Description
Book SynopsisDerk Pereboom articulates and defends an original conception of moral responsibility. He argues that if determinism were true we would not be morally responsible in the key basic-desert sense at issue in the free will debate, but that we would also lack this kind of moral responsibility if indeterminism were true and the causes of our actions were exclusively states or events. It is possible that if we were undetermined agent causes--if we as substances had the power to cause decisions without being causally determined to cause them--we would have this kind of free will. But although our being undetermined agent causes has not been ruled out as a coherent possibility, it''s not credible given our best physical theories. Pereboom then contends that a conception of life without the free will required for moral responsibility in the basic-desert sense would nevertheless allow for a different, forward-looking conception of moral responsibility. He also argues that our lacking this sort of
Trade ReviewWith Free Will, Agency, and Meaning in Life (2014), Pereboom has written yet another outstanding book. This one is certainly as good as the last, and it promises to have the same sort of influence. In numerous ways, he has yet again moved the debate much further along, and he has done so in the interest of genuine philosophical progress. Free Will, Agency, and Meaning in Life is an extraordinary defense of free will and moral responsibility skepticism. * Michael McKenna, Criminal Law and Philosophy *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1: Defending a Source View 2: Problems for Event-Causal and Non-Causal Libertarianisms 3: The Prospects for Agent Causal Libertarianism 4: A Manipulation Argument against Compatibilism 5: Free Will Skepticism and Rational Deliberation 6: Blame without Basic Desert 7: Free Will Skepticism and Criminal Behavior 8: Personal Relationships and Meaning in Life Bibliography
