Reddit reviews A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will

A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will https://www.amazon.com/dp/019514970X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_yhZJxbH93KQ9M

http://www.amazon.com/Free-Will-Oxford-Readings-Philosophy/dp/019925494X

or

http://www.amazon.com/Free-Will-Hackett-Readings-Philosophy/dp/1603841296

or

http://www.amazon.com/Contemporary-Introduction-Free-Will/dp/019514970X/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414387211&sr=1-9&keywords=Free+will

A lot of scientists and indeed certain philosophers (or, at the least, people who have received a philosophical education) seem to consider determinism to be a settled question. However, there is some empirical work that seems to perhaps allow for indeterminism in the brain, and while the specifics are not fresh in my mind, Robert Kane's work makes use of some of this science. I'd recommend A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will to get you started, wherein he presents some of this science.

Many scientists are hard determinists because they take incompatibilism for granted. You are at least aware of compatibilism, so you don't seem to be doing this. As far as for what compatibilists say, it varies with the compatibilist, but the common thesis is that determinism doesn't threaten moral responsibility. Some of the more popular compatibilists are PF Strawson (Freedom and Resentment), Harry Frankfurt (Alternative Possibilities and Moral Responsibility and Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person), and John Fischer & Mark Ravizza, who wrote Responsibility and Control, a very influential text that argues for semicompatibilism, the thesis that determinism doesn't threaten moral responsibility even if it does threaten free will.

Science cannot falsify compatibilism, and free will is completely plausible with what we know today.

With Robert Kane, I suggest starting with A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will and then following it with Four Views on Free Will, a collaborative debate which includes other philosophers; with one each defending libertarianism, compatibilism, incompatibilism, and revisionism. You'll get a much better feel for the debate rather than a lopsided bias.

Before any of that, I suggest that you listen to Alfred Mele's interview debunking a lot of the pseudoscientific [mis]interpretations which have accrued around the subject of free will, and which are essentially to our era what phrenology was back in its heyday. He's written a few books on the subject, of which Free: Why Science Hadn't Disproved Free Will Yet is the most accessible.

Neuroscientist Peter Ulric Tse's The Neural Basis of Free Will: Criterial Causation is also invaluable as far as providing a scientific account.

I was introduced to his argument, and various arguments regarding free will, in my introductory Philosophy class. One of the books we were assigned was written by him: http://www.amazon.com/Contemporary-Introduction-Free-Will/dp/019514970X

Quite a good book in my opinion, and covers a whole lot of different sides and views, with really no bias that I can tell.

Here's an overview of it though: http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/philosophers/kane/

Ahoy burnerOneHour! Nay bad but me wasn't convinced. Give this a sail:

Blargh! Nay, don't read Sam Harris. He's a charlatan.
Here be a much more intellectually serious introduction t' free will:
https://www.amazon.com/Contemporary-Introduction-Free-Will/dp/019514970X

Blargh! No, don't read Sam Harris. He's a charlatan.
Here is a much more intellectually serious introduction to free will:
https://www.amazon.com/Contemporary-Introduction-Free-Will/dp/019514970X