Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility

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Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 073917732X
Total Pages : 335 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (391 download)

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Book Synopsis Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility by : Gregg D. Caruso

Download or read book Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility written by Gregg D. Caruso and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2013-07-05 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility investigates the philosophical and scientific arguments for free will skepticism and their implications. Skepticism about free will and moral responsibility has been on the rise in recent years. In fact, a significant number of philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists now either doubt or outright deny the existence of free will and/or moral responsibility—and the list of prominent skeptics appears to grow by the day. Given the profound importance that the concepts of free will and moral responsibility hold in our lives—in understanding ourselves, society, and the law—it is important that we explore what is behind this new wave of skepticism. It is also important that we explore the potential consequences of skepticism for ourselves and society. Edited by Gregg D. Caruso, this collection of new essays brings together an internationally recognized line-up of contributors, most of whom hold skeptical positions of some sort, to display and explore the leading arguments for free will skepticism and to debate their implications.

Free Will and Moral Responsibility

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Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1443853232
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (438 download)

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Book Synopsis Free Will and Moral Responsibility by : Justin Caouette

Download or read book Free Will and Moral Responsibility written by Justin Caouette and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2013-10-03 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Determinism is, roughly, the thesis that facts about the past and the laws of nature entail all truths. A venerable, age-old dilemma concerning responsibility distils to this: if either determinism is true or it is not true, we lack “responsibility-grounding” control. Either determinism is true or it is not true. So, we lack responsibility-grounding control. Deprived of such control, no one is ever morally responsible for anything. A number of the freshly-minted essays in this collection address aspects of this dilemma. Responding to the horn that determinism undermines the freedom that responsibility (or moral obligation) requires, the freedom to do otherwise, some papers in this collection debate the merits of Frankfurt-style examples that purport to show that one can be responsible despite lacking alternatives. Responding to the horn that indeterminism implies luck or randomness, other papers discuss the strengths or shortcomings of libertarian free will or control. Also included in this collection are essays on the freedom requirements of moral obligation, forgiveness and free will, a “desert-free” conception of free will, and vicarious legal and moral responsibility. The authors of the essays in this volume are philosophers who have made significant contributions to debates in free will, moral responsibility, moral obligation, the reactive attitudes, philosophy of action, and philosophical psychology, and include John Martin Fischer, Robert Kane, Michael McKenna, Alfred Mele, and Derk Pereboom.

Hard Luck

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Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 019161906X
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (916 download)

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Book Synopsis Hard Luck by : Neil Levy

Download or read book Hard Luck written by Neil Levy and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2011-06-30 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concept of luck has played an important role in debates concerning free will and moral responsibility, yet participants in these debates have relied upon an intuitive notion of what luck is. Neil Levy develops an account of luck, which is then applied to the free will debate. He argues that the standard luck objection succeeds against common accounts of libertarian free will, but that it is possible to amend libertarian accounts so that they are no more vulnerable to luck than is compatibilism. But compatibilist accounts of luck are themselves vulnerable to a powerful luck objection: historical compatibilisms cannot satisfactorily explain how agents can take responsibility for their constitutive luck; non-historical compatibilisms run into insurmountable difficulties with the epistemic condition on control over action. Levy argues that because epistemic conditions on control are so demanding that they are rarely satisfied, agents are not blameworthy for performing actions that they take to be best in a given situation. It follows that if there are any actions for which agents are responsible, they are akratic actions; but even these are unacceptably subject to luck. Levy goes on to discuss recent non-historical compatibilisms, and argues that they do not offer a viable alternative to control-based compatibilisms. He suggests that luck undermines our freedom and moral responsibility no matter whether determinism is true or not.

Essays on Free Will and Moral Responsibility

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Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1443810762
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (438 download)

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Book Synopsis Essays on Free Will and Moral Responsibility by : Daniel Cohen

Download or read book Essays on Free Will and Moral Responsibility written by Daniel Cohen and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2009-05-05 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The problem of free will has fascinated philosophers since ancient times: Do we have free will, or at least the kind of free will that seems necessary for moral responsibility? Does determinism – the idea that everything that happens is necessitated to happen, given the past and the laws of nature – threaten the commonly held assumption that we are indeed free and morally responsible? Although these questions have been widely discussed in the past, the present volume offers a variety of new perspectives from philosophers who have made significant contributions to this debate over recent years, including Derk Pereboom, Robert Kane, Ishtiyaque Haji, Michael McKenna, John Martin Fischer, David Widerker and Saul Smilansky. The emphasis in these essays is not merely on free will, but on allied notions such as moral responsibility, moral obligation, fairness and meaningfulness, and on whether any room can be made for these notions in a deterministic or an indeterministic universe.

