Will Books - Page 2

Willpower: Finding the Strength

Lisa Stephens

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Judgments Under Stress

Kenneth R. Hammond

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Editorial Review:

Judgments Under Stress presents a new and exciting approach to understanding the effects of stressful conditions on judgment and decision making -- a topic so important it was addressed in a Congressional Hearing in 1988. Consisting mainly of two parts, the book synthesizes an extensive body of cognitive psychology research into an innovative theoretical framework. Part I provides the reader with background in regards to judgment under stress while Part II discusses a new approach to studying it. Author Kenneth Hammond extends his examination from the effects of stress on professional judgments to its effects on moral and political judgments, working out a conceptual framework wholly within a psychological context. The book also includes discussions on sleep deprivation, fatigue, noise, heat, shock, and time pressure. In addition to laboratory experiments, Hammond looks at real life historical events such as Iran Flight 655, the Bay of Pigs Invasion, and the Challenger space shuttle disaster.

Judgments Under Stress provides a shrewd analysis of the effects of stress on human rationale, making it ideal for professional psychologists as well as for all those interested in political science and social policy.

The Handbook Of Mental Control (Century Psychology Series)

Daniel M. Wegner, James W. Pennebaker

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Editorial Review:

For the first time, this volume brings together the research and theories of psychologists whose work explores the processes and strategies that are involved when people attempt to control their own thoughts, moods, and behavior. It covers the multiple dimensions of mental control - its causes, consequences, and components, and draws on current research within social, personality, cognitive, developmental, and clinical psychology. For professionals in the field of behavior analysis.

An Essay on Free Will

Peter Van Inwagen

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A contemporary classic on the free will problem 5 out of 5 stars.
21 of 22 people found this review helpful.

I consider Peter van Inwagen's AN ESSAY ON FREE WILL to be the best book on the topic of free will, which is written by a single author. The book has six chapters, which are entitled:

1. The problems and how we shall approach them.
2. Fatalism.
3. Three arguments for incompatibilism.
4. Three arguments for compatibilism.
5. What our not having free will would mean.
6. The traditional problem.

Van Inwagen sets out to answer two main questions in this book. First, the compatibility question, which is the question of whether free will is compatible or incompatible with determinism. Second, the traditional question, which is the question of whether we have free will.

Chapter 2, on fatalism, analyzes arguments that tries to show, on purely logical grounds, that we have no free will. Van Inwagen argues, however, that they commit modal fallacies subtle and not so subtle and hence that such attempts to establish fatalism (and the nonexistence of free will) on purely logical grounds fail.

In Chapter 3 he presents three arguments for incompatibility of free will--and he is happy to consider them as being three versions of the one argument for incompatibilism--and determinism. The most famous of the three is the third argument, which he dubbed 'the consequence argument' (CA). CA is an attempt to formalize the following intuitive argument:

"If determinism is true, then our acts are the consequences of the laws of nature and events in the remote past. But it is not up to us what went on before we were born, and neither is it up to us what the laws of nature are. Therefore, the consequences of these things (including our present acts) are not up to us" (p. 56).

Van Inwagen believes that the three arguments for incompatibilism that he presents are all good arguments (at least more reasonable than their denials) and, hence, by the end of chapter 3 he thinks he is justified in answering the compatibility question in the negative.

In chapter 4 he presents three arguments for compatibilism: the paradigm case argument, the conditional analysis of 'can', and an argument that he calls 'the Mind argument' (MA) (so named because versions of it have appeared frequently in the philosophy journal MIND). Briefly, MA states that free will is not compatible with indeterminism, since free willed actions are rational and under the agent's control, whereas the injection of indeterminism (anywhere in the deliberation-volition-action sequence) would either destroy or greatly lessen such control and/or rationality.

He believes that the most promising of the three is MA--more precisely, a 'third strand' of MA--which, interestingly, utilizes an inferential principle that is also found in CA (called Beta). Van Inwagen grants the validity of MA and is lead to deny one of its premises as false, although he confesses that he doesn't know *how* it can be false. He thinks that he is justified in holding on to the conclusion arrived at in chapter 3 because he argues that compatibilism is even more mysterious than incompatibilism--Van Inwagen thus ops for the lesser of two mysteries.

Chapter 4 concludes with an argument that positing 'agent causation' will not help the incompatibilist to lessen the mystery that is posed by MA. Van Inwagen is thus something of a 'simple indeterminist' regarding free will.

In chapter 5 he presents an argument to the effect that one could not deliberate if one truly and consistently believed that one has no free will. He charges that those who claim to deliberate but deny free will are guilty of a 'practical contradiction' of sorts. This argument has also received a lot of discussion in the subsequent literature, and it is considered (even by fellow libertarians) to be a mistake (cf. Randolph Clarke, LIBERTARIAN ACCOUNTS OF FREE WILL, p. 112).

