Free Will and Determinism
The Oldest Debate in Philosophy, Including the Problem of Moral Responsibility, the Challenge of Neuroscience, and the Question of Whether Your Choices Are Truly Your OwnBy Alex Omberg
Length3h 53m
About this audiobook
Are your choices truly your own, or is free will the mind's greatest illusion?
You chose to read this sentence. At least, it feels that way. But what if every decision you have ever made was predetermined before you were even born?
For more than two millennia, the debate between free will and determinism has haunted the greatest minds in history. If our actions are simply the inevitable consequences of prior causes—genetics, environment, and the laws of physics—then the entire architecture of human morality, justice, and personal achievement threatens to collapse. How can we punish the guilty or praise the virtuous if everyone is merely acting out a biological script?
In Free Will and Determinism, Alex Omberg delivers a gripping, highly accessible exploration of philosophy's oldest and most consequential debate. From the ancient insights of Aristotle to the startling modern discoveries of brain-imaging technology, this book unpacks the paradox of human agency with unparalleled clarity.
Audiobook details
GenrePhilosophy, Science and Nature
Length3 hrs 53 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateApr 12, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Title Page
2Introduction: The Feeling That May Be an Illusion
3Chapter 1: The Ancient Roots
4The Conditions of Responsibility
5Fate and the Stoic Solution
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6The Epicurean Swerve
7Augustine and the Bondage of the Will
8The Ancient Legacy
9Chapter 2: The Clockwork Universe
10Hobbes and the Mechanism of Will
11Spinoza's Radical Necessity
12The Demon of Perfect Prediction
13Liberty as Absence of Impediment
14The Price of Mechanism
15Chapter 3: The Categorical Imperative Requires Freedom
16The Fact of Moral Obligation
17Two Standpoints, Two Worlds
18The Two Perspectives Argument
19Transcendental Freedom
20The Paradox of Noumenal Causation
21The Sacrificial Move
22Chapter 4: The Soft Path
23Liberty as Acting According to Will
24Necessity as Constant Conjunction
25Mill's Refinement
26The Source of Action
27The Conditional Analysis
28The Appeal to Consequence
29The Persistent Doubt
30Chapter 5: The Consequence Argument
31The Structure of Necessity
32The Transfer Principle
33Where Does It Fail?
34The Modal Challenge
35The Fixity of the Past
36The Persistence of the Argument
37The Terms of Engagement
38Chapter 6: The Rollback Argument
39The Libertarian Commitment
40The Classical Formulation
41The Problem of Luck
42Indeterminism in Nature
43Could Have Done Otherwise
44Kane's Effort
45The Impossibility Argument
46The Dialectical Situation
47Chapter 7: The Frankfurt Cases
48The Original Scenario
49The Dialectical Impact
50The Flicker of Freedom
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