Free Will

by Kane, Robert

• ISBN13: 9780631221012
• ISBN10: 0631221018
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-12-03
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

Free Will brings together the essential readings on the debate of free will and determinism. Written by top scholars in the field, the essays represent some of the clearest and most accessible thinking on this subject. The introduction offers a concise yet thorough mapping of this age-old debate as well as a helpful overview of the selections.

Author Biography

Robert Kane is University Distinguished Teaching Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Free Will and Values (1985), Through the Moral Maze (1994), and The Significance of Free Will (1996, winner of the first annual R. W. Hamilton Faculty Book Award).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	x
Introduction	1	(28)
Robert Kane
Part I: The Free Will Problem: Standard Positions: Compatibilism, Libertarianism, Hard and Soft Determinism
Walden Two: Freedom and the Behavioral Sciences	29	(10)
B. F. Skinner
The Compatibility of Freedom and Determinism	39	(8)
Kai Nielsen
Human Freedom and the Self	47	(12)
Roderick Chisholm
Hard and Soft Determinism	59	(12)
Paul Edwards
Part II: The Compatibility/Incompatibility Question: Alternative Possibilities and Moral Responsibility
The Incompatibility of Free Will and Determinism	71	(12)
Peter van Inwagen
I Could Not Have Done Otherwise -- So What?	83	(12)
Daniel Dennett
Frankfurt-style Examples, Responsibility and Semi-compatibilism	95	(16)
John Martin Fischer
The Explanatory Irrelevance of Alternative Possibilities	111	(16)
Derk Pereboom
Part III: Hierarchical Motivation, Deep Self Theories and Reactive Attitudes: New Compatibilist Theories
Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person	127	(18)
Harry Frankfurt
Sanity and the Metaphysics of Responsibility	145	(19)
Susan Wolf
Responsibility and the Limits of Evil: Variations on a Strawsonian Theme	164	(25)
Gary Watson
Part IV: The Intelligibility Question: Libertarian or Incompatibilist Views of Free Agency and Free Will
The Mystery of Metaphysical Freedom	189	(7)
Peter van Inwagen
The Agent as Cause	196	(10)
Timothy O'Connor
Freedom, Responsibility and Agency	206	(16)
Carl Ginet
Free Will: New Directions for an Ancient Problem	222	(27)
Robert Kane
Chess, Life and Superlife	249	(10)
David Hodgson
Part V: Religion and Free Will: Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom
Divine Foreknowledge, Evil, and the Free Choice of the Will	259	(5)
St. Augustine
God, Time, Knowledge and Freedom: The Historical Matrix	264	(20)
William Hasker
Glossary	284	(7)
Bibliography	291	(11)
Index	302