Abstract

Galen Strawson has argued that genuine freedom and responsibility are impossible for human agents because there is an infinite regress in determining the ultimate principles of choice of our action. This essay attempts to refute this position by providing a Confucian argument that (1) one's choice of the principles by means of which one chooses to act in a particular way can be made through a deliberative process that examines what Strawson seems to consider higher-order principles of choice in comparison to other possibilities, and that (2) this fact makes it possible that Strawson's infinite regress does not really occur.

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