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Dissertation Information for Jennifer Wolsing

NAME:
- Jennifer Wolsing

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- Philosophy

SCHOOL:
- Indiana University (USA) (2005)

ADVISORS:
- Timothy O'Connor

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- Dennis Senuck
- Jonathan Weinberg

MPACT Status: Incomplete - Not_Inspected

Title: Free at last: A libertarian defense of free will

Abstract: Libertarian free will is both coherent and plausible. My agent causal picture holds that people--not mere events--directly cause, and are ultimately responsible for, at least some of their own actions. An agent is ultimately responsible (UR) for an action if two requirements are met. First, the agent must have been able to do otherwise voluntarily. Additionally, the agent must be responsible for any sufficient ground, cause or explanation of the event.

Compatibilists reject UR as a criterion for free action, but this rejection does not present a decisive objection against the incompatibilist. The intuition behind UR is convincing and unrefuted, so UR is the assumed criterion for free action throughout my dissertation.

Uncaused and event caused accounts of libertarian action are unable to satisfy UR. In contrast, my agent causal account can sustain Ultimate Responsibility and also admit of truly rational behaviors. Since the agent's action is influenced and structured, but not caused, by her reasons, the agent is correctly characterized as rational.

In explaining my view, I refute a version of the coherence objection against agent causal libertarianism and answer the Problem of Contrastive Explanation. I also motivate the plausibility of emergent properties as a possible solution to the problem of how agent causation might occur. In so doing, I argue against the belief that emergent properties cannot exist, as well as the concern that, even if the concept of emergence is coherent, there is no evidence for the existence of emergent properties.

MPACT Scores for Jennifer Wolsing

A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2010-10-13 22:54:55

Advisors and Advisees Graph