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"There is agency in all we do: thinking, doing, or making. We invent a tune, play, or use it to celebrate an occasion. Or we make a conceptual leap and ask more abstract questions about the conditions for agency. They include autonomy and self-appraisal, each contested by arguments immersing us in circumstances we don't control. But can it be true we that have no personal responsibility for all we think and do? Agency: Moral Identity and Free Will proposes that deliberation, choice, and free will emerged within the evolutionary history of animals with a physical advantage: organisms having cell walls or exoskeletons had an internal space within which to protect themselves from external threats or encounters. This defense was both structural and active: such organisms could ignore intrusions or inhibit risky behavior. Their capacities evolved with time: inhibition became the power to deliberate and choose the manner of one's responses. Hence the ability of humans and some other animals to determine their reactions to problematic situations or to information that alters values and choices. This is free will as a material power, not as the conclusion to a conceptual argument. Having it makes us morally responsible for much we do. It prefigures moral identity. Closely argued but plainly written, Agency: Moral Identity and Free Will speaks for autonomy and responsibility when both are eclipsed by ideas that embed us in history or tradition. Our sense of moral choice and freedom is accurate. We are not altogether the creatures of our circumstances."--Publisher's website.

Free will and determinism. --- Compatibilism --- Determinism and free will --- Determinism and indeterminism --- Free agency --- Freedom and determinism --- Freedom of the will --- Indeterminism --- Liberty of the will --- Determinism (Philosophy)

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Few philosophical issues have had as long and elaborate a history as the problem of free will, which has been contested at every stage of the history of the subject. The present work practices an extensive bibliography of this elaborate literature, listing some five thousand items ranging from classical antiquity to the present.

Free will and determinism --- Compatibilism --- Determinism and free will --- Determinism and indeterminism --- Free agency --- Freedom and determinism --- Freedom of the will --- Indeterminism --- Liberty of the will --- Determinism (Philosophy)

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Free will and determinism. --- Compatibilism --- Determinism and free will --- Determinism and indeterminism --- Free agency --- Freedom and determinism --- Freedom of the will --- Indeterminism --- Liberty of the will --- Determinism (Philosophy)

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Can we reconcile the idea that we are free and responsible agents with the idea that what we do is determined according to natural laws? For centuries, philosophers have tried in different ways to show that we can. Hilary Bok takes a fresh approach here, as she seeks to show that the two ideas are compatible by drawing on the distinction between practical and theoretical reasoning. Bok argues that when we engage in practical reasoning--the kind that involves asking "what should I do?" and sifting through alternatives to find the most justifiable course of action--we have reason to hold ourselves responsible for what we do. But when we engage in theoretical reasoning--searching for causal explanations of events--we have no reason to apply concepts like freedom and responsibility. Bok contends that libertarians' arguments against "compatibilist" justifications of moral responsibility fail because they describe human actions only from the standpoint of theoretical reasoning. To establish this claim, she examines which conceptions of freedom of the will and moral responsibility are relevant to practical reasoning and shows that these conceptions are not vulnerable to many objections that libertarians have directed against compatibilists. Bok concludes that the truth or falsity of the claim that we are free and responsible agents in the sense those conceptions spell out is ultimately independent of deterministic accounts of the causes of human actions. Clearly written and powerfully argued, Freedom and Responsibility is a major addition to current debate about some of philosophy's oldest and deepest questions.

Free will and determinism --- Responsibility --- Free will and determinism. --- Responsibility. --- Accountability --- Moral responsibility --- Obligation --- Compatibilism --- Determinism and free will --- Determinism and indeterminism --- Free agency --- Freedom and determinism --- Freedom of the will --- Indeterminism --- Liberty of the will --- Ethics --- Supererogation --- Determinism (Philosophy)

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This collection of contemporary essays by prominent contemporary thinkers on the topics of determinism and free agency concentrates primarily on two areas: the compatibility problem and the metaphysics of moral responsibility. There are also essays on the related fields of determinism and action theory. The book is unique in that it contains up-to-date summaries of the life-work of five influential philosophers: John Earman, Ted Honderich, Keith Lehrer, Robert Kane, and Peter van Inwagen. There are also contributions by other familiar and distinguished authors, including Richard Feldman, John Martin Fischer, Carl Ginet, and John Perry, as well as important rising philosophers. While most of the articles are written from a Western, analytic perspective, the volume includes a paper that addresses Buddhist perspectives on freedom of the will. With an opening essay written by the editors--"Freedom and Determinism: A Framework"--that sets the terms of the discussion, the book provides a remarkably comprehensive set of articles that are of value to a wide audience, from students of philosophy to scholars.

Free will and determinism. --- Free will and determinism --- Philosophy --- Philosophy & Religion --- Ethics --- Compatibilism --- Determinism and free will --- Determinism and indeterminism --- Free agency --- Freedom and determinism --- Freedom of the will --- Indeterminism --- Liberty of the will --- Determinism (Philosophy) --- PHILOSOPHY/General