Date of Award
5-2023
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Philosophy
First Advisor
Eddy Nahmias
Second Advisor
Sebastian Rand
Abstract
Christian List argues that three requirements are “jointly necessary and sufficient” for free will: intentional agency, alternative possibilities, and causal control. In contrast, I argue that List’s accounts of intentional agency and alternative possibilities do not adequately explain how an agent has free will. Specifically, I argue that if an agent has free will, then it must also have phenomenality; because phenomenality determines the propositional contents of an agent’s intentional states. I demonstrate that List’s analysis of free will brackets phenomenality and, as such, an agent on his account may find itself in a permanent state of “choice paralysis,” a state in which it lacks the ability to choose due to the indeterminate content of its intentional states. I conclude by suggesting that philosophers must adopt methodologies derived from both the third- and first-person perspectives in order to adequately explain how an agent with free will interacts with the environment.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.57709/33029338
Recommended Citation
MacBride, Ryne Smith, "Choice Paralysis: A Challenge from the Indeterminacy of Intentional Content." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2023.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/33029338
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