Philosophy Department

Free Will
(PHLU 4918)

John Davenport

This seminar is primarily for juniors and seniors in the philosophy major or minor, but it will be accessible to any interested student who has completed the freshman and sophomore core courses in philosophy.  It is open to students in all majors.

The seminar topic is: what kind of freedom or control over is needed for moral responsibility for actions, omissions, decisions, and our character.  After a brief historical overview, we will begin with the debate as it has unfolded in a flood of new literature starting with Harry Frankfurt's 1969 paper challenging the idea that responsibility requires freedom to do otherwise, or the power to do one thing or another.  We will turn to Peter van Inwagen's famous "Consequence Argument" (and its variants) to see why libertarian freedom is incompatible with psychophysical determinism.  But does moral responsibility require freedom in this strong sense?  We will examine various arguments for the "semi-compatibilist" view that responsibility only requires kinds of control that are compatible with determinism, even if libertarian freedom is not. 

Likely Readings:

  • Harry Frankfurt, "Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility" and "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person"  in The Importance of What We Care About (Cambridge, 1985)
  • Essays in Free Will, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 2002), by Gary Watson.
  • Selections from Daniel Dennett, Elbow Room (MIT Press, 1993).
  • John Fischer and Mark Ravizza, Responsibility and Control (Cambridge 1998)
  • Timothy O'Connor, Persons and Causes (Oxford, 2000)
  • Robert Kane, The Significance of Free Will (Oxford, 1998)
  • Papers by Michael McKenna, David Widerker, Eleonore Stump, Alfred Mele, and others.
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