Freedom and belief
By: Galen Strawson
Edition: Rev. ed.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Oxford; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 324
ISBN-13: 9780199247493; 9780199247509
Subjects: Free will and determinism
Description: "This is a revised and updated edition of Galen Strawson's groundbreaking first book, where he argues that there is a fundamental sense in which there is no such thing as free will or true moral responsibility (as this is ordinarily understood). This conclusion is very hard to accept. On the whole we continue to believe firmly both that we have free will and that we are truly morally responsible for what we do. Strawson devotes much of the book to an attempt to explain why this is so. He examines various aspects of the 'cognitive phenomenology' of freedom - the nature, causes, and consequences of our deep commitment to belief in freedom. In particular, he considers at length a number of problems that are raised by the suggestion that, if freedom were possible, believing oneself to be a free agent would be a necessary condition of being a free agent." -Back Cover.
Notes: Previous ed.: 1986.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [317]-320) and index.
Table of contents: title: 13.3.; title: Hindrances and indecision -- -- 14.; title: The Experience of Ability to Choose -- -- 14.1.; title: Preliminaries -- -- 14.2.; title: Experience of indecision -- -- 14.3.; title: Backtracking -- -- 14.4.; title: The Ability Suggestion and the Ability Account -- -- 14.5.; title: An alternative approach? -- -- 14.6.; title: The Ability Account, the Basic Structural Account, and a quasi-Kantian view -- -- 14.7.; title: Counter-attack -- -- 14.8.; title: The rejection of the Ability Suggestion -- -- 14.9.; title: The Indecision Suggestion -- -- 14.10.; title: Objection: the concept of choice -- -- 14.11.; title: Objectivist options -- -- 14.12.; title: Conclusion -- -- 15.; title: Subjectivism and Experience of Freedom -- -- 15.1.; title: The espousal of Subjectivism -- -- 15.2.; title: Subjectivism: prospects for a positive theory of freedom -- -- 15.3.; title: Contravention: the options -- -- 15.4.; title: Conclusion -- -- 16.; title: Antinomy and Truth -- -- 16.1.; title: What do we want? -- -- 16.2.; title: What should we believe?.