Freedom and Determinism

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Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 9780262532570
Total Pages : 342 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (325 download)

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Book Synopsis Freedom and Determinism by : Joseph Keim Campbell

Download or read book Freedom and Determinism written by Joseph Keim Campbell and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A state-of-the-art collection of previously unpublished essays on the topics of determinism, free will, moral responsibility, and action theory, written by some of the most important figures in these fields of study.

Moral Psychology, Volume 4

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Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262321491
Total Pages : 493 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (623 download)

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Book Synopsis Moral Psychology, Volume 4 by : Walter Sinnott-Armstrong

Download or read book Moral Psychology, Volume 4 written by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2014-02-21 with total page 493 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leading philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists address issues of moral responsibility and free will, drawing on new findings from empirical science. Traditional philosophers approached the issues of free will and moral responsibility through conceptual analysis that seldom incorporated findings from empirical science. In recent decades, however, striking developments in psychology and neuroscience have captured the attention of many moral philosophers. This volume of Moral Psychology offers essays, commentaries, and replies by leading philosophers and scientists who explain and use empirical findings from psychology and neuroscience to illuminate old and new problems regarding free will and moral responsibility. The contributors—who include such prominent scholars as Patricia Churchland, Daniel Dennett, and Michael Gazzaniga—consider issues raised by determinism, compatibilism, and libertarianism; epiphenomenalism, bypassing, and naturalism; naturalism; and rationality and situationism. These writings show that although science does not settle the issues of free will and moral responsibility, it has enlivened the field by asking novel, profound, and important questions. Contributors Roy F. Baumeister, Tim Bayne, Gunnar Björnsson, C. Daryl Cameron, Hanah A. Chapman, William A. Cunningham, Patricia S. Churchland, Christopher G. Coutlee, Daniel C. Dennett, Ellen E. Furlong, Michael S. Gazzaniga, Patrick Haggard, Brian Hare, Lasana T. Harris, John-Dylan Haynes, Richard Holton, Scott A. Huettel, Robert Kane, Victoria K. Lee, Neil Levy, Alfred R. Mele, Christian Miller, Erman Misirlisoy, P. Read Montague, Thomas Nadelhoffer, Eddy Nahmias, William T. Newsome, B. Keith Payne, Derk Pereboom, Adina L. Roskies, Laurie R. Santos, Timothy Schroeder, Michael N. Shadlen, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Chandra Sripada, Christopher L. Suhler, Manuel Vargas, Gideon Yaffe

Moral Responsibility

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Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 9400718780
Total Pages : 252 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (7 download)

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Book Synopsis Moral Responsibility by : Nicole A. Vincent

Download or read book Moral Responsibility written by Nicole A. Vincent and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-08-17 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is well over a decade since John Fischer and Mark Ravizza – and before them, Jay Wallace and Daniel Dennett – defended responsibility from the threat of determinism. But defending responsibility from determinism is a potentially endless and largely negative enterprise; it can go on for as long as dissenting voices remain, and although such work strengthens the theoretical foundations of these theories, it won’t necessarily build anything on top of those foundations, nor will it move these theories into new territory or explain how to apply them to practical contexts. To this end, the papers in this volume address these more positive challenges by exploring how compatibilist responsibility theory can be extended and/or applied in a range of practical contexts. For instance, how is the narrow philosophical concept of responsibility that was defended from the threat of determinism related to the plural notions of responsibility present in everyday discourse, and how might this more fine-grained understanding of responsibility open up new vistas and challenges for compatibilist theory? What light might compatibilism shed, and what light might be shed upon it, by political debates about access to public welfare in the context of responsibility for one’s own health, and by legal debates about the impact of self-intoxication on responsibility. Does compatibilist theory, which was originally designed to cater for analysis of individual actions, scale to scenarios that involve group action and collective responsibility — e.g. for harms due to human-induced climate change? This book’s chapters deal with a range of theoretical problems discussed in classic compatibilist literature — e.g. the relationship between responsibility and capacity, the role of historical tracing in discounting the exculpatory value of incapacities, and the justifiability of retributive punishment. But instead of motivating their discussions by focusing on the alleged threat that determinism poses to responsibility, these chapters’ authors have animated their discussions by tackling important practical problems which crop up in contemporary debates about responsibility.

