The Significance of Free Will [Hardcover]

In the past quarter-century, there has been a resurgence of interest in philosophical questions about free will. After a clear and broad-reaching survey of these recent debates, Robert Kane presents his own controversial view. Arguing persuasively for a traditional incompatibilist or libertarian conception of free will, Kane demonstrates that such a conception can be made intelligible without appeals to obscure or mysterious forms of agency and thus can be reconciled with a contemporary scientific picture of the world.

1. Introduction
I. The Ascent Problem:Compatibility and Significance
2. Will
3. Responsibility
4. Alternative Possibilities
5. Ultimate Responsibility
6. Significance
II. The Descent Problem: Intelligibility and Existence
7. Plurality and Indeterminism
8. Moral and Prudential Choice
9. Efforts, Purposes, and Practical Reason
10. Objections and Responses
11. Conclusion
Notes
References
Index

Provides the most fully articulated, the most comprehensive, and the best case for libertarianism that has ever been devised. --Richard Double,Edinboro University of Pennsylvania

A magisterial work [that] culminates twenty-five years of thinking about the problems of free will. For those who believe both that robust free will cannot survive in a deterministic climate and that a viable free will need be scientifically respectable, Kane's work may prove salvific. --Mark Bernstein,University of Texas at San Antonio

For more than a decade Robert Kane has vigorously defended libertarian free will in prose and print.Significancerepresents his definitive statement and it is a truly splendid book. Remarkably well organized and original,Significancerequires rethinking standard convictions in the freedom/determinism debate about explanation, causation, responsibility, and worth. It's a must read for philosophers, psychologistl“f