Customer Reviews

Living without Free Will (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

A good outline of the problem, especially the contradictions inherent in the compatibilist position. What this book does best though is deal with the implications for our grossly outdated approaches to criminal behaviour/responisibility and the implicatons of determinism for our existence in general.

So let me start by saying that this is an absolutely fantastic, brilliant book. Pereboom is one of the best writers on the topic of the problem of free will and moral responsibility, and he makes a compelling case for an initially very counterintuitive position.

My only problem (and the only reason that this isn't a 5 star review) is that I made the mistake of ordering the Kindle version of this book. The digital text looks like it was scanned in with a very low resolution scanner; it is all but unreadable. For over 30 dollars, it is completely unacceptable. Whatever you do, do NOT get the Kindle version of this book. Search for an ebook version elsewhere (if one is available, I don't know), or get yourself the paperback.

Some people are so stupid that the only possible job for them in life is to be a college professor. Derk Pereboom falls into this category. He fell in love with the idea that there is no such thing as free will, which is, admittedly, a seductive idea -- for a college sophomore. His love of this idea stems from the seemingly irrefutable logical statement that everything has a cause (or more properly, many causes). Therefore, every action by a human agent has causes and no action is free. He doesn't understand the subtle, but supremely important, differences between "caused," "determined," and "inevitable." Just because my actions have causes doesn't mean that can't be free. There are emergent properties of complex systems (consider life, which is made up of things that are not alive) that cannot be reduced to the properties of their component parts.

The idea that humans have no free will, and are therefore not morally responsible for their actions is not just wrong in an intellectual sense -- it is extremely dangerous.