Libertarian Accounts of Free Will

Libertarian accounts of free will differ in their understanding of what free will is. Some libertarians believe that free will is the ability to make choices that are not determined by prior events. Other libertarians believe that free will is the ability to act in a way that is not determined by prior events. This study offers a balanced assessment of libertarian accounts of free will and shows that they all have some limitations. 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. This means 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.

Oxford University Press, Usa