Naturally free action

Do we have free will? This book argues that the answer to that question is yes by showing how the concept of free will refers to many actual behaviors, and how free actions are a natural kind. Additionally, the book addresses the role of phenomenology in fixing the reference of the concept, and argues that free-agency phenomenology is typically accurate, even if determinism is true. The result is a realist, naturalistic framework for theorizing about free will, according to which free will exists and we act freely. For the most part, this verdict is reached independently of addressing the compatibility question, which asks whether free will is compatible with determinism. Even so, the book weighs in on that question, arguing that the natural-kind view both supports compatibilism and provides compatibilists with an attractive way to be realists about free will. The resulting position is preferable to previous natural-kind accounts as well as to revisionist accounts of free will and moral responsibility. Finally, the view defuses recent empirical threats to free will and is able to address emerging questions about whether an artificially intelligent agent might ever act freely or be responsible for its behaviors.