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2515Four Views on Free WillWiley-Blackwell. 2007.Focusing on the concepts and interactions of free will, moral responsibility, and determinism, this text represents the most up-to-date account of the four major positions in the free will debate. Four serious and well-known philosophers explore the opposing viewpoints of libertarianism, compatibilism, hard incompatibilism, and revisionism The first half of the book contains each philosopher’s explanation of his particular view; the second half allows them to directly respond to each other’s arg…Read more
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1226A Contemporary Introduction to Free WillOxford University Press. 2005.Accessible to students with no background in the subject, A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will provides an extensive and up-to-date overview of all the latest views on this central problem of philosophy. Opening with a concise introduction to the history of the problem of free will--and its place in the history of philosophy--the book then turns to contemporary debates and theories about free will, determinism, and related subjects like moral responsibility, coercion, compulsion, autonomy, …Read more
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788Responsibility, Luck, and ChanceJournal of Philosophy 96 (5): 217-240. 1999.Consider the following principle: (LP) If an action is undetermined at a time t, then its happening rather than not happening at t would be a matter of chance or luck, and so it could not be a free and responsible action. This principle (which we may call the luck principle, or simply LP) is false, as I shall explain shortly. Yet it seems true.
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773The Significance of Free WillOxford University Press USA. 1996.Robert Kane provides a critical overview of debates about free will of the past half century, relating this recent inquiry to the broader history of the free will issue and to vital currents of twentieth century thought. Kane also defends a traditional libertarian or incompatibilist view of free will, employing arguments that are both new to philosophy and that respond to contemporary developments in physics and biology, neuro science, and the cognitive and behavioral sciences.
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560Free will, determinism, and indeterminismIn Harald Atmanspacher & Robert C. Bishop (eds.), Between Chance and Choice: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Determinism, Thorverton Uk: Imprint Academic. pp. 371--406. 2002.
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552Commentaries on David Hodgson's "a plain person's free will"Journal of Consciousness Studies 12 (1): 20-75. 2005.REMARKS ON EVOLUTION AND TIME-SCALES, Graham Cairns-Smith; HODGSON'S BLACK BOX, Thomas Clark; DO HODGSON'S PROPOSITIONS UNIQUELY CHARACTERIZE FREE WILL?, Ravi Gomatam; WHAT SHOULD WE RETAIN FROM A PLAIN PERSON'S CONCEPT OF FREE WILL?, Gilberto Gomes; ISOLATING DISPARATE CHALLENGES TO HODGSON'S ACCOUNT OF FREE WILL, Liberty Jaswal; FREE AGENCY AND LAWS OF NATURE, Robert Kane; SCIENCE VERSUS REALIZATION OF VALUE, NOT DETERMINISM VERSUS CHOICE, Nicholas Maxwell; COMMENTS ON HODGSON, J.J.C. Smart; T…Read more
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480The Oxford Handbook of Free Will (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2001.This comprehensive reference provides an exhaustive guide to current scholarship on the perennial problem of Free Will--perhaps the most hotly and voluminously debated of all philosophical problems. While reference is made throughout to the contributions of major thinkers of the past, the emphasis is on recent research. The essays, most of which are previously unpublished, combine the work of established scholars with younger thinkers who are beginning to make significant contributions. Taken as…Read more
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447_Some say there is no progress in philosophy, and certainly there is one sense in_ _which they are wrong. There are at least significant developments in philosophical_ _doctrines that have been persistently advocated in the past. With confidence I leave_ _you to arrive at a satisfactory understanding of 'significant'. There is no doubt that_ _Robert Kane has made some progress, probably more than any other contemporary_ _philosopher, in the laying out and defending of the doctrine that an unders…Read more
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352Free will and responsibility: Ancient dispute, new themes (review)The Journal of Ethics 4 (4): 313-417. 2000.
