Indirect Freedom

<p>This book advances a new kind of compatibilist account of free will: indirect compatibilism. It is the first sustained philosophical analysis of the idea that the ordinary concept of free will is a conditional one.</p><p>Indirect compatibilism is the combination of two theses. The first is that the best understanding of our concept of free will is that it is a <i>conditional concept</i>—that indeterminism or libertarian powers are necessary if they are actual but not if they are not. The second is <i>indirection</i>—that actions are free either when they are caused by standard conscious psychological processes or else by sub-personal-level processes influenced in various ways by conscious psychological processes. The book combines traditional philosophical analysis with empirical work—in particular experimental philosophy and cognitive neuroscience—to produce a detailed description and defence of indirect compatibilism. Indirect compatibilism resolves two important problems in the free will literature: that people as a matter of fact do not accept that free actions can exist in a deterministic universe and that some simple actions are under the direct control of conscious psychological processes.</p><p>Indirect Freedom will appeal to researchers and graduate students interested in the metaphysics of free will experimental philosophy philosophy of mind and cognitive neuroscience.</p>