Living without Free Will (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy)

So let me start by saying that this is an absolutely fantastic, brilliant book. Pereboom is one of the best writers on the topic of the problem of free will and moral responsibility, and he makes a compelling case for an initially very counterintuitive position.My only problem (and the only reason that this isn't a 5 star review) is that I made the mistake of ordering the Kindle version of this book. The digital text looks like it was scanned in with a very low resolution scanner; it is all but unreadable. For over 30 dollars, it is completely unacceptable. Whatever you do, do NOT get the Kindle version of this book. Search for an ebook version elsewhere (if one is available, I don't know), or get yourself the paperback.

The writer provides a good summary of the views of various philosophers, including some with whom he disagrees. Apparently he has not directed enough attention to what is known as "emergentism." It is often pointed out (or conceded, depending upon one's point of view) that neither deteminism nor indeterminism is really compatible with libertarian free will, so in order to rescue that concept it is necessary to refute reductionism, at least with respect to mental events. So "emergentism" emerges as a third possibility that is supposed to do the job. Dr. Pereboom treats it very briefly with a reference to Jaegwon Kim and remarks that it is not supported by experimental evidence. (I doubt that it is, but this could certainly use a little more elaboration.) I ordered a book from this site, "The Re-Emergence of Emergence," to acquaint myself with the ramifications of this notion.As to whether "Living without Free Will" is a "dangerous" book, I pointed out that this was a feature as well as a bug. One could presumably translate it into the languages of enemy countries, and upon reading it their people would turn into zombies and be easy to conquer.

From the description of the book: "Derk Pereboom argues that our best scientific theories indeed have the consequence that factors beyond our control produce all of the actions we perform ... ."And:" ... adopting this perspective ... ."I assume 'actions' includes the adoption of philosophical positions.So whether we adopt this perspective is also beyond our control.Then what does 'adopting' this position mean?According to him, we will either believe it or not depending on the causal chain determining our philosophical positions.But adopting a philosophical position implies, at least if it is a philosopher asking us to do so, careful evaluation of the reasons for and against the position, and the possibility of either accepting or rejecting the position based on this evaluation.An adoption caused on a causal chain over which we have no control either in its occurrence or outcome is not an adoption based on evaluation, and hence there is no point in urging us to adopt the position based on evaluating the arguments in the book.Of course, he could say he has no choice - he is caused to ask for its adoption.

Some people are so stupid that the only possible job for them in life is to be a college professor. Derk Pereboom falls into this category. He fell in love with the idea that there is no such thing as free will, which is, admittedly, a seductive idea -- for a college sophomore. His love of this idea stems from the seemingly irrefutable logical statement that everything has a cause (or more properly, many causes). Therefore, every action by a human agent has causes and no action is free. He doesn't understand the subtle, but supremely important, differences between "caused," "determined," and "inevitable." Just because my actions have causes doesn't mean that can't be free. There are emergent properties of complex systems (consider life, which is made up of things that are not alive) that cannot be reduced to the properties of their component parts.The idea that humans have no free will, and are therefore not morally responsible for their actions is not just wrong in an intellectual sense -- it is extremely dangerous.

An excellent analysis of hard incompatibilism and the ramifications. Really concise and packed full of important stuff. The idea that we could lose moral responsibility, and in doing so, not actually lose that much that we cherish was refreshing. This should be a landmark book, in my opinion.

A good outline of the problem, especially the contradictions inherent in the compatibilist position. What this book does best though is deal with the implications for our grossly outdated approaches to criminal behaviour/responisibility and the implicatons of determinism for our existence in general.