Derk Pereboom articulates and defends an original conception of moral
responsibility. He argues that if determinism were true we would not
be morally responsible in the key basic-desert sense at issue in the
free will debate, but that we would also lack this kind of moral
responsibility if indeterminism were true and the causes of our
actions were exclusively states or events. It is possible that if we
were undetermined agent causes--if we as substances had the power to
cause decisions without being causally determined to cause them--we
would have this kind of free will. But although our being undetermined
agent causes has not been ruled out as a coherent possibility, it's
not credible given our best physical theories. Pereboom then contends
that a conception of life without the free will required for moral
responsibility in the basic-desert sense would nevertheless allow for
a different, forward-looking conception of moral responsibility. He
also argues that our lacking this sort of free will would not
jeopardize our sense of ourselves as agents capable of rational
deliberation, that it is compatible with adequate measures for dealing
with crime and other threatening behavior, and that it allows for a
robust sense of achievement and meaning in life. Pereboom's arguments
for this position are reconfigured relative to those presented in
Living without Free Will (2001), important objections to these
arguments are answered, and the development of the positive view is
significantly embellished.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780191022623
Publisert
2020
Utgiver
Oxford University Press Academic UK
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter