Dan's Wrong . . . Again

Dan the Arminian still refuses to deal with my citations of numerous dictionaries which define "choose" without containing the "essential element" he says "the" dictionary contains. Again, his argument is kaput and since he doesn't want to deal with the obvious refutations, might there be another Arminian who lauded Dan's argument that wants to try? Anyway, he's still responding to a post I did a while back, and in the meantime I've responded to all of his responses. In his latest post he again shows his unfamiliarity with his own side of the debate as he speculates about PAP, AP, W.L. Craig, and Frankfurt, all from his armchair. For those who are familiar with the literature, his post is simply something of a train wreck. I don't really have much to say, but will comment on just a few things that demonstrate my above claim:

1. Dan thinks there's a problem with Frankfurt counter examples and immaterial souls (but then grudgingly admits that Molinism can deal with this). Well, not just Molinism. That's not the relevant point. God is. But besides this, it is far from obvious that a Frankfurt mechanism could not affect an immaterial soul. Christians (those who believe in souls, and it is indeed ironic that many libertarians are resorting and turning to anthropological physicalism these days) believe in a tight unity between body and soul. A deep interaction. Why does heavy drinking, drug use, and blows to the head affect our "personality"? Affect things that are supposed to aspects of the "immaterial soul"? So it is far from obvious that Molinism or God is needed to deal with the immaterial nature of man and Frankfurt controllers. In fact, my point seems sufficiently strong enough to rebut Dan's repeated claims that mysterious souls somehow rule out Frankfurtian neurological-manipulating mechanisms.

2. Dan writes, "Thus, rejecting PAP harmonizes with my choose arguments." Besides the small defect that his "choose argument" has been shown to be obviously false, Dan seems to think there's some big difference between PAP and AP (alternative possibilities). But it's time to bring in an expert, again. Thus Kane, "Frankfurt-style cases (FSCs) were introduced to undermine 'the principle of alternative possibilities' or PAP. They were designed to show that a person could be morally responsible even though the person had no alternative possibilities (APs) or could not have done otherwise." (Moral Responsibility and Alternative Possibility: Essays on the Importance of Alternative Possibilities, eds. Widerker & Mckenna, Ashgate, 2006, Kane, p. 91, emphasis mine).

3. Dan writes, "Further, PAP seems to be interpreted too specifically for my taste. You must be able to vote Democrat or Republican. You must be able to do good or evil. You must be able to eat chocolate or vanilla...For me, it's enough to choose A or not - I don't need to extend things to the ability to choose A or B" (emphasis mine).

So, Dan claims that PAP is set up as, say, needing to be able to choose P or Q or R, but not P or ~P. He says P or ~P is his position, which is not PAP, he says. This is getting old, but time to bring in some more libertarian experts:

"PAP: An agent is morally responsible for performing a given action A only if he could have avoided performing it" (ibid, Widerker, p.53).

"PAP: An agent S is morally responsible for its being the case that p only if S could have made it not the case that p." (ibid, Ginet, 75).

Notice that there's no talk of P or Q or R or n. It's just P or ~P. In other words, what Dan says is the reason he rejects PAP: "because it's enough [for his libertarianism] to choose A or ~A", looks just like he's citing the definition of PAP!

So far in our debate I've got layman Dan to disagree with leading libertarian action theorists: R. Kane, W. L. Craig, C. Ginet, D. Widerker, D. Hunt, A. Plantinga, W. Hasker, Kevin Timpe, &c! What hubris. Dan, an everyman theologian/blogger, who reads a few internet sources on libertarian action theory now and then, knows more about libertarian action theory than all the experts. Forgive me if I find this hard to swallow.

Not to be mean, but Dan just seems ignorant of much of the relevant literature. But I'm sorry to report that this isn't what's bad. Dan is ignorant that he's even ignorant. A dangerous combination indeed.

(P.S. I'd also suggest Dan read Timpe's book Free Will: Sourcehood and its Alternatives, for an argument that libertarianism demands acceptance of the PAP maxim, here's the abstract. It also seems like ought implies can demands acceptance of PAP, and Dan holds to ought implies can).