Libertarian accounts of free will / Randolph Clarke.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Clarke, Randolph K.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Free will and determinism.

Physical Description:

xv, 244 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, [2003]

Summary:

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.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 223-233) and index.

ISBN:

019515987X

OCLC:

50802605