Do We Have Free Will? : A Debate

✍ Scribed by Robert Kane; Carolina Sartorio; Saul Smilansky

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 233
• Series: Little Debates About Big Questions
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

In this little but profound volume, Robert Kane and Carolina Sartorio debate a perennial question: Do We Have Free Will?　　

Kane introduces and defends libertarianism about free will: free will is incompatible with determinism; we are free; we are not determined. Sartorio introduces and defends compatibilism about free will: free will is compatible with determinism; we can be free even while our actions are determined through and through. Simplifying tricky　terminology and complicated concepts for readers new to the debate, the authors also cover the latest developments on a controversial topic that gets us entangled in questions about blameworthiness and responsibility, coercion and control, and much more.　

Each author first presents their own side, and then they interact through two rounds of objections and replies. Pedagogical features include standard form arguments, section summaries, bolded key terms and principles, a glossary, and annotated reading lists. Short, lively and accessible, the debate showcases diverse and cutting-edge work on free will. As per Saul Smilansky’s foreword, Kane and Sartorio, "present the readers with two things at once: an introduction to the traditional free will problem; and a demonstration of what a great yet very much alive and relevant philosophical problem is like."

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Foreword
Opening Statements
1 The Problem of Free Will: A Libertarian Perspective
Introduction: An Ancient Problem with Modern Significance
1. Modern Debates and Views
2. The Compatibility Question: Alternative Possibilities and Ultimate Responsibility
3. Self-forming Actions
4. Freedom of Action and Freedom of Will: AP and UR
5. Plurality Conditions and Plural Voluntary Control
6. Will-Setting and Self-formation
7. The Compatibility Question Revisited: Free Will and Moral Responsibility
8. Fair Opportunity to Avoid Wrongdoing: Hart and Others
9. Reactive Attitudes, Criminal Trials and Transference of Responsibility
10. Transference of Responsibility and Compatibility Questions
11. Two Dimensions of Responsibility
12. Compatibilist Responses (I): Conditional Analyses
13. Compatibilist Responses (II): Frankfurt-Style Examples
14. The Intelligibility Question
15. Indeterminism: Empirical and Philosophical Questions
16. Initial Pieces: Self-formation, Efforts, Willpower, Volitional Streams
17. Indeterminism and Responsibility
18. Initial Questions and Objections: Indeterminism and Chance
19. Further Questions and Objections: Phenomenology and Rationality
20. Micro vs. Macro Control
21. Control and Responsibility
22. Agency, Complexity, Disappearing Agents
23. Regress Objections: Responsibility and Character Development
24. The Explanatory Luck Objection: Authors, Stories, Value Experiments and Liberum Arbitrium
25. Contrastive Explanations: Concluding Remarks on Huck Finn and Other Literary Figures
2 Free Will and Determinism: A Compatibilism
Introduction
1. What Is a Theory of Free Will?
2. A Sketch of a Theory of Free Will
3. The Free Will Problem: Compatibilism and Incompatibilism
4. The Motivation for Compatibilism
5. Incompatibilist Arguments: Part I
6. Incompatibilist Arguments: Part II
Conclusions
First Round of Replies
3 Reply to Carolina Sartorio’s Opening Statement
Introduction: On Acting Freely: Some Significant Agreements
1. Acting Freely and Free Will: Some Significant Differences
2. Critique of Incompatibilist Views (Part I): The Consequence Argument and Being Powerless over the Past and Laws
3. Critique of Incompatibilist Views (Part II): Being Powerless and Acting Freely
4. Idle Aliens, Frankfurt-Style Examples and the Ability to Do Otherwise
5. Will-Setting, Responsibility and the Ability to Do Otherwise
6. Critique of Incompatibilist Views (Part III): Design Arguments
7. Free Will, Design Arguments and Religious Questions
Conclusion: Freedom, Determinism, Indeterminism, Causation and Control
4 Reply to Bob Kane’s Opening Statement
Introduction
1. Incompatibilist Arguments and Incompatibilist Intuitions
2. Does Free Will Have to Be a Struggle?
3. SFAs, Indeterminism and Alternative Possibilities
Second Round of Replies
5 Reply to Carolina Sartorio’s Reply to My Opening Statement
1. Determinism, Formative Circumstances and the Young Man at Trial
2. Free Will and Struggle
3. Self-forming Actions, Indeterminism and Alternative Possibilities
4. Intuitions and Aspirations
6 Reply to Bob Kane’s Reply to My Opening Statement
1. Indeterminism and Free Will
2. Leeway Compatibilism: The Consequence Argument and “Weak” Abilities
3. Source Compatibilism and Frankfurt-Style Cases
4. Concluding Remarks
Further Readings
Glossary
References
Index