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title: Init — Claims & Contradictions
===
[C1]: The debate concerns whether human beings possess genuine free will. #structural
[C2]: The debate concerns whether free will can be meaningfully tested or evidenced. #structural
+ [C1]
[C3]: The pro-free-will position holds that people are not merely passive products of prior causes. #structural
+ [C1]
[C4]: The pro-free-will position holds that people are agents capable of choosing among alternatives for reasons they recognize as their own. #structural
+ [C3]
[C5]: On the pro-free-will view, deliberation is not an illusion. #logical
+ [C4]
[C6]: On the pro-free-will view, moral responsibility is not an illusion. #logical
+ [C4]
[C7]: On the pro-free-will view, the phenomenology of choice is not an illusion. #logical
+ [C4]
[C8]: On the pro-free-will view, deliberation, moral responsibility, and the phenomenology of choice reflect a real capacity to initiate action. #logical
+ [C5]
+ [C6]
+ [C7]
[C9]: The capacity associated with free will is not fully reducible to prior physical states or external compulsion. #logical
+ [C8]
[C10]: Free will is best understood as the power to act according to one's reasons, values, and intentions. #definitional
[C11]: Free will is not best understood as being driven by coercion or brute impulse. #definitional
+ [C10]
[C12]: Ordinary experience is evidence that agency is real. #empirical
+ [C10]
[C13]: Legal practice is evidence that agency is real. #empirical
+ [C10]
[C14]: Moral practice is evidence that agency is real. #empirical
+ [C10]
[C15]: Cases in which people resist temptation are evidence that agency is real. #empirical
+ [C10]
[C16]: Cases in which people revise decisions after reflection are evidence that agency is real. #empirical
+ [C10]
[C17]: Neuroscience and psychology can at most describe the mechanisms of decision-making. #empirical
[C18]: Neuroscience and psychology do not eliminate the first-person reality of choosing. #logical
+ [C17]
[C19]: Free will is not purely metaphysical speculation. #structural
+ [C20]
[C20]: Free will can be assessed indirectly through experiments on decision-making, self-control, counterfactual reasoning, and responsiveness to reasons. #structural
[C21]: No single laboratory test can prove libertarian free will in an absolute sense. #logical
+ [C20]
[C22]: A convergence of behavioral and philosophical evidence can support the conclusion that humans exercise genuine agency. #logical
+ [C21]
[C23]: Humans exercise genuine agency in at least a robust compatibilist sense. #logical
+ [C22]
<contra_1>: C2 speaks broadly about whether free will can be meaningfully tested or evidenced, while C21 narrows the point to the impossibility of a single labora #ambiguity
// A: C2 [structural] (informal) depends:C1
"The debate concerns whether free will c
// B: C21 [logical] (informal) depends:C20
"No single laboratory test can prove libe
<contra_2>: C20 affirms indirect experimental assessability, while C21 denies absolute proof by any single lab test. These are compatible if "assessed" is weaker #tension
// A: C20 [structural] (informal)
"Free will can be assessed indirectly through expe
// B: C21 [logical] (informal) depends:C20
"No single laboratory test can prove libe
<contra_3>: C1 frames the issue as "genuine free will," whereas C23 concludes only that humans have genuine agency in a compatibilist sense. If "genuine free will #ambiguity
// A: C1 [structural] (informal)
"The debate concerns whether human beings possess g
// B: C23 [logical] (informal) depends:C22
"Humans exercise genuine agency in at lea