On Determinism and Freedom

✍ Scribed by Ted Honderich

• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 170
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The most recalcitrant problem of philosophy, free will, laid out and taken beyond unsatisfactory standard solutions by Britain's foremost working philosopher.

Determinism comes in many forms, some confused, some inconsistent, some incomplete. Some philosophers maintain that determinism is incompatible with true freedom. And others, that determinism is no threat to our freedom. But are these philosophers really assigning an 'unfreedom' to us and merely pretending that we are responsible for our choices and acts of love and violence?

Ted Honderich argues that there are strong reasons to think both positions wrong. Developing from where his earlier work left off, he considers there is a new and more difficult problem of determinism. It too can lead to the thought that we are unfree but morally responsible. As he demonstrates, the hardest and deepest question in philosophy needs a really different answer.