Why Free Will Is Real

Philosophers have argued about the nature and existence of free will since at least Plato. Today, many scientists and some scientifically minded philosophers are skeptical that it exists, especially when it is understood to require the ability to choose between alternative possibilities. If the laws of physics govern everything that happens in the world, they argue, then how can our choices be free? Believers in free will must be misled by habit, sentiment, or religious doctrine. In this provocative book, Christian List defies the scientific orthodoxy and presents a bold new defense of free will in the same naturalistic terms that are usually deployed against it. Unlike those who defend free will by giving up the idea that it requires alternative possibilities to choose from, he retains this idea as central, resisting the tendency to defend free will only by watering it down.--