Personal Identity and Free Will

Date of Award

2007

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Langston, Douglas

Keywords

Personal Identity, Free Will, Philosophy of Action, Libertarianism, Compatibilism

Area of Concentration

Philosophy

Abstract

This thesis attempts to help remedy the deadlock in the debate on free will. To do so I have appealed to our intuitions regarding personal identity in the hope that they would better support one of the two competing theories, libertarianism and compatibilism. In this effort, I examine past theories of personal identity and, fmding them unsatisfactory, propose my own theory. Next, I connect personal identity to free will and ground the comparison by covering relevant aspects of philosophy of action. After this, I examine the root of the deadlock between libertarianism and compatibilism as well as recent outgrowths of the debate. Finally, I examine which theory is more coherent with my theory of personal identity and our intuitions on personal identity.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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