"This is an important book, and no one interested in issues which touch on the free will will want to ignore it."--Ethics. In this stimulating and thought-provoking book, the author defends the thesis that free will is incompatible with determinism. He disputes the view that determinism is necessary for moral responsbility. Finding no good reason for accepting determinism, but believing moral responsiblity to be indubitable, he concludes that determinism should be rejected.

Frank Jackson champions the cause of conceptual analysis as central to philosophical inquiry. In recent years conceptual analysis has been undervalued and widely misunderstood, suggests Jackson. He argues that such analysis is mistakenly clouded in mystery, preventing a whole range of important questions from being productively addressed. He anchors his argument in discussions of specific philosophical issues, starting with the metaphysical doctrine of physicalism and moving on, via free will, meaning, personal identity, motion, and change, to ethics and the philosophy (...) of color. In this way the book not only offers a methodological program for philosophy, but also casts new light on some much-debated problems and their interrelations. (shrink)

v. 1. Editorial introduction -- v. 2. The English and Latin texts (i) -- v. 3. The English and Latin texts (ii).

I argue that disputes within constitutional theory about whether recent supreme court decisions exceed the scope of legitimate judicial review and disputes within legal theory about the nature and determinacy of law are best seen and assessed as disputes over the nature of legal interpretation. I criticize the interpretive assumptions on which these disputes generally depend and defend a theory of interpretation which tends to vindicate the determinacy of law even in hard cases and the style of recent court decisions (...) which many critics find troublesome. (shrink)

Why is debate over the free will problem so intractable? In this broad and stimulating look at the philosophical enterprise, Richard Double uses the free will controversy to build on the subjectivist conclusion he developed in The Non-Reality of Free Will (OUP 1991). Double argues that various views about free will--e.g., compatibilism, incompatibilism, and even subjectivism--are compelling if, and only if, we adopt supporting metaphilosophical views. Because metaphilosophical considerations are not provable, we cannot show any free will theory to be (...) most reasonable. Metaphilosophy and Free Will deconstructs the free will problem and, by example, challenges philosophers in other areas to show how their philosophical argumentation can succeed. (shrink)

This dissertation is a systematic and fairly comprehensive assessment of the way in which philosophers have traditionally approached the issue of whether determinism is compatible with the sort of freedom that allows for ascriptions of moral responsibility. After providing a brief historical overview of a line of argument regarding the compatibility of free-will and determinism that runs from Hobbes through Hume, Mill, Moore, Schlick, Ayer, and numerous others, I draw out the methodological assumptions implicit in that line of argument: The (...) free-will/determinism debate is a debate regarding the logical compatibility of determinism and the claim that at least some actions are free in a sense that allows for ascriptions of moral responsibility. Logical compatibility or incompatibility should be decided by considering the meanings of the terms and phrases involved in the claims and applying principles of reason. The meanings of terms and phrases such as "free", "acting freely", "could have done otherwise", etc. are to be ascertained by philosophical reflection and conceptual analysis. There is a single, shared conception of the sort of human freedom required for ascriptions of moral responsibility such that a single analysis can be given for the meaning of the relevant terms and phrases. I then note that although the line of argument running from Hobbes to Ayer is a compatibilist line, these tenets are implicit in the approach adopted by nearly all incompatibilists as well. Thus, T1-T4 represent the traditional approach to the free-will/determinism debate. ;I endorse and defend T1, T2, and T3; I reject T4. In the course of defending T1, T2, and T3, I reject P. F. Strawson's naturalism and his perspectivism . I also reject the suggestion that the causal theory of reference and meaning is the correct theory for "free" and related cognates. After rejecting T4, I claim that we should not expect to garner consensus by authoring new analyses of freedom. I suggest that future efforts be directed toward considering the philosophical consequences of a persistent lack of consensus regarding the meaning of "free". (shrink)