Evaluation of Brooks’ Contribution to the Free-Will—Determinism Debate

In this paper I shall summarize Keith Brooks’ paper on free will, make a few suggestions, and describe a tangential thought springing from the topic of his paper. I congratulate Brooks on a job well done and feel that one can see the quality of his paper simply by reading it – my filling this review with flattery would not do justice to the well-thought arguments that Brooks advances.

Brooks’ article can be divided into six sections. The first section contains various definitions that pertain to his paper. I will use these same definitions in my analysis. The second section argues for free will from the existence of morality. This argument, I think, is correct. The third section argues for incompatibilism based on the ‘No Choice’ principle that Inwagen proposes. Simply put, if Sally has no choice (directly or indirectly) about event A and event A causes an action of Sally’s, event B, then it follows that Sally had no choice about event B. Thus if an event X (which is un...