Inaug.-Diss.--Rostock. / Bibliography: p. 115-116.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 1940. / "General bibliography": p. 78-79.

Thesis (Revise). / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 2005. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 101-105).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Capital Bible Seminary, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 67-70).

Thesis (M.A.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of English, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 155).

In this paper I examine the contemporary debate over Derk Pereboom’s Manipulation Argument for the incompatibility of free will and determinism. After considering the argument in its entirety, I entertain a Hard-Line compatibilist reply given by Michael McKenna, based on an improved reworking of Pereboom’s cases. In evaluating McKenna’s reply I begin with several objections raised by Ishiyaque Haji and Stephan Cuypers before arguing that the reworking of cases is unsuccessful due to a lack of freedom-undermining manipulation. I redefine the conditions for what satisfies as freedom-undermining manipulation based on a revised understanding of the process whereby agents come to evaluate their desires independently. In conclusion, I maintain that Pereboom’s argument succeeds only insofar as it satisfies an evaluative account of manipulation. However, upon doing so, Pereboom’s strategy of accounting for all desired CAS conditions fails, given that authentic evaluation cannot be manipulatively accounted for. As a result, the Manipulation Argument fails to prove the incompatibility of free will and determinism.

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Though philosophers have invested great amounts of time and energy probing the dimensions of freedom as it relates to the human situation, psychologists have tended to avoid the topic. However, the relevance of freedom to the empirical investigations of psychology does not reside in an extension of its philosophical roots. The pertinent aspect of freedom for psychology is the freedom a person perceives himself and others to possess. Thus, it is the perception of freedom, be it valid or invalid, and how it influences behavior, that is relevant to psychology.