Every day we seem to make and act upon all kinds of free choices - some of them trivial, and some so consequential that they may change the course of our life, or even the course of history. But are these choices really free? Or are we compelled to act the way we do by factors beyond our control? Is the feeling that we could have made different decisions just an illusion? And if our choices are not free, why should we be held morally responsible for our actions? This Very Short Introduction, written by a leading authority on the subject, looks at a range of issues surrounding this fundamental philosophical question, exploring it from the ideas of the Greek and medieval philosophers through to the thoughts of present-day thinkers. It provides a interesting and incisive introduction to this perennially fascinating subject.
[...]... the goal of catching the fish Freedom and practical reason Free Will A more plausible explanation why sharks are not free agents has to do with a shark’s capacity for reason, or rather with its clear lack of it To have genuine control over how we act requires that we have a capacity to act rationally – to act on the basis of informed reasoning about how we should act But sharks lack any such capacity... it is this capacity that a shark lacks Sharks plainly do not think about justifications for and against the actions that they perform Freedom and the will Besides our capacity for performing actions, we also have a capacity for taking and arriving at decisions about how we shall act As I put it in the last chapter, we also have a will And this capacity for decision-making or will is clearly connected... place to argue the matter We do not yet know enough about precisely how capable these higher animals really are There are however other, much less sophisticated animals whose capacities fall very far short of our own, and who do clearly lack freedom of action as a result Consider sharks, for example Sharks seem to perform actions – actions that are at least very analogous to ours For example, a feature... of what to do, we can understand it as such, as a practical problem, a problem about how to act We are able to think of ourselves as having a choice between a variety of possible actions, and as therefore faced with the question of which action it would be best for us to perform – a question to which there can be an argued and right answer So we really can reason about how to act We can actually ask... But freedom was not always seen as posing this sort of insoluble problem The free will problem as it now exists is a peculiarly modern problem, and it has a history It has emerged as a result of a series of important changes in the way philosophers think, about freedom, about action, and about morality It is these changes that have made it especially hard to make sense of human freedom – and that have... perform goaldirected actions as we do Yet is a shark in control of its actions as we are? Is a shark really free to act otherwise than it actually does? It is very natural for us to suppose not But why? If we do naturally incline to deny that sharks are free agents, this cannot simply be because we believe that the shark’s actions are causally predetermined For we cannot be sure that the shark’s built-in... performed for its own sake What, then, makes it true that our action is aimed at a given goal? What for example makes it true that when I raise my hand I am doing it in order to signal to you? Surely that I am performing the action out of a particular desire or motivation – a desire for or motivation towards that very goal If my raising my hand is to count as having signalling to you as its goal, it must be... out an individual person’s control over their own actions If what you do really is within your control, then you can be said to be free to act otherwise than as you actually are doing You are, as philosophers put it, a free agent should be used to pick out our control over how we act and a fundamental political value Free Will There is, after all, a certain analogy between action control and political... important value So why not use the same term to pick out both our action control and the political value that seems to depend on that action control? What of the term will? This term has been used by philosophers in a variety of ways But one especially important use has been to pick out a vital psychological capacity that all normal adult humans 4 possess – a capacity for decision-making We are all capable,... they act that we humans possess over our actions We need to consider the animals I am not claiming that all non-human animals lack freedom For example, it is a matter of dispute exactly how intelligent chimpanzees and dolphins really are – and perhaps they will turn out to be free agents too I suspect, in fact, that chimpanzees and dolphins are not intelligent enough in the particular ways needed for freedom, . now: ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY Julia Annas THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE John Blair ANIMAL RIGHTS David DeGrazia ARCHAEOLOGY Paul Bahn ARCHITECTURE Andrew Ballantyne ARISTOTLE.