The following is JP Moreland's argument against physicalism taken from this site:
http://www.reasons.org/articles/body-and-soul-part-2-why-the-soul-is-immaterial
What do you think of his argument? I reject physicalism, but I don't agree with libertarian freedom and I don't think that all kinds of determinism are inconsistent with human freedom.
God predestines the actions of men and at the same time holds them accountable for their actions. One example of this is found in Acts 4:27-28. Herod, Pilate, the Gentiles, and the people of Israel did what God predestined them to do. They were still accountable for their actions. The kind of determinism taught in Acts 4:27-28 is not inconsistent with human responsibility. Their actions proceeded from their will and heart. They were not acting like unconscious, mindless machines.
http://www.reasons.org/articles/body-and-soul-part-2-why-the-soul-is-immaterial
What do you think of his argument? I reject physicalism, but I don't agree with libertarian freedom and I don't think that all kinds of determinism are inconsistent with human freedom.
God predestines the actions of men and at the same time holds them accountable for their actions. One example of this is found in Acts 4:27-28. Herod, Pilate, the Gentiles, and the people of Israel did what God predestined them to do. They were still accountable for their actions. The kind of determinism taught in Acts 4:27-28 is not inconsistent with human responsibility. Their actions proceeded from their will and heart. They were not acting like unconscious, mindless machines.
To say that a human is a free will being is to say that humans exercise what is called libertarian freedom: Given choices A and B, a person can literally choose either one. No circumstances exist that are sufficient to determine a choice. A person’s choice is up to the individual, and if Mom does A or B, she could have done otherwise. She acts as an agent who is the first cause or ultimate originator of her own actions. Moreover, her reasons for acting do not partially or fully cause her actions, she does. Rather, her reasons are the teleological goals—the purposes or the ends—for the sake of which she acts. If Mom takes a nap because she’s tired, the desire to satisfy her need for rest is the end for the sake of which she acts freely.
If physicalism is true, then human free will does not exist. Instead, determinism is true. If Mom is purely a physical system, nothing in her has the capacity to freely choose to do something. Material systems, at least large-scale ones, change over time in deterministic fashion according to the initial conditions of the system and the laws of chemistry and physics to which such systems are subject. A pot of water reaches a certain temperature at a given time in a way determined by the amount of water, the input of heat, and the laws of heat transfer.
Moral obligation and responsibility make little or no sense if determinism is true. Morality seems to presuppose freedom of the will. If Mom “ought” to do something, it seems necessary to suppose that she can do it, that she is in control of her actions. No one would say that she ought to jump to the top of a fifty-floor building to save a baby, or that she ought to stop the American Civil War. Clearly, she does not have the ability. If physicalism is true, Mom does not have any genuine ability to choose her actions. Further, since free acts seem to be for the sake of goals or ends, if physicalism (or mere property dualism) is true, there is no ultimate purpose and, thus, there can be no libertarian free acts.
One may safely say that physicalism requires a radical revision of common-sense notions about freedom, moral obligation, responsibility, and punishment. On the other hand, if these common-sense notions are true, physicalism is false.
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