FREEDOM, RESPONSIBILITY, & DETERMINISM
I. Basics
Meeting time: Tuesday/Thursday 11:10am-12:25pm
Meeting place: HSS 101
Professor: E.J. Coffman
E-mail address: ecoffma1@utk.edu
Course website: http://online.utk.edu
Office: 816 McClung Tower
Office Hours: Tuesday 10-11am; Thursday 2:30-3:30pm; by appointment
II. Texts
A. Required
1. Robert Kane (editor), Free Will (Blackwell, 2002)
2. Course packet at Online@UT (UT Blackboard [Bb]) [http://online.utk.edu]
B. Recommended
1. Robert Kane, A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will (Oxford UP, 2005)
2. Laura Ekstrom, Free Will: A Philosophical Study (Westview, 2000)
▪ Throughout this course, you’ll need to access Online@UT [UT Blackboard [Bb]), as well as
receive e-mail sent to your UT e-mail account. If you need assistance with this stuff, visit the
OIT website (http://oit.utk.edu), or give OIT a call at 974-9900.
III. Course Overview
A. Our goals
1. Explore four or so key philosophical questions about human freedom and moral
responsibility
2. Continue honing our critical thinking, reading, writing, and discussion skills
▪ Our course will be organized around one influential recent argument concerning human freedom
and moral responsibility. We’ll call this argument—which has roots in various historical
sources—our central argument. Our central argument is presented and defended in one of our
first readings (Roderick Chisholm, “Human Freedom and the Self”). As we’ll see, our central
argument raises the following four key questions about human freedom and moral responsibility:
Q1: Is human freedom compatible with determinism? That is: Could there be free people
in a deterministic universe?
Q2: Does moral responsibility entail (logically require) freedom? That is: Could there be
people who never act freely yet deserve moral praise or criticism for some of what they
do?
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Q3: Could indeterministic brain processes realize human freedom?
certain undetermined brain events constitute human free choices?
That is: Could
Q4: Are we ever really morally responsible for anything we do?
Finally (and time permitting), we’ll consider an interesting question related to Q1-Q4:
Q5: Would divine foreknowledge rule out human freedom? That is: Could we still be
free even if there were a supreme being with infallible knowledge of all our future acts?
▪ We’ll be working to understand and critically evaluate some of the most important
contemporary work on the above questions. Here are the main things we’ll have a better
understanding of at the end of our course:
▫ some main arguments for and against Freedom/Determinism Compatibilism—i.e.,
the thesis that there could be free people in a deterministic universe;
▫ some main arguments for and against the thesis that Responsibility Entails
Freedom—i.e., the view that you are morally responsible only if you sometimes act
freely;
▫ some main philosophical analyses (theories) of human freedom and moral
responsibility;
▫ some main attempts to square human freedom and moral responsibility with the
findings of contemporary natural and social sciences;
and
▫ some main arguments for the conclusion that we’re never really morally responsible for
anything we do, as well as the main objections to these arguments.
B. Our methods
1. In class: Interactive lecture; group discussion; 2 essay exams (20% each = 40% of
final grade)
2. Outside class: Reading assignments; 10 Critical Notes (20% of final grade); 1 paper
[8-10 pages] (40% of final grade)
▪ Reading assignments
Our readings come from two sources: (1) an anthology of readings edited by Robert Kane
(Professor of Philosophy, University of Texas) called Free Will and (2) an online course packet
(available at our course’s Bb site). Taken together, the anthology and course packet contain
many of the most important contemporary essays on our main questions. (In a typical lecture, I’ll
offer explanations of—and then raise some initial questions about and/or objections to—what I
take to be the main arguments developed in the assigned readings for that day.)
As usual, you have three main goals when reading assigned material: (1) Identify the main claims
the author is arguing for; (2) Understand how the author argues for those claims; and (3)
Evaluate the author’s arguments. The online course packet includes three of my favorite essays
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on these fundamental skills, essays I still find helpful. As we start our course, please take a look
at the relevant essays under the heading ‘Preliminaries’ in the reading schedule below.
▪ Critical Notes (10 @ 2% each = 20% of final grade)
This requirement is designed to: (1) help you achieve the three reading goals mentioned above;
(2) help prepare you to contribute to class discussion; and (3) strengthen your ability to clearly
and concisely question and/or object to all sorts of arguments.
Each Critical Note (CN) you submit will earn a grade of ‘Exemplary’, ‘Satisfactory’, or
‘Unsatisfactory’. A Satisfactory CN will be at least 125—but not more than 250—words; it will
raise either a question about or an objection to something that happens in a particular assigned
reading. An Exemplary CN will fall within the same word limits, and will raise an especially
pressing question about or objection to a central or crucial part of the selected reading. To ensure
that I understand exactly how your question or objection engages the material you’re writing
about, please provide some context by briefly summarizing the part of the reading your question
or objection concerns. Sincere effort will usually suffice for at least a Satisfactory CN.
There are four important rules about CNs:
▫ CNs must be typed.
▫ Each CN must include a word count.
▫ CNs should normally be submitted in class.
▫ Each of your CNs must engage a different reading. (So, no more than one CN on a
given reading.)
I encourage you to draw on your CNs in class discussion: share your questions with us, try out
your objections on us, and so on.
▪ Essay exams (2 @ 20% each = 40% of final grade)
Each exam will consist of two essay questions drawn from a list of several possible questions.
