Freedom Within Reason

by Susan R. Wolf

Overview

Offering a new view of the conditions of freedom and responsibility, Wolf here makes a case for freedom as the ability to act in accordance with one's values and the ability to form one's values in light of an appreciation of the True and the Good.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198022299
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	02/29/2000
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Lexile:	1550L (what's this?)
File size:	212 KB

About the Author

Johns Hopkins University

Table of Contents

1.	The Dilemma of Autonomy (In Which the Problems of Responsibility and Free Will Are Presented)	3
	Setting Up the Problem(s): The Dilemma of Autonomy	4
	Defending the Problem as a Problem: The Metaphysical Stance	15
2.	The Real Self View (In Which a Nonautonomous Conception of Free Will and Responsibility is Examined and Criticized)	23
	Relating the Problems of Free Will and Responsibility to Determinism	24
	Avoiding Autonomy: Developing the Idea of an Agent's Real Self	26
	Problems with the Real Self View	35
3.	The Autonomy View (In Which an Autonomous Conception of Free Will and Responsibility Is Examined and Criticized)	46
	The Apparent (but Only Apparent) Autonomy of Valuing Selves	49
	Autonomy as the Ability to Make Radical Choices	53
	The (Non) Desirability of Autonomy	55
	A Last Voice in Favor of Autonomy: The Skeptic's Perspective	62
4.	The Reason View (In Which a Nonautonomous Conception of Free Will and Responsibility Is Proposed)	67
	The Reason View Compared with the Autonomy View	68
	The Reason View Compared with the Real Self View	73
	The Reason View as an Intermediary between the Other Views	76
	The Asymmetry of the Reason View	79
	The Reason View Applied	81
	Blameworthiness According to the Reason View	85
	The Unity and Spirit of the Reason View	89
5.	Ability and Possibility (In Which the Implications of Determinism for Responsibility Are Discussed)	94
	Determinism and the Reason View	96
	Conditional Analyses of Ability	97
	An Alternative Characterization of Ability	100
	The Story	103
	The Moral of the Story	112
6.	The True and the Good (In Which the Metaethical Assumptions of the Reason View Are Examined)	117
	The Role of "the True and the Good" in the Reason View	118
	The Metaethical Spectrum	123
	Varieties of Antiobjectivism	126
	Conceptual Subjectivism's Implications for the Reason View	132
	Normative Pluralism and Its Conjunction with the Reason View	135
	How Much Freedom (and Reason) Do We Need?	142
	Notes	149
	Selected Readings	155
	Index	159