Libertarian Accounts of Free Will

by Randolph Clarke

Overview

This comprehensive study offers a balanced assessment of libertarian accounts of free will. Bringing to bear recent work on action, causation, and causal explanation, Clarke defends a type of event-causal view from popular objections concerning rationality and diminished control. He subtly explores the extent to which event-causal accounts can secure the things for the sake of which we value free will, judging their success here to be limited. Clarke then sets out a highly original agent-causal account, one that integrates agent causation and nondeterministic event causation. He defends this view from a number of objections but argues that we should find the substance causation required by any agent-causal account to be impossible. Clarke concludes that if a broad thesis of incompatibilism is correct—one on which both free will and moral responsibility are incompatible with determinism—then no libertarian account is entirely adequate.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195159875
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	10/16/2003
Pages:	254
Product dimensions:	9.46(w) x 6.64(h) x 0.89(d)
Lexile:	1460L (what's this?)

About the Author

University of Georgia

Table of Contents

Introduction1. Incompatibilism. 2. Active Control and Causation. 3. Event-Causal Accounts and the Problem of Explanation. 4. Deliberative Libertarian Accounts. 5. The Problem of Diminished Control. 6. The Problem of Value. 7. The Freedom of Decisions and Other Actions. 8. An Integrated Agent-Causal Account. 9. Agent Causation and Control. 10. Substance and Cause. ConclusionReferencesIndex

Editorial Reviews

"Clarke's book marks a leop forward in our understanding of all the various forms of incompatibilism."—Gideon Yaffe, The Journal of Ethics

"This book is an important contribution to the debate on free will. Clarke provides a careful and comprehensive assessment of a variety of libertarian accounts. He displays impressive command of the subject and argues with subtlety and ingenuity. As far as I can tell, he significantly advances the discussion about such central issues as the problem of active control and the possibility of agent causation."—Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

From the Publisher