Bernard Berofsky

This is a great collection of essays, which presents the various interpretations of Free Will and Determinism by authors who argue in favour of the various views that they support.
Free will and determinism are two of the most difficult, and therefore interesting, issues in philosophy. They have been contentious since philosophy began, and are still far from being resolved, though these essays are all taken from the last 70 years or so.
Though all the essays are competent, the one I found most convincing was by Hobart, in support of the "compatibilist" interpretation. In this system free will is possible whether or not the universe is governed by chance, and an uninterrupted causal chain of events is defended as being logically consistent with its existence.
Nevertheless, there is much that we do not know about how the brain works, and while philosophy such as this can lead us to understand if we can have free will (though not if we do), in either a deterministic or non-deterministic universe, it cannot tell us how the brain actually works, nor can it tell us if the universe is deterministic. These are for science to work out, however science is a long way from being able to answer these questions, and so we must rely on thought experiments and logic, which can bring us nearer to the truth than we would be without them.… (more)