He seems to have been influenced by Ayn Rand. She also uses the “law of causality” to mean what other people mean by “determinism”.But determinism isn’t defined as “every effect has a cause”, it’s defined as “every event has a cause”. How can Caplan deny that his choices are events? of course, if he is a dualist he can deny that they are physical events....
His observation that he is not aware of the source of his choices is subjective. His choices are caused by neural activity, whether he is aware of it it or not. But that doesn’t prove determinism, because knowing that there is some sort of physics behind decision making isn’t enough to show there is deterministic physics behind it. Neither naive subjectivism ,nor generic physicalism is enough to solve the problem.
He seems to have been influenced by Ayn Rand. She also uses the “law of causality” to mean what other people mean by “determinism”.But determinism isn’t defined as “every effect has a cause”, it’s defined as “every event has a cause”. How can Caplan deny that his choices are events? of course, if he is a dualist he can deny that they are physical events....
His observation that he is not aware of the source of his choices is subjective. His choices are caused by neural activity, whether he is aware of it it or not. But that doesn’t prove determinism, because knowing that there is some sort of physics behind decision making isn’t enough to show there is deterministic physics behind it. Neither naive subjectivism ,nor generic physicalism is enough to solve the problem.