Libertarianism and Freewill: A Review of Kane’s Ideas

Subject Areas : Philosophy

احسان جوادی ابهری ¹ (ندارد)

Received: 2010-07-31 Accepted : 2011-01-21 Published : 2010-09-23

Keywords: Freewill, Determinism, Indeterminism, Incompatibilism, Libertarianism, Chaos Theory,

Abstract :

Libertarians on the one hand hold that free will is incompatible withdeterminism, and on the other hand free will is real and can be realizedeven in indeterministic conditions. Therefore, libertarianism tries toshow that firstly how determinism and free will are incompatible andsecondly how free will can be possible in an indeterministic world. Thesecond challenge seems to be more difficult than the first one, since inindeterministic conditions agent's actions and choices would seem to bematter of luck and not under control of the agent. Most of traditionallibertarians had tried to solve these problems by appealing to nonnaturalfactors. However, some people like Robert Kane have presentedtheir solutions without any explicit metaphysical presupposition. Theybelieve that modern sciences can resolve the problem of free well. Inthis essay, we will firstly explore Robert Kane's ideas and then try totake a critical view on it.