What are the matters in which We may be as free as we like?
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Answer:
CONTENTS
A. Main Concepts
B. The Case for Determinism
The Argument from Materialism
The Argument from Predictability
C. The Case for Genuine Free Will
The Feeling of Freedom
Moral Responsibility
Human Dignity
Personal Transformation
Indeterminacy
D. The Freedom of Action Alternative
Free vs. Unfree Actions
E. Free Will and God
Divine Foreknowledge and Free will
Divine Determinism and Divine Goodness
Divine Fate and Free will
Heaven and Free will
F. Does it Matter?
Study questions
A marketing company called Acxiom has collected detailed personal information on billions of consumers across the globe. Aside from the usual data such as your name, address and phone number, Acxiom knows your income, the kind of house you live in, car you drive, food you eat, pets you have, music you listen to, and even your exercise preference. With this information they group people into 70 different “life stage segments” and additional sub-groups. Knowing what kind of person you are, Acxiom is able to predict the things you will buy in the future. As Acxiom itself words it, “households' consumer behaviors are reflected in their shared life stage and similar socio-economic characteristics.” Acxiom then sells your consumer profile to other companies who target you to purchase their products, whether it is cat food or a treadmill. It may bother you to know that Acxiom is accumulating your personal information and passing it on to countless other businesses. But something even more sinister is going on: Acxiom presumes to know what you will buy even before you do. As unique as you think you are, your choices are shaped by socio-economic factors that make your buying behavior very predictable. From Acxiom’s standpoint, your conscious thinking process is irrelevant. What matters is the type of psychological machinery you have that pushes you towards some products and away from others.
The assumption behind Acxiom, and much of business marketing, is that our choices are determined by underlying psychological causes, and there is little place for free will. If a company cracks the code to those psychological causes, it will become rich. The issue of free will vs. determinism is among philosophy’s oldest controversies, and Acxiom’s consumer profiling is just a recent manifestation of what is at stake. Are our choices mechanically determined by prior psychological causes or can we break free from those constraints and make choices that are genuinely free? We will explore this question here.
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