The possible questions will derive entirely from material covered in class. I’ll distribute a list of
questions several days before each exam. A typical question will ask you to lay out a particular
argument, present a standard objection to that argument, provide a possible reply to that
objection, and (finally) offer your own reasoned verdict about this debate.
▪ Paper (40% of final grade)
I’ll soon distribute a detailed paper assignment that concerns issues raised in our course. You
may also write on a topic of your own choosing, subject to my approval. There’s a “re-write”
option on your term paper that works like this. After I return my comments on, and overall
evaluation of, the first draft you submit—which is due by 12pm (noon) on Friday April 17th—,
you’ll have the option of submitting a second, revised draft of your paper—which will be due by
12pm (noon) on Monday May 11th. Papers that improve significantly as a result of revisions
may rise 1 or 2 “grade levels”—e.g., a significantly improved paper that initially earned a B may
rise to a B+ or an A-.
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▪ Discussion
One of my main goals is to help us fruitfully discuss the concepts, theories, and arguments
covered in this course. By participating in class discussion, you can do at least three important
things:
(1) Challenge my understanding and presentation of course material by: questioning my
explanations of arguments from assigned readings, or my evaluations of those arguments,
or my views about what’s really important in a given reading, or …;
(2) Gain a deeper understanding of the material this course covers;
and
(3) Strengthen your ability to participate in all kinds of rational dialogue.
I really hope you’ll take advantage of your opportunity to discuss the ideas we’ll be exploring in
this course. If you do, then in addition to benefiting in all the ways mentioned above, you’ll
position yourself to get bumped into a higher grade category should you end the course on a
“grade borderline”. (I offer this very concrete reward in order to highlight the importance I see in
taking part in classroom discussion.)
I understand that some of us find it easier to participate in class discussion than others. If you’re
especially uncomfortable with the idea of class discussion, please talk to me about that; I may be
able to suggest some relatively painless ways to get into the flow of class discussion. And keep
these things in mind: (1) Nobody here knows everything (including me, as you’ll soon learn!); (2)
Everybody here knows something (and so has something to contribute to discussion); and (3) Any
question or point that occurs to you is almost certainly occurring to someone else at the same time
(“great minds think alike…”).
IV. Grade Scale
A = 95 
A- = 90 
B+ = 87 
B = 83 
B- = 80 
C+ = 77 
C = 73 
C- = 70 
D+ = 67 
D = 63 
D- = 60 
F = Anything below 60
V. Key Dates
1/8 (R): First class meeting
3/12 (R): First essay exam
3/16-3/20 (M-F): Spring Break
4/17 (F): Paper due [by 12pm]
4/23 (R): Last class meeting; all CNs due
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4/30 (R): Second essay exam [10:15am-12:15pm]
5/11 (M): Revised paper due [by 12pm; this is optional]
VI. Tentative Reading Schedule (I’ll make official reading assignments in class, over e-mail,
and at Bb) (RK = in Robert Kane’s anthology [Free Will]; CP = in Course Packet [at Bb])
Preliminaries: Terms, Methods, & Our Central Argument
▪ CP: E.J. Coffman, “Finding, Clarifying, and Evaluating Arguments”
▪ CP: Jim Pryor, “Philosophical Terms and Methods”
▪ CP: Jim Pryor, “Guidelines on Reading Philosophy”
▪ RK: Roderick Chisholm, “Human Freedom and the Self”
Question 1: Is Human Freedom Compatible with Determinism?
▪ CP: Peter van Inwagen, “The Incompatibility of Free Will and Determinism”
▪ RK: Kai Nielson, “The Compatibility of Freedom and Determinism”
▪ CP: David Lewis, “Are We Free to Break the Laws?”
▪ RK: Harry Frankfurt, “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person”
▪ CP: Gary Watson, “Free Agency”
▪ RK: Susan Wolf, “Sanity and the Metaphysics of Responsibility”
Question 2: Does Responsibility Entail Freedom?
▪ CP: Peter van Inwagen, brief excerpt from An Essay on Free Will
▪ RK: Daniel Dennett, “I Could Not Have Done Otherwise—So What?”
▪ RK: Harry Frankfurt, “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility”
▪ RK: John Martin Fischer, “Frankfurt-style Examples, Responsibility & Semi-compatibilism”
▪ RK: Derk Pereboom, “The Explanatory Irrelevance of Alternative Possibilities”
Question 3: Could Indeterministic Brain Processes Realize Human Freedom?
▪ RK: Robert Kane, “Free Will: New Directions for an Ancient Problem”
▪ CP: Alfred Mele, “Kane, Luck, and the Significance of Free Will”
▪ RK: Carl Ginet, “Freedom, Responsibility, and Agency”
Question 4: Are We Ever Really Morally Responsible for What We Do?
▪ RK: Paul Edwards, “Hard and Soft Determinism”
▪ RK: Peter van Inwagen, “The Mystery of Metaphysical Freedom”
▪ CP: Galen Strawson, “The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility”
▪ RK: Timothy O’Connor, “The Agent as Cause”
A Related Question (time permitting): Would Divine Foreknowledge Rule Out Human
Freedom?
▪ RK: Augustine, “Divine Foreknowledge, Evil, and the Free Choice of the Will”

Warning: There’s a different reading by van Inwagen with the same title in the Kane anthology. We’re
reading the course packet paper with this title, not the one in the Kane anthology.
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▪ RK: William Hasker, “God, Time, Knowledge and Freedom: The Historical Matrix”
▪ CP: Ted Warfield, “Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom are Compatible”
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