This book aims to help readers think more clearly about free will. It identifies and makes vivid the most important conceptual obstacles to the justified belief in the existence of free will, and meets them head on. It also clarifies the central concepts in the philosophical debate about free will and moral responsibility, criticizes various influential contemporary theories about free will, and develops two overlapping conceptions of free will: one for readers who are convinced that free will is incompatible with determinism (incompatibilists), and another for readers who are convinced of the ... More

This book aims to help readers think more clearly about free will. It identifies and makes vivid the most important conceptual obstacles to the justified belief in the existence of free will, and meets them head on. It also clarifies the central concepts in the philosophical debate about free will and moral responsibility, criticizes various influential contemporary theories about free will, and develops two overlapping conceptions of free will: one for readers who are convinced that free will is incompatible with determinism (incompatibilists), and another for readers who are convinced of the opposite (compatibilists). Luck poses problems for all believers in free will, and this book offers novel solutions. One chapter explains influential neuroscientific studies of free will, and debunks some extravagant interpretations of the data. Other featured topics include abilities and alternative possibilities, control and decision-making, the bearing of manipulation on free will, and the development of human infants into free agents.