Libertarianism

A special question in the context of the nature of the human mind is the question if men and women have a free will. While most of the neuroscientists, who represent the physical view, deny the freedom of will, most of the philosophers insist on the existence of a free will.

There are two major positions among philosophers about the issue.
These two positions depend on the belief whether the physical world is determined or not.

The most philosophers accept the claim of natural science and especially of neuroscience that at least the world of our experience including our brains is ruled by determinism. Nevertheless these philosophers believe in the existence of a free will. Because this philosophical school believes that determinism and free will are compatible, this kind of view is called compatibilism.

On the contrary there exists also the view of philosophical libertarianism.
Libertarianism is a position that denies physical determinism and consequently assumes the existence of a free will.

(It has to be mentioned that the term 'libertarianism' also denotes a political view which tries to minimize government intervention.)

In my master thesis I evaluate the position of philosophical libertarianism.
I show that the denial of physical determinism for mental processes like the decision making process involved in free will is based on a lack of general understanding of physics and natural sciences by libertarians.

I evaluate five different accounts of libertarianism (Carl Ginet,Timothy O’ Connor, Randolph Clarke, Robert Kane and Geert Keil). Independently of the denial of physical determinism, I prove that all accounts fail to explain free will because of contradictions on a linguistic and logical level.

Furthermore I prove that libertarianism can generally never explain free will because the assumption of indetermination leads automatically to missing control and to chance. 

A physical example can illustrate the principle. The example would be photon emission by an excited atom. The time of the photon emission is normally undetermined and consequently random and uncontrolled. A controlled and consequently not random event would be LASER emission by determined stimulation. That means the photon emission is either undetermined and random or controlled and determined. The contradiction of the terms ‘undetermined’ on one side and ‘not random’ / ‘controlled’ on the other side is already given on a logical and linguistic level. Thus the claim of libertarianism that free will decisions are simultaneously undetermined and controlled and not random is contradictory and impossible.

All indeterministic decisions are automatically random.
Indetermination and free will are mutually exclusive.
Libertarianism can be abandoned as philosophical line of thought.

In the Links section you can find an article in which I introduce a new methodology into philosophy.
Examples from physics are used to verify the meaning of terms.
In this article I proof my claim that all indeterministic decisions are automatically random.
(To be published.)