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299Free Will (edited book)Wiley-Blackwell. 2001._ _ _Free Will_ brings together the essential readings on the debate of free will and determinism.Written by top scholars in the field, the essays represent some of the clearest and most accessible thinking on this subject. The introduction offers a concise yet thorough mapping of this age-old debate as well as a helpful overview of the selections
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236Two kinds of incompatibilismPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 50 (2): 219-54. 1989.The present essay is about this problem of the intelligibility of incompatibilist freedom. I do not think Kant, Nagel and Strawson are right in thinking that incompatibilist theories cannot be made intelligible to theoretical reason, nor are those many others right who think that incompatibilist accounts of freedom must be essentially mysterious or terminally obscure. I doubt if I can say enough in one short paper to convince anyone of these claims who is not already persuaded. But I hope to per…Read more
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203On free will, responsibility and indeterminism: Responses to Clarke, Haji, and MelePhilosophical Explorations 2 (2): 105-121. 1999.This paper responds to three critical essays on my book, The Significance of Free Will(Oxford, 1996) by Randolph Clarke, Istiyaque Haji and Alfred Mele (which essays appear in this issue and an earlier issue of this journal). This response first explains crucial features of the theory of free will of the book, including the notion of ultimate responsibility.The paper then answers objections of Haji and Mele that the occurrence of undetermined choices would be matters of luck or chance, and so co…Read more
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183The complex tapestry of free will: striving will, indeterminism and volitional streamsSynthese 196 (1): 145-160. 2019.The aim of this paper is to respond to recent discussion of, and objections to, the libertarian view of free will I have developed in many works over the past four decades. The issues discussed all have a bearing on the central question of how one might make sense of a traditional free will requiring indeterminism in the light of modern science. This task involves, among other things, avoiding all traditional libertarian appeals to unusual forms of agency or causation that cannot be accounted fo…Read more
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173Introduction: The contours of contemporary free will debatesIn Robert Kane (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Free Will, Oxford University Press. 2001.
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150On the role of indeterminism in libertarian free willPhilosophical Explorations 19 (1): 2-16. 2016.In a recent paper in this journal, “How should libertarians conceive of the location and role of indeterminism?” Christopher Evan Franklin critically examines my libertarian view of free will and attempts to improve upon it. He says that while Kane's influential [view] offers many important advances in the development of a defensible libertarian theory of free will and moral responsibility … [he made] “two crucial mistakes in formulating libertarianism” – one about the location of indeterminism,…Read more
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145Review. The dilemma of freedom and foreknowledge. Linda Trinkaus ZagzebskiMind 105 (419): 518-519. 1996.
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144Moral Responsibility, Reactive Attitudes and Freedom of WillThe Journal of Ethics 20 (1-3): 229-246. 2016.In his influential paper, “Freedom and Resentment,” P. F. Strawson argued that our ordinary practices of holding persons morally responsible and related reactive attitudes were wholly “internal” to the practices themselves and could be insulated from traditional philosophical and metaphysical concerns, including concerns about free will and determinism. This “insulation thesis” is a controversial feature of Strawson’s influential paper; and it has had numerous critics. The first purpose of this …Read more
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141The Significance of Free Will by Robert KaneThe Significance of Free Will (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 60 (1): 141. 2000.
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136The dual regress of free will and the role of alternative possibilitiesPhilosopical Perspectives 14 (s14): 57-80. 2000.
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135Free Will and ValuesState University of New York Press. 1985._A philosophical analysis of free will and the relativity of values._
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135Torn decisions, luck, and libertarian free will: comments on Balaguer’s free will as an open scientific problemPhilosophical Studies (1): 1-8. 2012.
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134Responses to Bernard Berofsky, John Martin Fischer and Galen StrawsonThe Significance of Free WillPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 60 (1): 157. 2000.
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121The Oxford Handbook of Free Will: Second Edition (edited book)Oup Usa. 2011.This second edition of The Oxford Handbook of Free Will is intended to be a sourcebook and guide to current work on free will and related subjects.
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113II—Acting ‘of One's Own Free Will’: Modern Reflections on an Ancient Philosophical ProblemProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 114 (1pt1): 35-55. 2014.Over the past five decades, I have been developing a distinctive view of free will according to which it requires that agents be to some degree ultimately responsible for the formation of their own wills. To act ‘of one's own free will’ in this sense is to act ‘from a will’ that is to some extent ‘of one's own free making’. A free will of this ultimate kind has been under attack in the modern era as obscure and unintelligible. In this paper, I discuss the arguments for such a view and compare it…Read more
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112Quantum Physics, Action and Free Will: How Might Free Will be Possible in a Quantum Universe?In Antonella Corradini & Uwe Meixner (eds.), Quantum Physics Meets the Philosophy of Mind: New Essays on the Mind-Body Relation in Quantum-Theoretical Perspective, De Gruyter. pp. 163-182. 2014.
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104Responsibility, Reactive Attitudes and Free Will: Reflections on Wallace’s Theory (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 64 (3). 2002.R. Jay Wallace’s Responsibility and the Moral Sentiments develops an original compatibilist approach to issues about moral responsibility and freedom that cannot be ignored by anyone working on these topics. Wallace’s theory is “Strawsonian” in the sense that it is heavily indebted to P. F. Strawson’s influential work on reactive attitudes. But we would seriously underestimate the originality of Wallace’s accomplishment if we said that his theory was merely an extension of Strawson’s. It include…Read more
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