Free Will [Hardcover]

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.

Introduction (Robert Kane).

Part I: The Free Will Problem: Standard Positions: Compatibilism, Libertarianism, Hard and Soft Determinism.

1. Walden Two: Freedom and the Behavioral Sciences (B. F. Skinner).

2. The Compatibility of Freedom and Determinism (Kai Nielsen).

3. Human Freedom and the Self (Roderick Chisholm).

4. Hard and Soft Determinism (Paul Edwards).

Part II: The Compatibility / Incompatibility Question: Alternative Possibilities and Moral Responsibility.

5. The Incompatibility of Free Will and Determinism (Peter van Inwagen).

6. I Could Not Have Done Otherwise -– So What? (Daniel Dennett).

7. Frankfurt-style Examples, Responsibility and Semi-compatibilism (John Martin Fischer).

8. The Explanatory Irrelevance of Alternative Possibilities (Derk Pereboom).

Part III: Hierarchical Motivation, Deep Self Theories and Reactive Attitudes: New Compatibilist Theories.

9. Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person (Harry Frankfurt).

10. Sanity and the Metaphysics of Responsibility (Susan Wolf).

11. Responsibility and the Limits of Evil; Variations on a Strawsonian Theme (Gary Watson).

Part IV: The Intelligibility Question: Libertarian or Incompatibilist Views of Free Agency and Free Will.