If you do care to share it I would absolutely love to read it. I’ve been dying to read a decent treatment of free will.
Thank you all very much for your congratulations!
I’m surprised to see so many requests to read my paper. This is an usual experience for a philosophy major. When I mention that I’ve been writing a paper on the nature of free will (often in response to questions like “Are you okay?” and “Why is your shoulder twitching like that?”), the general response is pity mixed with fear.
Copywright concerns aside, my paper is probably far too long to post here. I’ve got a Geocities site of my own, but I’m a bit nervous about having my paper on the Web at all – I’d hate for some n’er-do-well to find it in a Google search and plagiarize it. Since everyone who has asked to see it so far has their e-mail address in their profile, I’ve decided to send out copies privately that way. I feel like I can trust my fellow Dopers not to rip off my work.
I’ve also added my e-mail address to my profile for the time being so anyone else who wants to see my paper can e-mail me. I’ve been hesitant to have my address available before, but if I don’t get too many weird e-mails I may decide to leave it there.
Oh, Francesca, I’m afraid we didn’t read any Honderich. There are an awful lot of important works on free will we didn’t cover – it’s a big subject to tackle in one semester! My professor told us at the beginning that we wouldn’t cover even a decent percentage of the existing body of work on free will, and that our readings would only introduce us to a sample of the essays that he thought were the most compelling and well-written in their respective schools.
Let’s cut to the chase – is there or isn’t there?
–Cliffy
Ooh, ooh, send it to me, too!
Congratulations, Lamia, that is quite an accomplishment!
Do you think he could email the paper to dopers, who are interested (Like me), who have an easily available email address (HINT HINT)?
Alright so I didn’t read ahead…
Yes, but perhaps not in the way you might think. 
I just mailed out a copy of the paper to everyone who has asked so far, either here or through private e-mail. If you asked both here and through private e-mail and used two different addresses you may get it twice; if so, I apologize. Anyway, look for an e-mail with the subject line “SDMB: Lamia’s paper on free will”.
If anyone else wants to see the paper, drop me an e-mail.
Thanks, the email worked great!
Congrats!
You went cold turkey from here? Gooood, I admire your will power.
But here is a little clue. It isn’t *all you * …Professors like titles with the word *Unicorn * in them.
If you had put in * Free Will in a Hello Kitty Universe * You’d be a shoe in.
It wasn’t easy, believe me! But in a deterministic universe, we all do what we have to do.
**
Why do you think I used that title? It’s aaaaaaaaaall about the unicorns. Especially in philosophy. My position on free will is even called “Lamia’s Happy Unicorn Theory of Free Will”, although I don’t actually use that name in my paper or tell my professor about it – I didn’t want to make the other students look bad.
Well, I’m sure it’s a fine paper anyway. 
–Cliffy
Thank you Lamia!
Lamia-Okay, I’m about half-way through your paper. I’d just like to say that it’s taking me so long for one reason, it’s a little above my head. It’s written very well, but some of the terms I am unfamilar with (perhaps that’s why I’m not a philosophy major).
It is interesting though, and very well written.
Well, Lamia, I read through it on my flight to Ohio this morning. I know you’re not looking for my opinion specifically in any significant way, but it sparks several thoughts in me, and if you ever care to hear my thoughts, don’t hesitate—at any time, now or in the future—to ask or start a thread. I would love to discuss it in either case.
Something that might interest you about incompatabilists is one characterization of their conception of will that I’ve always found amusing: it is a motor that has no inertia to overcome. But what is strange there is that this means one can never fail to will. Of course, if one can never fail to will, one can never try to will, either. One simply wills.
Myself, I’m trying to approach the subject from the view that will in a “free will” sense is in fact not the name, nor is it a characterization of, an action, else (as you noted in the passage about higher order desire) one finds one’s self willing willing, and so on.
If you’ve got time over any breaks I’d like to recommend Gertrude Anscombe’s Intention (credited as: G.E.M. Anscombe). Her treatment of the subject is simply fascinating. One passage that cracked me up was her seeing some people’s conception of will as such: “I can will my arm to move, but I cannot will the matchbox to move.” Her response was: if I try to will my arm to move like that, then I can’t move it either.
Anyway, enough rambling. Thanks for the read. Can I ask why you chose this subject?
Because it was the subject of our seminar this semester.
Well, I did have more choice than that suggests. The head of the department gave the phil majors a list of potential seminar topics at the beginning of the year, and we voted to decide which one we’d do. It was a unanimous decision for “Free Will and Moral Responsibility”. Next semester we’re covering the Continental Philosophers (mostly because one of our professors seemed really keen on the subject, but we all still agreed to it).
Yeah, the sticker with any conception of free will always seems to be: but what about moral responsibility? The subjects definitely go hand in hand. I sometimes wonder if, knowingly or unknowingly, the question is begged by philosophers having a predisposition to moral responsibility and framing their conception of the will around that (much like you characterized the libertarian view). But who is to say?
Thanks again.