TY - GEN
T1 - Free Will in Philosophy and in IS research
T2 - 42nd International Conference on Information Systems: Building Sustainability and Resilience with IS: A Call for Action, ICIS 2021 TREOs
AU - Kreps, David
AU - Rowe, Frantz
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 42nd International Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2021 TREOs: "Building Sustainability and Resilience with IS: A Call for Action". All Rights Reserved.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - If agency is the core capacity to act and autonomy is the capacity to act in an uncoerced manner, then free will is the condition of possibility in which agency and autonomy may occur. Greater philosophical clarity concerning free will - and determinism - can benefit a critical view of digital determinism, represented by the move toward dystopian futures. This paper presents some of the philosophical debate concerning the compatibility of free will and determinism. We survey the approaches in IS to free will and determinism and examine the impact of the philosophical approaches. We conclude that in IS, most scholars are compatibilists, believing in both free will and in determinism. We find that a critical view of digital determinism can help more positivist IS scholars better appreciate their own support for free will. We highlight the importance of an understanding of free will to the practice of ethics.
AB - If agency is the core capacity to act and autonomy is the capacity to act in an uncoerced manner, then free will is the condition of possibility in which agency and autonomy may occur. Greater philosophical clarity concerning free will - and determinism - can benefit a critical view of digital determinism, represented by the move toward dystopian futures. This paper presents some of the philosophical debate concerning the compatibility of free will and determinism. We survey the approaches in IS to free will and determinism and examine the impact of the philosophical approaches. We conclude that in IS, most scholars are compatibilists, believing in both free will and in determinism. We find that a critical view of digital determinism can help more positivist IS scholars better appreciate their own support for free will. We highlight the importance of an understanding of free will to the practice of ethics.
KW - determinism
KW - digital transformation
KW - ethics
KW - Free will
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85185694064
M3 - Conference Publication
AN - SCOPUS:85185694064
T3 - 42nd International Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2021 TREOs: "Building Sustainability and Resilience with IS: A Call for Action"
BT - 42nd International Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2021 TREOs
PB - Association for Information Systems
Y2 - 12 December 2021 through 15 December 2021
ER -