Customer Reviews

Free Will (Oxford Readings in Philosophy)

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Freedom and determinism is one of the most troubling questions in philosophy, since if determinism is both true and incompatible with moral responsibility, nothing is unethical. The class I took on this topic was one of the most challenging courses in college, and this book has a great range of authors who provided some inventive and challenging views on this. I'm particularly interested in P. Strawson's essay in this book, where he claims that responsibility does not depend on freedom at all, and Nagel's essay on moral luck, where he talks about how people in different times in history have greater moral decisions to make than other people, and how this impinges on our freedom (e.g., someone in Nazi Germany has greater burdens than someone in America in the 1980s). The reading is provoking, and brings to mind Socrates' statement that he was the wisest of men because he alone knew that he knew nothing. I highly recommend this book.

In Free Will, Watson has brought together an astonishing collection of essays by some of this century's most insightful philosophers. Included are essays by such respected names as Norman Malcolm, A.J. Ayer, Peter Strawson, Daniel C. Dennett, etc. These essays do a wonderful job of bringing to light the problems of free will and determinism, and illustrate many different positions on the subject. If these issues interest you, you must read this book. I couldn't put it down, and when I finished I read it again!

This book is first edition.

Second edition increase pages.

First edition is more compact than second one and easy to hold in hands.