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标题：Review of Free Will, Agency, and Meaning in Life, by Derk Pereboom
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作者：John Martin Fischer
期刊名称：Science, Religion and Culture
电子版ISSN：2055-222X
出版年度：2014
卷号：1
期号：3
页码：202-208
出版社：Smith and Franklin Academic Publishing Corporation, UK
摘要：M ark Twain once said about Wagner's music: "It is not as bad as it sounds." Similarly, Derk Per- eboom has convinced most of us working in this field that moral responsibility skepticism, at least of his kind, is not as bad as it sounds. Indeed, through his important work culminating (thus far) in this signifi- cant book, he has convinced me that the view is subtle, very plausible, and even deeply attractive. Whereas there are other forms of moral responsibility skepti- cism on the market, Pereboom's is (in my view) the most fully developed and most appealing. Although I am not myself a moral responsibility skeptic, and, in particular, I do not believe that causal determinism is incompatible with the kind of freedom that grounds robust, desert-based moral responsibility, I find that (surprisingly) our views don't really differ that much from each other. It might seem that our views are miles apart; but upon reflection, it turns out that they are very close, and with the intelligent and patient help of Pereboom, one can see the great appeal of his approach to a whole range of interrelated issues. I'm not going to mince words: this book is a masterful and comprehensive articulation of Derk Pereboom's very important and original theory of free will and moral responsibility. Throughout his career, and es- pecially here in this book, Pereboom has developed and defended one of the real "contenders" as a com- prehensive theory of freedom and responsibility. This is a huge, and admirable, intellectual achievement.