that is, believing that one has control over one's actions - has societal implications. Experimentally weakening free will beliefs led to cheating, stealing, aggression, and reduced helping. Bolstering free...

1. Explain the difference between scientific and “soft” determinism. 2. What is the one miracle that would happen in a predeterministic universe? 3. Explain the difference between predestination and fatalism. How does the short characterization of the doctrine of fatalism in this chapter differ from the lexical definition of “fatalism”? 4. If our choices are not due to chance, reason, or causes...

Many opponents of free-will libertarianism argue that libertarian free agency is unintelligible. The aim of my talk is to answer them by suggesting that a coherent conception of libertarian freedom is possible if (and, possibly, only if) we adopt dispositionalism as the explanatory framework of human agency. My argument proceeds as follows. First, I classify the existing explanations of human a...

I believe that no argument is needed to convince the readers that the so-called “hard determinism,” which rules out free will, and hence also independent personal choice, is incompatible with PEL. On the other hand, the “soft” variety of determinism, known under the name “compatibilism,” is oftentimes claimed to be reconcilable with PEL. According to compatibilism, the assumption that every eve...