Date of Award
Summer 6-5-2011
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Philosophy
First Advisor
Dr. Eddy Nahmias
Second Advisor
Dr. Andrew J. Cohen
Third Advisor
Dr. Dan Weiskopf
Abstract
Robert Kane asserts that some decisions and actions which are made by an agent are undetermined. These undetermined decisions are what allow an agent to have free will and ultimate responsibility for her decisions and actions. Kane appeals to probabilistic causation in order to argue that these undetermined decisions are not arbitrary or random. I argue that Woodward’s interventionist approach to causation can be used by Kane to make his theory of free will more plausible by illustrating how the agent causes her decision. Woodward’s account can link an agent’s reasons with her decision, activity in her self-network with her decision, and can render undetermined decisions plural rational, plural voluntary, and plural voluntarily controlled.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.57709/2101215
Recommended Citation
Van Wagner, Tracy, "Making Robert Kane's Libertarianism More Plausible: How James Woodward's Interventionist Causal Theory can Give an Agent Control Over Her Undetermined Decisions." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2011.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/2101215