[b]
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Scare quotes here are always tricky. And that is because the meaning of the words inside them can become rather convoluted when we try to pin down precisely what the person using them is trying to convey. Thus what is the precise distinction between “free” and “will” inside the quotes and free and will that stand alone?
And yet over and again in arguments/analyses like this the discussion will go on and on without once situating this distinction in actual human conflicts – disputations that result in behaviors chosen as a result of clashing value judgments. The part “down here” that result in moral judgments. That can then result in blame and punishment.
And the word “random”. It would seem that in a wholly determined world nothing is ever random. It might seem that way to some, but everything is always accounted for by the laws of matter. And by everything that would seem to include every mental, emotional and psychological variable that compels us to choose this rather than that – whether it is Mary “choosing” to abort her baby or Jack “choosing” to rape Jane. Once the scare quotes are employed the “choice” would seem to be only an illusion given the manner in which the libertarian above construes these things.
Something occuring “by chance” means only that any partiocular individual has but so much understanding of the world around her. And thus only so much control. Mary might have become pregnant “by chance”. But the pregnancy itself doesn’t just happen “out of the blue”. It just means that she had not intended to become pregnant but did. And now she has to decided [willfully or not] what to do about it.