The Complex Tapestry of Free Will: A Philosophical Odyssey

Robert Kane is one of the most prominent contributors to debates on free will over the last 50 years. Here he discusses the evolution of his views since his 1996 volume The Significance of Free Will, and provides responses to some of the latest critical literature on them. He explains significant changes to his views on free will and related notions of moral responsibility, agency, and other related topics.

In the first half of the book Kane presents an overview of his current views with the significant additions and alterations to them spelled out and defended in greater detail. In the second half he critically examines the influential views of the many other philosophers of the past twenty-five years who have defended alternative views of free will and moral responsibility, including prominent defenders of competing libertarian views, compatibilist views, free will skeptical views, revisionist views, illusionist views, and others. Kane’s goal here is not to merely criticize these alternative views, but to show what he believes they get right and what aspects of many of them can be accommodated in the views of free will, moral responsibility, and other related topics defended in the book. His conclusion connects his views to certain ethical views he has developed, and to ideas in the philosophy of religion, including Eastern religions (Hinduism, Buddhism) and Western and Middle Eastern theistic traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam).

The Complex Tapestry of Free Will presents an up-to-date overview of the current state of arguments and views on free will and related topics of moral and legal responsibility in ethics, law, science and religion, accessible to those not already familiar with the free will literature, while also developing novel and complex ideas on difficult subjects.

Robert Kane is author of ten books and over eighty articles on the philosophy of mind, action, free will, ethics and values, including Free Will and Values (1985), Through the Moral Maze (1993), The Significance of Free Will (1996), and Ethics and the Quest for Wisdom (2010). He is editor of two editions of The Oxford Handbook of Free Will (2002 and 2011), among other edited volumes. In 1995, he was made an inaugural member of the Academy of Distinguished Teachers at UT Austin and in 2015 received a lifetime achievement award from Marquis’ Who’s Who.