Free will and control: a noncausal approach

Synthese 198 (10):10043-10062 (2021)
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Abstract

According to the noncausal libertarian view of free will, in order for a person’s action to be free, it must be uncaused. A standard criticism of this view—the control objection—is that a person cannot have control over whether an uncaused action occurs and, so, such an action cannot be free. The background to this criticism is the claim that control over action is plausibly a causal rather than noncausal matter. In this paper, I defend noncausal libertarianism against the control objection by developing a new noncausal theory of control. What emerges is not simply a defense of noncausal libertarianism against the control objection but a new theory of control more generally.

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David Palmer
University of Tennessee, Knoxville

References found in this work

Freedom of the will and the concept of a person.Harry G. Frankfurt - 1971 - Journal of Philosophy 68 (1):5-20.
The Significance of Free Will.Robert Kane - 1996 - New York, US: Oxford University Press USA.
Living Without Free Will.Derk Pereboom - 2001 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Causation.David Lewis - 1973 - Journal of Philosophy 70 (17):556-567.
Free Will and Luck.Alfred R. Mele - 2006 - New York, US: Oxford University Press.

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