/LC.GIF&client=easterncarolinaedu)
Free will : a philosophical reappraisal / Nicholas Rescher.
| Author/creator | Rescher, Nicholas |
| Format | Book |
| Publication Info | New Brunswick, N.J. : Transaction Publishers, ©2009. |
| Description | xiii, 173 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm |
| Subjects |
| Contents | Introduction -- The nature of free will -- Requirements of freedom : preeminently deliberation -- Free will requires the absence of thought-external determination over choices and decisions -- Choice and decision are crucial -- Doing and trying -- Free action and agent causality -- Modes of freedom -- Metaphysical and moral freedom -- Moral freedom is removed by manipulation and especially by compulsion -- Intention and moral standing -- Moral freedom of the will involves agent intent and motivation -- Ramifications of freedom -- Free will requires up-to-the-end revisability but this does not gainsay probabilistic predictability -- Issues of revision and control -- The counterfactual dimension : "could have done otherwise" -- Problem cases : machines and lunatics -- Free will as outside causality but compatible with it -- Averting the zenonic fallacy of causal regression -- Averting predetermination (contrasting predetermination with precedence determination) -- The crucial contrast between events and eventuations -- Choices and decisions as terminating eventuations -- Free will stands outside the stream of natural causality -- On freedom and causality -- Free will excludes predetermination but not motive determinism -- Motivational determinism vs. casual necessitation -- Motivations and motives -- Freedom from what? Certainly not from one's own motives and reasons : freedom demands motivational determination -- Free will requires motivational determinism -- Determination by one's autonomous motives is the crux of moral freedom -- Compulsion vs. impulsion -- Objections to motive determinism can be met -- Freedom and motivation -- Must an agent choose his motives for a decision to qualify (morally) as free? -- Freedom does not require motivational self-construction -- Does freedom require self-understanding? -- On willing to will : does freedom require the will to be self-endorsing? -- Does freedom require the approval of intellect and reason? -- Does freedom require self-approved motives? -- Buridan's ass : a random willfulness is not freedom -- Compatibilism regained : what free will excludes is not agent determination but agent-bypassing nature determination -- The explanation of free acts through agent determination -- Freedom, responsibility, and "could have done otherwise" -- Reasons and motives impel but do not compel -- Compatibilism again -- Mind-matter partnership -- A two-sided coin -- The issue of initiative -- A pivotal duality -- Mind-brain interaction works by coordination, not by causality -- Does free will exist? Deliberations pro and con -- On evidentiating free will -- Is free will unscientific? -- So does science counter-indicate free will? -- Free-will naturalism and evolution -- Conclusion. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (p. 165-169) and index. |
| LCCN | 2008038488 |
| ISBN | 9781412808743 (alk. paper) |
| ISBN | 141280874X (alk. paper) |
Availability
| Library | Location | Call Number | Status | Item Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Joyner | General Stacks | BJ1461 .R45 2009 | ✔ Available | Place Hold |