Posted: Feb 17, 2017 7:30 am
scott1328 wrote:Yes it is difficult to phrase counter factuals about options not chosen.
Nevertheless, presumably archibald is a reasonably normal human being with reasonably normal cognitive abilities, and an ability to read and comprehend the Fua,and also that another party was not coercing him to behave badly.
With those caveats in mind: archibald had available all that was needed to make a free choice to violate the fua on numerous occasions.
You too are free to choose to twist what I say to suit yourself.
Archibald might claim he was provoked (by me?), that because I didn't agree with him he felt compelled to keep arguing, which agitated him to an emotional state of insults and so on.
Another person would have handled it differently. On some other occasion Archibald would have handled it differently. If this occasion had been somehow different he would have made different choices. But on this occasion, in those precise circumstances, people made the choices they made. What's the point of of saying he could have done otherwise? Say he should have done otherwise, as guidance for the future. Say you would have done otherwise as a comparison.
You might say that's is what you meant, but then are in the free will topic and you used the phrase "to make a free choice"
I'd say it's similarly unhelpful for romansh to say "he could not have done otherwise". That seems as pointless as "he did what he did."