| Libertarians about free will affirm two ideas: (i) free will is incompatible with determinism, and (ii) people sometimes act freely, in such a way that they are morally responsible for their actions. While libertarianism seems to be a commonsense position, I argue that it conflicts with a very popular view among contemporary philosophers: metaphysical naturalism. Metaphysical naturalists maintain, among other things, that God, dualistic souls, ghosts, and other "spooky" entities do not exist. They also affirm that human beings are biological organisms whose behavior can in principle be explained scientifically, where this explanation is given in terms of overarching laws of nature. I suggest that naturalism is in conflict with libertarianism and that accepting one provides a good reason for rejecting the other. Until recently, most philosophers agreed with the above thesis. However, new developments in contemporary metaphysics have moved some philosophers away from this traditional attitude. For example, some have proposed ways in which libertarian free actions might be compatible with probabilistic laws of nature. Others have suggested that the ability to perform libertarian-free actions is an "emergent" ability of a biological organism and therefore requires no non-naturalistic elements. I contend, however, that even these newer proposals do not undermine the traditional conclusion regarding libertarianism and naturalism. My strategy is as follows. I examine several of the most prominent contemporary models of libertarian freedom in the literature, and I suggest that each model is either implausible or else fails to be naturalistic. Therefore, there are no plausible, naturalistic versions of libertarian freedom. Among the representatives I address are Robert Kane, Randy Clarke, Eleonore Stump, and Timothy O'Connor. My criticisms of these positions occupy three chapters in the dissertation. In the final chapter, I address objections to my project. One might argue, for instance, that libertarianism is implausible by itself and that therefore the conjunction of naturalism and libertarianism is also (unsurprisingly) implausible. I answer this objection by sketching a plausible non-naturalistic version of libertarian freedom that merits further exploration. |