Just Deserts

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Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1509545778
Total Pages : 145 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (95 download)

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Book Synopsis Just Deserts by : Daniel C. Dennett

Download or read book Just Deserts written by Daniel C. Dennett and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-01-14 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concept of free will is profoundly important to our self-understanding, our interpersonal relationships, and our moral and legal practices. If it turns out that no one is ever free and morally responsible, what would that mean for society, morality, meaning, and the law? Just Deserts brings together two philosophers – Daniel C. Dennett and Gregg D. Caruso – to debate their respective views on free will, moral responsibility, and legal punishment. In three extended conversations, Dennett and Caruso present their arguments for and against the existence of free will and debate their implications. Dennett argues that the kind of free will required for moral responsibility is compatible with determinism – for him, self-control is key; we are not responsible for becoming responsible, but are responsible for staying responsible, for keeping would-be puppeteers at bay. Caruso takes the opposite view, arguing that who we are and what we do is ultimately the result of factors beyond our control, and because of this we are never morally responsible for our actions in the sense that would make us truly deserving of blame and praise, punishment and reward. Just Deserts introduces the concepts central to the debate about free will and moral responsibility by way of an entertaining, rigorous, and sometimes heated philosophical dialogue between two leading thinkers.

Bound

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Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0199291845
Total Pages : 199 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (992 download)

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Book Synopsis Bound by : Shaun Nichols

Download or read book Bound written by Shaun Nichols and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shaun Nichols offers a naturalistic, psychological account of the origins of the problem of free will. He argues that our belief in indeterminist choice is grounded in faulty inference and therefore unjustified, goes on to suggest that there is no single answer to whether free will exists, and promotes a pragmatic approach to prescriptive issues.

Against Moral Responsibility

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Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262016591
Total Pages : 365 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (62 download)

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Book Synopsis Against Moral Responsibility by : Bruce N. Waller

Download or read book Against Moral Responsibility written by Bruce N. Waller and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2011-10-14 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A vigorous attack on moral responsibility in all its forms argues that the abolition of moral responsibility will be liberating and beneficial. In Against Moral Responsibility, Bruce Waller launches a spirited attack on a system that is profoundly entrenched in our society and its institutions, deeply rooted in our emotions, and vigorously defended by philosophers from ancient times to the present. Waller argues that, despite the creative defenses of it by contemporary thinkers, moral responsibility cannot survive in our naturalistic-scientific system. The scientific understanding of human behavior and the causes that shape human character, he contends, leaves no room for moral responsibility. Waller argues that moral responsibility in all its forms—including criminal justice, distributive justice, and all claims of just deserts—is fundamentally unfair and harmful and that its abolition will be liberating and beneficial. What we really want—natural human free will, moral judgments, meaningful human relationships, creative abilities—would survive and flourish without moral responsibility. In the course of his argument, Waller examines the origins of the basic belief in moral responsibility, proposes a naturalistic understanding of free will, offers a detailed argument against moral responsibility and critiques arguments in favor of it, gives a general account of what a world without moral responsibility would look like, and examines the social and psychological aspects of abolishing moral responsibility. Waller not only mounts a vigorous, and philosophically rigorous, attack on the moral responsibility system, but also celebrates the benefits that would result from its total abolition.

The Limits of Free Will

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 019062762X
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (96 download)

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Book Synopsis The Limits of Free Will by : Paul Russell

Download or read book The Limits of Free Will written by Paul Russell and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-22 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Limits of Free Will presents influential articles by Paul Russell concerning free will and moral responsibility. The problems arising in this field of philosophy, which are deeply rooted in the history of the subject, are also intimately related to a wide range of other fields, such as law and criminology, moral psychology, theology, and, more recently, neuroscience. These articles were written and published over a period of three decades, although most have appeared in the past decade. Among the topics covered: the challenge of skepticism; moral sentiment and moral capacity; necessity and the metaphysics of causation; practical reason; free will and art; fatalism and the limits of agency; moral luck, and our metaphysical attitudes of optimism and pessimism. Some essays are primarily critical in character, presenting critiques and commentary on major works or contributions in the contemporary scene. Others are mainly constructive, aiming to develop and articulate a distinctive account of compatibilism. The general theory advanced by Russell, which he describes as a form of "critical compatibilism", rejects any form of unqualified or radical skepticism; but it also insists that a plausible compatibilism has significant and substantive implications about the limits of agency and argues that this licenses a metaphysical attitude of (modest) pessimism on this topic. While each essay is self-standing, there is nevertheless a core set of themes and issues that unite and link them together. The collection is arranged and organized in a format that enables the reader to appreciate and recognize these links and core themes.

