LessonsHuman Capacity: Power, Action, and ConditionsQuiz

In the commonly reported Muʿtazilī account, capacity exists before an act, allowing a person to choose between acting and refraining. For that account, pre-existing power is important to explaining responsibility and obligation.

The position defended here instead locates the specific power of an act alongside that act. This does not imply that a human being is wholly helpless in every respect before acting.

One source of the disagreement is terminological: one account calls the previously available ability to act 'capacity,' while the other reserves the relevant technical term for power connected to the actual occurrence.

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Before the act or with it?

Human Capacity: Power, Action, and Conditions

In the commonly reported Muʿtazilī account, capacity exists before an act, allowing a person to choose between acting and refraining. For that account, pre-existing power is important to explaining responsibility and obligation.

The position defended here instead locates the specific power of an act alongside that act. This does not imply that a human being is wholly helpless in every respect before acting.

One source of the disagreement is terminological: one account calls the previously available ability to act 'capacity,' while the other reserves the relevant technical term for power connected to the actual occurrence.