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LIT-1006: Living without Free Will

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Properties5
StatusUnavailable — filed 2026-10-12 and read only in part: the Introduction (pp. xiii–xxiii) and Chapter 1 pp. 1–10, from the front matter and excerpt that Cambridge University Press publishes for the book (assets.cambridge.org), read in full in NOTE-823 (Skimmed). The rest was sought on 2026-10-14 and not reached. OpenAlex and Unpaywall report it closed; the Cambridge Core book page (reached through the DOI) offers the chapters only behind an access check; no author-posted draft was found; the full copies found are on file-sharing sites and were not opened. The four-case argument (Chapter 4) is therefore not read here, and THEORY-040's call for a first-hand reading of it is not met. It stays Unavailable until a full copy is supplied (ADR-041): the search for one is recorded, and only the publisher's samples were read. THEORY-316 is filed from Chapter 1's opening.
Version3
Tagsfree-will, agency, ethics
Cited as “paper” byNOTE-823 — Pereboom — Living without Free Will
Cited as “source” byTHEORY-316 — Frankfurt-style cases defeat alternative-possibilities conditions on moral responsibility but leave standing the incompatibilist condition on an action's causal history, which is the more fundamental one, THEORY-328 — An agent manipulated so that he meets every leading compatibilist condition is not morally responsible in the basic-desert sense, no responsibility-relevant difference separates him from an ordinarily determined agent, and so causal determination by factors beyond the agent's control best explains why neither is responsible

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Pereboom, D. (2001). Living without Free Will. Cambridge University Press. DOI 10.1017/CBO9780511498824.

Key takeaways

From the reading, NOTE-823: the Introduction and Chapter 1 pp. 1–10 only.

  • Hard incompatibilism, not hard determinism. Pereboom does not claim determinism is true. Determinism and quantum-style indeterminacy are both incompatible with the freedom basic desert needs. Agent-causal libertarianism “may well” be metaphysically possible, but “we have no evidence that we are morally responsible”.
  • Origination is the core. Frankfurt-style cases defeat alternative-possibilities conditions, but leave standing condition (3): a free action is not “produced by a deterministic process that traces back to causal factors beyond the agent’s control”.
  • The manipulation challenge is the best one. “Causal determination presents in principle no less of a threat to moral responsibility than does covert manipulation”. That argument is Chapter 4, not read.
  • What survives. Responsiveness to reasons, acting on one’s values, freedom from coercion, morality, meaning and non-retributive responses to crime.

Standing in the record

Filed on 2026-10-12 at the owner’s request for QUESTION-071, as the four-case argument at its source. Unavailable: only the publisher’s samples were reached (see the status note). Read in part on 2026-10-14 (NOTE-823, Skimmed), and THEORY-316 is filed from Chapter 1’s opening. The four-case argument, which QUESTION-071, THEORY-040 and THEORY-121 need first-hand, is in the unread Chapter 4.

The argument is now read through two surveys, filed on 2026-10-14 at the owner’s request as alternative readings and read in full:

  • LIT-1047, Caruso’s SEP entry “Skepticism About Moral Responsibility” (NOTE-862). It states hard incompatibilism and quotes Pereboom’s Case 2 in its 2014 wording.
  • LIT-1045, De Marco and Cyr’s survey of manipulation cases (NOTE-856). It quotes Case 1 in its 2024 wording, describes Cases 2 to 4, and reports the best-explanation conclusion.

THEORY-328 states the four-case argument from them. A search for an open text by Pereboom himself stating the cases found none: PhilArchive and PhilPapers returned bot checks, and no author-posted copy was found. So the cases are held in Pereboom’s later wordings, two of the four verbatim, and the 2001 Chapter 4 text is still unread. That includes any version rebuilt to manipulate the taking of responsibility, which THEORY-121 names as its refuter.

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