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Will_Newsome comments on Rationality quotes January 2012 - Less Wrong
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Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Question 83, Article 1
Is that just a theist version of compatibilist free will? Or an assertion that somehow you could create something without being responsible for its future actions, either by creating the policy that decided them or making them dependent on a source of randomness?
The former.
As Jack says, it's the "theist version" of compatibilist free will, but you can replace "God" with "the universe" and the point goes through, Aquinas uses God because he's trying to build up a coherent metaphysics. And quite successfully! He gave the "right answer" to the "free will problem" off-the-cuff as if it was no big deal. This raises my confidence that Aquinas is also insightful when he discusses things I don't yet understand, like faith.
Aquinas gives all his answers off-the-cuff as if they were no big deal.
As far as early compatibilists go I prefer Chrysippus.
Is this down voted because it has the word "God" in it?
It doesn't really have the form of a "rationality quote". It's too long to be quotable, not directly bearing on rationality, and doesn't give rationality-warm-fuzzies like "that which can be destroyed by the truth should be".
That said, probably yes.
I think it is hard to dispute that several such statements have been upvoted in recent rationality quote threads.
Well, I downvoted it because it essentially replaces one ungrounded assumption (or rather, the answer to a wrong question,) with another ungrounded assumption. It's an exercise in rationalization, not rationality.