Free will and culpability before the law

http://bjoern.brembs.net/news.php?item.806.5

Free will and culpability before the law

The next speaker at this meeting here was Reinhard Merkel, professor of law at the university in Hamburg. He started with the distinction between different kinds of freedom. He started with the distinction between different kinds of freedom. He cited Kant, but only as a reference to what e was not going to talk about. Instead, he emphasized freedom as the absence of inevitability. Colloquially, he referred to this concept as PAP: "principle of alternative possibilities", i.e., 'I could have done otherwise'.

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In conclusion, this was a very interesting and very eloquently presented talk, albeit with very little new content. It helped to better understand things I had already read about - the usual effect of someone actually explaining something in person, rather than with just words. I thoroughly enjoyed this presentation and it definitely helped to consolidate what little I had previously learned about the topic of culpability and the law. I'm looking forward to the podium which will start right after the Q&A after this presentation.