Libertarian free will : contemporary debates

Author(s)

• Palmer, David

Bibliographic Information

Libertarian free will : contemporary debates

edited by David Palmer

Oxford University Press, c2014

• : bb

Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. [215]-223) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

According to the libertarian position on free will, people sometimes exercise free will, but this freedom is incompatible with the truth of causal determinism. Frequently maligned within the history of philosophy, this view has recently gained increasingly sympathetic attention among philosophers. But stark questions remain: How plausible is this view? If our actions are not causally determined, how can we have control over them? Why should we want our actions to be breaks in the deterministic causal chain? The recent resurgence of interest in libertarianism is due, most significantly, to Robert Kane, who is the leading contemporary defender of this view of free will. This book is a collection of new essays on the libertarian position on free will and related issues that focuses specifically on the views of Kane. Written by a distinguished group of philosophers, the essays cover various areas of philosophy including metaphysics, ethics, and philosophy of mind. Kane contributes a final essay, replying to the criticisms offered in the previous chapters and developing his view in new directions.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgements
• Contributors
• 1. Free will, libertarianism, and Kane
• David Palmer
• Part I: Libertarian Theories of Free Will
• 2. Can an indeterministic cause leave a choice up to the agent?
• Carl Ginet
• 3. Free will and metaphysics
• Timothy O'Connor
• Part II: The Luck Objection
• 4. Kane, luck, and control: Trying to get by without too much effort
• Alfred Mele
• 5. Toward a solution to the luck problem
• John Martin Fischer
• Part III: Incompatibilism and Omissions
• 6. Compatibilist ultimacy: Resisting the threat of Kane's U condition
• Michael McKenna
• 7. The direct argument for incompatibilism
• David Widerker and Ira M. Schnall
• 8. Freedom, responsibility, and omitting to act
• Randolph Clarke
• Part IV: The Significance of Free Will
• 9. Responsibility for emotions, alternative possibilities, and reasons
• Ishtiyaque Haji
• 10. Moral responsibility, the reactive attitudes, and the significance of
• (libertarian) free will
• Dana Kay Nelkin
• 11. The dialectic of selfhood and the significance of free will
• Derk Pereboom
• Part V: Kane's Reply
• 12. New arguments in debates on libertarian free will: Responses to contributors
• Robert Kane
• References
• Index

by "Nielsen BookData"

• NCID: BB17362754
• ISBN:
  • 9780199860081
• LCCN: 2014006492
• Country Code: uk
• Title Language Code: eng
• Text Language Code: eng
• Place of Publication: Oxford
• Pages/Volumes: vi, 235 p.
• Size: 25 cm
• Classification:
  • LCC : BJ1461
  • DC23 : 123/.5
• Subject Headings:
  • LCSH : Free will and determinism
  • LCSH : Libertarianism