ABSTRACT
In the present paper I shall endeavor to relate a typical view of one so-called ‘libertarian.’ I am not primarily concerned with pointing out confusions, let alone ‘disproving’ the view, but with an attempt at understanding how a libertarian arrives at his position. My contention is that a libertarian is to be understood as a person who is dissatisfied with our empirical conditions and therefore introduces certain transempirical concepts which lead him to his libertarian and so called ‘indeterministic’ view. My primary concern in this connexion is the transempirical entities; the ‘indeterministic’ position and the fatuous notion of ‘uncaused decisions’ are secondary, something a libertarian only defends because it would otherwise be even more difficult to believe what he apparently insists in believing. There are many types of libertarian views; I shall here confine myself to one example, the view defended by L. J. Russell in his article ‘Ought implies can.’1 I select this article because it is authoritative, and considered in many respects representative of the libertarian view, and because it seems to support my general contention at least in so far as L. J. Russell is to be classified (which I assume): a libertarian.
