Aspects of Agency

Decisions, Abilities, Explanations, and Free Will

Alfred R. Mele (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

262 Seiten

2017
Oxford University Press Inc (Verlag)
978-0-19-065997-4 (ISBN)

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Mele develops a view of paradigmatically free actions--including decisions--as indeterministically caused by their proximal causes. He mounts a masterful defense of this thesis that includes solutions to problems about luck and control widely discussed in the literature on free will and moral responsibility.

The libertarian theory of free will combines a negative thesis and a positive thesis. The negative thesis is that free will is incompatible with determinism. The positive thesis is that there are actions that involve exercises of free will---'free actions,' for short. While remaining neutral on this negative thesis, Aspects of Agency develops a detailed version of the positive thesis that represents paradigmatically free actions as indeterministically caused by their proximal causes and pays special attention to decisions so instigated. The bulk of Mele's work is a masterful defense of a positive libertarian thesis against objections to theses of its kind. Aspects of Agency includes solutions to problems about luck and control that are widely discussed in the literature on free will and moral responsibility. The seven chapters on free will are preceded by an introductory chapter and three chapters on central issues in the philosophy of action that bear on standard treatments of free will: deciding to act, agents' abilities, and commitments of a causal theory of action explanation.

Alfred Mele is the author of nine previous OUP books and over 200 articles. He directed the Big Questions in Free Will Project (2010-2013) and is currently the director of the Philosophy and Science of Self-Control Project.

Preface

1. Introduction
2. Deciding to Act
3. Actions, Explanations, and Causes
4. Agents' Abilities
5. Free Will and Moral Responsibility: Does Either Require the Other?
6. Is What You Decide Ever up to You?
7. Arbitrary Decisions and the Problem of Present Luck
8. Complete Control and Disappearing Agents
9. Libertarianism and Human Agency
10. Two Libertarian Theories: or Why Event-causal Libertarians Should Prefer My Daring Libertarian View to Robert Kane's View
11. Living Without Agent Causation

References
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	29.04.2017
Verlagsort	New York
Sprache	englisch
Maße	236 x 155 mm
Gewicht	481 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Erkenntnistheorie / Wissenschaftstheorie
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Ethik
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Philosophie des Mittelalters
ISBN-10	0-19-065997-1 / 0190659971
ISBN-13	978-0-19-065997-4 / 9780190659974
Zustand	Neuware