Autonomy without free will

Personal Autonomy: New Essays on Personal Autonomy and its Role in Contemporary Moral Philosophy

Volumn , Issue , 2005, Pages 58-86

  Berofsky, Bernard ^a  

^a Och Spine at New York Presbyterian Hospitals   (United States)

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EID: 84922220165     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511614194.003     Document Type: Chapter

References (23)

1. Gerald Dworkin, “The Nature of Autonomy,” in The Theory and Practice of Autonomy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988): 3-20.
2. Autonomous Agents: From Self-Control to Autonomy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995): 138-139.
3. Bernard Berofsky, Liberation from Self: A Theory of Personal Autonomy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
4. C. A. Campbell, “Is ‘Freewill’ a Pseudo-Problem?” Mind 60 (1951): 446-465.
5. Robert Kane, The Significance of Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996): 67-69.
6. Laura Ekstrom, Free Will: A Philosophical Study (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000): 190-194.
7. R. E. Hobart, “Free Will as Involving Determination andInconceivable Without It,” Mind 43 (1934): 1-27
8. Moritz Schlick, “When Is a Man Responsible?” in DavidR ynin, trans., Problems of Ethics (EnglewoodCliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1939): 143-156
9. A. J. Ayer, “Freedom and Necessity,” Philosophical Essays (New York: Macmillan, 1954): 271-284
10. Paul Edwards, “Hard and Soft Determinism,” in Sidney Hook, ed., Determinism and Freedom in the Age of Modern Science (New York: New York University, 1958): 104-113
11. Kai Nielsen, “The Compatibility of Freedom and Determinism,” Reason and Practice (New York: Harper & Row, 1971): 55-64.
12. Michael McKenna, “Source Incompatibilism, Ultimacy, and the Transfer of Non-Responsibility,” American Philosophical Quarterly 38 (2001): 37-51.
13. Michael McKenna., 45.
14. John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza, Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsibility (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
15. David Widerker, “Farewell to the Direct Argument,” Journal of Philosophy 99 (2002): 316-324.
16. Berofsky, Liberation from Self, 204. But not necessarily. Having grown up a Yankee fan and then become disenchantedby the antics of George Steinbrenner, I didnot like finding myself rooting for the Yankees. To be sure, the approval might have been contingent on an assumption with heteronomous origins. But that tells us only that this condition is not sufficient for autonomy.
17. Joseph Raz, The Morality of Freedom (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986): 296.
18. See Berofsky, Liberation from Self, 68.
19. We will soon consider the worry that determinism renders genuine creativity by the self impossible. 21. The capacity to make a distinctive mark on the world plays a central role in the conception of autonomy of Lawrence Haworth, Autonomy: An Essay in Philosophical Psychology and Ethics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986). See, e.g., 88. 22.
20. Kane, The Significance of Free Will, 32-37.
21. For further discussion, see Bernard Berofsky, “Classical Compatibilism: Not DeadYet,” in DavidWid erker andMichael McKenna, eds., Moral Responsibility and Alternative Possibilities (Aldershot, England: Ashgate Press, 2003): 107-126.
22. Timothy O’Connor objects to the claim that undetermined actions cannot be performedwith sufficient reason, pointing out that, in an indeterministic world, one agent might and another might not perform an action each has sufficient reason to perform. The point is that the other, nonrational causal influences might work indeterministically. Both Joe and Moe should quit smoking, and they are each prone to weakness of will. Although they are equally temptedto continue, Joe finally quits; but Moe does not, and there is no way to account for the difference. I think O’Connor is right and would, not, therefore, view this criterion of freedom as favoring the compatibilist. See his “Agent Causation” in O’Connor, ed., Agents, Causes, and Events: Essays on Indeterminism and Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995): 173-200.
23. For further discussion, see Bernard Berofsky, “Ultimate Responsibility in a Deterministic World,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 60 (January 2000): 135-140.