Beattie and Grice: 'freewill' sentences as true

By JLS
for the GC

James Beattie (1735-1803) is a British philosopher, discussed by J. Harris in his landmark study, "Liberty and necessity: the free will debate in eighteenth-century British philosophy"."

"In his very popular "Essay on the nature and immutability of Truth in opposition to sophistry and scepticism" (1771-1774) he reiterates Kames’s claim that we have a natural belief in the freedom of will, but argues that this belief is so strong and universal, and so essential to morality and religion, that there is no reason to answer arguments which purport to show it to be
FALSE.

Such an approach to the free will question is to be found also in writers such as Berkeley, Butler, Price, and Johnson.