Abstract

My dissertation motivates and then defends an incompatibilist, or libertarian, approach to freedom and responsibility. In the first phase of my work, I defend the position that logical determinism is incompatible with one's ability to do otherwise and therefore incompatible with freedom and moral responsibility. I furthermore defend Peter van Inwagen's argument that causal determinism is incompatible with an agent's ability to do otherwise. I continue by arguing that the ability to do otherwise is a necessary condition for freedom and moral responsibility, largely by responding to Harry Frankfurt's challenges to the contrary. In this way, I string together a complete incompatibilist argument: if causal determinism is true, it follows that no one is free or morally responsible for her actions. The second phase of my dissertation begins by highlighting the following central objection to any libertarian account of freedom and responsibility: when an agent makes an undetermined choice between two possible options, the agent cannot have sufficient reason to choose either possible option ; hence, undetermined choices are not made for reasons but are instead random or arbitrary---at least insofar as they are undetermined. A related objection suggests the following: the fact that a choice is undetermined implies that no one, including the agent who commits it, has control over whether or not it occurs. I then proceed to outline my own libertarian account, in light of the aforementioned difficulties. In chapter six, I respond to a variety of objections to my proposals, and I outline a few applications of my view. In the final phase of my dissertation, I evaluate three recent attempts to offer a libertarian account of freedom and responsibility , comparing and contrasting these projects with my own