Finally, in chapter 6 he presents an argument for an affirmative answer to the traditional question: that free will exists because moral responsibility exists, and free will is a necessary condition for ascribing moral responsibility to people. In my opinion, this part of the book is perhaps the weakest, in that Van Inwagen spends far too little time defending moral realism against various skeptical attacks. I grant that he is not a specialist in ethics, but since he raised the issue--and since the issue is so crucial to the success of his overall project--I think that he should have been more careful here.

The sixth chapter also contains some fascinating arguments about whether the truth of determinism can be established either rationally (e.g. through the principle of sufficient reason) or empirically (scientifically). He answers both in the negative.

Thus, his overall conclusion is that (i) incompatibilism is true (his answer to the compatibility question) and that (ii) free will exists (his answer to the traditional question). Since the above conjunction entails the truth of libertarianism, Van Inwagen believes that he has shown that view to be true.

In conclusion, anyone who wants to orient themselves to the issues and arguments of contemporary philosophical literature on free will should read this book. First published in 1983, it remains extremely influential in shaping the contours of the free will debate ever since.

Editorial Review:

"This is an important book, and no one interested in issues which touch on the free will will want to ignore it."--Ethics. In this stimulating and thought-provoking book, the author defends the thesis that free will is incompatible with determinism. He disputes the view that determinism is necessary for moral responsbility. Finding no good reason for accepting determinism, but believing moral responsiblity to be indubitable, he concludes that determinism should be rejected.

Experimental Slips and Human Error: Exploring the Architecture of Volition (Cognition and Language: A Series in Psycholinguistics)

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Error literature 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I used this book as part of a literature review on errors from a cognitive aspect. This book was very useful as it provides a comprehensive review of experimental errors by several researchers.

Editorial Review:

This work makes three valuable contributions to the study of human slips and errors. It presents current data and theory; it is a complete source for the methodology and results of a 15 year laboratory research program; and it explores the overall architecture of voluntary control. Dr. Baars' work will occupy an important position in the renewed interest in the role of concious experience in the nervous system.

Motivation and Emotion: Evolutionary, Physiological, Cognitive, and Social Influences (Advanced Psychology Text Series)

David Edwards

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Editorial Review:

"I think David C. Edwards does a very good job of covering the material. The writing style is consistently clear, direct and interesting. Research findings are clearly presented and clearly explained."

--Ronald R. Ulm, Salisbury State University

How do culture and other people affect our eating habits? Is love "natural" to humans? Is anger always at the root of aggressive behaviors? Aimed at unraveling the mysteries of human motivation and emotion, author David C. Edwards explores the evolutionary, physiological, social, and cognitive factors that shape each motivational behavior from anger to sex to work and play. Topically organized, Edwards provides readers with the best of contemporary findings in each motivational behavior and summarizes how past research in the field contributed to current thought. To facilitate the reader’s comprehension of the material, each chapter begins with a concise overview statement and ends with a personal summary. Within the chapter, the author highlights material of special importance and concludes major sections with a summary. Each chapter ends with a set of questions that will help a student reader prepare for an exam.

Consciousness and Self-Regulation, Advances in Research and Theory Volume 4

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Intelligence and Personality: Bridging the Gap in Theory and Measurement

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Editorial Review:

This volume brings together leading researchers in a major new effort to bridge the historical gap between the domains of ability and personality. The result is a remarkable collection of chapters analyzing critical issues at the interface--style, structure, process, and context. Contributors address:
* intelligence and its relation to temperament and character-hierarchical models of cognition and personality; judgmental data in personality research; and structural issues in ability and personality;
* intelligence and conation-goal theories; the role of conation in the learning environment; motivation and arousal;
* intelligence and style-stylistic preferences; the role of disposition; cognitive style and its measurement; test taking style; and
* intelligence and personality in context-regularities of functioning; contextual effects in cultural variation; control and consistency; the concept of "successful intelligence."

Moral Freedom

Jeffrey Olen

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Editorial Review:

Moral Freedom reconciles three apparently inconsistent truisms about morality: first, moral rules are society’s rules; second, morality is a matter of individual choice: and third, some things are wrong regardless of what any society or individual has to say. In developing a moral theory that accommodates all three truisms, Jeffrey Olen offers a view of morality that allows individuals a generous degree of moral freedom.

The author explores various answers to the question, "Does anybody or anything have any moral authority over how I live my life?" His answer is "No." In a lively, conversational style, Olen leads the reader through the arguments, examples, and exceptions that contribute to this conclusion. Along the way, he contends that what most philosophers call the moral point of view, but what he refers to as the impersonal moral point of view, is but one of two moral points of view. The other is the personal moral point of view, which Olen defends against the allegedly overriding demands of impersonal morality.

Moral Freedom considers the work of philosophers as diverse as Kant, Nietzsche, Kurt Baier, Bernard Williams, and Daniel Dennett. Admitting that this is a personal discussion of the nature of morality, Olen claims the "freedom" to engage these intellectual issues in a personal style to illustrate the personal moral point of view that he champions.

Medical and Psychological Subject Classification of Persuasive Communication Literature

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