The Routledge Companion to Free Will

Abstract

Questions concerning free will are intertwined with issues in almost every area of philosophy, from metaphysics to mind to moral philosophy, and are also informed by work in different areas of science (principally physics, neuroscience and social psychology). Free will is also a perennial concern of serious thinkers, in theology and in non-western traditions as much as in contemporary academic philosophy. Because free will can be approached from so many different perspectives and has implications for so many debates, a comprehensive survey needs to encompass an enormous range of approaches. This book is the fi rst to draw together leading experts on every aspect of the debate, from those who are central to the current philosophical debate, to non-western perspectives, scientifi c contributions, and the rich history of the debate. Its 61 chapters, commissioned especially for this volume from the world's leading researchers, are framed by a General Introduction and brief section introductions for each of the six sections. A list of References, an annotated Further Reading list, and a short list of Related Topics are included at the end of each chapter.Kevin Timpe holds the W. H. Jellema Chair in Christian Philosophy at Calvin College. He has published a number of books on free will, including

Free will and self expression: A compatibilist garden of forking paths

“…Whether determinism threatens free will depends on whether one can be the source of one's actions or have alternatives in a deterministic world, which in turn depends on how one fills in the details of sourcehood and leeway requirements for moral responsibility. In an illuminating discussion of the taxonomy of free will views, Timpe (2016) argues that the question of whether to characterize free will in terms of sourcehood or leeway is orthogonal to the compatibility debate. In the present paper, I take this on board.…”

Circumstantial and constitutive moral luck in Kant's moral philosophy

“…These kinds of moral luck are compatible even with a robust libertarian interpretation of transcendental freedom. 7 For example, Eric Watkins (2005) and Benjamin Vilhauer (2004Vilhauer ( , 2010Vilhauer ( , 2017 interpret the noumenal realm as standing in a grounding relationship to the phenomenal realm such that noumenal free choices control phenomenal choices by controlling which laws of nature causally determine the phenomenal choices. What laws there are depends on what natures are instantiated (Watkins, 2005:329-361), and noumenal agents exercise transcendental freedom by making changes in their natures.…”

The Weakness of Will: The Role of Free Will in Treatment Adherence

“…Free will is a predominant concept of discussion among different camps of philosophers and has been subject of long debates. 14 , 15 Starting from the era of Socrates, free will continues to be a major philosophical problem, and the questions of “Do we have free will?” or “Do people have a complete moral freedom or power of real choice?” continues to have relevance regardless of time and setting. 16 , 17 Simply put, free will is defined as the ability to inform intentions or to choose one course of action over the other.…”