Bernard Berofsky

Nature's challenge to free will

1. Introduction 2. Concepts of Free Will 3. Autonomy and Self-Determination 4. Source Incompatibilism 5. Conditionalist Compatibilism 6. Causal Compatibilism 7. The Consequence Argument and Determinism 8. The Unalterability of Laws and the Reductionist Strategy 9. Supervenience, Autonomy, and Physicalism 10. The Regularity Theory I: Humean Supervenience 11. The Regularity Theory II: Laws and Accidental Generalizations 12. Free Will in a Deterministic World Acknowledgements Bibliography Index

Free Will and the Mind–Body Problem

Compatibilists regard subsumption under certain sorts of deterministic psychological laws as sufficient for free will. As bona fide laws, their existence poses problems for the thesis of the unalterability of laws, a cornerstone of the Consequence Argument against compatibilism. The thesis is challenged, although a final judgment must wait upon resolution of controversies about the nature of laws. Another premise of the Consequence Argument affirms the supervenience of mental states on physical states, a doctrine whose truth would not undermine the autonomy of psychological laws, a condition of free will. Requirements for compatibilist acceptance of physicalism are described.

Belief and Responsibility

Few would deny that folk psychology embodies some essential components of our view of ourselves as persons. The specific element of personhood that interests me is moral agency, the feature that grounds judgments of moral responsibility. An agent is morally responsible for a state of affairs only if he is the sort of being who can generally direct his behavior towards (and away from) states of affairs. Thus, we need a psychological theory that permits effort directed to an end or action guided by an intention. This would certainly not be possible unless human beings have beliefs and behavior is a function of belief.