Living without free will / Derk Pereboom.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pereboom, Derk, 1957- author.

Series:

Cambridge studies in philosophy.

Cambridge studies in philosophy

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Free will and determinism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxiii, 231 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Most people assume that, even though some degenerative or criminal behavior may be caused by influences beyond our control, ordinary human actions are not similarly generated, but rather are freely chosen, and we can be praiseworthy or blameworthy for them. A less popular and more radical claim is that factors beyond our control produce all of the actions we perform. It is this hard determinist stance that Derk Pereboom articulates in Living Without Free Will. Pereboom argues that our best scientific theories have the consequence that factors beyond our control produce all of the actions we perform, and that because of this, we are not morally responsible for any of them. He seeks to defend the view that morality, meaning and value remain intact even if we are not morally responsible, and furthermore, that adopting this perspective would provide significant benefit for our lives.

Contents:

Alternative possibilities and causal histories

Coherence objections to libertarianism

Empirical objections to agent-causal libertarianism

Problems of compatibilism

The contours of hard incompatibilism

Hard compatibilism and criminal behavior

Hard incompatibilism and meaning in life.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 215-223) and index.

ISBN:

9780521791984

978-0-511-49882-4