Contemporary compatibilism : a critical examination

This thesis is a study of some recent issues and arguments in the debate over freedom and determinism. Most of the philosophers whose work I examine are sympathetic to the doctrine known as compatibilism, according to which determinism poses no threat to the freedom of action.In chapter I, the introduction, I discuss some basic notions and offer a brief survey of the discussion of freedom and determinism between 1930 and 1970. In chapter II, I examine an influential recent attack on the principle that an agent is responsible for his actions only if he could have done otherwise. In chapters III and IV, I discuss the emergence of explanation as a major issue in the free-will debate. In III, I criticize the claim that mechanistic explanations are compatible with intentional ones. I conclude by identifying some major outstanding problems