Four Views on Free Will

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Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1405182040
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (51 download)

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Book Synopsis Four Views on Free Will by : John Martin Fischer

Download or read book Four Views on Free Will written by John Martin Fischer and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2009-02-04 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on the concepts and interactions of free will, moralresponsibility, and determinism, this text represents the mostup-to-date account of the four major positions in the free willdebate. Four serious and well-known philosophers explore the opposingviewpoints of libertarianism, compatibilism, hard incompatibilism,and revisionism The first half of the book contains each philosopher’sexplanation of his particular view; the second half allows them todirectly respond to each other’s arguments, in a lively andengaging conversation Offers the reader a one of a kind, interactive discussion Forms part of the acclaimed Great Debates in Philosophyseries

Our Fate

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199311293
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (993 download)

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Book Synopsis Our Fate by : John Martin Fischer

Download or read book Our Fate written by John Martin Fischer and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Our Fate' collects John Martin Fischer's previously published articles on the relationship between God's foreknowledge and human freedom. The book includes a substantial new introductory essay that puts all of the chapters into a cohesive framework, and presents a bold new account of God's foreknowledge of free actions in a causally indeterministic world.

The Possibility of Free Will and Moral Responsibility

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Author :
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
ISBN 13 : 3346008177
Total Pages : 11 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (46 download)

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Book Synopsis The Possibility of Free Will and Moral Responsibility by : Alexander Hölzl

Download or read book The Possibility of Free Will and Moral Responsibility written by Alexander Hölzl and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2019-09-04 with total page 11 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essay from the year 2018 in the subject Philosophy - Practical (Ethics, Aesthetics, Culture, Nature, Right, ...), grade: 2,0, University of Vienna (Department of Philosophy), language: English, abstract: This essay aims to argue against the common claim of philosophers and scientists that free will is just an illusion. My general thesis is that it is possible that we have a free will – and that we are morally responsible for our actions – if we understand free will as a potentiality that can be actualized – or not.

Free Will

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Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1451683405
Total Pages : 96 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (516 download)

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Book Synopsis Free Will by : Sam Harris

Download or read book Free Will written by Sam Harris and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-03-06 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times bestselling author of The End of Faith, a thought-provoking, "brilliant and witty" (Oliver Sacks) look at the notion of free will—and the implications that it is an illusion. A belief in free will touches nearly everything that human beings value. It is difficult to think about law, politics, religion, public policy, intimate relationships, morality—as well as feelings of remorse or personal achievement—without first imagining that every person is the true source of his or her thoughts and actions. And yet the facts tell us that free will is an illusion. In this enlightening book, Sam Harris argues that this truth about the human mind does not undermine morality or diminish the importance of social and political freedom, but it can and should change the way we think about some of the most important questions in life.

Determinism, Free Will, and Moral Responsibility

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Author :
Publisher : Prentice Hall
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 232 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Determinism, Free Will, and Moral Responsibility by : Gerald Dworkin

Download or read book Determinism, Free Will, and Moral Responsibility written by Gerald Dworkin and published by Prentice Hall. This book was released on 1970 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of liberty and necessity, by D. Hume.--The doctrine of necessity examined, by C.S. Peirce.--Determinism in history, by E. Nagel.--Some arguments for free will, by T. Reid.--Has the self free will? by C.A. Campbell.--Dialogue on free will, by L. de Valla.--Can the will be caused? by C. Ginet.--Free will, by G.E. Moore.--A modal muddle, by S.N. Thomas.--Determinism, indeterminism, and libertarianism, by C.D. Broad.--An empirical disproof of determinism? by K. Lehrer.--Free will, praise and blame, by J.J.C. Smart.--Bibliographical essay.

The Oxford Handbook of Hume

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199742847
Total Pages : 833 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (997 download)

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Book Synopsis The Oxford Handbook of Hume by : Paul Russell

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Hume written by Paul Russell and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 833 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) is widely regarded as the greatest and most significant English-speaking philosopher and often seen as having had the most influence on the way philosophy is practiced today in the West. His reputation is based not only on the quality of his philosophical thought but also on the breadth and scope of his writings, which ranged over metaphysics, epistemology, morals, politics, religion, and aesthetics. The Handbook's 38 newly commissioned chapters are divided into six parts: Central Themes; Metaphysics and Epistemology; Passion, Morality and Politics; Aesthetics, History, and Economics; Religion; Hume and the Enlightenment; and After Hume. The volume also features an introduction from editor Paul Russell and a chapter on Hume's biography.